FernStone

Recollections: Magnanimous (Cancelled)

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Okay, Oscar had to admit he’d been pretty rude.

So he brushed off all of the rudeness that was sent back in his direction without much of a care. He just wanted to get this over and done with and be out of this place. It absolutely stank, and he’d much rather be outside in the cold.

"... I just don't know where I heard that before, it's like it's on the tip of my tongue."

Oscar looked down at the tips cup, and then back up at the woman. Raymond responded first, seeming to play up his accent and continuing along the line of questioning that Oscar had started. Oscar just sighed as he did so and shoved a hand in his pocket, pulling out a crumpled twenty dollar bill and shoving it into the coffee cup.

”Now will you tell us where you’ve heard that name?”

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Thankfully Justin agreed with Tuyen, and after a failed call to Oscar didn’t seem to plan to stick around. Which worked great for her. She was already feeling uncomfortable, both from being around these people and her still damp clothes. Maybe she should ask Justin if he wouldn’t mind using his abstraction so she could dry off from the second hand heat.

And because of all this she needed a new phone. She couldn’t really afford a new phone.

"We're gonna get a move on... but before we go, Tuyen can we have a word?"

Justin

“Of course,” Tuyen nodded as she followed him towards and out the door. She continued quietly, even though she was fairly certain they’d gone out of earshot of the Vanburens. She instantly felt more comfortable the more distance they had from them - she had never liked large groups, nevermind ones like this. ”What is it you want to talk about?”

---

Trisha rolled her eyes as Georgie went on about her power, and the two “experts” headed out.

”Since when were you in charge?” she muttered as Georgie started delegating work as if she was suddenly the head of the family. Fuck, she should just fuck off to her room and be done with this. ”Whatever, I’ll do it.”

She completely ignored the others as she headed to the library, finding the section Georgie had suggested. Instead of starting to look through books she pulled out her laptop, and started typing away.

It would be much easier to have her abstraction look for books too, rather than just doing it herself.

Recollections: Magnanimous (Cancelled)

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Oscar was initially glad to get out of the cab, though he had a much more pleasant experience that his siblings crammed in the back. He wasn’t so happy when he was hit by the stink of the area they were in, nose scrunching up as he looked around. This certainly seemed like an area that a cult would be in. And the opposite of a place where him and his siblings fit in.

"Are we going to the bar and ask the omnipotent bartender about a suspicious character named Morgana?"

Raymond

“A bar?” Oscar raised an eyebrow. “None of them looked old enough to be frequenting a place like that.”

Still, Shane didn’t immediately shoot it down and Oscar probably trusted his older brother’s intuition the most when it came to these things. And Shane went off to the pizza place - not much point in following him, he’d have that under control.

“Well, I guess it's worth trying out,” Oscar nodded. ”We can check the bar first, and then the convenience store if that doesn’t come up with anything… Unless one of you wants to check that yourself?”

He didn’t really wait for an answer before heading towards the bar, trying not to look too put off as he pushed open the worn door. He wasn’t a frequent drinker in any way, and rarely visited bars - nevermind something like this. However he approached the bar itself with the confidence of someone who belonged there (when he really didn’t). He folded his arms and got straight to the point.

”Have any of you seen a red haired girl going by Morgana recently?”

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Trisha spent most of the time that James was talking picking her nails, only half listening. She really didn’t want to listen to his crap. Was it not bad enough that she’d had to do it while he was still alive? Honestly, good riddance to him. Her lips curled up into a sneer when Junior stopped him from leaving. Because of course!

She rolled her eyes at Georgie’s back as the slightly younger girl left.

”Good riddance, Father,” she muttered as he faded away.

Tuyen was honestly in shock by how all the siblings treated their father. Even if they had problems with him, surely they should have some kind of respect for him? It wasn’t something she could understand at all. If anything she was envious that they’d had a father up until a year ago. How ungrateful could they get? She kept these thoughts to herself, though, face neutral even as the shadow hissed in her ear that she should let them know just what she thought.

That was a recipe for disaster right there.

She frowned as Georgie returned with news that not only was the artifact the witches had looked for was gone, but also another to watch out for.

“You have Oscar’s number, don’t you, Justin?” Tuyen commented as Georgie said she’d text Ocar. ”Surely it would be easier for you to just call him, rather than waiting for him to call you?” As she said this she pulled out her own phone, before frowning. Ah. They’d all been drenched in water. Her phone was completely useless now. ”I doubt that Oscar’s phone is working, considering that we all got soaked earlier. Mine isn’t. I think it would be best for us to follow your lead, Justin.”

She certainly didn’t want to hang around here with all of these rich kids if she could help it.

”There’s definitely no point in us staying here, seeing as there are plenty of you to go through these books and figure out what to do with the artifacts. If the cult does have the Horned God then it’s the worst thing the two of us can do.”

And while Tuyen had always loved reading, she knew she wasn’t the best when it came to retaining knowledge. That was why she tended to let Justin answer all of their questions. Though she was fairly certain that Georgie’s solution wouldn’t work out - considering that one group already knew where to find them, it would be easy enough for others to get that information hidden artifacts or not. She’d let Justin ask that question before they left.

“Well, I’m staying here,” Trisha frowned, even as she glared at the books that she didn’t want to touch. Well, she didn’t have combat magic so she didn’t have to read them. Not that she wanted to go with Georgie’s idea right off the get go. ”I guess I can help figure out where to put the artifacts.”

Her abstraction would help a little with that depending on how big some of the artifacts were, she could get her minions to carry them somewhere safe.

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?”