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interstellar55552016-05-05 03:55 pm
interdimanagers) wrote in interstellar55552016-05-05 03:55 pm
Entry tags:
☆TRACK XI: THIS FIXATION
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.
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. 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.” |
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She glances down the road, like she'll see Lapis running. If Garnet came this way maybe that means she was going the right direction. Her hand clenches into a fist. "I know something like this would happen! It was a bad idea for her to come here!"
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A short nod, her hands closing at her sides, and Garnet stepped forward, closer. "She's dangerous. Far too dangerous to be roaming free. We'll catch her, and we'll put her down."
"She's not one of us, anyway. She shouldn't even be here; it should just be us."
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"Oh, Garnet! I missed you so much! I can't do this without you!"
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"Because that's all we really care about, don't we," she murmurs in Pearl's ear, arms tightening around the smaller Gem, the pressure slowly increasing. "Us."
Behind Pearl, from a nearby sewer, two threads of water have oozed up the holes in the manhole cover -- fine chains about to twist around Pearl's ankles while her attention is in thrall.
Garnet holds on, too tight, her voice dropping even further. "I told you I was better at being alone."
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He'd missed the destruction almost entirely - it's easy to get caught up in a mission, and he'd been on the far edges of Pride's territory while all hell was breaking loose in Virgo - but he'd definitely heard about it: water rising up as though it had a mind of its own, tearing up stages and bowling over people and boy, did that sound horribly familiar. Coupled with the fact that J hadn't seen Lapis for a while now and the very disturbing text he'd gotten from Frisk a few days back...something was wrong.
It took time to get his footing back after his meeting with Silver, and even more time to find Lapis in a city that was either bustling with horrified gossip or deserted depending on which street he went down, but eventually he picked up on Lapis' tune.
Or what was left of it, under the weight it was bearing. Someone had definitely gotten their hands on her; if the drag on Papyrus' tune a few days ago had been an octopus, then this was a kraken, vicious and hungry, subsuming Lapis' tune in anger and violence. Yeah, he had his work cut out for him here. At least he could hear Pearl there as well - maybe she could help-
But Pearl sounded relieved, of all things, and that didn't make sense-
It's not until he rounds the corner and sees the two gems a block away that he understands. He's seen Lapis shapeshift before, and right now she looks like a Pride musician - Garnet, who's probably from Pearl's world if the name and Pearl's reaction are anything to go by. Pearl's guard is down, and there's water on the streets, and this is going to go badly if he doesn't do something now.
"Lapis, no!"
Good thing he can be loud if he wants to be. He doesn't expect to be able to snap Lapis out of it just by calling her name, but it should at least distract Lapis and get Pearl back on her guard.
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"Lapis?"
It doesn't take her long to realize it's true. Of course it's true - Garnet's back at the festival, still ensnared by her captors, and this is a clever way for Lapis to escape. She pushes Lapis away with a shout and falls backwards as she tries to take a step back with her feet still caught in the watery chains. She at least has the presence of mind to summon her spear once she's on the ground, pointing it up toward the other gem just in case she tries to advance.
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But Lesedi's spell rises inside her like a roar, like a kraken lashing a tentacle down on a ship, splintering the voice to pieces in her head, cracking the face to the quality of refracted glass even as she looks back and seeks out the source. J's face, like all the others who came before it, becomes too distorted to see.
No. This person who shouted, who shouted her name . . . she doesn't know them after all at all in the wake of that roar. And the second voice that rises in her mind after it, the one sounds like rolling waves or a storm coming in off the water, whispers that this is another enemy like the one she's just trapped: Another Crystal Gem who is afraid of her, afraid of her power, wanting her back where she can be captured, controlled.
She'll destroy them -- both of them -- before she lets that happen again.
First the Crystal Gem she definitely knows: Pearl, who's just pushed away from her in realization that Lapis isn't Garnet, pointing her spear in defiance . . . but who's only just realized that she's been caught. Take care of that one first, with all her smugness, her self-righteous, small-minded pridefulness. This one who's never accepted her, who probably never will in spite of her, Lapis, reaching out. Let her know how it feels, abandoned by everyone she trusted, at the mercy of chains.
With a flick of the hand, Lapis yanks Pearl with all the force of a catapult, seeking to whip the Gem into the air and smash her against the pavement. Hopefully she'll hit head first.
Features jerking back to her own, not even bothering to see Pearl's fate, she rounds on J next, eyes narrowing. She doesn't know this Crystal Gem, but she must have met him before: Her memory sparks with anger, with irritation at some moment not quite currently in her grasp. This Crystal Gem . . . she may not recognize him, but she's fought with him before, and he's just as self-righteous and self-serving as Pearl.
There's another manhole behind him, and it explodes in a column of water -- into a hand that lashes downward, seeking to swat him aside into the concrete and glass of a nearby storefront.
