WEIRDER STUFF - Rainbow Connection

[Cassandra Allen]

"I'm going," Cassandra replied automatically. "School will still be here tomorrow. Dunno if I can say that for our friends if we don't get out there."

She looks at Clara for a second, then says, "You guys...some of you mentioned having headaches? Was it like a regular headache headache, or was it...a weird head thing that you're just calling a headache?"

[Clara Lys Wright]

"Weird thing. Like someone putting a live wire directly on my brain. Everything since then has been....a little strange, too. I mean, I feel better, but I feel a little different, too. It's....hard to put into words." 

She glanced back down at her phone, then around the group, looking a little nervous. "Uh, one seat now. I'm going to pick up Etienne for this, too." She held up a hand to stave off any immediate objections. "If Cody's gone psycho or we run into more smilodons or people-eating floating starfish, a mercenary would be really useful. Most of us are in good shape, but who here is trained for combat?"

She sent off one last quick text to Etienne. //Where are you? I'll come pick you up. It'll be faster and just a better idea for a lot of reasons.//

[Charlie Cole]

"For me, it was like that life sense had gone overboard." Charlie explained, knowing too it was hard to put into words. "Like I could see the presence of everything, down to bacteria. Like being suffocated in a cloud - visually anyway. Then it all went away and I could see clearly." Etienne was awkward subject but it was Clara's call, so if she was willing to put up with him, Charlie would too. "I'm going too. I'm no good in a fight, but Jason's a friend. Devin and Marissa, well they fall into the 'don't deserve this' category. Autumn definitely doesn't and she's there because Jason shanghaied her. Maybe I can sense the smilodons or starfish monsters coming, be the warning system for you guys."

[Cassandra Allen]

Cassandra made a face. "I have to share the car with that guy? Yugh. Alright, alright..."

She shook her head then. "I had this weird thing happen in class a little while ago. It was like...you know how you look...when you have two mirrors and one's on either side of you? And it makes it look like they're just windows that lead to more yous stretching off and away? It was kind of like that. Only I wasn't really seeing it. I just knew they were there. The classroom I was in...there was just a stack of classrooms, stretching away. And the farther 'away' they got, the more different they got. The reflections got more and more wrong."

With a deep breath, Cassie shrugged. "Hasn't happened again though? So...yay, I guess? Who else is going with Clara and Charlie and me?"

Lona raised her hand, and Clara immediately filled in, "And Lona," in a tone that brooked no argument.

Cassie nodded, "And Lona."

[Coraline Hess]

Cora had let the chaotic flow of conversation flow over her, appetite dead as she processed everything, leaning into Cade and soaking up his physical nearness with dancing fingers. This was happening. They were doing this. Who might be right about whose parents didn't matter right now. Problems to solve. Besides, if they asked, she could truthfully say she ran off into the woods with her boyfriend. How normal was that?

"And me. I've been taking kickboxing lessons at the Center, so I'm less helpless than I was that night. And... Maybe I can blow something else up with me with my... powers?" she let out, sounding less than certain on that last bit before recovering with a nod, on firmer ground, "Besides. It might be Cody. I'm going."

"But, one last thought before I forget it... How do we get Dr. Cook indicted in a way he can't worm out of it? Because it seems to me he's given us our grand finale to take his organization down and free this whole damn city from him on the first day we met him," she wrapped up with a smile, seeing a patch of sunlight amidst the brambles of fear and uncertainty. Their boogeyman had a boogeyman, and one weakness meant others existed. Right?

[Clara Lys Wright]

"He's been bilking the government for almost two decades in a black-ops money. If we can get proof of that, get it to a journalist with a national or international audience, then he'll go down." She frowned, "But we'll all get exposed, too." 

She rubbed her temple, shoving the uneaten fruit she'd grabbed from the cafeteria back into her backpack. "Other than that, I don't really know. Maybe expose him to the people of Shelly? Or at least his whole surveillance network? That's incredibly illegal and just..." She shuddered. "Just gross. But there's people here that do know that something shady is going on. There were three cars that pulled up at Etienne's. I can't imagine he's doing all the surveillance work, maintenance, and medical studies himself. Our parents might not be involved, but there are people in Shelly outside of him and Etienne that certainly must be. We're not going to have to just out do Cook - we'll have to be able to get what need done around all of them too." 

[Cassandra Allen]

Cassandra facefaulted. "SEAN!" she blurted and shoved her phone in his face.

"You know tech stuff. I literally recorded his confession, but it's all messed up. Can you fix it??"

[Marissa Jauntsen]

"Something's not right," Devin said quietly.  "It's wrong, it's all..."

"...backwards."  Autumn said in a matching tone.

"Yeah, like... a dark mirror of our world where hopes and dreams and Jason's chances with my sister go to die."

"First, fuck you, toad," Marissa whispered, and punched him.  "Second, shut up... I heard something..." She cautiously looked around at the palatable misery and practically taste the sadness and gloom.  She narrowed her eyes at her brother and punched him again.  "Asshole, you know I don't date."

With an awkward smile Devin rubbed his arm.  It wasn't the time or place for camaraderie, but they all needed something to help calm their nerves.  "Emjay," he whispered.  "I don't sense anything.  There shift in the air at all... if something was out there I'd sense it as an obstruction, something to avoided, I got nothing."

"Shh," she raised a finger to quiet her brother and made a horror movie mistake... she took a few steps away from the group so she could hear better.  "There... it is again... what... what *is* that?"

[WS ST]

The Woods, Elsewhere

Then they all heard it, a low sound like a cross between a gargle and a croak. it lasted several seconds and sounded... wet. Then there was a loud Thunk! nearby, and as one they spun and Autunm screamed but cut it off by putting her hands over mouth. Not three feet away from her a large teddy bear just like the one she had won at the fair shooting the milk bottles a month ago, but worn, used, filthy, was nailed to a tree a railroad spike through it's head and what looked like blood dripping from the wound.

It hadn't been there a moment ago.

Spoiler

Devins senses did not pick up any thing although now he does register the bear nailed to the tree.

 

[Lilly Pryor]

Lilly felt the pit in her stomach at the sight of the reply-from-nobody text Lona received. A multitude of thought raced through her head, and none of them were good. Whatever was happening it seemed to defy normal explanation, and left with a palpable sense of danger and dread. She was not going to leave her friends, or even those who did not want to be her friends, out in whatever was happening.

As the other spoke a part of Lilly listened, taking what was said, while the rest of her mind was brought to focus. Those who knew her well were quite aware of her near unparalleled discipline and determination, especially for a girl her age. One to not reach the level of athleticism that she did, for instance, without it.

"I can fight, and shoot too. I go hunting and camping with my dad, so I know some woodcraft too, and he is head of security for the base and he made sure I could take care of myself, in addition to me being on the wrestling. team. And if I have some sort of precognition spider-sense like the Doctor said, then all the better." Lilly said flatly. There was no bragging nor even any joy in her voice. Instead it and her usual soft, relaxed smile were replaced by pure focus.

"I doubt Couch Meyers is willing to bench his start QB for the first game of the season over this, nor do the teachers probably want that after I led the team to their first winning season last year. Besides, they know me better than that. I never miss practice or cut, so they know it would have to be with good reason. And it is just the second day of class. Most of it is still rules and syllabus-es and stuff." she said in a simple, matter of fact tone without a hint of arrogance of boasting.

"If somebody does not want to go though, that is totally cool too. There is not pressure here and we might not all be cut out for this, so there is no judgement here. If you think it best you stay, then stay. Maybe you can help cover for us or something." she added as she stowed her water bottle in her backpack.

"There is no way in hell I am gonna sit by and let you go running around the woods with that... mercenary..." she left out other, more colorful descriptors for Etienne, "...after that 'face the tree' text. He still has a long way to go before he earns my trust, if ever. Who knows what he might try in a secluded spot like that. You do not need to be black bagged or something. We are in this together." she explained, looking to Clara.

"So I got space in my truck if we need it, though it might not be a bad idea if I could leave it in the parking lot. Either way. I'm down to go. We can't get a hole of our friends, so it looks like we're the cavalry."

[Cade]

"We can all fit in two cars easy enough, just take Clara's car and my Jeep.  Besides, we fit more people in my jeep than 5 the other night at the party anyway."  Cade said quietly.  "That would let Lilly leave her truck here, and probably help rouse fewer suspicions."  He saw her line of thought that if all their vehicles were gone, someone would notice, and definitely raise questions.

