In the arms of the ocean, so deep and so cold

[oceantier]

Who: Lapis Lazuli and the residents/staff of Virgo Entertainment
What: After Lapis discovers that it was Virgo Entertainment who kidnapped Steven, she attacks the building late at night. More description here.
When: Wednesday, March 2, about one in the morning
Where: Virgo Entertaiment. Note: Lapis will be attacking from deep within the ocean, so she will not be visible.
Warnings: Blind rage. Property damage. Possibly sharks.


His hand in hers still haunts her mind. She can still feel the shadow of them throughout the day, the small weight of his fingers laced in hers, locked together, tight with the pressure of her own.

Worse, she can feel them yanked away, breaking from hers.

The sound of him crying out reverberates in her head, echoing, echoing, loud, louder, louder. She wants to press her hands to her ears, crouch, wait until it fades . . . There's no relief, and the weight of it pounds against her skull in dull and unrelenting rhythm: He's gone, and she's broken her word.

He's sick, he's in danger, and she's broken her word.

There is no relief.

***

The attack comes suddenly, brutally on Wednesday night as the ocean outside of Virgo Entertainment grows restless. The water rolls, it surges, it rocks, it builds, it moans . . . Like great hands thrusting forward, snatching at the earth, a little higher each time . . .

Until suddenly, it's on par with the building itself.

The noise alone may be enough to wake the residents of the building; the water lashes into the building structure. Windows explode in showers of glass, and the water pours in, eager and fast as it can. Wave after wave smites the structure from every angle, at every window they can reach, shattering the glass and sweeping inward with the glee of eager children. The impacts boom against the structure itself, shuddering through the metal and upward even into the very penthouses. There's no danger; the metal will hold. But the sound is horrible, and it continues, on and on and on, as the waves continue to moan and roll and crash, tearing through the very earth outside the building in their wake.

Residents or staff entering the lowest floor may find it immersed in 2-3 feet of water, complete with specimens -- various fish, masses of kelp . . . and if one is unlucky, very likely a shark. Water continues to wash in, easily able to swipe someone off their feet. Caution is recommended.

The sky is clear, and there is no visible cause for the lashing of the waters -- not even a completely specific origin point.



ooc: Feel free to post threads to this log of your characters reacting, investigating, etc. Lapis is under the ocean and a ways out, so would not readily be accessible or visible. (But hey, there's always the ghost of Edna theory, if you're into that kind of thing.)

Comments

[heymcfly]

Normally, Marty can't be woken up by anything. It's part of that teenager thing that when you're out, you're out. Big party upstairs? He can sleep clean through. Rowdy neighbors? Nah. Not a big deal.

This, though? This wakes him up.

The sound of something crashing, a force hitting the building hard enough to make the walls shake jolt Marty awake. He rolls clumsily out of his bed, flopping onto the floor in a heap before struggling up to his feet. Half awake, he stumbles out of his room and into Defying Atmosphere's penthouse. "Whaz- whazup?"

There's nothing at first to ring any alarms…until he sees the glass scattered across the floor. Oh yes, that's bad.

Despite the circumstances, Marty staggers his way out into the hallway, stifling back a yawn or two that's probably very inappropriate, considering. He walks to the elevator…which is down…okay then. Stairs it is.

He's not even thinking when he reaches the lowest floor. A bare foot suddenly steps into water, soaking his PJ's right up to his knees. Marty yelps, flails, runs to the closest object that's above water- a couch. "Wha, what the fuck?" Yup, this place is swamped…literally. There's fish, there's sand. It's like the very bottom of this building has become an aquarium. Oh god, is that a shark's fin over there?

"Uhh, hello?"

[hanginginthere]

Marty's not the only one woken up by all this. To be fair, it's hard to stay asleep - and Shen for one is wide awake by all this insanity. In no time at all, he's downstairs, not bothering to change out of his PJs...but that is most certainly his camera he grabbed.

Good thing, too. If anything's worth being photographed, this is. Except oh god that's a shark

he thinks

STILL

"YIEEEE!"

Don't mind him, Marty. He's just about to run in to you in his sudden panic.

[heymcfly]

The last thing Marty is expecting is a visitor!

Between the guy running into him and the shock of it all, Marty ends up falling over the other side of the couch, down into the cold water…with the shark. He flails underwater for a few seconds, before shooting up and clinging to the couch. "Jesus Christ!" He grips onto the fabric, before hauling himself over the back of the sofa.

Did the shark get closer, or is that just him…?

"Watch it! I coulda been shark bait…!"

[hanginginthere]

He's not a visitor, he lives here! And right now, he's climbing over the body, on to the couch, and looking like nothing so much as a cat trying to avoid water.

Or perhaps not a cat, but there's something animistic about him, the way his eyes are wide and his fingers are digging in to the couch and he looks about ready to leap off to- where?

"Why is there a shark here!?!"

