EVENT #010

[larkers]

WHO: Everyone
WHERE: New Amsterdam and any other megacity the Displaced happen to be in/travel to!
WHEN: May 28, 2512
WHAT: Golden-eyed monsters stream into New Amsterdam and other megacities the world over.
NOTES OR WARNINGS: Violence, death, body horror, mind control, and transformation.

> EVENT #010

It starts in the middle of the night, when most everyone should be fast asleep in their beds, whether they're still taking up a cot in the safehouse or staying in their own apartment. One moment it's quiet, with most of the rest of the city having also turned in for the night, and then in the next? It isn't.

There will be mass confusion as the scope of the situation becomes clear. Monsters stream out onto the streets, thundering up the stairs of a train station, skittering out of construction sites, or climbing up the walls. Some of them fly. Others slither. Others run, loping forward with only one goal in mind: to find something to sink their teeth or claws into and to leave destruction in their wake at every turn. They are a horde, a swarm, a teeming mass of creatures that have no intention of stopping. All of them have eyes or bodies that shine gold and wherever they go, they seem to leave decay. Concrete turns black and porous where they step; plants wither and die.

There is no real preparing for an attack of this scale. New Amsterdam will awaken as the sound of these monsters crashing down on cars or bursting through storefronts or into homes forces people to run screaming from their dwellings or places of work. There is no discrimination in who these beasts might target, and no discernable pattern in where they go.

All that one can really tell is that they seem to want to spread out. They're constantly on the move, leaping from victim to victim, and they're relentless. No one knows why they've come, where they're come from, or what will make them stop. At least for now, the only option seems to be to cut down their numbers. It's time to fight the horde.

The first night will be utter chaos as everyone reacts to the monsters' sudden appearance, but by the morning hours news reports will start streaming in. This is not only happening in New Amsterdam, or wherever else a Displaced might be staying, but seemingly everywhere. Some cities seem harder hit than others, but practically every megacity is overrun with the creatures.

With no way of knowing who might have unleashed the monsters, all of these cities have essentially been turned into battlefields. Not many civilians are prepared to fight for their lives, and it will take a mobilization effort from the police, Morningstar, the Displaced, and anyone else who's willing to take up arms in order to survive.

◉ As a note, this attack starts simultaneously in multiple cities. While it's the middle of the night in New Amsterdam, the monsters will appear at other times of the day in other parts of the world depending on the timezone!

> BESTIARY

So as to not make this post overly long, we have compiled all of the monster descriptions into a Google doc here for everyone's reference!

> (NOT SO) SAFEHOUSE

For those Displaced who stay at (or spend any time in) the safehouse under the hoverbike shop or the Red Wings bar, they may become aware of the presence of the monsters sooner than others, due to the fact that at least a few of the giant mole monsters will end up burrowing up through the concrete basements to wreak havoc. The screeching noise of steel claws tearing through the floor will be sure to wake up even the deepest of sleepers.

This won't just be an occurrence on the first night of the attack, either. Unless something is done to deter them, tunnels leading straight into the safehouses will continue to be created, allowing even other types of monsters to find their way through (the smaller ones, that is). Where exactly they're coming from won't be entirely clear, though it's a safe bet to assume that they must have originated in the cave system somehow.

Suffice to say that El won't be happy about the safehouse being compromised in this way, though this isn't a possibility that ze or anyone else could have really prepared for. While ze can't do much to physically help with containing the invasion of the monsters, ze will offer whatever resources ze can—though Morningstar is going to be busy in plenty of other locations, as well, and they only have so many resources.

The Red Wings, being a Displaced-operated location, will also be in need of assistance, especially if it's meant to be a point of safety and a hub for handing out supplies. Speaking of—

> RED WINGS HQ

As things begin to deteriorate, Clarke Griffin and Stephen Strange sink their resources into Red Wings, adapting it into a base of operations for the Displaced. Clarke also called in PRESERVE to set up a checkpoint here, too, and anyone—from the Displaced to civilians—will be able to seek aid here. (Of course, Red Wings will be just one of a few locations throughout the city where they attempt to set up shop, but Red Wings may prove to be more fortified thanks to the talents of the Displaced.) Civilians will not have access to Red Wings' safehouse, however. That's still something that Clarke and Stephen want to keep under wraps, for now.

In the bar proper, there will be medical aid, supplies, and even weapons for those who can use them. During rare moments of downtime, the gang at Red Wings will also work on reconnaissance missions to find safe spots throughout the city to provide much needed protection and safety for the people of New Amsterdam. This task may be much easier said than done. Gathering intel on the monsters is a high priority, too, and for anyone who tries to capture a monster to learn more about them, the basement might be a good place to hold them. If the Displaced are going to be able to fight back, they need to know exactly what it is they're fighting.

