Event - For Sport

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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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Comments

James "Bucky" Barnes | Open | CW some internal dehumanization

[worthallthis]

I. Downtime, pre-event

The thing that is definitely not James Buchanan Barnes doesn't know what to do with himself when he's not training or on a mission. He doesn't sleep much, he eats when he's supposed to but gets stymied by the choices in the ADI cafeteria and so winds up eating less than he probably should, and he spends a lot of time in the training room. Or patrolling the halls, even if the halls don't need patrolling, even when he's not on duty as ADI security.

Find him prowling around and through the apartment complex or ADI headquarters buildings, eyes fixed in a flat stare, or practicing his aim in a firing range, or staring helplessly at a vending machine or canteen counter at the ADI headquarters. His two roommates will find him quiet and uncommunicative, but he tends to linger in the common room when one or both of them are home, as if needing to be in someone's presence, and his gaze follows people without ever actually making eye contact. Sorry, guys, he's a little creepy.


II. Sticky Wicket

Retrieval mission. Simple enough. The thing that is definitely not James Buchanan Barnes dons his armor, puts on the goggles and mask that make him feel more comfortable when on a mission, and has no trouble retrieving it, and the urge to peek inside is unusual and suspicious, so he resists it. Whatever is inside it is irrelevant.

So he doesn't know what he's carrying when he's cornered by one of the local gangs. He stares them down behind his dark goggles and mask, waiting.


III. Move the Goalposts

He doesn't run, when faced with the kelpies. He knows they die. They can strangle and claw at a metal arm just like a human. And while he is afraid of many things, he is also used to fighting despite that fear, and he knows he's been programmed never to be taken alive.

So he punches one in the face in response to the threat, expressionless. His spooky, masked face and inhuman pain tolerance during the last mission has fueled at least some of his serum strength, though it might not be enough. Anyone want to help him fight them off?


IV. Below the Belt

The thing that is definitely not James Buchanan Barnes has been treated for wounds gotten while dealing with the kelpies, and he's ready to be sent out again. There are other agents missing. Those agents must be retrieved, and the gang of supernatural creatures stopped. He gears up with as many guns and knives as the ADI will let him have, and lets them take him to the mission site.

He sits quietly, a rifle across his lap and guns strapped in various places, and when the kelpies start towards the boat, when the first clawed hand grabs the edge of the boat to start to tip it, he heaves the rifle up to his shoulder, aims, and fires.

IV

[graveyounglady]

The kelpie brays its fury as it dives back into the water. Mercy hears the gun from where she is, bobbing as a seal in the surf. She's lost the others, but guns... the kelpies hadn't been using guns. The mission. The briefing! This could be help!

She speeds toward the sound of altercation, only to see the kelpie, illuminated in the moonlight, gearing up to ram into the boat she can see from below. Oh, Brother, she has to warn them. How does she...? Can she push the boat?

"Arf! Arfarfarf!" It's the only warning she gives before suing her new, squat body as a battering ram, trying to hit the prow of the boat to turn it before the kelpie shoots up to tip it over.

[worthallthis]

The barking is definitely a good warning, and the boat rocks violently from side to side, bumped by a seal nose and a kelpie at the same time. What it does not do is capsize, which means that with the warning, the former fist of HYDRA is steady enough to surge to his feet, aiming at the kelpie that just surged up far too close to the boat for him to miss.

He fires. One monster down.

[graveyounglady]

Mercy startles at the sound of the gunshot so close to her and dives back in the water... only to see a kelpie corpse drifting down. She pops back up and slaps the water with her flippers, barking at him again for attention. There's not much good she can do in a fight, really, she'd just huddle on his boat and pray to Brother Earth that the kelpies couldn't get her.

That's a coward's thinking, though, and while there's not a lot she can do, there's something. She tries to make a 'follow me' motion with her upper body and head. If she can show him where the kelpies are coming from...

[worthallthis]

The seal just kept him from getting thrown in the water. He'll take a gamble. He pauses long enough to shift his guns in their holsters to hooks on the shoulder harness rather than to his thighs, and then swings off the boat and into the shallow water.

Lead the way, magic seal.

[graveyounglady]

Oh, Brother! Shouldn't he stay in the boat? Mercy's not sure. It's a little ways to 'nest' for the kelpies and she's worried about her new friend getting hurt along the way. Although, he had dispatched that kelpie handily...

To show she's with him, Mercy does move to press close to him and try to sort of... nuzzle one of his legs while trying to curl a flipper around it. She will protect you on the journey!

I

[bossyboiler]

"Have you ate yet?" Kate calls from the kitchen. She is making pasta for dinner. Water is boiling in a pot on the oven. Kate is cutting up garlic until it is finely chopped, from there she moves to slicing up basil.

