apocalypsehowcomm | Event

Entry tags:

Event - For Sport

For Sport

➥ Breaking It In

(cw: mentions of apparent mutilation of/violence against animals and animal death)

The conference room on the upper floors of ADI HQ is bright, airy, perhaps unnaturally so for the grim tidings that bring people here today. Those who have recently arrived will be ushered to the meeting by ADI employees or by Bonnie. It's not just the newest arrivals, but some other people who seem to be longer-term employees. The room is rather large and arranged like a lecture hall. Bonnie takes up a seat near the back, looking somewhat uncomfortable, but smiling at anyone who greets her.

At 9 AM sharp, a person steps into the room and heads to the front. They have curly hair and are wearing a gray business suit with a dark blue bow-tie. When they address the group at large, they speak in a calm, measured tone. "Good morning. I appreciate some of you may be here more reluctantly than others, but… there are matters of import to all of us to discuss. Some of you may have seen me already. I am Reyes Amador, assistant to Ms. Lehrer, the head of ADI. Earlier this week I sent out a message regarding some unusual activity at Coffin Beach. Thank you to those who investigated."

Their eyes seem to find the people who did, in fact, go looking, whether they found something or not.

"We have determined the creatures are shape-shifters. Some sort of, em... horse thing. In lieu of a term they might give themselves, we are referring to them as kelpies. Given the locations these were found, as well as other information into disappearances and deaths and mutilations of sea mammals in the area, we believe the kelpies are coming from the Essex Bay area to the north.

"For those willing to assist, we are mounting a reconnaissance mission. This is not intended to engage kelpies, just to find out where they are and how we might best approach an attack. All supplies, transportation, and monetary compensation will be provided. We will meet at ADI HQ in main lobby at 6 PM three days from now. Essex Bay is a remote site and conservation area, accessible only by boat, and not without a scientific permit. As you may guess, we will be traveling under cover of nightfall." Reyes smiles.

"I will be accepting questions about further details. I understand this is the first mission away for many of you, and you may have concerns. I will do my best to allay them. Bonnie also has some experience in these missions, if you would like first-hand accounts. Please also feel free to discuss amongst yourselves if this is a mission you think you are ready for. You will not be required to attend, nor penalized in any way if you do not. There is additional work to be done here, both with continuing examinations of the bodies we have and other efforts unrelated."

➥ Move the Goalposts

(cw: kidnapping, violence, sadism)

It happens away from the safety of ADI HQ one evening or so early in the morning, it's still dark, away from the potential for help, maybe. One moment, you (and possibly someone you're with) are walking, and the next, you will find someone has grabbed you and slammed you into the nearest surface. For those unable to fight back, a cloth will be held to their noses and mouths--chloroform, something to knock them out. For those able to fight or even to escape thanks to not actually being corporeal, they'll find that it is a trio of people who have attacked them. They wear jagged smiles and they're all much too sharp around the edges beneath their clothes. Those who saw the kelpies at Coffin Beach may recognize these people as something like them.

"Run, rabbit, run," one of the group says, voice rolling out like a gurgling tide.

Those who run will be chased and, if caught, chloroformed. Perhaps you're lucky, though. Perhaps you can race them back to safety. Or perhaps you'll find help along the way to protect you. Either way, the kelpies are relentless in their pursuit unless one of their number is injured or their prey can make it to ADI. The kelpies seem reluctant to actually enter ADI HQ or their housing, and will break off pursuit there, slinking back to the shadows.

➥ Curveball

(cw: kidnapping, violence/violence and mutilation against apparent animals, sadism, body horror, transformation, potential for claustrophobia)

For those unlucky enough to be caught, they'll find themselves waking amongst mud and bodies. Living, breathing bodies, thankfully. You have been tied up, but not gagged, and left with a group of other captives. A nearby fire casts light over everything, showing a large group of naked people with long, scraggly hair hauling a seal up out of the water. The animal fights them with a cunning that might seem odd, but the kelpies just laugh at it. They get it up near the fire, one raises a knife, and stabs into the seal, dragging the blade down its belly.

The seal bellows and then goes limp, seeming to collapse in on itself. It isn't long before a woman is drawn from the skin, shaking, fighting, wild-eyed with terror as her captors shove her around the fire in their own game. A few others turn their attention to the captives who are just beginning to wake and move about. They approach, one grabbing the skin the woman had come out of, others grabbing more skins from a nearby pile.

