ENDPLOT | ROLL THE BONES, PART 2

[ironwood]

Characters: ALL!
Date: Mid-Late November
Location: In the Dreaming
Situation: It's either Malicant or the Foreigners... and their worlds.
Warnings/Rating: Add warnings as needed.

Locating the Vilii Stone has been dealt with and now it's time to take on Malicant directly. It's a relatively simple interpretation that proves the answer to the conundrum of how to share the object between all involved: shatter it, and make sure everyone has a shard. It clears any remaining taint of Malicant's essence from those who still more it and makes said evil furious. They're all feeling it now-- the throbthrobthrob of his telepathic presence has swamped the caverns where the stone once lay, and the only safe harbour is the Hotel. There's only so long even the Hotel will be able to withstand that force.

Inside the Dreaming, that force can't be felt. Inside the Dreaming, the caverns are reflected on long smooth lines, riveted by sinew and muscle, a true combination of the realms in this space that becomes a living maze to work against them. There are many offshoots, and when the Foreigners arrive in the Dreaming they will find themselves separated, both willingly and unwillingly, three or four apiece to each individual set of caverns that seal behind them. They're going to have to move fast and defend one another. Their collective power is all that remains between Malicant and everything else, and every part of him must be defeated.

He's waiting, but he's not without a plan.

The Foreigners will find that they are facing the embodiments of their greatest fears and weaknesses. An enemy they were never able to defeat, a friend who betrayed them, a fateful event that they couldn't outrun, even a physical feat they could never overcome. Malicant has had a long time to study them, to befriend them as Asti, to gain their trust and exploit their secrets. Where there are individuals, these embodiments will be targeted and where there are groups, they'll be something that encompasses multiple forms.

But the Foreigners are not without recourse: they are in the Dreaming Realm, a plane shaped by willpower, by desire... and even to a degree, by the very fears they are facing. The Gha'nal venom will allow them to manipulate what they perceive as the "reality" around them, and the shard of Vilii Stone they've been given will become a weapon or tool fitting to the situation, to help them.

---

LINKS
Part 1 - Beneath The Shell/Midnight Hotel | Part 1 - Malicant’s Tools/The Vilii Stone | OOC - Plotting Post

OOC
So here's the final log! There's a lot of freedom for players to write what they feel will be their biggest obstacle to overcome, and how Malicant will appear to be challenging them. The common traits to what all players are going to face are listed in the description above. This log will be open until the end of the month, at which point an interim log and OOC post will be going up.

Comments

lmk if this isn't okay :V

[wrathfulkhan]

Gene can barely hear Tony and Akito over the heartbeat pounding in his own ears as he tries to process what he's seeing, and Malicant takes this opportunity to sweep out with one hand, sending a pulse of shield energy from the purple ring on the replica's finger. "This is family business," she snarls, and the pulse knocks Tony and Akito back and into more Tong ninjas, and a few shadowy Makluans join the fray. Malicant's spending a lot of energy on these mooks, and the aliens won't be quite so hard to take down as the ninjas. The shade returns her attention to Gene. "Look, even the necromancer is gone, abandoning you just like the rest." He doesn't dare to look to confirm, but it hurts to even hear. "They will leave you, my son. They will always leave you. Only I will be here for you, forever."

The sword has almost fallen from Gene's hand; his face is ashen, his expression warring between anguish and loathing. Anguish for the mother he'd lost so young to treachery; loathing for the vile being wearing her form as it has worn so many others. Anguish for what he knows he has to do, and loathing for knowing that he's going to carry it out, if he can find the strength of his arm to do so.

He's frozen in place, and his throat's stuck. Malicant's done it, the son of a bitch has done it, it's found the one thing that Gene can't fight. Gene would fight Tony - he's done it before, and often, and the fact that the genuine article was in the cavern would make things a little easier for him to deal with, easier to convince himself that this fight isn't real. But Malicant's too clever for that, and has decided to attack Gene's resolve in multiple stages. The form of Zhang would serve to get his blood up, the myriad visions and bad dreams would serve to fill him with doubt, but his mother? Ah, Gene could never harm his mother, the mother who'd become the reason for his lifelong quest, Queen-Regent and martyred Madonna and cunning general all in one.