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And in the next half second, the kraken subsumes it again completely, screaming in Lesedi's treble. That explains what happens, but it doesn't make it any better - not when J can hear fury and destruction and the promise of violence.
Yeah, he's in trouble.
He's already moving when the manhole behind him goes, slower than he'd like to be because he's too damn tired for this but he cannot afford to stop. He dodges, and while the brunt of the water misses him, the splashback still sends him sprawling on the pavement. He rolls as best he can, ignoring a new set of aches and pains as he gets back to his feet, and keeps running. He can't get Lapis free if he's too busy dodging her attacks to focus; hopefully Pearl can get out of this. It's not like there's much he can do to help her either right now.
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She should have known. She should have been able to tell it wasn't Garnet. How could she have been so stupid? One of her best friends, of millennia, and she couldn't tell it wasn't her. She was just so desperate to see her again, to have her guidance back in her life, to feel like she had a shot at fixing all this with Garnet's help; she had blinded herself.
But now's no time to beat herself up. Pearl reaches for her spear and looks around for Lapis before she calls out:
"Lapis! Leave him alone!"
J's not a gem. Pearl can only assume he's a regular human, and he's not meant for putting up with attacks from strong and angry gems like Lapis is right now. She waits a second, giving Lapis a chance to turn and look at her before she fires a laser beam from the tip of her spear, aimed at Lapis but away from her gem.
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Recovering quickly, the manhole cover explodes near Pearl in turn, a second watery hand swiping upward to swat the other Gem into the nearby buildings. If it misses, at the very least it will smash into the nearby buildings, sending shards of masonry and glass flying through the air.
The hand near J shrinks, reforms -- until a water clone of J himself stands at the mouth of the manhole, stony-faced and uncompromising. It rests there only a moment before heading for its target, hands curling to fists.
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So, of course, here he is.
Awesome. Wow.
He doesn't stop moving until he's gotten some distance between himself and the manhole Lapis' attack had come out of, keeping an eye on her and Pearl all the while. "Come on, Lapis!" he yells, as though it'll make a difference. "This ain't you!"
He jumps when water hurls itself out of the manhole near Pearl - Lapis' tune is muddled and screaming under whatever spell's ensnared her, so it's hard to hear her intent. He's not going to know what's coming-
It's partly that realization and partly instinct that has him glancing over his shoulder in time to see the water form a humanoid shape and resolve into- him?
What. What.
Of course, there is zero time to process this development, because in the next moment it's attacking him and nope, he does not want to stick around to find out how much damage his ostensibly evil water clone can do. He starts running again, dodging around debris and damage in the street. He can't keep this up forever; for now, this has to be enough.
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"You're attacking the wrong people!" she shouts as she whips around to see whether she's opened herself up for another hit and to check on where J is.
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She's made herself the distraction; temporarily the focus is on her.
"You kept me all those years." Lapis' voice rises like a surge, towering towards a crest. "You. You never questioned . . . and I know exactly where you'd like me to be right now!
Don't tell me you don't deserve it."
Whether or not the earlier blows by the clones hit, the streets surge suddenly in the equivalent of a tidal wave, the water crashing downward towards the other Gem, deluging the street in a small river of water and sewage.
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But Pearl has bought him time, if only a little of it, and he plans on using it. If he can't help Pearl, maybe he can help Lapis. He puts some distance - and a bus stop - between himself and the fights, takes a low, steady stance, and begins to move with the Music.
Wake me up
His movements are hard and forceful; they flow, but not nearly as smoothly as he'd like. He's going for power instead of finesse, and the Music shakes around him in response, battering against the spell wrapped around Lapis' tune.
I can't wake up
It's dangerous - for him to be doing this so close to a fight, yes, but also for Lapis. Under his influence, the Music tears at the spell, and there's a real risk her tune will be damaged as well-
But it's a risk J is taking. He has to believe that he can repair whatever damage happens; first priority is getting Lapis free. The Music wedges in between the spell and her tune, and J pushes it as hard as he can, trying to break the spell away. Lapis was already struggling to resurface when he arrived; if he can get her some wiggle room away from the spell, hopefully she'll do the rest.
Save me!
He's focusing too hard; he doesn't hear the water converging at the end of the street and surging towards him until it's too late. It's not as though there's anywhere he can go - the only high ground is buildings he's too far away to get to, let alone climb. J isn't making it out of this one; the best he can do is survive. He shoves at the Music one last time and drops into a crouch, taking a deep breath.
The water hits him less than a second later.
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A distraction that's sending a tidal wave of water down the street onto her. Pearl looks at J - there's not enough time to push him out of the way, but she gets up and takes a few steps at a run toward him just on the off-chance... and when she's only a few feet away the water crashes down on them both. Her spear has been forgotten, dissolved back into the pure light it was made of, and Pearl can only endure the force of the water. Everything else will have to wait until it passes.