 

[Sean Cassidy]

Tool Shed, Shelly High School

Quote

Cassandra facefaulted. "SEAN!" she blurted and shoved her phone in his face.

"You know tech stuff. I literally recorded his confession, but it's all messed up. Can you fix it??"

"Yes. I mean, probably," Sean asserted, leaning back and pushing Cassandra's phone out of his face as he tried to finish his apple. He did plenty of sound editing and sound mixing for his D&D Campaign and the video games he worked on. "Maybe. Depends on what's messing with the audio and how." Sean quickly munched his golden delicious apple down to the core and stored the core in the ziplock bag his sandwich had been in. "I'll need to check the file at home using some more robust programs than I have on my tablet or laptop."

Sean zipped up his cooler bag, leaving the rest of his lunch to snack on during the day, and the regarded the rest of the group. "But maybe we should focus on Jase and the others more right now, rather than how to burn Dr. Cook... or if we should."

There were grumbles and the beginnings of objections, but Sean continued over them. "Yes, the surveillance is illegal and creepy - now that we know of it - but other than the stuff with Eddy - which I'm not downplaying, yet it seems we're gonna get help from him now - has Dr. Cook done anything that has negatively impacted us, or the town? Okay, admittedly, that we know of? Maybe I was a pet project for him," Sean admitted, giving Lona a sulky scowl from under a lock of bright gold and red hair, "but he really did help me. Yes, I'm all kinds of screwed up, but without him, I could have easily been all kinds of worse... well, if he hasn't caused my issues in the first place," he muttered under his breath.

"He - through back channels and black ops money - has provided our small town a top notch medical facility and education system, and Shelly has largely avoided major economic downturns other rural communities have suffered. And he'll never be busted for misappropriated funds - first, the government would have to admit where the money for the operation came from, and where it went, but then we would have to prove he did misuse them, in regards to what he was allowed to do in regards to the operation. Someone sanctioned how he was using them in the first place, and then never stopped him or even looked into what he was doing. Projects like this tend to gather their own momentum, and in these cases, silence equal consent. Someone else would have to admit they screwed up, and that won't happen. You just have to look at all the waste in military spending to see that.

And, he has offered to help. Yes, some, most of it, is for his own self-interest, but you said he was expecting maybe only one person to develop active psionic potential, let alone a dozen of us. But he never said we were the first. Maybe there have been others before, maybe we don't have to learn about all of this on our own, in a vacuum. Maybe with all the surveillance, he can help with locating Cody. He didn't seem to care much about him, but he might if he knows we want to find him. And does he know about the Dark and the other strange going-ons in Shelly, considering how long he's been operating here? He might be able to help with that too, of if he doesn't know, he might be able to after we bring it to his attention."

Sean took a deep breath, his turquoise and jade eyes intense and vibrant, and straightened his shoulders. "I don't see the matter as black and white as some of you seem to - and yes, some of that is definitely bias -  but I think there should be some more debate on the issue of Dr. Cook before we decide how to proceed, even if we don't ultimately agree. What we do all seem to agree on is seeing what's going on with Jase, Autumn, and the Jauntsens, so let's do that."

He nodded at Lilly. "I might not be as balls to the walls in a fight you like and some of the others, Lilly, but most of us seem to developing otherworldly senses of one kind or another." He nodded at Sara. "She caught hints of the Dark in the minds of others." His eyes went to Charlie and Lona, "You guys seem able to sense life force and health, the Dark might cause a physiological change. Someone or something sent that message to your phone, Lona, I might be able to pick up a similar transmission again, and figure out the source or its origins. Or even just pick up traces of the Jautsens' phones if this turns into a search if it's not something mundane, like, they're just in the trailer and turned on the Faraday Cage for some reason, so I'm going with you all too."

Sean dug around in his satchel, then handed Cassandra a dual USB flashdrive. "Here, put the file on this, and I'll work on clearing up the audio when I can. Oh, yeah, the fireflies were dancing around like crazy during phys ed, which made dodgeball super fun, I tell you. But then, it seemed like I could understand them, and understanding them, they stopped being a distraction, along with all the other spectra of electromagnetic frequencies in the air. It's kinda like a neon rainbow just out of sight, where I can pull out a colour to act like a filter or AR overlay. Still feel kinda odd, but it's a lot better now than it was."

Leaning against the shed, Sara folded her thickly muscled arms, stretching the cuffs of her sleeves near to bursting. "I'm in too."

"And me!" Laurie added, but Sean shook his head.

"Not you, sorry, Laurie," Sean countered firmly. "The vehicles are about full, and age has seniority." He didn't want to mention that they all brought something unique or a particular set of skills to the table, except her. Spunk was admirable, and Laurie had a surfeit of it, but right now, it would probably get her, and maybe the rest of them, into more danger. "Besides, they might cut Lilly some leeway, but they won't for you, not yet, and you don't want to miss your first game, do you?"

Laurie's face scrunched up dubiously, but she really didn't want to get benched, or sit out entirely her first time on the football field during an official game. "Nooo..."

"Besides, we should have someone here, to keep tabs on what is going on, and maybe to give us a bit of cover, if it won't get her in trouble."

"Gah! Fine! I'll do it, but you guys owe me!" Laurie consented in annoyance.

[Autumn Keane]

Elsewhere.

WhatthefuckwhatthefuckwhattheFUCKWHATTHEFUCK

The words sped through Autumn's mind in a rapid-fire mantra to ward off madness and evil, the breathless speed of their repetition keeping pace with the terrified pounding of her heart. This is not happening. This is not happening. Not. Fucking. Happening. Was there an upper limit on how many things couldn't happen in a day? A maximum threshold for impossibility?

The white of her knuckles as she tried to physically press her lips into silence, and the irregular, arrhythmic hitching of her chest were clear indicators of exactly how not-okay the redhead was doing. No matter how brave a face she was struggling to put on, Autumn was staring over the edge of a precipice into an abyss filled with nightmares. 

"That's mine," she whispered hoarsely, utter horror draining the color from her face. "At the fair. I won that. How...?" She couldn't bring herself to finish asking the question to which there could be no good answer. Despite her terror, there arose in the back of her mind a terrible need to know.

Was that blood? Why...? Why was it bleeding?

Her whole body trembled, shivering like a leaf at November's frosty embrace, and she took a slow, somnolent step forward, her eyes wide and fixed on the awful thing that had appeared from nowhere. It was meant for her, a threat or warning, and she couldn't ignore it. Dimly, her mind registered that, beyond, the trailer was reversed, as if flipped left-to-right in a grim reflection, a mirror that should not be.

[Lilly Pryor]

"A cage is still a cage, however gilded it may be." Lilly said simply as she slung her back over her shoulder.

"He's manipulated generations of our families to produce us, and I'm sure he did some not-so-great stuff to get people to move back here too, be removing their ties to elsewhere through various means, fucking with their lives, careers, loved ones, goals or whatever. He ran a clandestine, unethical and illegal as fuck eugenics, that's the word, right? Yeah. ..eugenics experiment... on American soil... and on American citizens. He hired a mercenary to honeypot a minor! Sorry, but a 'my bad' does not cut it. And I am sure there is a lot of other shit we don't even know yet.

Just because he is acting like he is playing nice now does not mean a thing. He wants to study us and likely make more too. My guess is that he's only playing nice-nice because we discovered him and it is the best play he has right now, either until he gets certain resources or assets or whatever." Lilly explained flatly, though gradually she was getting more animated as her own anger grew.

"And so you know, HIS little experiment has ruined-" Lilly bit her tongue and closed her eyes tightly, gritting her teeth for a moment, catching herself, and instead changed thoughts, though there was clearly something she was holding back.

"Everything he has done here, for decades, as been with an ulterior movie. He did not put in the medical center o school to be nice. it was all for his experiment. He was here to help you, because you were part of his experiment. He is not our friend, not matter how friendly he may be acting. So as it is now he is a hell of a long way from having, at least my, trust." she said firmly.

Having said what she just had did make it feel like a ever so slight weight had been lifted from her shoulders, and she used that small bit of relief to try to gather herself up again. Lilly took in a long breath and let it out as a sigh as her demeanor relaxed. She opened her eyes and looked at Sean with a small frown.

"Look. I wasn't trying to.. I dunno.. bash you. It's just.. Like you said, you are a bit biased. I am sure we all are in our own way now. But we can talk all about this later. Right now our priority is helping out friends.

