☆TRACK XII: LOVE AND TRUST

[interdimanagers]

Who: Everyone!
What: The tour hits Europa, and Edward Blanche plans a trap.
When: May 25th - June 17th, 2055
Where: Any of the potential tour stops, but mostly MOSCOW.
Warnings: Probably violence.

“Oh, will you break my fall When I climb too high? I always lose my nerve, It happens every time.” ☆LOVE AND TRUST After the disaster that was the beginning of the World Tour, things from there have proceeded innocently enough in comparison. Virgo ended up being able to pull its act into some semblance of order before the festival finished, and so the magic on their side was not entirely lost. Things are tense, however, for anybody who has an idea of the stuff going on upstairs. Whatever is going on, Pride is in the lead by a landslide, and the desperation is present in the managers and the execs alike. Lesedi, however, couldn’t be happier. In fact, she is getting cockier by the day. Her plans with Lapis went wonderfully, and wherever the gem is now is irrelevant. Barring any major disasters, she is increasingly certain of her defeat of Virgo, and is encouraging her elite members of take potshots at them any chance they get. (This includes her beginner music mages.) The beginning of the month is spent with both labels visiting a lot of very familiar locations across Americana - most of which are places they will have visited in the past. The routes are very similar to the ones the first bands took during their opening tours last summer. As for the rescuers, now is the time to regroup. It’s not practical to follow the musicians to ever stop they make, but Shep has apparently enabled his spaceship with a cloaking device, and will be taking all the rescuers and free musicians to the major tour centers of each continental tour - the headline festivals, each lasting for days, and each carrying an important role in the ongoing ritual. That’s what Silver thinks, at least. As some of the rescuers may now know, Gold has apparently gone solo. ☆EUROPA TOUR As the Americana portion of the tour comes to a close around the 25th of May, both labels will be finishing up in Britain and heading on into the conglomerate of Europa. All of these cities are basically what they are like IRL except about 50 years more future-like, and you have full creative liberty to make up some developments to the local culture and worldbuild because this is the last time these places will ever be mentioned meaningfully! THE OFFICIAL STOPS: Paris (May 30th - 31st), Berlin (June 1st - 2nd), Madrid (June 3rd - 6th), Istanbul (June 7th - 8th), Rome (June 9th - 10th), Vienna (June 11th - 12th) THE HEADLINER: Moscow (June 12th - 17th) The festival in Moscow is much like the festival in Vista City - a musical blowout to end all blow outs. The two labels festival grounds are practically blending together at this point, almost as if fighting for physical territory along with fighting for the attention of the crowds. The thick energy of magic follows the tour like a comet’s tail. ► RESCUER PROMPT: Instead of cutting through all of the earlier stops, Shep loads all the rescuers up into the now-cloaked spaceship and will bring them to Moscow, the last step in the Europa tour path and the place they’ll be stopping the longest. Silver has been saying that the lot of them should start working on freeing captives at all costs, especially now that the labels are on the road and increasingly disorganized. Shep has gotten together a bunch of new material for disguises as well as more holo projectors - a lot of them have been spotted at this point, but if they can get close to the musicians and catch the labels off guard it could be their best hope of bunging up the rituals for both of them. Meanwhile, Gold is obviously absent from the team, and some may have seen their former leader essentially announce their intent to leave during their fight with Lapis. Silver and Shep seem to have been avoiding talking about it, but occasionally it will be referenced in public places and the conversation will turn rapidly tense. ► MUSICIAN PROMPT: Everything is more or less business as normal, except for the pressure of the tour seems to be causing all the authority figures to lose their minds, especially in Virgo. Beyond that, though, it’s all deceptively the same. Both labels stop in the various cities and put on their best show, only stopping briefly to enjoy the local culture. Everyone is under very careful watch, however, no matter where they are. No one leaves the performance areas without an escort - it’s clear that both labels are desperate to hang on to musicians at this point. The gravity of the situation is increasingly obvious. Both labels have been booked into the same hotel this time, which is essentially a castle in Moscow. It’s every bit as lavish as you would expect, and it’s easy to get distracted from the stress with the luxuries that are offered at every turn. The consistent sense of desperation that Virgo has running through it at the moment is totally absent in Pride - Lesedi seems like she’s in an absolutely fantastic mood. ► FESTIVAL PROMPT: The festivals crowds are bigger than anything you’ve ever seen. Rescuers will easily be lost in a crowd, and musicians will be followed by a detour of body guards that honestly feel needed for reasons besides imprisonment. The stages are colourful and elaborate in set up. The musical event goes on for three full days, and most of everyone’s time will be spent backstage or in their hotels. Rescuers will have to do their best to keep up. ☆BLANCHE MAKES A MOVE In the wake of Virgo falling behind, Edward Blanche has come up with a magical scheme of his own. Using the soul crystal of pure love from Greg Universe and pure duty from Meril, he has been devising a ritual - and with any luck, it take out two birds with one stone. Greg and Meril, having mostly lost their real personalities after having parts of their souls torn out and crystalized, will be set up in a central location in the hotel, after the performances on the last night in Moscow. They’ll be set up to play music, and while that music is playing it will be reaching out to all of the rescuers, whether they can hear it or not. This music is going to trigger the love and duty within their own souls, and direct it to a particular cause - a sudden and desperate need to save their friends, family, or other sympathetic souls from the labels. And the need to do it tonight. This will hit them particularly hard if they are naturally of a love or duty alignment, but it will have an effect regardless. How much it gets them exactly is up to you. Virgo’s musicians will be protected very heavily during the ritual, as Blanche is expecting the attack. His hope is to lure rescuers in and kill or capture them, having the advantage of foresight. He’s also hoping that the rescuers will go after the less protected musicians of Pride and steal them away from Lesedi, who isn’t aware that this is happening. If things go well for Blanche, both the rescuers and Pride will take a major hit, all in one go. Why not let your enemies destroy each other? Player participation in this can go two ways: one is that your character can simply go after any of the musicians you choose, and you can work out between the players and the mod how well it goes. Alternatively, you can have your character go to the heart of the matter and try to take on Greg and Meril. The tricky part? Blanche is going to be overseeing the ritual as well. However, without the focuses of Greg and Meril’s soul crystals, the ritual will fail. Also, there will absolutely be a few opportunistic ghosts looking for the opportunity to give everyone a hand. Communication with the mod is key for this event! Please run by plans to have any musicians successfully escape by me before going through with it, and also do let me know if you’d like the ghosts to help out! This can absolutely be combined with other player plots, such as the Pride break out initiative that’s been floating around. The night of the ritual is June 17th, so take some time to plan things out, and then get threading. Let me know if you need help setting any scenes! “Oh will you bring me home When I'm barely alive? It's the state of love and trust, And this is for you, And this is for us.”

