Because You've Missed The Plot [Anton, Vanessa]

[Imogen]

Searing 62, 122

The Pfenning Theater had suffered relatively little structural damage from the explosion of the Presidium; though the building was only a few city blocks from the chaos-warped hole leading down into the Warrens, it was solid stone, constructed with thick walls.

Shrapnel and some other debris were still embedded in the Theater's western walls, and the large windows had been boarded up, along with the front doors. It appeared that some faction--city guard or Covens, impossible to guess--had spent some time trying to fortify the building as a shelter. It wasn't a bad idea. The Theater had been built to withstand collateral hits from an air raid over the city, and the entryways could be secured. Furthermore, though Imogen didn't know if the organizers had known this, its secret layers of sub-basements protected against the Warrens below it.

Now attired in casual wear (her room had not survived the Doom of Zaichaer, but she'd kept spare clothes in a nearby sanctuary), Imogen Ward entered the Pfenning Theater from the side, holding a large basket in her left hand and her gleaming silver-limned zweihander in her right.

It was very strange to walk the High City carrying a reaved blade openly, but she was unwilling to waste time dodging the wispy clouds of mists. The Sunsingers' fire burnt through the flimsy embankments in her way, and if she'd seen any of the chaos-twisted monsters, she'd have laid into them too.

”Anybody here?”

The side entry revealed a Theater badly in need of cleaning. Human odors of wafted in the hall, the smells left behind from whenever the refugees had encamped within. Dirt and trash littered the sides of the hallway and wing of stairs leading into the atrium, detritus from the brief inhabitation. In another time, it would have driven Imogen to quiet rage. Now, she had to admit that she probably didn't work here any longer.

No inhabitants were presently within view, so Imogen continued up the stairs and into the atrium, which was a just as full of trash but a little more orderly. Presumably, this is where the organizers of the refugees had, well, organized them from. The Ork wasted no time poking through the sad remnants of the crowds, and instead proceeded up the stairs, heading for the janitor's closet. The door was ajar, and all of the brooms were missing; she supposed that someone must have tried to tame the mess.

No matter. She wasn't here for the brooms. Instead, Imogen reached up, above the inner doorframe. Her hand closed around a ring of keys, and she let a toothy smile overtake her face.

”There we go. Now, let's see where everyone went.”

[Anton]

The Every Waking Moment had made shockingly good time from Gel'Grandal back to Zaichaer, though granted it flew light. Anton had ambitions of using what connections his family had in the west to aid in the reconstruction of the north, but they would be pointless if the city was a lost cause. Shockingly, things had gone far better than he could have ever guessed, the immense rift hanging above the city appearing quiescent - for now. Her streets were still choked with Mist, but it had gone light enough on the ground now to walk without fear if one was clever or nimble.

Without fear of the Mist that is. The monstrosities that had been birthed in its wake still prowled the streets, and as Anton and Vanessa toured the city from the air it was clear that things were not well. The damage and destruction only grew as they flew from west to east, towards the initial explosion site in the Knob.

Onneifer and Fort Cathevelle seemed intact, but there was little in the way of organized response to... anything, at least as far as they could see from above. The great glass dome of the Institute had shattered, and though Anton considered landing to search its grounds he doubted he would find anyone holed up there still as close as it was to the Presidium. The Michaelis estate itself he refused to even look upon, not wishing to know what had befallen his home, sheltered beneath the immense stone walls of the ancient citadel.

Which was now a yawning chasm into hell, the hole stretching further and deeper than even Anton could see. He thought to ask Vanessa to simply take them to the Gobbler, where he assumed Franky would still remain with the rift quieted, until he saw a wisp of... something. The faintest hint of what sounded like a musical, coming from the Pfenning.

And so it was that Anton and Vanessa set foot upon Zaichaer again - the former over the protests of the latter. But unlike her, he could predict the Mists, and guide them safely inside, and insisted upon it.

"Not exactly what she used to be, is she?" Anton murmured to his bodyguard as they entered through the yawning doors of the once proud theater.

[Vanessa Quill]

Vanessa advanced with weapons drawn. Her pistol held low in her right hand, and her faithful cutlass catching light in the other. While her job of bodyguard often only relied on looking particularly unapproachable, now she was left actually needing to guard him. Though no beasts had yet wandered too close, she still heard them scrabbling around in the dark. There were survivors too, isolated pockets of resistance flared up in fits and starts. The sounds of combat didn't rattle her, and most were too distant to track effectively even if they had been using her ship as vantage.

She stalked through the door, eyes scanning the rubble for any sign of movement. Her heart thundered, blood pounding in her ears. Despite the tension, she still moved like a predator, footsteps light but certain. Her head moved on a swivel, and her pupils swelled until she had just a thin blue halo for irises. "Watch your step." Vanessa warned, ignoring Anton's statement at first. "No telling when she'll give."

