☆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

[oceantier]

She feels Gold's power close in on her like the length of a whip coiling around her throat, like fingers tightening at her jaw, forcing her eyes upward.

She's back, a voice breathes in her mind, sneering and eager and leaping for what it believes it recognizes -- for who Lesedi's spell says is there. She's come back for you~.

Yes. Lapis can see her there, standing at the edge of the roof and staring down at her, fragmented like the twist of the faceted glass of a kaleidoscope. The world is swirling, but: That smile.

She's sure she can see that smile.

For the first time since this fight began, she reacts, air rasping through her lungs like suddenly it's a commodity she can't find enough of. She wrenches against the spell -- pulls as hard as she can, her voice escaping in a wordless shriek.

The waterspouts go briefly wild, tearing off a chunk of warehouse roof like peeling back a sardine can, the other spinning wild across the street and catching up power lines in their wake, snapping them from their poles until its spinning, electrified, the ends waving outward like sparking whips.

[interstellarebels]

With that, Lapis is the dead center of Gold's focus again, just in time for the flow of the song to shift towards a chorus. As Gold addresses Lapis, striding towards the edge of the roof as if there is nothing to fear from her lashing, it seems very much like they are staring down someone else.

"You did not break me.
I'm still fighting for peace."

The water still on the ground begins to swell under Gold's power now, instead of Lapis's, rising like geysers around her.

"Well, I've got thick skin and an elastic heart,
But your blade, it might be too sharp."

Gold moves their arms in flowing motions, and gradually the water Lapis is directly manipulating begins to fall under their control as well, straining against her hold.

"I'm like a rubber band until you pull too hard-"

And suddenly the water will break free, rushing out of Lapis's grasp, it's wild destruction finally being dragged to a pause.

"Yeah, I may snap and I move fast-"

With that snap, the water lashes back at Lapis, moving to smack her down to the ground. It's in that moment that Silver finally turns to leave.

[oceantier]

The power flings her down, face first, into the pavement. Stars erupt in her head; everything screams -- her body, the spell that sneers at her to move, the voice that shrieks that she'll die here, she's going to die, going to be broken, trapped trapped trapped little bug all alone under amber.

She shrills a second wild note that arcs madly, inconsistent even in note as she fights to push herself upward, pours more power into trying to retake control of her water. And when that fails: She pulls harder, deeper, at what they haven't yet taken from her, wrenching with all her strength.

The water under Gold's building tears through the ground like long fingers closing into a fist, veritably shattering the earth out from underneath the part of the building they're standing on. That part of the building sways without the structure to support it, and with a roar and the squealing of metal, begins to collapse.

[interstellarebels]

The harsh collapse and screaming of metal hardly seems to interrupt Gold's song at all. By now, their rhythm has overcome the traditional limits of reality. The laws of probability mean nothing. What Gold wants, and what they need, to happen at that very moment has been set in motion. No matter how brazen their movements, they seem destined to succeed.

"But you won't see me fall apart,
'Cause I've got an elastic heart."

As the support behinds to give way beneath them, they leap off of the roofing in a gravity defying stunt, going straight for Lapis with their bare hands. Cutting through the chaos of her attack, Gold goes straight for her core - as the music reaches a conclusion, Gold plunges their fingers straight through Lapis's chest.

"I've got an elastic heart."

Their hand clasps Lapis's gem on the other side of her body, and then pulls it through he chest and out through the front. Their voice softens as the music fades, water showering down around them.

"Yeah, I've got an elastic heart."