And you don't need to be good in a fight, dude. We all contribute in our own way and take up each other's sack. I don't have any mind powers to really help, even if what The Doctor said is true about me seeing just a little bit into the future, but most of you do have some gift like that that, where as I... I can run fast and punch stuff. Together we are greater than the sum of our parts. So anybody who's going, let's go and see if we can't work together and bail out our friends and maybe find or stop Cody too." she said with the faintest hint of a smile as she tried to encourage.

[Bannon]

Elsewhere.

Marissa was white as a sheet, her lips in a thin line and her dark eyes wide as they fixed on the creepy artifact pinned to the twisted dark bark of the mockery of a tree.  Devin was looking all around, wild-eyed, having not felt the bleeding toy's presence in his spatial sense until it had suddenly just appeared on the tree.  Autumn took another sleepwalker's step towards the grim display, pupils pin-pricks of darkness in the rich sea-green of her eyes staring from a livid face, it's pallor accentuated by her amber freckles and red hair, when she felt a gentle hand on her shoulder.  She flinched hard, letting out a stifled yelp as the touch woke her from her state of dazed shock.

The contact grounded her, gave her something to focus on, an additional sensory input to contrast to the creeping terror of what her eyes were telling her.  The restraint was firm but gentle, tugging her back a little even as the spare figure of Jason Effing Bannon moved past her so close that she could smell the faintest whiff of tobacco smoke over the sickly-sweet stench of this... wherever they were.  He stood before the tree with the bear nailed to it, leaning forward to inspect it as though it were a rare flower - though admittedly with a faint wrinkling of distaste on his features.  The lanky, odd teen radiated curiousity, cold unflappability, a self-possession itself almost as alien as the mirror-realm woods they found themselves in, yet somehow more real.

Pale eyes studied the dirty, mangy object and the rusty spike through it, his head tilting this way and that.  A finger came up and touched the sticky dark blood oozing from the wound, then brought it to his nose.  He sniffed, once, then made a face and wiped his finger off on his combat pants.

"Real blood, I think.  Smell sickly and burned like everything else here."  he reported to the others, his eyes still on the creep-show as he stepped back to stand beside Autumn.  He'd not felt any kinetic activity.  The bear had not been there, then had been there in between heartbeats.  He looked around their surroundings, his eyes glittering slits of focused annoyance.

"But... It looks just like a b-bear I won.  Shooting milk bottles."  Autumn managed, her manner still shaken but more under control.

"It does.  But it's probably not the actual bear."  Jase said calmly.  "Someone knows about that bear, calculated that to have an effect.  We are being toyed with."  The last sentence was said with an undercurrent of cold fury.  "Someone is playing in our heads, using tricks to unbalance us."

"But it's real.  You said the blood was..."  Marissa started.

"Yes.  We're in a reflection of our world, a place where the physical laws are under someone - or something else's control.  It wants fear, terror, mindless rage, madness.  And here, it can use tricks to get them."

"Oh hell to the naw."  Devin shook his head.  "Don't tell me we're-"

"The Land of Upside-Down Thunder."  Jason said, anger causing his eyes to gleam as he scanned the forest.  "I think this is where the Dark lives."

[WS ST]

Shelly High School

Student Parking Lot

 

The kids moved as quickly as they could to the parking lot and started dividing themselves into groups for the cars as Clara pulled her key fob and unlocked her car with one hand while she texxxted Etienne with the other. //Where Are you??? coming to pick you up,//

Just then a screech of tries caused all of them to look toward the lot entrance and see a giant behemoth of a truck bearing down on them.

 

Clara stood open mouthed as it stopped next o her and the window rolled down and Etienne looked out, “I'm right here, “ he said a smug smile on his face but eyes that radiated genuine concern, “We thought that considering where you want to go this might be better suited in case we run into a cat.” He looks around at the gather teens. “Plus this has room for every one and a few other things. Hop in the doors are unlocked.”

“what if some one saw this... thing,” Clara stammer?

“Don't worry the Doctor will take care of your absences, he is going to tell them you are all on an excursion sponsored by the hospital. We should go ? Yes?”

The Kids looked at each other then Sean grabbed a door handle and pulled the heavy door open, “I'm calling shotgun!”

The rest of the kids piled into the spacious swat vehicle.

 

Elsewhere

 

"The Land of Upside-Down Thunder."  Jason said, anger causing his eyes to gleam as he scanned the forest.  "I think this is where the Dark lives."

The world rumbled they felt it through their boots and into their bones...

“Jason, “hissed Marissa, “don't say that again.”

Devin had stepped away and turned his back to the group and slow made his way around them in a semi circle staying between them and … something.

“Guys, we are not alone. There is something moving out there, but ,” Devin swallows his throat and mouth suddenly bone dry, “I can't see it, sense it only when something it touches moves.”

 

The Camp in the Woods

 

Etienne drove fast but not as fast as everyone would have liked but he explained this thing was heavy and not good at much past 50 mph. Still they made good time especially when the got out in the boon docks and her forgo the road and went cross country through the fields. In short order they were at the bridges where they crossed using the railroad bridge instead of the other. Etienne explained again that it was the weight.

At the camp they found Jason's and the twins cars and motorcycle, they checked them out and found nothing amiss. A test with phones didn't garner any results either so after Etienne handed out packs with first aid, food and water to everyone and armed himself with a shotgun, the group set off for the Trailer. The way was much easier in the day and they made good time. It was Cass who made the first discovery about ten yards from the wall of trees hiding the trailer.

As she walked by a tree she saw a teddy bear nailed to a tree with a rail road spike. She knew that it hadn't been there before because this was the tree by where they had encountered Captain Cooper and the other thing. “Guys?”

Spoiler

the phone test was the teens texting and calling the missing there was no response but your phones are working. There is no blood dripping from this bear

 

[Jaunt]

Devin looked about mildly frantic as the thought of something be out there disturbed him greatly.  He tried to get a grip, to calm his self and focus on the moment.  He closed his eyes and listened to the world, bleak and dead as it may have been, and waited for the world to talk back...

The Upside-Down and Right-Side Up were just two sides of the same coin.  The teens moved through the woods with Eddy and as they moved, figments and worries, and fear and despair moved opposite them, ghosts of Devin and Marissa, Jason and Autumn... all of them were there standing in the same place, on the same coin... on different sides.

Lona hung back as everyone inspected the bear.  She was edgy around, wanted to keep an eye on him.  "..uys... n..t...alo..."  It was a soft echo, a faint resonance in her mind but it wasn't telepathy. "...can't see it..." The voice... it was Devin!  It was faint like he was... trapped in a deep well or dark hole.

Devin concentrated and the psychics near him felt a pulse.  Like an event horizon from his mind... his noetic signature expanded and the entirety of the area mapped itself for him... he could detect living beings, but... when large things were moving swifty at you... whether it was alive became a non issue, you just got the hell out of the way.

"D-Devin?!  Devin!  I hear him!" Lona shouted to the others.

Standing in her exact spot, by simple chance, Devin's spatial awareness made all points zero and she could faintly hear him as her body overlapped his spirit in the Elsewhere.

Devin's eyes opened suddenly and he looked off past Jason and Autumn.  Fear was pushed aside to make room for urgency and self-preservation.  Something was coming.

The last thing Lona heard, loud and strong through the conduit froze her blood.  Devin screamed a warning...

"Something's...," he paused momentarily.  "RUUUUN!  Marissa!  Go!  Go!  What the f-"

The silence for Lona, despite all the chattering around the bear at the tree, was deafening...

 

[WS ST]

Elsewhere

Marissa didn't hesitate she spun grabbed Autumn's arm and ran away from her brother at an angle that would eventually take them to the camp and the cars. She just prayed thatthe cars were there even if they didnt run they could hide in them. She hoped. Autunm felt the grab and almost fell but some how stumbled along and into a run "We should help..."

Marissa , cut her off. "They have powers we don't"

The girls ran

It came out of the woods and Jason and Devin couldn't even see it until it was in mid leap. It was the size of the saber tooth but it was no cat.