Of course, she's going to cook for the apartment. It relaxes her. She can take her mind off of her current situation and focus on flavors and food. Kate doesn't have to think about her lack of powers or the strange sky with only one moon in it. It's by no means okay but it's fine, everything is fine.

Kate prefers not to cook just for herself. Call it vanity but she likes watching people's pleased reaction to her creations. She enjoys knowing that she did a good job. Being Italian means that's going to offer to feed people, even her quiet and slightly creepy roommate. She doesn't mind the quiet but he has this almost manic vibe to him, almost that he's waiting for something to happen. It would be rude to mention it and he's not doing anything to bother her aside from the weird vibes. Again, it's fine.

She heats oil in a pan and once it is hot enough, she adds garlic, tomatoes and the rest of the ingredients minus the basil. "It's going to be ready in a few minutes." She adds to the one-sided conversation. "There's going to be enough."

It's not enough for a small army but there is more than enough for three people.

[worthallthis]

It takes him until the second time she speaks up to realize she's talking to him. He's sitting in the armchair in the living room, situated so he can see her out of the corner of his eye without watching her directly, but now he looks in her direction, a tiny furrow between his brows.

He probably ought to eat. It's still kind of uncomfortable, but at least if she's the one putting it together, he won't have to figure out how to pick something out of the vast array of options he's never had before. So he finally says, "Okay."

Then, after a pause, "Should I help."

[bossyboiler]

Kate flashes him a brief but genuine smile. "If you don't mind setting the table," she replies as she stirs the boiling noodles. They are almost done but she doesn't want them sticking together. "The plates are in the second cabinet to my left. Glasses are in the cabinet to the right of the fridge. Thank you." If he can do that for her, then she can quickly shred parmesan.

[worthallthis]

Setting the table. Right. He's seen her do this, he knows what goes where, he's pretty sure, and he definitely knows where all the items necessary are. He's memorized the layout of the kitchen and what is in each cabinet, mostly so he knows where all the potential weapons or defensive items are.

He picks himself up from his seat and edges into the kitchen to start collecting dishware. Every time he gets within arm's reach of Kate, he sidles away, careful to move around her.

It doesn't take very long to set out for three people. Even if their third roommate isn't actually here right now, it'll be ready for him when he gets back.

[bossyboiler]

"When you're done with that, there's a pitcher of ice water in the fridge." He's being terribly respectful of her own personal space. She wonders if she's being a bit bossy but shakes that off. No, she's not. Kate reasons that some people just need a little guidance in what to do. (Kate that is a not a little!)

Using a spatula, she stirs the sauce in the pan before checking on the noodles. They are al dente and all ready to be drained and transferred to a dish. "So do you have a name? I'm Kate." If he has said his name, she has forgotten it or didn't hear it. Kate thinks that she might simply not have heard him. He does seem the quiet type and she's never had a reason to ask until now. She wants to know.

[lowficharm]

Martin isn't usually the type of guy to step in when someone else is handling themselves, but after a few minutes he just finds himself kind of... staring at this guy apparently puzzled by a vending machine. At first he'd convinced himself the other man must be just deciding what he wants, but the complete stillness in him is a bit eerie and continues to get worse the longer it goes on. He grapples with himself on if he's going to say something for another 5 or so minutes before he finally approaches, walking to just... stand next to Bucky for a moment or two before speaking.

"So. Uhmmm. Are you... good? With this?" He sounds uncertain, but that's less about his confidence in handling a vending machine and more about how well he might be at communicating.

[worthallthis]

He looks sidelong at Martin, and though his expression is mostly blank, there might be a flicker of nervousness in there. Then it's gone and he steps obligingly aside. "Sorry. I'll get out of your way."

That is not actually an answer to Martin's question, and he knows it, but it seems stupid to just not know what to pick.

[lowficharm]

Oh, cool, this is getting worse. Every moment that passes makes Martin want to sweat harder, and when the other man finally speaks back he all but bursts into chatter.

"No, it's, it's fine! You're not in my way, I wasn't even going to use it, I, I just-- I thought, maybe you'd never seen one of these?" He's met a couple of weird people thus far, namely some that don't know things like cars- who knows where this guy is from and what he's seen. Maybe his world was totally the same and just never invented vending machines. The multiverse is a weird place.

He doesn't think too long about it before he's back to talking, though. "I didn't want you to be, uh, lost with the-- machine. And all. So I could help if, if you needed it, but if you don't that's fine sorry."