He'd never hurt her. He'd die before he'd hurt her. And Malicant knows this.

But he can't do what she's told him to do; this is an order he cannot possibly obey. He's a soldier, she'd molded him into a soldier who would follow her whim and her whim alone, and he's only managing to defeat this programming by sheer force of will and remembering that it's not her, it's never been her, it's only Malicant.

"Assume your mantle," Malicant says with her voice, command and persuasion infusing it. "Accept your destiny, Temujin. Cast aside your weakness, your folly. Cease your womanly behavior that shames you and shames us all. Become the Mandarin, the true Mandarin, and destroy all who would oppose you."

"I won't," he manages to croak out. "I can't." He raises the sword again in a defensive position, but it's easy to see his grip on it is not as assured as it once was, and his hands are shaking with the effort. "Not again."

Her voice goes soft, dangerous. "You would toss aside all that we worked for? What I made you? You would betray me again?"

His stance falters. "I never betrayed--"

"You failed to warn me of your dream," she says, and the dark shadows of bruises flicker into being on her neck, bruises consistent with strangulation by the hands of a larger, stronger man. Zhang's hands. In the background, around them, the nightmare of murder plays itself out for all to see, the nightmare Gene had never witnessed himself but known enough about her death to have his imagination fill in the gaps, the nightmare that had woken him screaming for years in his childhood. "You knew he would do this."

"I knew we were in danger. I didn't know details. I couldn't know details. That's not how it works." That's not how his true dreams have ever worked. They're arcane and symbolic and never clear, and it only makes sense that they're a topic of contention here, in the Dreaming. Behind them for all to see, larger than life, a black snake and a red mongoose fight, and the mongoose appears to be victorious before the snake coils around it and strikes again and again and again until its foe is crushed and poisoned and defeated. And then the snake moves on to the mongoose's pup, and the dream - the prophecy, the nightmare - vanishes.

"You could have stopped him."

"I was a child!" he shouts, raising his guard again, and it's not clear if he's aiming to silence this apparition of Jin Ying or the guilty, sibilant whispers of his own mind that had repeated the accusation day in and day out for the past thirteen years. "I could do nothing but cower and hide from him in that armor, and bide my time until I was old enough and strong enough to take your ring back from him!"

"And yet he lives." She arches an eyebrow. "I did not raise a merciful son. Why is Zhang still alive?"

Her accusation rings in the silence; Gene has no answer that would satisfy this shade, no answer that would satisfy himself. I was scared, mother. Five rings and I was still afraid of him.

"You have become weak, surrounded by the weak. You have blended in too well, my son, and now it is time to come home." She extends a hand to the tense, trembling boy before her. "Join me. We will make you strong again. We will make you feared. No one will ever dare to raise a hand to you again, I swear it."

For a moment - for one moment, and he loathes himself intensely for it - he thinks about taking it.

But it's not her. As much as he would want his mother to come and take him away, she never would. She's dead, she's been dead for most of his life. This isn't her. This is Malicant. It's a trick. It's just a trick, and nothing more. He takes a breath, then another. "No."

Her hand drops away, a flash of cold anger showing in her eyes. "So be it. Then you are not my son." And she raises her hand again, now bearing a sword, a liuyedao, a saber meant for cutting, and brings it down on Gene's own blade.

The vibration of the swords ringing together makes his arm hurt, but he keeps in position, sweeping his blade up and around while stepping back, moving the heavier sword off of his guard.

He doesn't want to fight her, and Malicant knows that. He will be fighting an enemy that will not tire, that will stop at nothing to have him either turned willingly to Malicant's side or dead. And the enemy is wearing the face of the one person whose loss has hurt Gene the most.

The smart money's on Malicant.

