middleofsomewhere | Finale: All teams

Finale: All teams

Inside the System

The forest seems endless as the Voidtreckers move through it, soothing the red vines that constrict the trees as they go. But eventually they will start to come together, as though they are being funnelled towards a centre.

The trees end, the forest opening out into a large clearing. Vines carpet the floor and climb up the trees, curving to create a dome of red mesh that blocks out the sky. As everyone gathers in the clearing, vines weave past them to cover the entrances, closing them in. The red light does little to light up the gloomy dome, but as their eyes adjust they will see a huge gnarled and broken tree in the centre. It pulses with the same sickly red glow.

From the gloom creatures emerge, more of the mongoose. These ones are larger, teeth and claws are sharp as they circle the clearing, hissing and snarling.

The tree begins to move, its branches and roots are huge and they swing towards the gathering Voidtreckers with a speed that seems unlikely for their size, roots rise up to try and tangle around limbs.

The vines creating the dome can be soothed, but there are so many of them it will be a lengthy job and the mongooses patrol the edges, attacking anyone who is trying to clear the roots. Often they will give chase to anyone who tries to run, trying to hound them into the path of the tree roots or into the range of the attacking branches.

All the while more vines are growing from the tree, pulsing red strands that spread towards the walls of the dome and beyond.

Outside the System

For those that did not enter the system it has been a long vigil over their unconscious teammates. The sectors still have problems but these seem to lessen: there are fewer emergency alerts in Winter, the walls stop moving in Autumn, all seems calm in Spring and the weather calms in Summer.

But as Day Eleven of the month of Jelly begins there seems to be a shift: the sky darkens, going from the usual clear blue that is has been for days to a dark, burnt red.

The Helpmates have mostly calmed the last few days, but now there are more of them and they will attack on sight. The only place they will not enter is the inner sanctuaries of the Great-Seasons, where the bodies of those who have entered the system still lie.

A few times the ground ominously rumbles and for anyone still in the Spring sector there are certainly a few frightened alpaca-type creatures to calm.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Koumyou's paying more attention to anything coming at Devero than anything coming at himself, so a blast of water takes the creature out mid-leap--

And then that branch takes Koumyou's legs out from behind!

For!

Half a second!

The priest turns that sudden momentum up and back and down into a one-handed flip, landing on his free hand and then back up onto his feet as if there's no gravity here to slow him down. Sword held at the ready to block the next attack.

"You two focus on offense, I'll keep everyone's backs covered," Koumyou says aloud, mostly for Kaiba's benefit. Devero already knows the drill, after fighting their way through to get here together.

If Kaiba had been anticipating one extra-large ice shard from their combined powers experiment, he's going to be disappointed. What happens instead is the water splits into myriad droplets that sting like wind-driven sleet on impact, and then coat the target with an icy crust.

But you know what? That's damn usable. As it turns out, sleet-stunned mongeese are much easier to hit, and ice-bound branches and roots much easier to break. There are much worse ways to push through the central tree's defenses, especially with Koumyou Sanzo ruthlessly dispatching what Devero and Kaiba work in tandem to delay and break.

And then, just like that, they're inside the dangerous reach of the lashing branches. Devero looks from Koumyou to Kaiba, then around at the others who've made it this far. "What now? Do we--?" He extends and arm towards the viral luminescence of the great tree, palm facing the bark.

It's...definitely a little smaller than he hoped, but that's all right. It works! Kaiba can supplement with his own icicles---it's a little draining, but they can go for a one-two punch on a rotation with this.

He glances at Nita trying to reach it, at Cassie's group beating back branches...and with a swing of his stick, decides.

"Keep slowing it down!"

He pumps out freeze after freeze, peppering the tree with icicles when he can. That leaves him vulnerable, but he's gonna grit his teeth and fire until he goes down.

Okay, he just needs to Soothe-

Katsuya is sure focusing on that, even if mongeese are-

"Ahhhh hell, lay off already..!" he snaps, kicking and swinging at a few as he goes back and forth on trying to soothe. "You guys holdin' out over there..!?"

Emporio frowns as he approaches with his group though. "That's actually less reassuring..! Pain is one of the things that tells you when you're too hurt..." But... "AH-" Mongeese! They're at the trunk but- He'll cast a blind, hopefully covering a greater range of assailants to buy them time.

With Yuume however... "Hff...looks like we made it then..." That. Was tiring. But they're not out of the clear either... "...Focus on the tree," she determines, facing the mongeese and watching the branches. "I'll handle your defenses."

Nita touches the tree, she will feel nothing, no connection, her powers far away from her here. A couple of mongeese attack but they are helpfully blinded by Emporio and others are picked off by Yuume

Trunks and Cassie are pretty busy with mongeese, though they should also be wary of the roots trying to tangle around their feet.

Devero and Kaiba's sleet attack has cleared a decent area for them and Devero will find no resistance as he moves to touch the tree, helped by Kaiba and Koumyou's attacks on the tree. Ice shards and water keep the area clear of mongeese though they both have more branches to contend with. Roots and branches whip in, though many are frozen and shattered as quickly as they arrive.