Spoiler

the... things hide is wet and oily looking and reflective which gives it a sort of camouflage. it does not appear to have any eyes. the spins on it's back are constantly moving and vibrating. and it stinks like 5 day old fish stew left on the stove top. it si reletivly fast but not supernaturally so about as fast as a big dog maybe. If Vivi wishes Autumn to stop she can  just pull away from mari if you want in on the action

 

[Coraline Hess]

The Camp in the Woods

One, being picked up in a Humvee by the Evil Cold War conspiracy and told that it was all okay was setting all kinds of alarms in Cora's head. Lilly was right. This whole conspiracy thing needed to be burned as soon as possible. Besides adding known as psychic to the mix couldn't hurt her chances for school any more than having a madman plotting to *breed her with someone like a prize dog* really could at the end of the day. Hopefully. It made her shudder to think.  

Two, whoever had nailed a teddy bear to a tree had seen way too many horror movies. If that thing started moving or making noises, someone better have a lighter or else she was going to try to kill it with fire even more as soon as possible.

Three, with one eye on the surrounding trees for potential crazy serial killers, she was hearing things. Well, not *things*, Devin, or something that sounded like a bad recording of Devin played underwater during a concert. It didn't sound like a happy Devin, whatever he was saying. Dark eyes shifting around the trees, Coraline sucked in a breath and exhaled, forcing herself to remain calm. "Yeah, I heard him, too," she answered the musician, "Didn't sound good. Anyone got an eye on the trailer yet? Is it still there?"

 

[z-Avalon Wilson]

“Shit, shit!” Lona pulled out her phone, pulled up the weird message and typed in the reply: //I broke the rules. Tensely, she waited for something to respond, or for Cody to shamble out of the trees and drag her away to the Tree and hopefully the others. Her thought process wasn’t clear beyond “find them and help”, but she didn’t have to test her lack of planning. Nothing happened.

When Cora mentioned the trailer, Lona ran for it. If the others were here but just Elsewhere, then the trailer was the closest shelter. stopping at the edge of the big wall of trees, she glanced through at the creepy building, not sure what she expected to see -- tentacled monsters, dinosaurs, or other unimaginable creatures were all possible as far as she was concerned. Everything looked normal, except the door was hanging open. “It’s still here, guys, they’ve been here!” 

 

[Bannon]

Elsewhere.

He heard Devin's shout to run.  Heard Marissa gasp as he turned, saw her grasping Autumn and running southwards, presumably to the cars.  The beast was a twisted mockery of life -  vestigial limbs along it's spine and flanks flailing along with it's tail, skin slick and wet-looking, its fetid lamprey maw open wide as it bounded forward towards Devin and Jase and leaped for the kill.  Autumn looked back as Marissa tugged her away, her own adrenaline surge teetering between terror and fury, then looked forwards again as she realised the goddamn Princess was going the wrong way, bearing right when she should be bearing left.  She was just about to say so when the gloom of the forest lit up behind them, casting stark shadows on the blackened landscape.

Devin yelled and dived to the side as the creature pounced, it's lashing tail catching the wiry teen across the shoulders and turning what should have been a neat tuck-and-roll into a sprawl at the foot of a tree.  It landed between him and Jase, the insanity that was it's head turning towards the fallen Devin in predatory instinct, maw opening wide once more.  It's shriek was a gargling, glottal sound as the flower-like fleshy petals, lined with teeth, gaped wide enough to take in a man's head and shoulders.

Jase felt something then.  Under the tension, under the adrenaline, under the urge to fight or run, under the crystalline isolated fastness of his rational mind, something elemental that had previously only stirred came roaring to  terrible life.  Devin was his friend.  Marissa was his friend.  'Love' was not something he experienced, not like others.  But he cared for that which he saw as 'His'.  The Jauntsens were his.  Even Autumn was tangentially his. He had brought them to this place and they were not.

Going.

To.

Die.

The dark forest lit up with a flash of flame so hot it was almost white, the heat of it like the door of a blast furnace being opened even from where Devin lay several metres distant.  Jason let out a scream of fury that sounded like nothing human as the flame coruscated into being around his upraised hand and then, with a flick of his wrist, smote the aberration of natural order square in the flank.  The flame engulfed it, searing off leathery hide, withering the grasping vestigial twisted limbs, sending it screaming, rolling away from pain unlike anything it had experienced.

He stepped forward, hair lifting from the thermal updrafts as the air around him started to shimmer, pale eyes bright balefires of rage as he stared at the thing with a feral grin pulling back his lips from his teeth, laughter bubbling in his voice as he spoke.

"Get away from them, or this pain is just the start."

Spoiler

Beastie has  lost 2 armor, is suffering a +2 complication (from pain, probably) and has taken 3 injury levels.

Fwoosh.

 

[Clara Lys Wright]

The Right-Side-Up: The Trailer

Clara was quiet on the ride out. She'd sat behind Etienne, mentally joking to herself - sort of - that this way no one could knife her....complication...in the back and get them all killed in an armored landboat accident. It was a tense ride - half from the others staring daggers at the driver's back and the other half from worry over friends, monsters, classmates, and where they might all overlap. Getting out of the car was a relief. The bear wiped that little bit of relief away. That was just creepy and made her stomach flip-flop unpleasantly.

After Cora's question about the trailer, Clara asked Sean, "Yeah, do you think you can figure out what's up with it now? I mean, what podunk trailer needs an atomic generator? A solar cell or three and a good battery would have been more than enough energy. I mean, ignoring how it got one in the first place."

Like Cora and Lona, she heard....something. A few consonants and vowels, all mixed up and in Devin's voice, but nothing she could make sense of. She frowned, keeping her distance from the bear and hurrying after Lona. "Maybe it's giving off echos of the past? Like the smilodon and then something Devin said here earlier? That makes marginally more sense than anything else I've heard so far."

[Lilly Pryor]

The Right-Side-Up:
Wall Of Trees & Impaled Teddy Bear Tree

 

Lilly was not thrilled about the idea of them all piling into what seemed almost like a rolling cell, but it did seem rather rugged and who knew what they may encounter, so she stuffed her objection deep down, like she had done with some thing she almost said in the tool shed, and climbed in and took a seat next to Lona.

"Hey. This might sound odd, but... would you braid my hair?" she asked Lona somewhat softly so as to not draw attention.

"What?" Lona asked, giving Lilly a look like she had just grown another head. "This is not pajama party time, Lilly." she said, mildly irritated at the request.

"Dude. I know. It's not for that." Lilly sighed.

"We don't know what is out there and I want to be prepared. A pony or a bun comes out too easily. But if you braid it, then it can be kept up and out of the way and is not an easy target for grabbing. Cornrows would be ideal, but we don't have time time." Lilly said as she undid her simple pony and let her long, straight, black hair down and shook it out, determined to do it herself if she had to.

"Okay." Lona said and turned in her seat to face Lilly, who in turn smiled and turned her back to Lona, presenting her friend her hair. The fact that it was kind of busy work for her friend was also not a bad thing. They were all anxious and concerned for their friends, and the lest time spent getting worked up the better.

"If I had it my way, I'd prolly cut most of it off, but my mother would have a conniption." she said, trying to ease the tension with talk about more mundane things...

As they made their way to the trailer, Lilly stuck close to the others. Though she knew she could be to the trailer in a fraction of the time, she had no idea what was happening or might be waiting for them so she kept her head on a swivel as they moved, looking, listening and even smelling.

Once they drew near the wall of trees concealing the trailer, and found the impaled teddy bear, Lilly became even more alert. 

3 hours ago, Jaunt said:

"D-Devin?!  Devin!  I hear him!" Lona shouted to the others.

The last thing Lona heard, loud and strong through the conduit froze her blood.  Devin screamed a warning...

The silence for Lona, despite all the chattering around the bear at the tree, was deafening...

"What?" Lilly asked in surprise and then cupped her hands around her mouth and called to her friends as she faced different directions.

Then her eyes were draw to the impaled teddy bear again. She blinked as a flood of realities hit her, staggering her down to one knee, holding her hands out as if to catch herself were she to fall.

"Lilly? What's wrong? Are you okay?" Sara asked, but Lilly hardly registered the questions.

The visions came so fast that she could not consciously process the sheer volume of them, but somewhere in the back of her head she got an abstract impression from them, and it was not good. She could not exactly put a finger on it, but she kept being drawn back to the bear. Was it some sort of voodoo talisman? Cody or somebody or some*thing* marking territory? she had no clue, but she knew she couldn't just let it be.

Lilly rose, shaking her head, trying to blink the visions away and staggered toward the tree.

"The bear spiked bear. It.. I'm not sure how I know... but it has to go..." she somehow got out as she reached the tree and looked up at the bear. She reached up, grasping the spike, and with a forceful grunt of effort and the flexing of her arms, she pulled the spike from the tree, letting the bear fall to the ground.