Comments

[lightthedarkness]

She saw Meril hesitate, which made her relieved, she felt Venus at her side which made her grateful, but when she saw Mars, her precious Mars in all her passionate, warring glory? She felt so proud. She was always in love with how strong her senshi were, how capable and beautiful they were in their own way and how it made others strong too, how it made her stronger because of their own strength.

Sailor Moon was, perhaps amongst all the senshi, able to take the strongest hits. Not because she was the stronger than Makoto or Haruka physically, not even close, but the ginzuishou was already healing her, all the scrapes and cuts slowly disappearing from her body when her senshi body could not provide what she needed. She took a deep breath and used Venus' help to stand, even shaking as she did.

"Meril," she called out, pleading as she watched Mars, arms spread wide in front of her between them. "Meril please, listen to her! Even now... even now we're asking not to fight... If Rei didn't love you... if we didn't want to see you all safely brought home, to your real home, we wouldn't be doing this, we wouldn't be here. But she loves you, Meril," she pleaded, her knees wobbling and she held onto Venus a bit tighter before using sheer willpower alone to stand upright.

"Please, we're not your enemy," she hoped, she prayed that even now Meril could see all their attacks had been to divert, to protect, to be effective with the least amount of damage to her.

She tried to flex her wings, wanting to be by Rei's side, but the pain shot up her spine and she panted, having to hold onto Venus more than before now. Alright, maybe... wait on that action again, at least until her crystal could take care of that area too.