As Jonouchi joins Devero and Nita at the trunk all those fighting will find the illusions flickering. It doesn't start at the trunk but rather around the dome. Vines looking more like wires, mongeese looking more like red blobs. The closer to the trunk they are the more solid the illusion is.

Yugi looked up for a moment nearly tilting his head briefly. he didn't fully understand what was going on, but considering they aren't necessarily in the real world he could at least take a guess.

"It seems like something is going on. Does anyone else notice the flickering?"

Got it!

[Masumi rushes for the trunk, slamming both hands onto the bark in an effort to help soothe it like the vines. She personally would have chosen to help hold off the mongeese and branches, but with the choice out of her hands all she can do is stand there and help soothe.

It’s Yugi’s comment that gets her attention, and she briefly glances towards the edges of the dome before returning her focus to what’s going on around her.]

I saw that, alright! It looks like we’re succeeding at this!

Nita drags her hand along the trunk, starting to make her way towards the others.

Does the effect increase when people are concentrated? More mongeese are frozen, as she walks, over root and under branch.

Rapunzel continues to simply do what thing of dodging and if she can try and get the vines and such to go for her instead of the others.

Sure it wasn't a lot, but it was still something flickering or not.

"The illusion's breaking!"

Kaiba's finally caught up. He's not sure if that's good or bad news, but he continues to pump out ice. If they can just chill the 'tree', that's a good start. He tries to push the vines back while he can, but swinging to bat back the red things is taking up a good amount of his attention.

Curufin has been fighting anything that comes at him or at the others, shooting ice-shards at the mongooses, hitting the roots and branches with the freezing power. He also has his sword, though it isn't in fact a sword but a wooden club. Still, it works well enough to swat away a mongoose, and if that doesn't work, a powerful kick of his boot will serve.

He works with others to help clear a path to the tree's trunk, following Cassie's lead. As he gets nearer the trunk, he looks up at the dome and can intermittently see the vines turning into wires, and when he looks around, the mongooses look like red blobs. "I can see the flickering, too!" he replies to Yugi, Masumi, and Kaiba.

He gets close to Nita, where she stands with her hand on the trunk, and he wonders if the tree is really a giant pipe, or some other mechanistic thing. This virtual world is very weird indeed. "What is it?" he asks her, though she may not be able to answer that question at this moment.

Edited 2021-01-24 20:17 (UTC)

Devero turns his back on the fight entirely. He's leaving himself exposed, sure, but he trusts in Koumyou and now in Kaiba to watch his back for him.

He puts both of his hands on the tree, fingers spreading against the bark. Bark that's not bark-- the tree that's not a tree, he knows it's not a tree. But no matter how personally frustrated he is with the illusions, it's still a system in distress. Its viral influence needs to be purged. This is why they're here, isn't it?

(He hears Koumyou's voice in his head, speculating on the train's motivations for picking up wildly outclassed Devero as one of its heroes. "Maybe it wanted someone who wouldn't choose to kill as a first reaction." Maybe this is why he's here...?)

Closing his eyes, he leans his forehead into the bark as well, and focuses how he'd been able to soothe and dissipate vines out there in the forest. He thinks about antiviral programming in a public system, and about the cells of someone's body swarming in an immune response. He thinks about how many of them are here and how hard they've all been working to contain and mitigate this invasion.

He thinks about blue light. He pictures that magical glow piercing into the sickly red of the tree, expanding and brightening to beat back the infection.

"Get out!" he roars, unaware that he's spoken at all, much less how loudly he just shouted that.

A Sanzo priest is, at the end of the day, a protector.

They protect their sutra from the world, and the world from their sutra.

And Koumyou Sanzo in specific had guarded two sutras for over twenty years. The only Sanzo in history to do so, and for longer than some Sanzos lasted guarding one.

Protection is as natural to him as breathing, and that's what he does now, even though the sutra on his shoulders is only illusory. The katana in his hand is only as real as the pole beneath the image, but that's fine.

It's enough.

Sword in one hand ready to block branches and vines, the other hand free to fire jets of water at the mongeese? red blobs? hostiles. He plants himself between Devero's back and any approaching danger, and gets to work.

Which isn't to say he won't defend anyone else in range, of course. There's plenty of him to go around.

Everyone's feeling up on the tree and Jack can't help but wonder if maybe it has a preference...

...for a handsome AI, perhaps?

He's just gonna lean one hand on the enormous trunk and grin. "Let me in, baby. I'll show you a good time."

Meanwhile, away from Jack and the tree-trunk...

Letting out a huff of annoyance, Trunks moved to focus on freezing those vines trying to trap him and Cassie. Trusting her to keep them mongoose-free.

Cassie is far too occupied to roll her eyes and/or vomit the way she'd like. Instead she'll be putting her stick-staff to good use, using gusts of razor-leaf wind to push the mongeese further away.

Edited 2021-01-25 02:12 (UTC)

Yuume is ultimately feeling a bit more in her element with this particular line of work, and while a stick is a stick not a sword, it's something. Much as the illusions might be faltering, they're still at the trunk though, so this is what she has to work with.