Suddenly the visions stopped.

 

Spoiler

Spending 2 Inspiration as discussed with Nina.

 

[Cassandra Allen]

Cassandra had already started reaching for the bear's spike as if in a daze, but Lilly had a great deal more speed and purpose. Cass stood back to let her work, knowing that she herself probably wouldn't have been able to get it free.

When the bear fell, she stooped to pick it up.

"The others are going to the trailer," she said. "Lets go."

She clapped Lilly on the shoulder and started off through the woods, following Lona and Clare.

"So did you actually hear voices?" Cass asked as they went.

[Sean Cassidy]

The Right-Side-Up: Wall Of Trees & Impaled Teddy Bear Tree

3 hours ago, Clara Lys Wright said:

After Cora's question about the trailer, Clara asked Sean, "Yeah, do you think you can figure out what's up with it now? I mean, what podunk trailer needs an atomic generator? A solar cell or three and a good battery would have been more than enough energy. I mean, ignoring how it got one in the first place."

"I'll see. At least I should be able to trace the power flow and see if the Gennie is powering something else, and maybe get a better sense of how it even bloody works," Sean said, watching the ground ahead and being careful not to trip, his hands holding the straps of the backpack Etienne had provided them all, as he kept up with the taller girl. "Setting aside how impossible the damned generator should be, it still seems overkill for powering a Faraday cage and weird radio. Maybe it used to power some other peripherals that are gone now, moved or stolen."

Puzzling over the atomic generator and weird radio, he gave Lona, Clara, and Cass an odd look when they mentioned voices and Devin, then looked around the woods, which were far from ominous under the bright light of just past noon. His heart rate increased. He didn't hear anything like they apparently did, or see anything untoward...

... except for the Teddy Bear spiked to the tree, a teddy bear that had been a prize at the Four County Fair this summer. It seemed to offend Lilly personally, who staggered towards it and pulled the spike free.

"Maybe someone is using the bear to mark territory or scare off interlopers... like us, I suppose," Sean mused uncertainly. "I'll check the cameras, but Jase should have done that already." Hmm, Sean looked towards where they had concealed the cameras. They had set them to record, but disabled the wifi connectivity, so they had to check the memory manually. Still, with his new senses and a better concept on how they worked, he thought he might be able to read their memory remotely... He concentrated as he approached the wall of trees screening the trailer, peering towards where the cameras should have been, looking for roosting fireflies of electronic information, or even indications of the Jauntsens' smartphones. Maybe he could tap into the cameras or speakers of their phones, to locate and communicate with them.

"No voices for me. My psionic sense seems to be attuned to different phenomena or frequencies," Sean replied to Cass as his turquoise and jade gaze flitted about.

Spoiler

If Sean needs to roll something, or if there's anything for him to 'see', I'll add in later if so directed.

 

[Autumn Keane]

Elsewhere.

Everything Autumn was thinking about, everything she was attempting to process and analyze, all the words and what-the-fucks disappeared as soon as the thing leaped from the sepulchral trees. They were distilled, instead, into impulses, impressions, and emotions, a turbulent storm of primal imperatives like fear and rage that demanded action. A choice. Fight? Or Flight?

Marissa tugged on her arm, all but dragging the redhead as they stumbled/ran for Schrödinger's car, and there was nothing in her mind but the tangible thud of her heartbeat in the suddenly too-tight cage of her ribs, the sound of their panicked footsteps tearing through strangely soft earth and withered underbrush, and flashes of bluish light through the skeletal remains of the forest. Her internal compass recoiled at the wrongness of it, and without thinking Autumn seized the hand clasping hers and veered in the opposite direction, toward where the mirror of the camp and the trail would be. She turned. Looked back. Nothing pursued them, and the others didn't follow, but then-

Light. Brilliant, coruscating light that, for a moment, wiped away the perpetual twilight of the nightmare world. Marissa stumbled in the loamy, cloyingly-sweet dirt as their forward momentum stopped suddenly, and she was about to protest at the indignity and stupidity until she saw her companion's face. It was like staring at a bow drawn taut, string quivering in readiness to loose a fatal arrow, so intent was Autumn's expression as she stared back the way they'd come. Just as quickly, the spoiled socialite was yanked forward again, continuing on course toward the potential safety of the vehicles. There was nothing to be done but try to keep up, because the only girl scout she knew wasn't giving her the option of falling behind.

By the time they reached the border of the ruined logging camp, Marissa had had enough. "There," she gasped, tugging her arm free. The leggy brunette staggered, panting heavily and flailed a half-limp, beautifully manicured hand vaguely in the direction they were headed. "The cars," she managed in between labored breaths, and, exhausted though she was, it took only a few precious moments before the two girls were standing next to Devin's expensive deathwish on wheels, Marissa's ostentatious sweet 16 present, and a vehicular model of Jase's burgeoning masculinity.

Or, three vehicles that demonstrated what theirs would look like after a few decades exposed to the weather. Everything was rusted and caked in grime, faded into pale shadows of their Rightside counterparts; the prettier Jauntsen twin hoped they were sturdier than they looked.

Without pausing more than a moment to assess the situation, Autumn tugged at the rusted latch on the Charger's passenger door. It resisted several sharp pulls, and with a grunt of effort she grabbed the handle, throwing all her weight backwards. With a squeal of angry protest, it swung abruptly open, sending her sprawling into the burnt-sugar earth.

"Oh, holy shit, finally!" As the redhead scrambled to her feet, Marissa slid over into the driver's seat, leaning back with a relieved sigh. Whatever that thing was, they were definitely safer in the car. "Hey," she began, trying for the casual tone her brother affected as the door clicked shut. Turning, she blinked. Autumn was standing outside the car, not sitting next to her. She was wearing that same intense expression as before, energy coiled in a fleeting moment of stillness before its inevitable, inexorable release. "Hey," she began again, a note of protest rising in her voice. "No fucking around, seriously, come on-"

But the other girl was standing still staring at something behind the car.

Spoiler

Autumn is sprinting back toward Devin and Jase. Even if she's not likely to make it in time, she's angry and scared and going for it anyway. Will edit as needed, according to the will of the ST.

 

[WS ST]

RIGHTSIDEFLIPSIDE

IN THE WOODS

 

The spike felt heavy in Lilly's hand her head still abuzz, the light wasn't right. She felt heat and smelled burnt sugar. All of her movements were in slow-motion as if she were moving through molasses. She turned toward the heat, but her eyes were still on the teddy bear but it looked different old deteriorated and bleeding from where the spike had been. Wait that can't be right...

 

The world flipped and flipped again

 

Jason for the first time since his abilities started felt pain, He grabbed for another fwoosh and a sharp spike of agony pierced his head between his eyes doubling his vision as the second flame grew, blood, his blood tricked from his left nostril. The thing spun about as if chasing the fire on its back only to reorient itself upon realizing that Devin was near enough to devour. It lunged only Devin wasn't there Devin was on all fours behind Jason looking up at Lilly who was watching the bear implode into a miasmic cloud of black entropy...

 

Etienne had started after the girls when the flip happened and found himself staring at a... a thing only a few yards away. A burning thing with a horror movie mouth that saw him without eyes. It lunged. Etienne froze in terror shotgun forgotten in his hands. Something hit him from the side and grabbed the shotgun from his hands as he flew out of the things path.

Cade side stepped the monster and chambered a shell in one fluid motion, his movement brought him side by side with Jason whose hand was blazing with a ball of fire. The two young men looked at one another and with unspoken agreement unleashed hell upon the monster...

Spoiler

The removal of the spike has disrupted something and the two worlds at the characters location are bi-located. All of the characters in the woods are together... but still in their own worlds, they can interact with each other and both environments.

The bear became a roiling cloud of nothing it is not shrinking but growing slowly.

 

AT THE CARS

Marissa twisted in the seat and looked out the back window and saw something but the grim was too much. She looked at Atumn and didn't like the look on the girl scouts face. Mari with a shove pushed the door open and slid out and looked back and saw what Autumn was seeing and her own face mirrored that of the girl scout.

 

Through the denuded trees of the ridge they looked EastWest across the nearby river and saw The Tree.

It dominated the horizon, clearly visible even though it was close to fifteen miles away, its trunk, from this distance, Autumn estimated it to be at least six or seven miles across, its branches reaching toward the sky.