[worthallthis]

That was a lot of words. He stares at Martin's right eyebrow as if confused by all of them. Finally, a long moment after Martin finally stops talking, he admits, "I don't know what to get." He can work out the machine just fine, he watched two other people use it, and it's not that complicated.

It's the choosing a thing part that's the problem. He thinks that's probably not a normal person kind of problem (not that... he's really a normal person, or even, he thinks, properly a person at all). He adds, hoping it might help explain the oddity, "I have. Never eaten any of these things."

[lowficharm]

Really, Martin thinks the sensible thing to do after saying all of that would have just been to run away or possibly melt into a puddle of shame, but with the other man's eyes on his he just stands there hoping the universe might nuke him from orbit. But he lights up a bit in understanding when he hears the actual problem, loosening his shoulders just enough to make it look like he isn't trying to press himself into a cube.

"Oh! Oh, it's a... a choice, thing." He looks over at the vending machine, suddenly trying to contemplate what's in there and how he'd be able to explain it with the lowest amount of context. "Well, uh, usually this is for like-- snacks, and things. So you've got your crisps and cheese things, sweets, biscuits, sometimes there's uh, granola?" Martin's getting less certain that he makes sense with each passing moment, looking at Bucky for some kind of confirmation that any of what he's saying is comprehensible.

III move the goalposts

[abrightboy]

Malcolm isn't on this mission to battle anyone. Gil has gone missing and there's some logic that the targets of ADI have made targets of ADI.

However, when the man with the metal arm seems like he might be overrun with the things, Malcolm picks up an emergency padded and stands up, thwacking a creature off of Bucky's back with it, sending it flying back into the water.

[worthallthis]

The thing that is not Barnes ducks at the sound of the weapon swinging his way, making an even better angle for the kelpie clinging to the weapons harness. He half-turns and shoots it before it can do more than roll over in the shallow water.

Then he splashes over to Malcolm to cover him, assuming he's here to fight, too, with an oar as a weapon. Better than nothing, after all.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm flinches as the shot’s fired. Lethal force hadn’t been his intention. He’s not interested in exterminating the kelpies; he’s here to look for Gil.

He grips his oar as the man approaches, but doesn’t swing it unless a kelpie is going to reach one of them, then he sends it flying.

[worthallthis]

Lethal force is, sadly, this guy's default setting. He takes aim again, and fires. And again. He never misses entirely, though not all of his shots are proper kill shots, in the dark and the water and the unfamiliar-shaped targets.

"The seals," he says, in a moment when he doesn't have a target. "The seals are people. We need to find them."

[abrightboy]

Malcolm just looks at him for a moment, swinging at a kelpie that charges him.

“Excuse me… what?”

I

[inlieuofadad]

Gil has been keeping an eye on everyone, as he does, particularly those he knows aren't natives. That's how he initially takes note of Bucky--staring in bewilderment at the options in the Canteen. His attitude, his awkwardness, the way he moves, his intensity--in Gil's mind it all points toward some kind of extreme military training or experience. Someone in deep enough that normalcy isn't. Maybe involved in wetwork. He doesn't want to guess at more than that without talking to the guy.

He's not surprised to find Bucky at the shooting range, though. He settles the muffs over his ears, tending to his service weapon as he watches Bucky shoot. When there's a break in the noise, he tugs the muffs down and tries to make his approach as visible as possible.

The guy is scary-good. "If I say 'nice shot' would it sound patronizing or just obvious?"

[worthallthis]

He lifts his own muff-- he has already learned that shooting without them is uncomfortable, and while he was never allowed these little comforts before, he's going to take advantage of them now-- when Gil approaches. The question is unexpected, but he does probably need to answer.

"Obvious," he decides after a moment. Long-range weapons is one of the things he's best at. "It is my best skill."

[inlieuofadad]

Wow. This guy might have Malcolm beat on social awkwardness, if he takes a self-depreciating joke that seriously. Gil offers his hand without thinking, the gesture second nature, before he spares a moment to wonder if that's a thing in unfamiliar worlds or not. Either way, not important at the moment.

"Gil Arroyo. New York City, Earth, 2021."

Dear lord, he's getting used to saying that.

[worthallthis]

Well, he can offer a location and time frame. Names are dicier. "Washington DC, Earth, 2014." He stares a moment at the offered hand, then tentatively puts his own into it. It's familiar. He's seen handlers and technicians do it. Touching is not a thing for HYDRA's asset, though, not without purpose.

But he already knows how it goes over when he doesn't do the people-things here. So, handshake. It's slow and careful, and only lasts for the bare minimum, before he lets go and steps back again. It's still probably about as awkward as it would have been if he'd ignored the hand entirely, sorry Gil.