Settle The Score | The Assassination of Fenix Down (Player Plot Open-Log)

[aelwyn_aberration]

Who: Aelwyn + Anyone Who Wants To Be Involved In This Assassination
When: April
Where: Around Gloucester, Springfield, the Circus, assorted other locations.
Summary: A murder is planned, executed, and staged. The details are yet to come.
Warnings: Discussions of murder, actual murder, blackmail, espionage, gaslighting, TBA.

[Several months ago, following the Circus' initial visit, Aelwyn was given permission to take down Fenix Down and his circus. Now, after more recent revelations about their unseen enemy, the plan has become a higher priority.

The plan is as follows. To ensure that this doesn't implicate ADI, a false cult will be created for this specific purpose. They'll keep the entity behind it vague, but one must be selected to ensure anyone paying enough attention would be able to identify it. They'll create conspiracy theories, fabricate old reports from decades ago to make it seem like this group is only recently being resurrected.

And then, with that done, they'll execute the plan itself. Staging the kidnapping and murder as if it was the act of that cult, and an extensive interrogation.

OOC Post here!]

Comments

cw: self harm, blood

[whisperedone]

He hesitates...that was his intention in stepping in here. The information was nice but secondary, he'd come here for his quarry, but it was little to hunt when he was tied up and accepting of his predicament.

Better on the stomach than screaming and crying, he supposes.

Yet it occurs to him there might be people watching this, ADI or people who might take unkindly to Garner's intentions, so he crouches down in front of Fenix, his arm tucked close to his stomach as his blade finds the edge of the fresh cut there.

"Are there any other names you'd like to give me? Anyone else whose crossed your path? You seem affable, despite it all, but I imagine there might be those you quarreled with. Other avatars who stepped on your toes...perhaps you'd like to give me their names."

Carefully, slowly, he digs the knife into his arm and pulls it along the wound, ensuring the blood it would pick up coated the tip and edge the most. There's a new spring of power, not deep but enough, from his recent entanglement with Roderick, and he pulls on that now to cause the blade of his knife to frost with icy chill.

cw: sadism/masochism, self-harm

[apocalypsehownpcs]

Fenix watches Garner cut himself, and there's no small amount of amusement on his face for anyone else watching to see. "Aw, that's cute, puppy. You wanna be my attack dog? Kill the people I hate after I'm dead? I mean, I have got some assholes you could go after for me.

"Here's the deal: You cut off one of your fingers, and I'll give you three names to run with, kid. I don't care which one. Just make sure you can live without it."

cw: torture

[whisperedone]

Puppy? Attack dog, at least, he felt familiar with.

"You seem like a business man...so don't mind if I haggle a bit." He shifts so his knee braces on the floor and he raises the knife, the air steaming around the chill in the metal.

"I'll stop when you have a name." Cool as the ice on his blade, Garner shifts the knife in his hold to cut into Fenix's leg, horizontally, just above the knee. Not especially deep, but about two inches in length, partially just to test.

cw: torture, masochism, vaguely nsfw

[apocalypsehownpcs]

"Hah! Haa... Mm..." Fenix's breath comes out in a few pained gasps. He's lips are pulled back in a fierce grin. "We're down to two names. But only if you push that all the way through. No real bones to worry about. So just keep pushing. Hard as you can."

cw: torture, kneecap injury

[whisperedone]

No bones? He shouldn't be doing what's being suggested to him, but he's curious and that temptation to know tickles at his mind.

He doesn't drive the blade into Fenix' thigh, but instead moves down to his bent knee and digs the frozen blade directly into where he expects the kneecap to rest.

cw: torture, kneecap injury, masochism is going to continue for this thread

[apocalypsehownpcs]

Another sharp breath. There's more resistance, but nothing like trying to pierce through a bone should be. "If you're gonna freeze pieces of me, you should try breaking them off, too. C'mon, puppy. Really sink your teeth in."

cw: torture for the forceeable future, kneecap injury

[whisperedone]

"Why are you calling me that?" It slips from him unbidden and he mentally berates himself. It didn't matter, that wasn't an important question. "No. What names.?"

Slowly, he pulls the knife back out, moving it ever so slightly back and forth as he does.

cw: warnings continue

[apocalypsehownpcs]

"Mm! You know the problem with being made of wax? You don't feel things like you used to." His voice stutters, but there's something that's... more than the pain there. It's not faltering in defeat, certainly. "I'm calling you what you are, dog. Hunter. Dunno what cult you're with that you managed to infiltrate the ADI lot. Good job, though. Should I shout it louder, just to make sure they know what you are?