Brushing aside debris with her foot, Vanessa advanced into the main room where tickets were once checked and ushers assisted in helping people find their seats. "A real shame." She finally agreed with her charge when she surveyed the damage. One of those little carts filled carrying concessions had been upturned and its contents spilled out across the floor. A tragedy matching the Doom itself, to be sure. Vanessa had always liked those honey roasted almonds.

Then she heard something off to the side. Footsteps on still solid stairs. She turned to Anton, voice hushed. "Someone's here. Maybe whoever you saw." She nodded towards the stairwell opposite the side she'd heard the noise coming from and headed towards it. Better to have a bit of distance even if this stranger ended up being friendly. No sense getting sloppy now.

She stopped at the atrium to sweep it for movement, but heard nothing until a voice cut through the silence. Adrenaline shot through her, and without thinking she lunged for the next set of stairs, staring up with wild eyes up at Imogen. The furious, gnarled expression held for a few precarious seconds before Vanessa finally remembered what they were there for, and managed to form words through the veil.

"Who're you?" Vanessa asked, almost breathless. All the wound up tension released at once, sizzling away to nothing.. The white-knuckle grip she had on her sword lessened, and she lowered both it and her pistol, shoulders sagging back to a more normal posture. Her expression didn't change to something kind, but one that implied imminent violence far less was about as far as Vanessa could go. "Anton!" She shouted back, normal composure returning. "This who you saw?"

[Imogen]

Imogen Ward stood at the top of the stairs, blinking with surprise at the sudden appearance of the snarling woman. Although the windows of the stone hallway were shuttered, roughly half of the long passage was brightly lit, illuminated by the swirling fire emanating from the seven foot long sword which the Orkhan woman held casually in her right hand. She seemed totally unfazed by Vanessa's aggressive introduction, and didn't react in any way as the other woman's hackles slowly fell.

"Oh. Hello, love." the Sunsinger said, concern plain in her voice, "I'm..."

She paused, thinking on that one. The idea of giving someone her name while holding a Sunsinger's blade in the middle of Zaichaer was preposterous still, an act which a lifetime of training railed fiercely against. Nonetheless, she'd seen other Sunsingers standing open guard in the streets, now, and she certainly wasn't protecting anyone at the Pfenning with some sort of senseless charade. No, if there was no reason to lie, she wouldn't bother.

"Imogen. Head Janitor of the Pfenning. Well, I was." She glanced meaningfully around the dusty hall. "I'm just here to make sure the old girl is closed down properly. Did you and your friend need help finding a refuge? If you'll just wait in the lobby while I finish up here, I'd be happy to take you out of the city."

It seemed like the talkative janitor might have said more, but at that moment, a faint sound echoed through the hallway- like the sound of a great cloud laughing, followed by faint applause. The sound wasn't ambient or ghostly; it seemed to emanate from the mezzanine door in the middle of the hall, the one leading to the middle level of the Theater's great auditorium. Imogen's pleasant smile broke at the sound, her stare growing dark.

"...just got to get rid of that."

[Anton]

Anton was more than happy to let Vanessa take the lead as they entered into the Pfenning, the Augur permitting his senses to turn back the clock on the theater's faded glory. There had been misery and death and defiance here recently, that much was true, but he pushed beyond the Doom and the dark days that followed, until he was surrounded by the ghosts of those attending the theater's last performance the night of the thirty-third. As his bodyguard cleared the room, he tailed behind her through this waking dream, the final echo of joy and cheer.

Vanessa's voice, tense and short, shook him from his reverie, and Anton banished the past to behold the present. The strains of a musical continued regardless, and he at once knew that she was indeed who he had sought out. In her hand she held a sword that sang the song of her soul, and about it sprang the soaring strains of the sun, towards which no thing had the temerity to dare approach. Awestruck to the point that even he was rendered speechless, it was all he could do to nod towards his bodyguard at first.

"Was wondering the same about you," he finally forced out as he became used to the comforting pillar of reaved sunlight. "We have an airship." Not his best or most inspiring speech, but it at least got the point across well enough.

His head snapped towards the door at the same instant Imogen's smile faded, the once coddled lordling already drawing his pistol and rapier. He was far better with the former than the latter, but he wasn't exactly keen on getting up close and personal with anything that could make a sound like that regardless.

[Vanessa Quill]

She was relieved that this woman's aura matched whatever Anton had latched on to. She kept an eye on him even as she spoke to Imogen, unable to suppress the paranoid way her eyes flitted around like a caged beast. "Vanessa. Thought we'd come through for survivors again now that it's... over. For the most part anyway." It felt strange to think that whatever had done this could have ever stopped. She dared not let herself wonder what it meant if it wasn't over.