[akito]

Wow. Wow. This is a load of bullshit, and Akito is so angry he can barely think straight. Thankfully he doesn't need to think in order to kill everything trying to hurt him; his instincts are good enough. He fights with his Air Trecks, the short sword his Vilii shard has turned into, and his teeth. Teeth are a very effective weapon, and are - as Akito soon discovers - really good for ripping out throats when you have sharper-than-average canines.

[highprofilerichkid]

The unexpected energy blast knocks Tony and Akito back into a veritable horde of ninjas and Makluans. For a while, Tony's far too occupied with beating back the mob to shout anything else at Gene, but he can still hear what his "mother" is saying to him.

He's alarmed when she says that "the necromancer is gone," and he hazards a quick glance around the cavern. Indeed, Solomon is nowhere in sight. Even though Tony doesn't really like the guy, he's worried (he's still an ally, after all). Is he alive? Had he been more injured than Tony had thought? Does someone just disappear when they die in the dreaming? Well, there's nothing he can do right now - better to focus on defeating Malicant. Then they'll have time to figure out what happened to Solomon.

And the "defeating Malicant" part better happen soon. Gene is faltering. The taunts from the image of his mother are cutting even deeper than Zhang's, and Tony's starting to get really worried. To hell with Gene's ego: if Tony can get a clear shot at Momicant, he'll take it. He can apologize to Gene later.

The problem's going to be getting a clear shot. The ninjas are absolutely swarming him. At least Akito seems to be holding his own, and doesn't look like he needs any help. (He's actually holding his own a little too well for Tony's comfort. He's, uh, going a little feral. Not that a scrawny little pipsqueak of a guy tearing throats out with his teeth isn't impressive... It's also just. You know. Kind of horrifying.)

Tony finally clears a little breathing room for himself, and he turns to Gene. Between repulsor shots, he yells, "Gene, you don't have to be that person any more! You don't want to be that, I know you don't. This world is your second chance, remember? Don't let Malicant take it from you!"

[wrathfulkhan]

The conjured foes are falling one by one to Tony and Akito, but for every one that goes down, another two spring up in its place...though they may notice the ninjas and aliens are getting easier to defeat with wave after wave. There are more Makluans than ninjas now, the larger and more intimidating aliens sacrificing speed for size and power.

The battle is brutal and prolonged, less of a fight than an assault; the only offensive moves Gene makes are still meant as defense, to drive his mother back and give himself some room to maneuver. Even though they are in the Dreaming, Gene can't hold off forever. Maybe it's because he doesn't want to. Maybe it's because he's just tired, too tired, too ill from being confronted with Malicant wearing the skin of his mother to properly fight back. Tony at least has seen him fight - and defeat - bigger enemies with nothing more than an unfamiliar sword, and he should be able to tell that this is not Gene's usual style at all, that he's trying to make himself smaller and harder to hit rather than aggressively and acrobatically striking out at his foe. Though Malicant's splinter no longer bears the face of Zhang, there's something of Gene's interactions with Zhang in his movements, the tension, the defensiveness. He hears Tony's shout, but doesn't have time to think about it right now. Examining what he said will come later. For now, there's only this, only battle.

The discordant ringing of steel on steel echoes through the caverns, Malicant still pressing onwards, trying to back Gene into a wall, and Gene doggedly dodging and blocking each strike. The fight looks fluid, almost choreographed, two experts dancing around each other.

It's only a matter of time before one of them slips.

And Gene's arm is the one that tires first.

"You were never my son," she hisses at him, striking again and again, battering his thinner blade down as he tries to keep up his guard. "You are a pretender. You are a failure. You are not fit to be the Mandarin."

He raises the jian again, but the furious slashes knock it down even faster. She takes a step forward; he takes a step back, and stumbles on a piece of rubble knocked down from the earlier fight, tired, dizzy, demoralized.

As he stands upright, trying to raise his sword to block again, her own sword comes down and bites into his flesh, cutting him crosswise from shoulder to hip.