Shields, for those attempting to soothe the system. Bladed leaves, for the mongeese as she keeps her footwork going. "Whatever the flickering is, we need to stay on course! Keep it up!"

Emporio quite agrees with the idea- and as one of the continuing fighters, gives a small cry as he continues on. Blind for the mongeese, followed by fireball- both for them and any errant branches and roots. The flickering is odd, and it feels like something's shifting but...

Right, right, focus-

Back at the trunk, Katsuya is doing his best to do just that. He. Does have to pause when he hears Handsome Jack though. "PFffHfhf...oh man that one's perfect..!"

Yep, the blond is a teen alright. Still! They have to keep cooling this thing off! "Righ'- c'mon tree thing, or whatever y' really are...we got yer back..!"

Mongees and roots keep attacking, trying to wind around the ankles of those near the tree to pull them away, or shoot at those trying to protect the ones touching the tree.

As everyone begins to soothe the tree, red vines slowly untangling and vanishing, there is a ripple, then another.

The the illusion is just gone. Suddenly they are stood in a dome of red wire, one that is being rapidly soothed by those not focussing on the tree. The room they are in is one of pipes and wire, slowly being freed by the choking red wires. Mongeese become unformed red shapes, firing lasers from inside the mass of cloudy chaos.

The tree itself a mess of red wires and a cloud of the same cloudy red substance that make up what were once mongeese. But for those currently with their hand on it, soothing it. There is something more. Something being smothered underneath it all.

Slowly but surely though they are cutting through.

Kaiba gets better at dodging with practice, though even he's disoriented by the complete crumbling of the illusion. The red surrounds them, a color of anger.

What's wrong can be clearly seen. He hesitates, but still feels drawn to push back the vines. He pours what little power he has into freeing the 'tree'.

"Whatever it is...I think it's working." He still tries to pump out ice as he works, but splitting focus is tough.

"Yes!" Devero crows as the illusion just vanishes. "Yes, finally!" He might even have fistpumped were not both his hands occupied.

Now he can really see what's going on. He can see the engulfing, choking cloud of red stuff under his hands. This is it-- this has been their enemy all along. He has no idea what it is, what's controlling it, or why it's doing what it's doing. All he knows is that there's something down inside, under the amorphous miasma. He can feel it. "Kaiba, I think you're right," he calls over his shoulder. He raises his voice so his next words boom and carry. "There's something underneath! We have to reach it!"

And he, for one, isn't going to wait for 'slowly but surely'. He twists his hands from flat against the bark to flat and held perpendicular, his fingers stiff and rigid like his hands are blades.

Now he's imagining a scalpel limned in blue, descending to excise infected flesh. Putting his back and shoulders into it, he tries to slice his hands through the red mass to whatever lies smothered beneath.

Reality shifting and illusions crumbling isn't enough to make Koumyou pause, thankfully.

Koumyou snatches a thick wire from the ground that was trying to reach Devero's feet. Before it can wind around him instead, the priest blasts it away with a water attack that sends it crashing into a few red blobs. They'd been about to fire on someone else on pillar-touching duty. Who? Who cares, they're scattered now.

He's staying good and busy over here, determined to do his best to keep backs covered. The priest spares a single glance over his shoulder after Devero's booming shout, seeing what he's trying to do and smiling, just a little.

And then he's back to it, focusing hard enough for the smile to fade again from his strangely-young, unlined features.

Curufin looks around, surprised but not very. The illusion has vanished. He gazes upwards and sees the dome of vines is now a dome of red wire. Strangely, the wires are still behaving like the vines, allowing themselves to be soothed by those whose touch exudes blue light. The mongooses are still red blobs and are still making a nuisance of themselves with laser fire, but now they are part of the tree canopy. If they fire at those who are grouped around the tree, Curufin hits the blobs with ice shards or freezing energy.

The tree has changed to a mass of red wire and its head is a cloud of the red blob material. Curufin steps up to what was once the tree trunk and lays his hand on it. He doesn't know why he does this, just an intuition. His fingers glow with the blue light, and he murmurs to the tree, "Just be calm and let us free you."

Edited 2021-01-25 07:11 (UTC)

[Masumi looks up in surprise as the illusion drops, leaving her to finally see her true surroundings. Still, she has a job to do, and she keeps her hands on the tree/mass of wires in her efforts to soothe it.]

Everyone stay focused! We're getting closer to fixing this!

[Her call is part relief at slowly resolving the root of the problem, part encouragement to keep going now that they seem to be getting close to fixing what went wrong here.]

Hey. Hey. We're here for you.

It's not a response to Curufin, but Nita does not remove her hand. Shards of ice finally appear - to cut anything that isn't clearly wire, or restrained by it.

"Finally showin' your true colors, huh? Nice," Jack remarks when the illusion drops, his gaze following the choking red wires up to the cloudy mass.

"This is some Eridian level shit..." It reminds him of his vault-hunting days on Elpis.

Jack digs both hands into the wires, trying to pull them apart with brute strength. "C'mon, show me what you got inside!"

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i want to apologize for this tag

Time to break that mood...

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jack omg...

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