"Hush, hush... you'll have your freedom soon... while you can swim." The words come just before the kelpie slices your bonds and throws the skin over you.

The skin grapples your body, twisting tight around you, encasing and restraining. Your body is different now, thick and round, ungainly in the mud. Your legs have fused together and your arms have shrunk to thin flippers. This is not your body, you can feel how foreign it is, how you're crammed into the too-small confines of it... but you have instincts to go with it. Water is freedom! Or it's an attempt at freedom. It's either swim for your lives as some mockery of a selkie or stay and see how it feels to be cut open. Luckily for you, you'll find yourself psychically linked to the other selkies around you. Maybe you can do something together? Best think fast because the kelpies are setting their sights on new prey to chase once they've finished with their latest victim.

➥ Below the Belt

(cw: violence/violence and mutilation against apparent animals, body horror, gore)

The journey to Essex Bay isn't a long one, but it's somewhat treacherous as a small group of powerboats make their way into the refuge. The mission is simple: find where the kelpies are and see if there are any strategic points of-

Was that a seal? There are, in fact, many seals that pop up once boats enter the bay. The animals might seem to have an unusual cunning about them. Will they lead you somewhere useful? Perhaps try to flop themselves into your boats? The point is, there are seals accosting you in the middle of the night, and that's weird. Perhaps they have something they want to communicate.

Or was that a horse? A crocodile? There's something that seems to have noticed you, and it's smart enough that it's going to try to tip you and anyone else in your boat into the water rather than trying to engage otherwise. Sit down, you'll rock the boat.

➥ Sticky Wicket

(cw: potential for severe burns/injury, pain)

ADI is engaged in far more than one mission at a time, and for those not dealing with Essex Bay, or even before that, there are pick-ups to handle. Artifacts, you've been told as you're paired with someone else, whether you like it or not. The mission is simple: go to the Docks, collect a package from a locker there, and return with it to ADI. You've been provided an exact location and a code for the combination lock. The section of the Docks you've entered seems to be one with a lot of empty warehouses covered in graffiti, but the locker is there, something heavily reinforced and designed to be virtually impossible to get into. There's evidence that people have tried to gain entry without success.

Your code works, though, and you have your prize! You've been given strict instructions not to open the box the artifact is in… but there's nothing technically stopping you now, and there is a strange pull toward it.

Those who can't help themselves will find they have just picked up… some piece of sports gear! It looks wholly innocuous. Touch even a finger to it, though, and a horrific, searing pain will consume your entire body as 3rd-degree burns bloom across the skin where you've touched your artifact.

Or maybe you have a will of iron and sense enough not to touch strange, supernatural objects. What should be an easy mission is quickly derailed by some young punk darting out of an alleyway to try to steal your package. Or, at the very least, knock it from your hands. The youth is not alone, either. You've found yourself on someone's 'turf,' and they want what you've got. Are you cruel enough to let them have it?

➥ Mod Notes

BREAKING IT IN (21 July): Both Reyes and Bonnie will be available to answer questions that characters might have or listen to their complaints. Please put "NPC Requested" somewhere in your top-level response if you would like a mod response. For characters who can access their supernatural abilities and have some measure of supernatural spidey sense, both Bonnie and Reyes will register as off, but in different ways. Characters are welcome to attempt to use whatever powers they believe will work on the NPCs. There are potential IC consequences for this.
MOVE THE GOALPOSTS (23-24 July): Characters are welcome to capture or kill the kelpies. The only information they will be capable of providing to those who capture them and attempt to compel them for information is that they consider the entirety of the Massachusetts coast as their 'hunting grounds.' Whether that's true or not, it's what they believe.
CURVEBALL (23-24 July): Kidnapped characters will become seals! Sort of. Psychic seals who are extremely ill-fitted to the skins they're in. The only way to escape their current state is to be cut open and pulled out. As soon as they start to flee, the kelpies will chase them. Those who are captured will be cut out, toyed with, and shoved back into a skin again and again to continue the chase until they simply can't go on anymore.
BELOW THE BELT (24 July - night): Characters may encounter their selkie-fied comrades! Unfortunately, while the selkies can communicate with each other psychically, they are incapable of human speech. They are also being actively hunted by the kelpies. Characters may kill any kelpies they come across. Capture will not be possible in this case while they're in their horse forms. If PCs do not eradicate the kelpie threat that night, NPCs who have joined the mission will do so. Unfortunately, reconnaissance has become engagement, whether they like it or not.
STICKY WICKET (21 July - 5 August): You may select any piece of sporting gear you'd like for your character to pick up as long as it can fit in a reasonably-sized box. The pain associated with the burning will last only as long as a character is touching the object. Holding onto it for more than a minute will likely result in coming very close to death. Characters with inorganic appendages will find that the artifact will start to melt that appendage, whatever it is made of and it will still, somehow, hurt while it does it.
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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