[hearted]

Venus held tight to her princess, both out of support and to hold her back. Rei could handle this, that she knew. It was merely her job to lower the sword and reach out with all the love she had to give.

"Rei's always so passionate about her love...you're family to her, there's no way she's letting you go. We could never stand in the way of that."

She still felt a cold fear in the back of her mind, but it was her duty to set that aside.

[nibelungvalesti]

Lenneth spun the spear in her hand as she brought her arm back, the snarling draconic energy wreathing its point glaring at Rei with cold hunger to strike. Those who defended her enemies needed to be struck down. Her duty was to strike down the enemies of Asgard --

The crystal hovering over the stage pulsed briefly, its sickly color shuddering. Asgard? No, her duty was to her fellow musicians, to protect them from enemies like these.

Another sick, shuddering pulse. Fellow musicians, like Rei... no. Her duty was to protect Blanche, to do his bidding. Even though.... even though he had hurt her. Hurt Greg. Hurt a number of people. Even though he was using her. Even though he had started this battle in the first place --!

The spear in her hand shattered into ethereal energy, a violent discharge that recoiled into her and sent her backwards and down. She hit the ground with her legs beneath her, though the force of it cracked the stage around her feet and left her, for the moment, unable to rise.

[faithfulflame]

Mars waited, hovering before Meril, impassively accepting that she’d done what she could.  Her only response to the swirling power before her was to send her own aura out to wrap up the silver haired woman in an embrace.  But then it stops, the weapon shattering into flinders and a feeling of confusion washing over the Goddess of War as her friend fell hard.  But it was no matter.  She knew now that they’d broken through the worst of the enchantment, and she dove down beside the fallen Valkyrie.

Her eyes swept around the room, watching the struggle of her bandmates and the skeleton against Blanche and Greg with a kind of detached calm.  She could probably intercede, but something lingered in her mind, a nagging feeling from her psychic senses told her that it wasn’t her place.  It wasn’t her fight, and right now Meril needed to be taken care of.  That was a battle for mortals, and the divine had to look after their own.

Reaching down, the re-awakened Mars scooped up her friend and leapt clear, carrying her offstage and towards her two companions.

“It’s the crystals.  It’s got to be the crystals.  I’ve got her, if one of you can get that gem.  Then we should probably get out of here.”

[hearted]

"I've got it!" Venus promised, grinding her heels into the carpet. She sucked in a breath---an object of such immense, terrifying power. Her mind raced through the number of ways this could go wrong. But no matter the risks, her team needed her. The captured needed her.

She whipped the chain off from around her waist once more, spun toward the crystal, and willed it to latch on. Fingers crossed.

[lightthedarkness]

Sailor Moon watched as Venus' chain wrapped around the crystal and she jumped with joy when she got it.

"You got it! Pull it back and I'll take care of the rest Venus!" she had seen how the other group had gotten it into Greg and was going to well- actually she was going to be far more gentle than that, she hoped. She closed her eyes and and focused as she extended her healing abilities to wrap around Meril's crystal and Meril. She would not let anything happen to either of them. She could do this, she could heal the valkyrie. She could feel the pulsing of her light in tandem with her heartbeat and took a deep breath as her own crystal began to heal her and Meril, what damage there was on her.

The crystal was now in her hands and she walked over to Meril, healing all the damage done to it by Blanche, easing away every ache and pain before she held it out to Meril's chest and let it return where it belonged.

[nibelungvalesti]

"What are you..." The Valkyrie surged back to coherence in Mars' arms, luckily not quite yet ready to struggle. She was a damnably heavy weight for such a small girl, all solid muscle and armor. One hand reached out blindly, grabbing for the crystal in Usagi's hand and missing wide as it drifted back towards her.

It touched her, passed into her as if she was made of air and dust, and vanished.

Meril curled in on herself as if she'd been struck a vicious blow to her gut. Which she had been; not a physical one, but a very real one nonetheless as thought and memory and clear duty all returned to her, along with the awareness of what she had become, what she had done. A strangled cry forced its way out of her throat as she wrapped her arms around herself, the weight suddenly too much to bear.