He crumples bleeding to the ground without even a cry, the jian still clutched in his hand, his own heartbeat betraying him and pumping out his life's blood onto the cavern floor. The wound has cut deep, almost to his heart. In the Dreaming, mortal wounds aren't necessarily mortal, but despite the Gha'nal venom coursing through his waking veins, the power of this splinter of Malicant is too strong for him. His spirit is nearly broken, and with it, his will to rise.

He's dying. He's dying, and he doesn't have much time.

[akito]

Akito is getting tired, and he knows it's from mental strain rather than anything physical because none of this is really real. He falters the next time he lands after an aerial kick; only a momentary wobble, but his opponents take advantage. Not willing to give anyone the satisfaction, Akito doesn't let out a single utterance of pain, or even a flinch. Instead he uses the close quarters to rip more than just throats with his teeth, and stab and slice deeper.

Hurry up, he thinks, not understanding why Gene is struggling so badly.

[highprofilerichkid]

The Makluans are a lot easier to hit than the ninjas, but they also hit back a lot harder. And the cramped nature of the fight is really working against Tony. Unlike tiny, agile Akito with his aerial skates, Tony really needs more space to use his armor to his best advantage. He's not all that worried about the apparitions hurting him, but he is worried that they're blocking his path to Gene.

He gets a break and manages to take out several ninjas and Malkuans at once, which clears his line of sight to Gene just in time for Tony to see Malicant cut him down.

"No!!" Tony screams, his voice raw with anguish and denial. No no no this isn't happening this isn't happening you aren't allowed to die you stupid bastard, not now, after everything you've put me through, don't you dare!!

It's a vital moment of distraction, and when he tries to launch himself out of the fight and towards Gene, a Makluan warrior knocks him out of the air before he's made it two meters. The shadowy alien grabs a hold of his leg and starts slamming him repeatedly against the wall. It's brutal, but Tony doesn't care about the pain, he only cares that he loses precious seconds to disorientation. A lucky shot finally disintegrates his attacker, and he falls to the ground and immediately springs up again. With a furious howl, he flings himself at the horde, firing his repulsors indiscriminately, without regard to his power levels or his own safety.

He's blind to anything except Gene, lying on the floor of the cavern, bleeding out.

"watch him KILL HIS OWN MOTHER with a BROKEN LAWN CHAIR!"

[wrathfulkhan]

Gene's breathing harshly, raggedly, trying stubbornly to pick himself up off the ground as the shade of his mother mocks him for it. He struggles to his feet again, slipping in his own blood, still gripping the sword, trying to hold himself together with one hand. There's pain on his face, blood seeping through his clothes, coating his hand and the rings on it, filling his lungs. He won't waste what little breath he has left on taunting or pleading for his life. His lips are moving inaudibly; he seems to be mumbling a word or phrase to himself, over and over. Though gravely injured, when Malicant strikes at him again, he manages to block the blade from finishing him off, but it's clear that's as much as he can do, and he sways on his feet, staying standing only through sheer force of stubbornness. The only reason Gene isn't dead yet is because he refuses to die.

Malicant, wearing Jin Ying's form, cannot resist gloating over her defeated foe. She seizes him by the neck, drawing him in close, and he can't even struggle. "What's that, you pathetic child? Speak up," she says, her form flickering from Gene's mother to Zhang to the Mandarin and back again.

He twitches in Malicant's grasp, struggling to breathe, his chest heaving and his mouth working soundlessly as the impossibly strong hand tightens around his throat.

"Speak. Up." The form Malicant's wearing flickers through others that Gene knows, like the specters of his dreams had earlier, and it spends a lot of time wearing the shape of the Iron Man armor, and the shape of Tony, grinning cruelly and recklessly, an expression Gene has never seen on the real one's face. Once - for a long moment - it looks like Howard. "Have to take turns, you know," it says with Howard's voice. "A lot of people want to kill you, and I'm going to let every. Single. One of them have a chance at you before I let you die." Still wearing Howard's form, it looks at Tony, and grins. "Come on, Tony, give your dad a hand. I know you want a shot at him, too, for everything he did to you."

Gene coughs weakly, and blood spurts from the cut across his torso, matting his clothes against his body. "It...nt..."

