☆TRACK XI: THIS FIXATION

[interdimanagers]

Who: Everyone! Especially Lapis and all musicians.
What: The Final Festival finally begins.
When: May 5th, 2055, at 5:55PM.
Where: Concert stages for both Pride and Virgo, as well as throughout the city.
Warnings: Lapis related violence.

“I think I'm drowning. Asphyxiated. I wanna break this spell That you've created. You're something beautiful; A contradiction. I wanna play the game. I want the friction.” ☆THIS FIXATION The start times of the festivals are very explicit. The first notes are to be played at 5:55 PM – no sooner, and no later. This has been enforced by every recital leading up to this point, and today the word is law. The audience view it as a peculiarity. How could both labels independently decide to do something so particular? Those on the stage will feel it in their hearts. There’s more to it than just another concert. Something is happening, bigger than all of you, and something deep down tells you that you are powerless to stop it now. There’s a momentum that’s been building for centuries, and only now will the show truly begin. the 55th minute | the 5th hour | the 5th day | the 5th month | the 2055th year Those with magical, spiritual, or musical sense will feel it strongly. The magic of it is thick in the air, enveloping the entirely of Vista within its breadth. The music begins, and a terrible tension in the air finally breaks. In that precise moment, something has been released – and there is no going back from here. ☆THE SHORT AND DIRTY The ritual has finally begun. So let's break this down. ► The same moment the festivals begin, and occult magical ritual has been set in motion. That special time window that the labels were waiting for? This is it. Why the number 5 is so important we may never know, but the key thing to note is that the force of musical power behind the labels are now multiplying, and will only be getting stronger the longer the ritual goes on. Those with Fame Power abilities will feel more and more potent as time goes on as well. Magical juice will come easier and they will get bigger magical effects for their effort. ► The festival will begin with the labels biggest acts, so only a few of the player characters will be on stage at that point. Veteran musicians will start things off on a high note, and the rest will be lined up and ready for a seemingly unending roll of music all through the night and into the entirety of Friday and Saturday. Friday has been deemed a city wide public holiday because that’s how seriously Vista takes its music. Fledgling bands with characters of Fame Power 4+ or Fame Fortune 4+ will have the honour of being part of the first wave of performances, all starting at 5:55PM. This is a seriously big deal. So don’t fuck up. ► Very shortly after the beginning of the festival, Lesedi Santiago is going to fuck everything up for you. ☆LESEDI FUCKS THINGS UP And this is how Lesedi will fuck things up: she's getting Lapis Lazuli to do it for her. Lapis was recently captured by Pride Records while trying to sneak out information to the rescuers. She has been powerfully enchanted by Lesedi to attack and kill Virgo musicians and Rescuers alike, and her water powers will be temporarily enhanced by feeding off of Lesedi's magic. Lapis is being sent to attack Virgo musicians first - ideally disrupting as many Virgo performances as possible and FUBARing Blanche's ritual right from the get go. Juno will quickly regroup and start sending Virgo's magical adepts to try to stop her, while keeping as many of them on stage as possible. Meanwhile, this is all occurring in broad fucking daylight. So what do the civilians think? Well, they'll be scared and try to save themselves from any attacks they get caught in the middle of, but otherwise...it's like they've been reduced to zombies. None of them seem capable of acknowledging that anything weird is happening - the only thing they can focus on is the music, and as long as it continues their minds are ensnared. Rescuers who have been heavily effected by the brainwashing of the musical singles may also feel entranced by the music at the concert as well, and may have a similar lack of survival instinct. They'll be drawn to the music regardless of all else, up to and including the risk of death. Lapis's player has been planning out a variety of fight threads in advance, but since Lapis as the ability to create a lot of collateral damage, people can also be free to assume that they are trying to save civilians from surprise water hazards as this goes on, or simply trying to survive themselves. We will be assuming there are no deaths caused by Lapis unless it is cleared with her player first. This includes random audience members. This will go on for a while, until eventually Lapis is chased away from the festival and goes to attack the rescuer warehouse with the chip removal equipment instead. Silver will sent out an urgent message warning the rescuers of this, urging them to get over there as quickly as possible and help to remove the equipment and take it to a safe place. Silver themselves will not arrive immediately, and Gold is still nowhere to be seen - at least, not until the very end, when they will make a surprise return appearance to help attend to the Lapis Lazuli problem. “Now that you know I'm trapped- Sense of elation. You'd never dream of Breaking this fixation. You will squeeze the life out of me.”

Comments

BEGINNING of Lapis' attack: Please read OOC note!

[oceantier]

Minutes go by after 5:55, and all seems well -- the bands electrifying the air with sound, the crowd's energy a frenzy.

The music is so loud, so all-consuming, that it may be easy to miss it: The grumble of the earth under your feet -- the dull roar that announces an earthquake.

And then suddenly the ground awakens like a stretching beast.

It shrugs, arches, ripples like a heaving ocean . . . and then throughout the Virgo section, explodes. The pipes underneath the earth -- the pipes for water supply, for sewer -- have torn through the ground in response to an unseen call, ripping through metal and earth and erupting in great gushes of water and sewage throughout the Virgo section. Water and sewage rains down. All around the area, common citizens will shriek, fall into holes. Some will be injured, thrown by the explosions. Some will just stand there in the wet, vulnerable and unseeing, waiting for the bands to continue playing.

And then from the rain, from the puddles . . . figures emerge.

There are about twenty of them, and at first they're indistinct, featureless. But as they come, they begin to take shape. They take the forms of people in the crowd, of musicians. And they attack.

Pride musicians will remain untouched and will actually actively be avoided if they try to get involved. But these clones seem to know exactly who the Virgo musicians and the rescuers are . . . and don't seem to care what common citizens may be in their way.



((ooc: Anyone facing down Lapis' water clones should watch the video of them in action. Feel free to NPC them; I won't be able to do it. They'll be strong and fight quite well, but will be vulnerable to direct blasts of sound or electricity and will not be able to replicate powers. If you have questions, please feel free to PM or Plurk me!))