It stood, here, in this world, where the town of Shelly lay in their world.

The rumble which vibrated the ground came from the Tree.

Spoiler

the above picture is whatthe tree itself lloks like ignore the background and such in the pick. what you see is much darker.

 

[Coraline Hess]

THE WOODS

Chaos. The world strobed between light and dark, rot and growth, right and right, but, as the unwholesome cloud engulfed her, Coraline whirled to face the combined thunder of flame and firearm behind her. Her heart quite firmly perched in her throat as she caught sight of the thrashing, screaming thing. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck..! Already keyed up on adrenaline and horror-story teddy bear trophies, seeing the world flicker through it's nightmare/reality masks, she threw an arm in the direction of the thing and wished for it to stop moving, stop being dangerous and terrifying. Just Stop.

The area around the screaming monster went dead silent, converted instantly into a burst of heat that engulfed the glistening aberration.

Spoiler

Psi Roll for Conversion http://orokos.com/roll/756605 5d10h8: 1 [5d10h8=6, 1, 7, 3, [10, 4]]

Sound into Heat, one success

 

[Jaunt]

Marissa:

The lovley brunette, who managed to add warmth and color in this wasteland of morose misery and despair, gazed upon Shelly, or, what would have been Shelly.

Slowly her head moved to the left, then right, and the harder she forced herself to disbelieve what she was seeing the faster her head shook.  "No," she whined as moisture ringed her eyes.  "No, no, no... this isn't happening, this isn't happening!"  She backed up a few steps and stumbled back, her designer hiking heels (it's what they were advertised as) caught a lose stone and she was flat on her backside still looking up the massive tree.

Finally fear gave way to the adrenaline and she scampered to feet as howls of agony and screeching devilry echoed back from where they had run from a moment.  Her mind cleared momentarily and it struck her...

"Omigod... Devin!"

 

Devin:

Agony gripped the dino-gina as it writhed and flailed and the last time teenagers, psychic or no, had faught an interdimensional mutant dinosaur with a vagina for a face (seriously, what was this place?) was the dark side of... NEVER.

And as the pain gripped it it did what any beast does when it injured and feeling cornered: it fought harder.  No one knew what this thing could do, and it lashed about to face it's newest threat, Cora.  It spun about as Jason generated a heat wave he was ill prepared to deal with the lightning fast swat of the creatures tail and like Devin, was tossed aside thrown not far, but head long into a tree.  Now both the guys would have scars to talk about.

It thundered forward and Devin acted swiftly, why?  He had no idea.  He did, for the briefest of moments, notice Lilly as he darted off.

"Hi, Lilly.  Bye Lilly!"  He dashed forward with every intent on just getting Cora out of the way, he wasn't about wrestle this thing!  It saw him, somehow, and shifted its weight and once again the tail was lashing at him.

And then they saw it.  Everyone saw it so he didn't have to try and convince them later!  The tail tore through him... or at least where he was...

A swift shimmer and a brief distortion of space and Devin vanished only to immediately reappear on the beast's opposite side and shoulder smash it with all his momentum (not intentionally, but hey, it worked).  The creature staggered and toppled onto its side, the burned one, so it cried out in visceral agony as its vestigial limbs writhed about.

"Woah..." he paused, but it didn't last long.  The thing was right next to him, angry and he was pretty sure a rib was broken... which sucked, because this thing had ruined a sixty dollar tee shirt and eighty dollar hoodie.

"Guys?"  He saw the others, clear as day.  "Do you SEE this thing!?!  What are you doing?!  Get the fuck our of here!"

He darted off making his way to Cora to get her out of harms way when the beast made a wretched gurgling sound and coughed up from its sliced roast beef sandwich of a face, a filament that must have served as its tongue.  The long tendril gripped Devin's ankle and spiraled up his leg to his thigh.  The bulbous tip slithered and opened itself up four ways into a jagged 'X' shaped maw that hissed before gripping into his flesh.

Even as he cried out in agony he kept things in perspective.  "Not the junk, not the junk!" He howled as flailed about while beast reeled him in.

"Go!  Get out of here!"  He yelled as he clawed for the sticky dirt.

[Bannon]

Lona grabbed a heavy-looking branch of deadwood, holding it in both hands as Devin yelled through his pain for them to run.  Running had crossed her mind, but she'd abandoned that idea as soon as she saw the thing grab him.  Now she considered the monster with an eye to where to jab it.  Perhaps she could distract it from making a meal of Devin's leg.

Sean was already running for the trailer.  With Jase throwing fire like an enraged sorcerer and Cade stepping up like John Rambo, the tech genius knew when he was out of his depth.  At least inside the trailer he might be able to figure out something to do that would explain / resolve this insanity.

A hundred high-speed pellets of buckshot accompanied the deafening boom of the shotgun, tearing into the side of the monstrosity's face.  It shrieked, head shying away from the pain, but did not release Devin, who howled in pain as the tongue-tentacle-thing whipped his leg back and forth.  Cade's face was as pale as everyone else's, but his eyes narrowed in concentration as he chambered another round, took aim and fired once more.  This time the cloud of high-speed metal passed through the fleshy obscenity of the beast's tongue, severing it in a spray of black viscous fluid and allowing Devin's clawing purchase on the ground to bear fruit, pulling him away from the creature though with it's... proboscis... still attached to his leg uncomfortably close to Little Devin.

Autumn heard the shotgun blast, dimly registering the puzzlement - none of the four of them trapped here had a shotgun - but focused on getting back to help Devin and the Effing Bannon.  They might be epitomes of douchey (Devin) and weird (Bannon) but they were people, and you don't leave people to monsters.  Some ways behind her, Marissa was making good time despite the 'hiking heels' being wildly impractical.  She heard her brother's yelling and cry of pain, and protective instinct won over self-preservatory terror.  And it was amazing how fast one could run in impractical shoes when motivated.  Still, Autumn had a good head start and better wind, and was a distant figure in the trees ahead.

Lona darted forwards as Devin was freed from the creature, taking a one-handed grip on her makeshift club and pulling him to a sitting position.  The grotesque severed tendril still thrashed and squirmed revoltingly where it was attached to his leg, but she shunted aside her revulsion and pried it loose, throwing it away from her and Devin with a low cry of disgust.  Turning back to him, she laid a hand over the bleeding thigh, getting a sense of the damage and how to heal it as her eyes met his.

"Don't get any ideas."  she quipped, more for her sake than his.  In the midst of lunacy, snark was a balmy refuge.  Devin was white as a sheet, but one corner of his mouth lifted in a trace of his usual smirk.

"Nngh... Later, maybe..." he managed.

The creature was squalling: burned, mutilated, battered.  The prey were not reacting like prey.  They were hurting it.  It turned on the latest offender, tail lashing as it gathered itself to spring on Cade.  The pain of it's burns and other injuries hampered it's leap, and the agile youth rolled smoothly to the side, the whipping tail narrowly missing his head as it landed, spinning about to rush him.

Jason was bleeding from the side of his face and head as well as his nose now, the impact with the base of a tree having interrupted his follow up attack.  He heard Devin's pained  yell, then the report of a shotgun and shook aside the ringing in his ears, fury driving down the confusion, stripping away thought and leaving him only his most base elemental rage.  It's fire was in him, filling him, roaring up from under his consciousness and consuming him.  His clothes smoldered, as did the earth under his hands as he pushed himself to his feet.  The heat-haze around him grew more intense, seemed to brighten and then... he caught fire.

Or rather, his clothes caught fire, but as he straightened up all Jase felt was a soothing warmth as red-gold flames danced over him from head to toe, incinerating his clothes, caused the ground under his feet to char.  His hair lifted in the updraft, the reflections of the flickering fires danced in his pale green eyes as he raised a hand once more towards the aberration, fire engulfing it as though pulled from the air around it, setting it ablaze with a crackling rushing sound that mingled with it's inhuman screeching as the firelight reflected from everyone's faces.

[Clara Lys Wright]

Clara’s eyes widened as the world shifted and she gave out a startled yelp when Cade rushed into Etienne - not an angry one, just confused until her brain put together that their resident mercenary had totally frozen in the face of insanity and Cade had probably just saved at least one of them from becoming insanity’s lunch. Way to go, Cade. Etienne, what the hell?

When Devin got pulled down and still yelled at everyone to run, well, he didn’t just go up a few rungs on her ladder of opinion, he got a whole new shiny ladder. 