However, the truth of the matter is that this attack happened quickly, and in the middle of the night to boot. As much as the group at Red Wings tries, resources are stretched thin, and they didn't have time to prepare as much as they wanted to. Supplies need to be rationed, bandages and stitches used for wounds that really need them, and if you're not a great shot, it might be best to let someone with more training take that gun you're eyeing.

More than anything, despite the difficulty, this is a way for the Displaced to help out as many people as they can, and a way for them to cement their humanitarian efforts and affect the population's opinion of them. The citizens of New Amsterdam are sick of this cycle of destruction, and are just waiting to be empowered. Now's the time to teach them to fight back and help them protect their city.

Red Wings' safehouse underground will be damaged by burrowing monsters as well, and will need protection. The bar itself will escape relatively unscathed.

> INVESTIGATING / GATES

Maybe the best way of dealing with the monsters isn't violence at all. Maybe there's a more strategic way to deal with this.

The monsters will be moving from city to city via the gates, just like the Displaced do. There might be a way to keep them from spreading, or at least slow them down, by shutting down the gate network. Of course, with the mag trains shutting down, getting back home could be an issue. One option is the delivery network of hover trucks. They'll still be running to get supplies from city to city, but their batteries don't run indefinitely, so these will be relatively local trips only. No getting from New Tokyo back to New Amsterdam with this method, unfortunately, and convincing a driver to let you hitch a ride might be a challenge, but it's doable.

Of course, there's also the question of where these things are coming from. Intrepid characters might be able to track them back to their nests, which are tucked away in wildly different places depending on the city. In New Amsterdam, they might be in the caves below the city. In other places, they might not be in the city proper at all, but just outside of it. It's important to keep in mind that the nests are far away from any of the action taking place elsewhere. Tracking these origin points may provide some answers, but the cost would be less involvement in the crisis taking place.

And then there's the matter of the monsters themselves. How can you fight an enemy you know nothing about? For those determined or crafty enough, capturing them might be an option, although this will take some creativity. Once these creatures are captured, they'll need to be kept contained, and kept alive. Just because they're monstrous doesn't mean they don't have to eat, after all, and some will need special environmental considerations as well, such as the mind control slugs.

What happens after that is up to the Displaced. Is dissecting them the best bet? Their internal anatomy won't be wildly different from most "normal" animals, with the exception of some creatures who have strange appendages or the like. Still, this might give the Displaced a better idea of how they operate and what their weak spots are. Sending samples to a lab is another possibility, if the Displaced can figure out how to safely store those samples. After all, the world is in a crisis, and no one is running tests at the moment.

All monsters, though, seem drawn to the blue light. When a Displaced uses a power or activates the empathy bond, the creatures will lock onto it, utterly transfixed, and if this is done enough times, that gold glow of theirs will intensify. What does it all mean? Maybe figuring that out will be a pathway to stopping their attacks.

> PITCHING IN

While all of this is going on, it certainly won't be just the Displaced who are heading out into the streets to try and stem the flow of the monster attack. These creatures are certainly not holding back, and no matter how much work might be put in, their numbers are overwhelming. Plenty of people will end up dead as a result, ripped to shreds or dragged off somewhere to be eaten. Yet, for some reason, these monsters are not as vicious toward the Displaced. They'll engage them in a fight and injure them, but they never go so far as dealing a fatal blow.

Seeing how that's not the case for the rest of the populace throughout the world, however, some groups and organizations will be rising up to do their part.

Police departments will be mobilizing in every megacity to put the monsters down, and while they are armed, it's not on the same level as the UNA. They also don't have any sort of training that's prepared them to fight monsters, but they'll still be putting their lives on the line to put a dent in the monsters' onslaught. When it comes to enforcing regular law and order, they certainly won't have the bandwidth for anything like that. Then again, most people won't be in any position to take advantage and commit crimes either, given the chaos that will be a constant everywhere.

Morningstar will also be jumping into action around the world. The New Amsterdam branch will be most likely to work alongside the Displaced and share some of their resources, particularly with those who are signed up as official agents or those who've supported them in the past. In cities like New Prague and New Beijing where the Displaced have made some contact with Morningstar before, they'll also be open to working with the Displaced. However, their resources are by no means robust. Morningstar is an organized rebel group, but they're hardly an official army in any sense of the word. They might be able to hand out a weapon here or there and they have a safehouse set up in almost every city, but beyond that, they'll mainly be getting boots on the ground to help with the fighting.