A deep sigh escaped her when she heard that haunting sound. It wasn't the first malformed beast she had to fight, but she was far from an expert on monster-slaying. You never knew with monsters what the critical amount of chopping was. "I have a feeling it's not going to let us leave quietly either." She said to the both of them. She brought her weapons up again, though this time taking a more defensive, warding stance than before.

"Hey, uh, Imogen?" She asked in hush tones after a moment. "I think maybe you ought to lead the way. What with the flaming sword and all?" She was not keen to leave Anton unguarded, and she certainly wasn't going to put him in the vanguard if she was going to lead the way. Though she had some time to train him in combat, she was still his bodyguard and she wouldn't explain to his family how he'd gotten crushed while trying to play hero. Plus, Imogen had a damned flaming sword. No way she was going to miss a chance to use it.

She looked again to Anton, and was glad to see him already prepared. "Stay close to me." Somehow she doubted he would let her just stuff him in a closet or behind cover while they dealt with the monster. He was too noble for that, damn him.

[Imogen]

"Oh, you're coming along. Okay." Vanessa, at least, seemed to handle herself with a great deal of grace and authority; presumably she knew how to use that sword and the gun held at her side. She couldn't say the same for the woman's callow boyfriend, who kept staring at her sword. Well, who could blame him? Everyone in the world knew that flaming swords were, in fact, very cool.

"Not a bad idea, but I'm not leaving quite yet. The... whatever it is... is locked in there." Imogen jerked her head towards the entry to the auditorium, "So it's in my way. Give me a second."

Imogen approached the door carefully, raising the ring of keys in her left hand. She took no time at all to select the proper instrument, but inserted the Theater's master key and turned it slowly, as softly as possible. She hooked it carefully on her belt which- undid itself to let her slide the ring on, then wrapped back around her waist? Questions about the living belt would need to wait, however- with this done, Imogen dropped into a defensive posture and closed her eyes, exhaling deeply.

Imogen's skin crawled as small opaline scales emerged from her pale green flesh, coating her arms, and legs and neck like mail. The fish-like coat broke the silver light of her sword into a myriad, reflecting and refracting tiny rainbows all across the hallway. This underway, the Sunsinger raised her left arm, and a disc of fire erupted from it, solidifying rapidly into an enormous round shield, looking for all the world like an oversized targe, polished to a mirror shine. The Orkhan woman did not bother to strap the shield on, allowing it to float at her side.

"Fair warning, I don't actually know what's in here. Best of luck!"

With that, Imogen stomped forward and pushed the doors open, revealing...

► Show Spoiler

It--for it was plainly just one thing--was a great amalgam of twisted impressions of bodies, theatergoers smiling without mouths, or missing jaws, or with too many jaws, their lower bodies nothing but pseudopods connecting into a shadowy mass, practically invisible in the gloom. Something lumpy and covered in rags cavorted on the stage, while the bodies waved bonelessly, occasionally breaking into bouts of applause.

As the door opened, the Theatergoers turned to look at the group, one beast with a hundred necks.

[Anton]

It was only after Imogen considered the fact that they were following along to be noteworthy that Anton realized that they could, in fact, simply not. Absolutely nothing compelled them to join the witch as she fought whatever awaited behind those doors, but at that moment, running never even occurred to him. So high had tensions become that Vanessa clearly hadn't realized it either, and he knew that if she had then she'd already be dragging him back to the Every Waking Moment to wait and see the outcome of the fight. But instead all she did was try to keep him away from the greatest danger, a task that for once her charge did not dispute her on.

"Don't worry, I'll stay out of your way," was all that Anton said as he slid behind the two women, his pistol raised and his rapier in a defensive stance. Whatever oddness was occurring with Imogen's sartorial choices - though it seemed to emanate the same tone as her body itself, separate from her clothes - was far from the top of his priorities when she was unlocking the door. It rapidly dropped to the bottom when she manifested yet another emanation of her very soul. The gleaming shield, shining with the same song as the sword, was beautiful in its own right, but then it began to dance upon a tune of its own devising, and it was all Anton could do not to focus solely upon it.

At least until the doors actually opened.

While it was unfair to say that Anton was entirely unprepared or that he had never seen anything like this before, it is important to note that he last witnessed something as horrid as what awaited in the theater when he had first undergone Threshold Sickness, nearly a decade ago. Not to mention the fact that he was, as a rule, rather sheltered. And that was before considering the fact that he saw not the physical forms of the abomination, but instead the roiling chaos of emotions and sensation and horror and dim recognizance that flashed between the auras of the amalgamation.