She cast around looking for anything she could help with - a stone, a branch, anything - but the messed up locale stubbornly refused to grant up a weapon for her; she helped Etienne to his feet but her focus wasn’t on him. “Follow Sean, make sure he doesn’t get jumped by another one of these things!”

Her frustration built at her uselessness again until her eyes fell on Lona, now holding Devin and trying to make sure the male Jauntson twin didn’t bleed out while the rest of them tried to take down the face-gina monster. She remembered Lona healing Sara in the cafeteria and how she’d somehow boosted that. Some clarity, either from adrenaline or just growing experience with these powers, clicked in her and pushed her power out as much as she could. 

[Cade]

Reacting on pure instinct, Cade had put a pair of rounds into the creature, severing its hold on Devin and narrowly dodging the leap in his direction and followup tail sweep with effortless grace.    Even as the twisted surrounding exploded in a blazing inferno thanks to Bannon, Cade remained perfectly calm moving back only slightly from the screaming creature, as the disgusting smell of of old fish mixed with that of burning decayed flesh and adjusted his aim only slightly.   

The shotgun in his hands boomed  twice, expelling near twin clouds of buckshot aimed not for the center of mass on the creature, but for knee joints in its reverse canted legs.   As the range was still quite close, with Cade still quite able to feel the heat from the flames, the cloud of pellets hadn't expanded much, and smashed through both legs in near the same instant.

The creature let out another inhuman scream even as the lower halves of each leg fell away, flopping onto the ground in pain and rage, as Cade slowly took three steps back, wary of the long whip-like tail even now, but he kept the shotgun aimed at the beast, mindful of how many shells he had left, On his guard and ready to move should it prove itself still deadly.   Even as the fires from the charred land and burning flesh played over the area, Cade stood fast, ready to protect his friends.

[Charlie Cole]

"Omigod... Devin!"

"Not the junk, not the junk!"

The cold trickle of water snapped Charlie out of the shock-laden fugue state. No wait, oh dear, he'd pissed himself. The embarrassment and frustration made him let out a gibberish expression of frustration and nails betting into his hand. He'd stood up to Devin before, hadn't he?

Only Devin wasn't a real monster. This was a real monster and he could play a hero, but he wasn't one, no ability to stand up to that ferocious fiend like Jason and Cade were. All he could do was stretch and sense life... No, Charlie realized with a sudden burst of certainty, there had to be more to it, more more more more

Cade and Bannon saw the monster pull itself together and with unexpected speed, launch forward before they could react - and another thing smashed into it, something with scales and plates like a dinosaur's armor and claws and fangs. This new monster struck at the first with feral abandon, and for a moment Jason wondered why before with clinical observation he for a moment spotted the shirt, stretched and tearing at places, with the list of Shakespearean insults on the back.

The one Charlie had been wearing.

[Sean Cassidy]

RIGHTSIDEFLIPSIDE
THE TRAILER

An arm over his chest to constrain it, Sean shuffled through the trees the edged the clearing then raced for the trailer. He had never held a gun in his life and he couldn't throw fire. Although, if I can manipulate electromagnetic wavelengths... He wasn't about to stick around to challenge a monster without a face without anything to hurt it with besides a pair of small fists. They might have overlooked something in the trailer, there might be something to use as a weapon, or something to provide an answer to this bewildering double image - well, not quite doubled, there were differences.

If nothing else, I can use the power cord from the radio, and charged up by the atomic generator, give that... that fucking thing a zap like it couldn't believe... if someone lures it here--

"Hnng! Fuck!" Sean grunted, slipping on the steps up into the trailer in his haste and barking his shin, barely getting hand out in front of him before he hit the trailer face first.

Rubbing his shin with a hand, Sean hobbled into the trailer, rubbing his eyes with his other hand as the reality of one trailer overlapped with the other. There was the one he knew, old and worn, and then the other, seeming even older and more decrepit, grimy and peeling with a burnt, sickly sweet scent. He could feel the throb of energy pulsing from the generator, and something like its echo, the same and not the same. It didn't feel precisely like its opposite, he didn't think they would negate each other, but they definitely weren't in sync.

Looking for something, anything, that could help, Sean's eyes fell on the radio, the radios, offset just enough to make their edges blurry. He remembered resetting the settings back on the radio. They were different now, different from each other, each knob showing two arrows pointing at different numbers on the dials. Sean glanced back out the trailer, looking over Etienne's head, at the trees, branches rustling in different directions, and the clashing landscape, then back at the radio. Reality was out of sync, and something had come from one side to the other where it didn't belong.

The asynchronous ripple had to be stilled, or Sean suspected things with more tentacles and even less face-like parts would show up. He reached for the radio, radios, focusing on one specific arrangement of settings and hoping he could get his hands on the right ones.

[Lilly Pryor]

With the removal of the spike from the bear, chaos erupted. Suddenly they were all together fighting some sort of monster, except for Etienne, who seemed paralyzed in shock and would have been the creature's next meal were it not for Cade. Devin was there and then gone, Jason was throwing and then engulfed in flames while Cade pumped the creature full of rounds, severing it's tongue to free Devin who had saved Cora from the beast, and was now being tended to by Lona and Clara.

Despite the chaos, the strange surroundings and the nightmarish creature, Lilly's mind was centered, focused on the situation at hand. No matter what they did to the creature, it seemed to keep trying to attack or eat them. It was threatening and even harming her friends, and that was something she could not abide. 

For a moment she considered using the spike she held in her hand, but dismissed it, hoping it would be best to retain it for study.. or something. Maybe it was a focus or touched by the Dark. She wasn't sure, but it left her with limited options, which she was fine with.

Lilly began walking toward it with ill intent, each footfall heavy on the strange ground landing with purpose. The teen girl strode up to it with flames and even apparently a Charlie-saur charging into the creature, only to stop right in front of it, apparently garnering it's attention as it snapped around to face her. With a mask of determination twinged with anger at the harm and threat to her friends, Lilly's face turned to a grimace as she let out a grunt, raised up one leg, chambering it for a fraction of a second, and then shot her foot out at the thing's face in a "Spartan Kick".

What happened next, nobody was expecting, even teens with psychic powers...

Lilly's boot landed square in the things face and launched the creature backward through the air, crashing through brush until it hit a moderately sized tree a good 30' away, impacting with enough force to cause an near explosion on the side of the tree opposite of the impact, sending out a spray of splinters and kindling. More snaps and pops followed as the tree began to lean and finally broke off at the impact site to com crashing down into the brush...

Lilly turned and ran over to where Lona was tended to Devin and took up a position beside them standing over her friends like sentinel, her head slowly turning as she surveyed the area for additional threats.

[z-Avalon Wilson]

“Hold still,” Lona ordered Devin, her voice shaking so much it offered no reassurance. Closing her eyes and ignoring the screaming/roaring/shouting fifteen feet away from her, she extended her new senses into Devin. The warmth from her hands flowed into his skin and wound, as Lona felt his muscles, tendons, and bones. For a moment, she knew she could draw the structure of his thigh like drawing a map of him.

Welp, that’s super creepy.

“Is my junk okay?” Devin gasped. “Avie, you have to save my junk!”

“For fuck’s sake, your penis is fine!” she growled at him. “Hold still, let me focus!”

The good thing is that it allowed her to see the damage. The creature had missed Devin’s big artery in the leg (knowing what it was didn’t allow her to remember the actual name for it) but it had shredded a lot of muscle and he was losing blood. Also there was something in the wound, an object that her medical scanning power said didn’t belong in Devin. And the thing’s saliva was stopping Devin’s blood from clotting.

Lona ripped the pack off her back and pulled out the water bottle and first aid kit. She poured water over the wound to wash away the saliva, then said, “Sorry.” 

“Wha--” Devin cut himself off with a scream when she dug her fingers into the wound. She didn’t let herself think; she just did what she felt was right, directed by the magic in her brain. She almost had it when Devin twitched and screamed, “Fuck!”

“I said, sorry!” Lona snapped. “Hold still!” She dug in harder and the other teen somehow held still despite his whimpers of pain. “Got it,” she breathed as her fingers pinched around it and she drew it out. A quick glance at it told her nothing and she dropped it in the water bottle for later. Grabbing gauze from the first aid kit Etienne had provided, she pressed it to the laceration on Devin’s thigh. Closing her eyes again, she pushed power into his body, trying to coax the wound closed. His body started to respond, but she could feel she didn’t have the raw power to help him like she had with Sara. “C’mon,” she whispered, frustration choking her. She was barely aware of Lilly standing next to them. Even as she realized that she needed Clara’s boost, she felt her near-sister’s power washing over her...