UNA soldiers who have been left without any sort of purpose or guidance will now have an opportunity to put some of that training to use. Their involvement will be much more scattered, though in some cases small groups of these soldiers who used to work in units together will reconnect in their effort to fight off the horde. However, having been cut off from the UNA in an official capacity, they won't have much in the way of gear or weapons. They're still formidable fighters, though, and now might be the perfect time to reach out and make a connection with some of them.

Mercenaries belonging to various different outfits, depending on what city they're based in, will also be joining the cause. Whether they're acting out of a basic desire to survive the attacks or if they're actually being paid by someone to go out there and risk their lives will be less clear, but they're some of the best-equipped fighters (other than the police). They also won't really find much reason to protest any of the Displaced pitching in to fight with them. The more firepower, the better, right?

A group of regulars from the New Amsterdam fighting rings will be rising up to add their fuel to the monster-fighting fire, as encouraged by Hawke and whoever else might know them well enough to reach out. Given that some of these people have illegal mods to enhance their strength or cybernetic attachments that can do impressive amounts of damage, some of them might hold their own against the monsters. Hell, some of them might even ask the Displaced to demonstrate some of their powers if they end up fighting together, as word of their abilities has become more known among their ranks. Either way, they'll be jumping into the fray with quite a bit of gusto.

PRESERVE will be involved on the other end of these efforts and will be doing their best to tend to the wounded and the dead, along with finding shelter and safe spots for people to barricade themselves from the attacks. It's not like the grand majority of civilians could stand a chance against these monsters, after all, yet not all of them can rely on their homes to be safe enough to stay in. They'll be quick to accept an offer of Displaced help, as they'll be doing their best to try and drag the recently dead to hospitals to get them put into medi-units before they're too late. Along with what's set up at Red Wings, they'll also be cobbling together other relief spots throughout the city for taking care of wounded and offering up what supplies they have (food and water, medical supplies, etc).

And what are the corporations doing in all of this? Well, suffice to say, mainly just panicking. Unsurprisingly, they're not much help during a crisis like this, with most of the super-rich opting to hide away in whatever highly secure bunkers they might have. Too bad that these bunkers might not prove so secure in the face of these attacks. Could that prove to be an opportunity if someone went looking?

> FINAL OOC NOES

Please refer to the OOC EVENT POST for all OOC info, including suggestions for directions on how to engage with the event. Given the spread out nature of this event, as well as the amount of additional details provided here, please direct all questions to our QUESTIONS thread below. This is, naturally, a huge event in terms of scale, and so we're certain there are aspects of it we haven't covered and questions that have yet to be answered. We do encourage that all of our players use the event planning post for any additional ideas and for touching base!

Please do not begin to thread out any aftermath until AUGUST 8, 2020, which is when we will put up the aftermath log and OOC post. If this date changes, we will provide a gamewide update as needed! As a note, the August calendar will be posted alongside the aftermath!

As a reminder, there is one power level up available for this event, granted for a thread of at least 5 log/action comments containing your character utilizing their power in some way during the event itself. They will need to reach the 5 comments required by SEPTEMBER 11, 2020 to be eligible. Submission will be handled on the wrap up post.

Our Activity Check will be posted AUGUST 1 at 12 AM UTC. It will run for seven days and close on AUGUST 8 at 12 AM UTC.

Have fun and fight some monsters! Or … whatever else you might do with them. 😉😏 Your secret's safe with us. 😙

> NAVIGATION

Comments

[fossils]

[ Attention otherwise occupied by the flying monstrosities making dives at his head, he spots the darting figures heading toward the door, trailed by Natasha. He's planning his own retreat when--

A few things happen at once:

One of the bat-creatures gets a grip on his crowbar with its clawed feet.

One kid bolts, Natasha following.

Those thirty feet between them might as well be a mile.

Must be a rush of adrenaline. Can't see the blue glow beneath his dark clothing when he wrenches hard against the bat-creature trying to yank him off his feet. Doesn't get a chance to cry out, doesn't get the chance to let go or register it's change in altitude for more than a half second before it's flung downward into floor of the roof with a sickening crunch, landing hard on one wing, now bent and torn.

The assault pauses, the bat creatures hovering, the ones remaining in the air with their attention fully on Steve again, but he's started running. ]

Nat!

[bornrussian]

[Later, Natasha will try to piece together what happens next. Her memory like polaroid snapshots rather than a strip of film.

The boy has bright red sneakers. His little knees pump as he runs like his life depended on it.

Natasha's boots beat against the roof as she sets out after him in a flat out run.

The sound of the boy's cries like the wail of siren.

Steve shouting her name.

Dark wings circling above before swooping down sharply and quickly.