So, really, when thinking about it from this perspective, it made perfect sense that he immediately began to scream. One head immediately popped, showering its fellows in blood and gore and bone, as Anton fired a panic filled shot, the fact that he hit at all more due to the fact that he was relying upon his rune than any exceptional marksmanship under pressure.

[Vanessa Quill]

Some might say Vanessa had gained some sense of a knight's duty while serving under Anton. A sort of obligation to render aid where possible as an extension of her lord's honor. They would be wrong if they said so, but they could say it. Instead it was Vanessa's instincts surging her onward. So used to being the apex predator, Vanessa's response to danger so rarely shifted from fight to flight. There were a dozen post hoc justifications she told herself. She didn't know if the beast could fly, or if it might be destructive enough to simply bring the entire theatre down on their heads if not killed quickly. Every argument made in favor of staying could just as easily be made to flee instead, but her choice had already been made.

More prepared than most, even Vanessa wasn't wholly ready for what she saw when those doors heaved open. "What the fuck?" She said under her breath reflexively. She had encountered monstrosities before, but nothing at all resembling this scale. It made her stomach churn, but she managed to keep her lunch down for the time being.

Her head snapped around when she heard Anton's frenzied cries. A caster shell whizzed by Vanessa's face, missing her by what felt like inches. It didn't even make her flinch. She had seen this sort of panic from him only once before, and it had been when she had first killed a man in front of him. "Anton!" She shouted, grabbing his upper arm to jostle him. "Focus on us." She told him, desperate. It had worked when he was a boy, but he had been less adept with his rune then and more easily distracted from the world. She didn't even know if it was possible for Anton to lose focus of things anymore, but she had to try.

Regardless of how he handled himself, Vanessa looked back to the more pressing matter of the beast before them. "I think we need to take out the big guy." She said mostly to Imogen. Then Vanessa rose a few feet into the air, and surged forward over the heads of the 'crowd'. One near to them reached up to grab her with misshapen, bifurcated arms, and Vanessa cleaved clear through bone with a swift slice of her cutlass. The churchgoer keened, and others nearby joined in the wailing chorus. Frustrated, she shot the first churchgoer through the eye, but it only made the remaining bodies more fevered in their grief. Each reached up towards Vanessa in an effort to pull her down, but they were far too sluggish to make any realistic progress.

She wanted to leave them and make for a surgical strike on what looked like their leader, but couldn't leave Anton unattended. Not after his reaction. So instead she swung hard, severing entire limbs with each strike and growing the beast's horrific howls.

[Imogen]

"Wh- you can fly?" Imogen demanded, shocked. Since when could humans fly? "Well, balls, why can't I fly?"

She could in a way, of course, but this wasn't a particularly apt time to crouch behind a chair for a minute turning into a bird. Also? Albatrosses were not particularly capable combatants. It'd been a real let-down when some asshole jays had mobbed her over the southern fields and she'd found herself unable to fight back.

...until she hit them with the spear, obviously. Speaking of which!

With a moment's concentration, Imogen's enormous partisan materialized in a burst of silver light up above the mezzanine, then tumbled downward to pierce the closest of the Theatergoers. The thing folded like a bag of wet rags, momentarily releasing a smell like ionized salt before the Nova-fire consumed the lumpy humanoid figure. With a mental tug, Imogen pulled the magic spear out of the monster's body and sent it spinning around her field of vision, describing slow arcs around the walkway in front of her. The Theatergoers drew back as the fiery spear drew gashes out of them, tearing fabric and fabric-like skin.

The audience, which had been drawing silently towards the open door, milled in confusion. Then it began to speak:

Booooo!
Booo!
Boooooooo!

The monster disapproved of their performance? Well, uh... that was fine, Imogen supposed. It wasn't exactly her intent to-

Her shield, floating serenely next to her arm, flashed across her field of vision so quickly that it was nearly imperceptible. A balled-up coat, apparently soaked in some kind of liquid which Imogen didn't care to identify, crashed into the shield out of the writhing crowd to the side, catching fire as it slid off the polished surface of the huge round shield. Instinctively, Imogen swung her torso around to hurl her enormous sword into the crowd, eliciting another round of audience disapproval as the weapon spun rapidly, tearing several of the Theatergoers apart.

This was something of a problem. Her Reaved weapons popped the abominations like balloons, but the shadows of the Theater were absolutely alive with the things; even with Dancing weapons, she wasn't going to be able to grind through them all without being worn down herself.

"Vanessa!" she shouted up at the hovering woman, "Find a way to kill this fucking thing! I'll keep-" Ah, shoot, she'd never asked for the guy's name, "Your boy safe!"