[heymcfly]

This guy honestly reminds Marty of a cat right now. The way he's being climbed over, how this guy is literally digging himself into the couch, it's pretty funny. Or it would be funny, if Marty wasn't stuck in the exact situation as him. If that shark comes any closer, he might as well start doing the same thing now.

Marty shakes his head, trying to wrestle himself away so he can have some breathing room. "How the hell should I know? It was like this when I came down!"

[nibelungvalesti]

This -- this was not accidental. This was not coincidental. Meril stared at the damage from the stairs with a look of horror that slowly grew into anger, before she paced back upstairs.

No more than a minute later, the Valkyrie shot into the sky from the roof, gaining a height more than adequate to prevent casual watchers on the ground from spotting her before she began to trace the water back to its source.

[oceantier]

The origin is hard to trace; the ocean is naturally moving, heaving, and the waves are coming from multiple angles. They do seem to not form, though, along a single long line, which indicates that whatever the source is is not beyond that point.

[nibelungvalesti]

With nothing obvious on the surface as far as she could see, she changed tacks; lowering her height, she scanned that line for any sign of a cause beneath the water.

Anger and determination drove her at speed through the air. She had to stop this...

[oceantier]

It's not by movement that she'll find Lapis -- it's by absence. At the calmest point along the line will be Lapis herself, directing the waves from deep below the surface.

It's the most logical point to look, anyway. The Gem herself is invisible below the churning water.

[nibelungvalesti]

Yes. So it is.

Arcing up, the Valkyrie gathered her composure for a second -- then plunged downwards, slammed into the water at speed to break it and sink below.

[sponsorigami]

Ivan was about to spend some time meditating on the ocean shore, trying to will more memories to come forth to help him learn more about his real self. (He's stuck with it; he might as well try for more puzzle pieces.) However as he walks out of the front door, he's greeted by not only a bodyguard but by a humongous wall of water.

There's no time to even attempt to move out of the way. Ivan gets slapped in the face with a fish. (And it's a miracle his sakura tinted shades aren't broken by the impact.) The bodyguard gets hit harder with something larger, but Ivan doesn't look back. He's scrambling for higher ground.

[inversekeyblade]

Later..

That was one hell of a nap! Not quite a full 8 hours to be considered a legitimate sleep session, but close enough. Sipping on that liquor, one drink turning into a few, makes napping throughout anytime of the day or night pretty easy. Waking up with a headache is to be expected though. And that's what's happening right now with Roxas here.

It's his own fault, really. But man, if he could go back and do something different.. he probably wouldn't. Once he deems himself appropriate for public viewing (clothes, hair, shoes) he's on his way out of the building. Downstairs he goes, to the main lobby that he's so used to seeing before passing through the doors to the outside.

Except instead of dry carpet, the fabric beneath his feet feel.. squishy. Actually, the floor looks damp. And everything is wet. There's even what looks like aquatic plants hanging on some of the light fixtures and furniture. What the..

..is this Virgo Entertainment? Did he wake up in some weird underwater world now? This is too much to handle with a slight throb persisting in the front of his head. Instead of finding out the fun way, he'll ask the closest resident, easy to tell by spotting someone not cleaning up, what was going on.

Here's someone who looks like he knows what's going on. And not just because he's soaking wet also with what looks like a red smack on his face in the shape of a fish. "Hey.. what, what happened here?"

[sponsorigami]

"I have no idea..." Ivan says. He's completely drenched from head to toe, and he's trying to see if he phone is salvageable or if he needs to replace it. There goes a chunk of his paycheck and time trying to bring his new phone back up to his likes.

Although, that's nothing compared to the damage the ground floor museums have gone through. "I was just walking out the front door when the water just came rushing in from all sides. I've never seen waves like that before."

[inversekeyblade]

Having to replace your phone would suck. Roxas does not envy that task, as it looks like this guy is about to embark on the way he's trying to revive what is probably a dead device.

"Did someone piss off Poseidon? Things like this don't just happen, you know?" As far as he's aware, they don't, anyway.

[giglio_madonna]

When the waves had started to rise up in the distance, Luce had already started to worry. A quick headcount had made sure everyone else was safe... besides Ivan. And she's triple checked to make sure that he's not pulling one of his ninja acts.

Hurrying down to the bottom floor, it doesn't take long for her to spot the poor ninja... right in time to see him get hit by a fish.

Oh dear.

Ignoring what would probably be comical any other time, she tries to wave him over. "Ivan!"

[sponsorigami]

"Luce!" Ivan abandons the direct he was going in and goes over to her. Another wave rushes through the door, now broken and shattered. There's more than just the fish in the waters now. Remains of the museum float by, ebbing back and forth as the waves going in and out. "What's going on?"

[giglio_madonna]

That's a question she'd love to have answered herself. Taking Ivan's hand once he's close enough, she starts wading through the water to the emergency stairs. This doesn't seem like the time to risk the stairs. "I don't know. It can't be a storm, because the skies are clear as crystal and the wind is nowhere near bad enough for this kind of destruction."