A rush of adrenaline surging through Natasha's veins and giving her that extra boost to make it to the boy before the creature does.

It's a split second.

Natasha's hands on the boy's shoulders, as she twists to put her body between him and the creature.

Later, she won't remember throwing the kid away from herself and towards the safety of the door. But she must've because one moment he's in her arms and the next he's rolling across the roof top, skinning bare knees and elbows.

Then the creature hits her, claws snagging in her clothes. It's luck, she thinks, that it doesn't get a good enough grip to pull her up into the sky. But, it knocks her off balance. The roof and the sky tumble together, and Natasha feels the distance to the ground the moment her legs hit the ledge of the roof and she tumbles over it.

From behind them, a sharp and desperate shout:

Tommy!

[A single thought echoes through Natasha's mind: Not like this.

Somehow her fingertips snag on the ledge. Her body slams against the building and she lets out a grunt as her grip holds with a wrench of her wrist and shoulder. She'll pay for this later.

If there is a later.

She has never been afraid of heights before. (Or if she was, the Red Room trained it out of her, took that fear and replaced it with something else. The fear of failure, probably. That loomed larger than anything else.)

Distantly, there's the sound of a door slamming, and the sound of crying cuts out. Hopefully, that means the children all reached safety, because Natasha is of no help to anyone right now.

Her heart beats like a damn drum as her mind spins trying to find a way out. Her grip isn't good enough. If she tries to swing herself up, she'll slip and there's no surviving the fall. All she can do is hold on and hope Steve's got her back.

In her mind, her nightmare swirls to life, Vormir rising up from the ground to meet her.]

[fossils]

[ The universe screeches to a stop.

Some automatic, working part of his brain registers the door slamming shut behind the last kid as he hurtles past, the shrieking sound of the remaining creatures on his tail.

The one that hurled her off the edge hovers-- and there's the sound of a gunshot from a rooftop next door.

Then another.

The first bat twists in the air, then falls. He distantly hears a second thud from behind him, a pained noise.

There. He finally sees. Pale fingers gripping the edge.

No space or time for relief. ]

Hold on! [ He has to skid to stop, heart pounding in his ears. One hand braces on the edge while the other grips her forearm to start pulling her back up. ]

[bornrussian]

[There is no god that Natasha has ever believed in, but when she hears Steve's voice through the soft pounding in her ears, she's ready to send up a prayer to whoever's listening. Her fingertips are already slipping, the weight of her body threatening to overwhelm her hand, a couple of moments more--

She would have finally known what it feels like to hit the ground.

Steve's hand closes around her forearm and when she feels the grip take, feels him take the weight of her, she releases her tenuous hold on the ledge and grabs onto his forearm instead. It's a steadier grip.

It's hard to tell exactly where they slip up. They're not in tac-suits, either one of them. No full wrist to ankle coverage here. It's all scrounged up clothes and whatever they threw on before responding to the call as monsters swarmed the streets. Somewhere in the desperate fight against gravity, a shirt rucks up underneath fingers gripping tightly, an exposed palm presses against bare skin.

The soft blue glow from her chest is instant. Any knee jerk reaction or instinct Natasha has to pull away to keep her secrets from spilling out through her skin is overriden by the most base level of survival instinct: If she lets go, she dies.

Surface level comes first. Relief. Adrenaline. A stitch of fear.

But she's teetering right on the edge of memory, and when she looks up -- something in Steve's eyes jolting her like static electricity when their gazes lock -- it slips up around her. Spills through.

The blue sky turns overcast, color seeping out. The first thing Steve will get is the sense of calm determination overriding everything else. Natasha knows what she has to do. What must be done.

Here and now, her fingers are curled tight around Steve’s forearm, nails digging for a better purchase. But in the memory, her wrist is bent back, fingers splayed wide, her body relaxed and heavy rather than tense to distribute her own weight. Her eyes locked on Clint's where they dangle suspended in the air.

Here and now, her feet scrabble for purchase against the smooth front of the building, trying to pull herself up with Steve’s help. Her free hand struggling to get a good grip on the ledge to pull back up.

There's no panicked struggle in the memory. Just that same calm.

Let me go. It's okay.

In the memory, a swing of her body brings her feet against the craggy rock face and she pushes away from it, with all her force. With the movement she gets enough momentum to wrench her wrist against Clint’s thumb, where his grip is the weakest and she slips free.

The twisted look of agony on Clint’s face as he cries out after her isn’t how she wants to remember him.

Something in her mind obliges as she falls. Little snapshots from her life flashing by faster than a speeding bullet.