001 » breaking it in.

( Toji seems to check out pretty early on into the briefing, tilting his head back and letting his eyes slip shut. He's listening, just not sure how interested he is in the whole affair.

He's encountered the kelpies before — or at least one of them — but when monetary compensation is mentioned he visibly stirs. )

Yeah, but how much?

002 » move the goalposts.

( Yeah, good luck.

Toji goes about dispatching them methodically — his katana is drawn and he's laughing, slashing into the creatures with abandon. )

Ha — hey, where you going? I thought we had business!

( It's only then that he notes someone who he just so happened to have saved as well in the midst of all the bloodshed. The kelpies are really out in force, apparently. )

003 » move the goalposts, pt. 2 | for gojou.

( Gojou is in ADI housing and Toji is not; it's not like he wants to talk, or anything, but he is a little curious as to how he's adjusting to the place. Out on a walk, they're quickly accosted by the kelpies and Toji is quick to jump in again.

This time, with the pistol. He fires off a couple rounds and drops the gun to his side, sighing deeply. )

That's five.

004 » below the belt.

( This time he has his Inverted Spear of Heaven along with the pistol. He shoots and cuts the kelpies liberally, grinning all the while, seeming perhaps a little ... excited.

When a selkie flops into the boat, he makes to stab for that, too, only to be interrupted ... ? )

005 » sticky wicket.

There's some kids watching us back there. Not very sneaky or anything.

( He mumbles this to the partner he's accompanying to retrieve the artifact. )

[ Gojou is both impressed by his swiftness and a little annoyed by it. He steps forward towards one of the bodies, pushing it around a little with his shoe. He's trying to make sure the attackers are dead, but also kind of hoping one of them jumps back up so he can get in a few licks too. ]

I get the impression you've ran into these before.

( He doesn't exactly ignore Gojou when he makes his observation aloud, but he does finish up with the killing before he replies. )

Yeah. Girl I was with insisted on checking one of 'em out. Pumped it full of lead when it attacked her.

( He bounces on his heels a bit, wiping up some blood from his cheek. )

Netted a little profit, too.

You shouldn't bother to wipe that blood away, it suits you.

[ Is this a compliment or some sort of subtle insult? Even Gojou isn't sure, but that doesn't stop him from saying it. He then looks a bit astonished about the fact Toji had gotten some money for it. ]

Whaaat? You got extra cash? I want to do that.

[ It's pathetic and lame to be here without his usual assets. He can't live the life he's used to and he hates it. He slings his arm around Toji's shoulder before continuing. ]

Hey, tell them I killed one of these. Share the wealth a little, you know?

No.

( Regret, thy name is Toji. He shrugs Gojou's arm off. The blood comment doesn't go unnoticed, but he doesn't know what to say to it. )

You can bag some at the recon mission if you need to fund your shit.

Damn, that's stingy.

[ Gojou squints down at the bodies and then kneels by them. ]

Hey, we should probably investigate these, right?

[ He starts pulling at limbs, extending them, trying to figure out if anything works differently here. ]

( He digs around one of the bodies for any sort of clues or maybe money. Nothing doing. )

Might be best to just drag 'em elsewhere.

( Or leave them. He pulls a frown, then takes out his phone and snaps a few pictures. )

I think I'm gonna start setting my own prices for these.

Think they'd know if I cheated and used my other eyes?

[ No, he'll just go ahead and try it - but Gojou can literally hear the sad trombone playing in his mind afterwards. It's a bust, all he sees when he looks out of those is the clothes he wears over them. ]

...never mind.

[ He stands up and dusts his knees off from the ground. ]

I would say we don't have to bother dragging them off, but they'd probably make a stink about coverups.