[Nina]

locked until i can post

 

[WS ST]

With the removal of the spike from the bear, chaos erupted. Possibly the understatement of the year…at least so far.

In the time it took the now freed stuffed animal to tumble to the ground the two separate/inseparable worlds became one and driven by fundamental forces the fellowship now sharing two realities felt the damns break unleashing hitherto unknown powers of the mind.

Cora, a girl with an anger in her soul that she didn’t even know she held. Twisted the forces at her command and as the Darkknight blazed into a fiery phoenix added her own scorching heat to the conflagration surrounding the creature. The Cades shotgun blasts were silent their sound converted to heat along with silent screams of the creature.

Charlie released from the chains of what was embraced the malleability of self and became the thing he needed to be to confront the unholy monster and protect his friends.

Lilly with single minded purpose entered the fray and the searing blistering heat to deliver a kick that would have made Leonidas proud and sent the thing flying in to a nearby tree, impacting with a sickening crunch before sprinting to the side of the fallen Devin and, ignoring her own injuries not caused by the beast but by the intense heat she had entered, stood between it and her friends.

Lona had already done what she could d by ridding Devin of the invasive creature’s spawn but she had caused damage getting it out damage she needed to heal. Closing her eyes again, she pushed power into his body, trying to coax the wound closed. His body started to respond, but she could feel she didn’t have the raw power to help him like she had with Sara. “C’mon,” she whispered, frustration choking her. She was barely aware of Lilly standing next to them. Even as she realized that she needed Clara’s boost, she felt her near-sister’s power washing over her...

Clara had felt useless. Her frustration built at her uselessness again until her eyes fell on Lona, now holding Devin and trying to make sure the male Jauntson twin didn’t bleed out while the rest of them tried to take down the face-gina monster. She remembered Lona healing Sara in the cafeteria and how she’d somehow boosted that. Some clarity, either from adrenaline or just growing experience with these powers, clicked in her and pushed her power out as much as she could. 

The fundamentals twisted the monster hit the ground quivered and still then with and explosion of viscous fluid and bits of flesh regenerated in its entirety it opened it’s maw and let out a gurgling scream which was answered …

Then Clara’s power manifested. Her fears, frustration coupled with everything else broke and the damn burst and the energies of the subquantum realm poured through.

Sara hadn’t entered the fray she didn’t know what she could do Jason burn like a human torch and the others… As Clara’s power washed through her she felt it the voices of the damned she turned away from the battle and her mind sought and found those that had been… she found the tree…

Autumn burst into the small clearing and skidded to a halt the heat bashed at her reddening her exposed skin, but it was the monster that was only feet away that had her attention It gurgle screamed again and the scream was answered as Marissa broke out of the trees and  stopped at her back.

The bear hit the ground and the worlds flipped.

Spoiler

Everyone is back in the real world Jason is still on fire. Lilly and Charlie have one injury each from exposure to the heat... minor burns and such. everyone has 5 enhancements to any psi uses for the remainder of the scene. Jason's clothes are ash. If i did not mention your character explicitly then you are exactly where you were at the end of your last post except now in the real world.

you may post again but this was the climax of the session so xp and spending with be forthcoming. any post from this point until you return to town are cool don't post past that though.

there will be a new project put forth after this as well

 

 

[Marissa Jauntsen]

"Ow," Devin winced.

"Shut up," Lona whispered.

Devin winced again.  "Ow."

"Shut.  Up." Lona said through clenched teeth.  "I'm trying to concentrate."

"Well, I'm sorry, it hurts, okay!"  He fumed.  "Damn thing almost took my leg off!"

"I'm trying to help you, now shut up for a second, dick."  She flicked his ear.

He cupped his ear.  "Blow me!  Oh, oh... now we're adding head trauma too!?  You suck at this healing schtick, Avie!"

Marissa almost slammed into Autumn as she ran up to the scene.  When the worlds were set right again the influx of color nearly stunned her.  Thankfully she'd mastered the rapid step slow down technique used by blondes and strippers in heels since the dawn of horror and ended up safely behind Autumn (behind, just in case) with her hands on the red heads shoulder to quietly inform her she was there for her.

When she noticed Devin on the ground, bleeding, she dashed from behind Autumn, nearly pushing her over, and knelt at his side.  "Omigod, omigod...," tears formed in her eyes as she wasn't certain the extent of his injuries.  "Deej, Deej!  I'm so sorry!  You said run, so... I thought you were... you were supposed to run too!" She gripped her brother's hand and leaned down to hold him, letting her wet cheek touch his.

She cried.  The emotional powerhouse that didn't let anyone or anything in while ruling the popular crowd with an iron fist... cried.  Stress, fear, worry... these things had a way of eating up at anyone, and despite her reputation to the contrary, she was human too.  Right now all she wanted was her brother safe and to have the chance to tell him again how much she loved him.  She pulled away, with a sense of urgency and when she saw his leg, she covered her mouth in shock.  "We need to get you to a hospital..."

"Lona is helping, Emjay... she can help me," his voice was weak and he was starting to pale at the loss blood.  Lona didn't know bow to feel with Devin seeming to have full confidence in abilities she had no idea how to work.  "I'll be okay..."

"You were supposed to run," she sobbed.  Her make up was quickly becoming a mess and her attitude laden bravado didn't seem to be anywhere in sight.  "Why didn't you... run?

"Had to hold it off," her bother smiled at him, his voice hoarse and strained as he smiled her.  "Gotta protect my sis.  S'what brothers do..."  Devin's eyes closed and he faded away.

"Devin!  Deejay!" Marissa screamed looking to her brother and to Lona.  "Deej!"

"Marissa!"  Lona screamed over Devin's panicked sister.  "He's fine, Marissa!  He's fine.  He's bleeding and he's been through a lot of trauma.  His body's slowing down and the adrenaline is wearing off.  He's just resting, his heart is fine, still rapid, but he's not going to die... not unless he opens his mouth again and one of us decide we just can't take his snark anymore."

She laughed.  It was subtle, evident, but still well hidden.  Marissa, among all of this, managed to find a fleeting moment of joy amongst her enemies.  Lona calmed her tone and looked at Mari the Mantis of Shelly High and spoke with nothing but the sincerest compassion in her voice.  "Marissa, please.  Let me help him.  Give me some room."

Their eyes met and for a moment Lona saw the human being that resided in her.  Marissa nodded slowly, sniffled and wiped away tears with her free hand.  She leaned back to give Lona space but still held her brother's hand tight.

 

[z-Avalon Wilson]

Clara thumped to the ground in the silence that followed Marissa scooting away from Devin. Lona glanced at her, alarmed at how out of it she looked, but Devin was the important one here now, and she closed her eyes. Cutting off vision helped her to focus on the sensations rolling through her. The power from Clara hung in the air like a miasma, and Lona pictured breathing it in and adding that power to her own. 

She suddenly felt like she had with Sara; the sense of Devin’s body felt stronger now and Lona drew deep within herself. She imagined it as golden light that she pushed into Devin, even as she demanded to his cells, Heal!

For a second, the power sank into him endlessly, as if the wound needed all of that extra energy to repair itself. It wasn’t like it was with Sara, where the results came almost instantly. For a second, she floundered helplessly, wondering what she was doing wrong. Feeling it pool into the wound and begin to work brought an almost painful relief. Her medical scanning ability allowed her to see his leg knitting itself under her hands. In other places in his body, she could feel him creating more blood cells, replacing what had been lost. Other small injuries gained in the fight steadily faded, too. Tears rose as she felt Devin heal himself under her hands, becoming whole again. 

After an eternity to her and Marissa but moments to everyone else, Lona sat up and pulled the gauze away. His leg was still covered in blood and he was still unconscious and pale, but Lona smiled. “He’s going to wake up soon, and he’ll be fine. I promise, Marissa, he’s fine now.”

She reached for the water bottle to wash off some more blood, only then remembering the thing she'd pulled out of him. Holding the bottle up to the light (so entranced with the mystery she failed to notice the blood caking her hands), she peered through the red tinge of diluted blood, seeing something drifting in the water. "Um, guys? I have... a piece of it. It put it in Devin, and I pulled it out. Someone should, like, test it or some shit."