Clint grinning at her from the controls of the QuinJet.
Nathaniel nestled in her arms and smiling up at her like only babies do.
Cooper curled up against her side on the couch, his face serious as she reads him Goodnight Moon for the thousandth time.
Lila beaming proudly after doing her very first somersault on the lawn.
Laura smiling at her and stepping backwards into the farm house, leaving the doorway empty in invitation.

Steve’s face. A thousand iterations of his smile aimed right at her flashing past. Ending with the last one she saw right before they slipped into time.

See you in a minute.

A certainty fills Natasha as her eyes close and her whole body stills waiting for the ground to come up and meet her.

Everything is going to be okay.

With a gasp, Natasha throws herself up on the roof top, tearing herself out of Steve’s grip. The glow of her chest fades and she tries to pull herself back out of the memory

Somehow, they're out of opponents. It's just her and Steve. Sitting on a roof between the corpses of slain monsters.

Shit.]

[fossils]

[ The memories rush at him. It's a disorienting double-vision, the perspective reversed and the landscape strange, alien. Clint's face, his expression--

Let me go. It's okay.

(she'll feel his confusion, a deep, instinctive denial of something he hasn't grasped yet--)

In the memory she pushes off the cliff-side, and it's in that moment that he struggles to fight the empathy bond, force the vision from his mind. It continues in flashes, spikes of joy in the memories of Clint's family, Clint himself, and his own face smiling back--

Her weight pulls over the side of the cliff-ledge-building and he's still gripping tight when she wrenches herself away from him (the last thing she'll feel, if she feels anything at all, is a sudden rush of relief). The bodies of the bats litter the rooftop. They'll eventually find that they can thank Bucky for the cover fire from the next building over. There are angry, red half moons on his forearm where her fingernails had dug in, though he won't notice those until later either.

They're apart. Close, but no longer connected. His eyes are wide and full of questions, his lips parted as though he means to ask--

but he turns toward the shut door, their last sight of the kids, and she'll see his expression forcibly shift, reorienting himself. ]

You good? [ It's a question with multitudes, his features pained. You good right now? is the one he needs an answer for immediately, as he pulls himself to his feet and nearly offers her a hand to do the same, hesitating at the last second. ]

[bornrussian]

[Natasha is still catching her breath from the exertion, the memory that slipped between them sitting like a heavy weight between her lungs and keeping them from expanding fully. She feels like a deep sea diver bursting through to the surface and trying to take a clean breath only to find saltwater rushing into her mouth and down her throat.

This might all be new to her, but she can't pretend that Steve didn't get any of that. She could feel his confusion -- his feelings simultaneously alien and as natural as breathing as they swept through her chest -- and the struggle towards the end of it.

Her vision swims for a second. Belated vertigo, perhaps. The receding adrenaline has left a weak tremble in her muscles and she braces for the questions she can see written clear across his face. His mouth opens and her whole body stiffens, waiting for the first blow.

Except it doesn't come. Natasha winces in time with the pained twist of his features. It's gratitude, laced with guilt, that shifts through her. Deep and hard like a punch.

Sometimes, the mission comes first. It's a simple fact, and one that they both know.

Never better. The sad attempt at a joke dies on her tongue and she settles for a tired, almost apologetic:]

Yeah, I'm good. [Natasha's face shuts down at the hesitation, whatever vulnerability might've shone through, gone in an instant. She presses a hand against the ground and pushes to her feet in one quick and fluid movement. She dusts her hands off against her pants and avoids looking straight at him.

It feels almost like a betrayal. He was never supposed to know--]

Steve-- [On her path to the door -- they have to get those kids to somewhere safer than this -- she stops right next to him. Shoulder parallel to his shoulder. Her fingers tap absently against the side of her thigh, and she looks ahead at the closed door rather than at him.]

I'm here. I'm fine. [The reassurance is at least fifty percent true. It's less than he'd normally get, but under the circumstances it's the best she's got. She opens the mouth to add something, thinks better and lets it click shut again.

They need to get those kids to safety. She strides forward towards the door.]

[fossils]

[ She gets up on her own, gives him the answer he needs in the moment, and he returns it with a nod, his features closing up when she says his name without meeting his gaze. They pause near the door, but for less than a second-- he's pulling it open and they can hear the hysterical babble of kids down the stairway, the voice of the older girl wrangling them.

There's not much that makes him hesitate. ]

I know. [ He answers, quickly. Focused, but there's a pained hardness there that he can't completely banish from his expression. He doesn't offer a smile, but he reaches over, squeezing her shoulder.

Pushes it all down.

Buries it. ]

Let's get them outta here.

[ This is the mission.

He tries to meet her gaze, but he won't linger. He's moving as soon as the words leave his mouth. ]