"Or do you want one name?"

[whisperedone]

That hits a nerve and not the one specifically aimed for. Garner's eyes narrow and he stands as he pulls the knife all the way out so he can press the blade to the bends of Fenix's fingers.

"I am part of no cult." Not one he'd know of, a whisper offers and he hates that he can't tell if it's his own mind or planted.

"Names, Fenix. I won't cut off my fingers, but perhaps yours will do."

[apocalypsehownpcs]

Fenix just laughs, and as he does, Garner will find a searing pain in his knee and leg, one that matches precisely what he's just inflicted on Fenix.

cw: brief reference to voluntary eye injury

[whisperedone]

He's trained not to react, it had been part of the test for his ritual: no flinching as the solution took his left eye or he'd fail. Yet that training fails him in the searing ricochet of a spectral and cold knife digging into his knee.

Garner gasps and his leg buckles, causing the blade to just bite at the surface of skin, but not cut in as he shifts.

His free hand grabs for his knee, checking for the weapon he expects to find only to find empty air. "So...is that it? You want respectful conversation? Or did I hit a nerve?"

cw: sadism/masochism, self-harm

[apocalypsehownpcs]

"I told you what I want." There's a needle sharp grin in his voice, even as it's ragged with pain. "Blood for blood. You want a name? You take away a piece of yourself. Seems like you already got experience losing things, my boy. What's one more bit?"

cw: torture bordering on cruelty, featuring fingers

[whisperedone]

He thinks about it. For a moment he truly thinks about the costs...and they aren't worth it.

"No. See, there's a break down in our communication here: I want the names-" He shifts again to keep his weight distributed despite the lingering burn in his knee. "But I don't need them. They aren't why I'm here."

He moves quick and efficient, his knife digging through the last three fingers on Fenix's hand without stopping. With no bone to find the joints of, he pushes until his blade stops meeting resistance.

cw: torture bordering on cruelty, featuring fingers

[apocalypsehownpcs]

"Ah!" Fenix's eyes flutter, and there's an immediate flaring of heat around Garner's nethers in response, like someone has lit his undergarments on fire. "Just here for the kill, huh? Or a trophy?"

Cw: blood

[whisperedone]

His eyes squeeze tight and his jaw clenches, but he drives the knife into where a lung should be on the right side of Fenix’s chest. Again, no resistance. A tendril of Garner’s blood snaps from his arm out to the new wound…but there’s nothing to grab, nothing to tie to and no purchase for the Brand to take hold. It splatters to Fenix’s clothes uselessly.

“No bones, no blood..and I assume no organs. Do you run only on spite, golem?”

[apocalypsehownpcs]

Garner earns himself another gasp, and then the feeling of a knife piercing his insides. "I run... on applause. You're paying for my tailor to get this suit fixed. I'll make you a different deal. Give me a finger, and I'll tell you why Pyre was back in Gloucester, even if you didn't notice him."

[whisperedone]

That burning phantom stab earns a gasp from him as well and every little sensation is a building distraction that clouds his mind. He pauses and shakes his head to clear it, but kneels down to feel for one of the fallen fingers he'd cut earlier.

It's waxy and wrong and warm and he winces as he lifts it to put it in Fenix's lap. "Well?"

[apocalypsehownpcs]

It earns Garner a laugh. Not a particularly warm laugh, but it's there. And the finger dissolves where it's sat in Fenix's laugh, regrowing back on his hand a moment later. "Okay, smartass, here's your treat: Pyre's daddy has a plan, and he needs little Katie for it. And that is all you get."

Every injury Garner has inflicted on Fenix flares again in Garner's body. Bright and sustained for nearly half a minute.

[whisperedone]

Garner isn't so proud he doesn't cry out, it's a lot all at once, from his hand to his knee to his chest, all burning and intense and too much for how long it lasts. He doubles over, his breathing harsh through his teeth until it fades again.

Tactical retreat. He got something and while he didn't doubt he could do some real damage with his blood maledict and his glaive, that wasn't his role.

When his breathing is even enough to have him back on his feet again, the icy aura fades from Garner's knife as he pockets it. "Thank you. A pleasure talking with you, but I suspect there are others who have more claim to your life than I."