NEXT EVENING / FOR LAPIS

[balletbattler]

It's hard not to hear about the "freak storm" that wrecked the lower floors of Virgo HQ overnight. Pearl's been there before, scouting out the building to see what one might have to do to get the captives out, but now she arrives with a completely different mission.

She already has her spear summoned as she sneaks past the crews that have come in to repair the damage, slipping down to the beach and wandering around knee-deep in the water, narrowing her eyes out at the whole ocean as if she'll be able to see Lapis below the surface. She calls Lapis' name quietly, trying to stay out of earshot of any of the people milling around the ruined building.

"I know you're out there, and I know this was you! Come out Lapis!"

[oceantier]

The rage has left her.

She feels hollow in its wake, scooped out and empty. Keeping away from the inevitable rubberneckers, she's wedged herself deep among the rocks fairly far from the shore -- a space where most wouldn't fit. The closeness of it is reassuring somehow -- the feeling of solidity on nearly every side, pressing inward against her back and limbs. Inside, she's contained, blocked away from the rest of the world.

. . . The voice outside isn't one she would ever have expected.

Part of her hesitates to reply. There's fight in Pearl's words; there always is, and Lapis has no fight left in her.

But at the same time, there's no point in not answering, and as always, it comes down to one thing: Steven. In this one thing, Lapis has trust: That whatever Pearl's attachment to Steven, it's firm. And if so, she needs to know what has happened -- and what Steven may face.

And so Lapis draws a breath and slips from her hiding place to meet the other Gem, quiet. "I'm here."

Unlike before, there's no combat in her own words. No defensive posture. Her hands are loose at her sides, her shoulders rounded. She waits.

[balletbattler]

Pearl frowns at Lapis, but Lapis clearly isn't in a fighting mood. Maybe the attack tired her out, or maybe she realizes she made a mistake. Pearl doesn't know and she doesn't care, but she will give Lapis a chance at least.

"Explain yourself," she says, holding up her spear in Lapis' direction. She's not quick to trust anyone, and Lapis already has a point against her in Pearl's eyes. Her past transgressions and her insistence on having some connection with Steven, despite the fact that she never knew Rose, wasn't there for Steven during all of those hard times, can't even begin to understand what it means to defend Earth...

Well, Pearl just isn't quick to trust.

[oceantier]

She isn't going to try to excuse herself for her actions. But there is the cold comfort that even if she cared what Pearl thinks of her, there's little that could be damaged further between the two of them.

"Steven was taken." Her voice stays quiet, almost remote. "They took him to Virgo -- men in a van, stronger and faster than anything human."

Her arms creep upward around herself. ". . . His gem had been cracked. By people in Pride. He was sick." Her fingers tighten. "I was trying to take him away . . . and they came."

For Lapis | A week later

[eba02]

It's been a week since the sea itself attacked Virgo headquarters. Lapis has been missing since then, and J is full-on worried. She's not answering when he tries to call her communicator - and he's tried, multiple times - and he can't pick her tune out of the Music, which means she's too far away for him to hear. The only thing he can think to do is head to the beach - her beach - and wait. He goes there most nights, laughing off accusations of being a ghost hunter if anyone else is around.

Tonight, there's no one. Tonight, it's late, dark outside with the moon and what few stars can be seen through light pollution shining overhead. Tonight, he plans on waiting, at least a little while longer.

[oceantier]

If he stays there, waits and listens carefully, he can hear her. Her music is quiet, slow, and it aches, echoing and lingering, haunted.

And, if he listens even more carefully, something else: Something lurking, deep below the surface -- dark and far down and hard to hear, interrupting and punctuating the melody with deep, dissonant chords and the interspersed, high-pitched rattle of something almost metallic.

The sound emerges from the water a ways yet down the beach . . . and heads for the rocks.

[eba02]

It takes him a minute to really realize what he's hearing - it's Lapis, all right, but her tune sounds different, deep and sad and slow, and-

He freezes. What is that. There's a countermelody to her tune, something sunk so deep in he can't usually hear it, a low bass line that bypasses the ear and thrums in your chest, beating in a way you can't block out - and this one is sick, twisting the parts of her tune that it touches, making it - and her - something else entirely-

Something is wrong.

He's on his feet before he knows it, sprinting towards the figure he can see in the distance. "Lapis! Wait!"

[oceantier]

The sudden voice sparks immediate alarm; for a split instant, she looks ready to run, to flee, feet bracing into the sand as though she means to take off.

When she realizes they've said her name, recognizes the silhouette . . . it's almost worse. Her eyes flash from J to the rocks, back to the ocean like an animal that's been cornered, unsure of what choice to make: Let him come, let him see her, face him? Or dart back to safety -- plunge back into the dark water?

She knows what he must want to say. She's just not sure she can stand to hear it.

The time is growing short; she's been frozen in indecision for too long. At the very last instant, panic wins; she twists as though to dart into the water.

But very likely it's too late. At the rate he's coming, he can likely catch her before she ever manages -- either by words or by hand.