Ugh.

( He kicks one of them in irritation before heaving a sigh: )

Help me out then. I'll tell 'em you killed a couple.

But I'd rather see you go to all the effort of carrying them.

[ But, money. Gojou can't turn that down. He makes sure to pick up the least messy one, though. ]

( He doesn't mind the blood and mess himself too much, but normally he'd just leave them where they lay unless there was money in taking them elsewhere. )

No clue where ADI is from here.

Then follow me.

[ Gojou will lead the way from here. Even without full functionality of his eyes, he's still good at keeping track of where he's gone. ]

Maybe we'll run into more along the way.

[Zhao didn't bother to look.]

Yeah, I noticed. I don't think they're used to having to be sneaky about what they do around here.

[The docks seemed to be their place of habitat in fact. Zhao was admittedly curious about the local two-bit gangs. It was nothing like what he was used to back home but it was still close to familiar. He wanted to see how they ran things, if nothing else. See what they were into.

At some point in time anyway. He glanced at his partner for the evening, unsure what the other would prefer to do with the punks. Out run 'em, ignore 'em, beat 'em up? He'd give that last one a quick preference based on what he'd seen of the fellow so far. There was an air about people that Zhao was keen to pick up on. It didn't bother him.]

Question is: what're we gonna do about it?

[He said with a lop-sided smirk.]

( Toji hums in thought, fingers moving deftly over the lock to unlock it. He stops right before the big reveal, however, and his grin grows to match Zhao's. )

Could scare 'em a bit. See what they're made of around here.

[Zhao watched Toji carefully, not at all hiding the vague amusement or curiosity in his eyes. Oh, he didn't mind this idea. Although, he was curious just exactly what the other had in mind.

Only one way to find out.]

Sure, I'm down. I was kind of interested finding that out anyway.

( Sneaking around is what Toji is good at; he had to get used to being sneaky with his Heavenly Restriction, for a variety of reasons and in a variety of places. He lays out a plan, quietly, to Zhao — it boils down to outpacing the punks and then surprising them with gunfire.

Not into them, of course, but it'd be loud enough to scare them. )

If only I had my full arsenal here. It'd be even more fun.

( But alas! )

[Zhao cocked his head as he listened and he was hesitant to agree until Toji insisted it was only to surprise them, not harm them. Zhao could get behind a little prank like that--even one that involved gunfire. It wouldn't be the first time he'd shot at someone with the intent to scare the living daylights out of them but not actually hurt them. Warning shots had their purposes, too. This could be fun.]

All right. So we scare 'em with a few shots. Sounds good to me. [He said with a smirk. Then slightly more seriously:] Just remember it'll be loud to anyone else around, too. We might have to hightail it before the local authority pops in to say hello.

[This wasn't his home turf. Police would probably respond in a place like this unlike back home in his own backyard where he had control of such things. That aside though, he's clearly on board.

He cocks his head once more as he asks, curiously:]

What kinda arsenal you normally used to?

$300 dollars for an evening of reconnaissance work.

[Reyes' response is smooth as their eyes settle on Toji.]

And some follow-up reporting. If you do not care for paperwork, we allow for recording your mission notes. Our research team will transcribe them.

Sounds riveting. Am I out that three hundred if it gets ugly or something?

( He cracks his knuckles; money is money. )

Out? Yes, perhaps if you are the one to make it ugly. If you cannot do stealth, we would encourage you to stay behind for this particular mission. There will be others with less... subtle skills needed.

Don't!

[The sandy-haired boy who's been ~~cowering~~ staying low in the boat amidst the violence finally leaps up, batting at Toji's arm with less strength than a person of his size ought to possess.]

Can't you see they're running away?

( He rips his arm away immediately, but doesn't continue with his violence against the innocent creature. He stays silent for a beat, before shaking his head. )

Hard not to get into it. You good? You look like you're gonna cry or something.

I'm fine. But there's something more afoot here than sea monsters - those are seals. We were sent here after horses.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Event - For Sport

toji fushiguro | jujutsu kaisen.

001 » breaking it in.

002 » move the goalposts.

003 » move the goalposts, pt. 2 | for gojou.

004 » below the belt.

005 » sticky wicket.

move the goalposts pt 2

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cw: body checking

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005

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Breaking It In

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004

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