The shade's form changes again, flickering rapid-fire through the three main presences that had shadowed his entire life in different ways: his mother, Zhang, and the Mandarin. "Worthless trash," it sneers, its voice changing as its form does. "You can't even speak." It settles back on the shape of his mother, cruelly choking out what little life remains in him.

"It's not real," Gene whispers again, and, with one last desperate surge of strength, jabs forward with both hands on the sword, driving it straight through her torso.

It's almost anticlimactic; the shadowy Makluans and ninjas disappear into smoke, and there's a look of shock on the shade's face, the shock that had doubtless been on Jin Ying's face when Zhang had killed her, and she totters backwards, the sword sticking out of her, her nerveless grasp falling from Gene's neck. He collapses on top of her, both hands still clutching the hilt of the sword in what is almost an attitude of prayer, his wounds vanishing as the piece of Malicant dies and he regains control over the state of his Dreaming body. His clothes are still torn and matted with blood - both his and Malicant's, now - but he's no longer bleeding out.

And he continues to repeat those three words in a litany, voice wavering, his head bowed and his eyes wide and staring at the wound he'd made, at the damage he'd done. She'd done her job too well, training her son to seek power, to fight, to kill, and now she was dead twice over, slain once by treachery and once by love. "It's not real. It's not real. It's not real. It's not real."

His hands are steady, but the rest of him is shaking, even as the illusion of the corpse refuses to disappear. His chest is heaving as he tries to breathe, but try as he might, he can't seem to get enough air. "It's not real. It's not real. It's not real."

[highprofilerichkid]

Tony fights savagely, but he's not making any real progress. The illusions are just too numerous, and more keep popping up to replace any that Tony destroys. He's practically out of his mind with helpless frustration. He needs to get to Gene, he has to help him, he has to do something before Malicant finishes him off.

Malicant taking on Tony's own face as he holds Gene up by the throat is chilling, but Tony doesn't let it affect him. He'd almost been expecting it.

Then Malicant's image becomes that of his father, and Tony falters. "No..." He whispers, his blood running cold as the shade taunts him, inviting him to join it. "No," he repeats more loudly, his voice taking on a slightly hysterical edge. "Stop it. Stop it! Let him go!" He throws himself back into the fight with renewed ferocity.

When the ninjas and Makluans suddenly disappear, Tony has a moment of pure, heart-stopping terror - he's sure that Gene is dead, that the battle is over because Malicant has killed him - and then he looks up.

"Gene!" His voice breaks into a sob of relief, and he staggers over to him, dismissing the armor.

He falls to his knees beside Gene and immediately runs his hand across Gene's blood-soaked torso. The horrific wound is gone, though his clothes are still bloody and torn. Too overwhelmed to speak, Tony lets out another choked sob and flings his arms around Gene.

akito is done here now /o/ just zzzzzzz

[akito]

Tony is okay, and Gene is going to be okay. And with no more enemies to fight, Akito decides that it's alright for him to sort of just. Give his mind a rest. Which basically means he's going to conk right out on the ground where he is, trusting his friends enough to wake him up or cover his back if more bad guys show up.

naptime for all these superqueeroes, someone pass out the juiceboxes

[wrathfulkhan]

Gene barely hears Tony shout for him, his head bowed, his chest heaving. His eyes are glassy; even when Tony staggers up to him and wraps him in his arms, he can't move, can't react.

The shade of Malicant, the illusion of the corpse, dissolves into wisps of smoke and vanishes, and Gene finally slumps over, one hand still clutching the hilt of the sword, the other holding Tony close.

Later, he'll realize he has to thank Akito for all his help, too. Now, he can barely think, just mumbling those three words over and over again until his focus slips enough for the Dreaming to carry him away in its current. Malicant's presence being so suddenly eradicated from this section of the Dreaming has had a similar effect to letting go of a rubber band stretched nearly to its breaking point, and Gene is all too willing to be swept up in the released energy and dragged under by the current until he doesn't have to think anymore.

Even as he fades, he's still clutching the sword.