Summary:A tear in the fabric of the universe and jackals are roaming downtown NYC Log Info:Storyteller: koa-turner |
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There is something of a traffic jam in the Upper East side not too far from the section of it that borders on Central Park. This area is a throughfare for people who move into and out of the well off part of the city, folks who might garden or repair things for example. It's also home to many swanky shops and boutiques.
Except at the intersection of Park and East 79th there's an enormous hole in the middle of the street. Well, hole is not quite right. There's a gigantic cirular chunk of the intersection of these two very busy streets that simply doesn't exist. It's a black yawning void. Which would be bad enough… if there weren't things climbing out of it. Things that look like enormous, red eyed Jackals the size of volkswagons.
That happened literally five minutes ago. There's been no time for the police to cordon anything off. The cars closest to the site have simply been abandoned and as the jackals prowl the area around the hole, there's a wave of foot traffic bolting in all directions away from whatever fresh hell this is.
Koa Turner is not pleased. He was actually a block back when this mess started and he had to drive his car onto the sidewalk to get it out of the way and cover the rest of the distance on foot.
"What?" He says mostly to himself as he sees the hole in reality and the jackals. "New York traffic isn't bad enough without this bs?"
Not far from this gaping hole in reality is a light pole and plastered on that pole is a poster. The picture depicts a little moppet of about five years old, curly red hair and freckles across the bridge of her nose. MISSING the headline proclaims and beneath the photo, the details. Sorcha McClennan, missing for five days now. Last seen at the daycare centre she was in.
It was this poster that Keiko Kurita had been looking at when the hole in reality opened. Her bike propped against the pole. It's here that Koa will pass her as he makes his way on foot. She's now frowning at the Jackals, who have just come through.
Oh hey. A gaping hole in reality.
Eve'd heard — no, /sensed/ — something off. This sort of thing no doubts gives waves of unsettling vibes to people who might be sensitive to that kind of thing and, well, Eve had a gut instinct that something, somewhere, was terribly wrong.
To be fair, there's always something terribly wrong /somewhere/, but today it's close enough for her to actually get there and take a look. It's why her day of enjoying Central Park is over and why she's here. She's moved up the fire escape of one of the buildings to have a look down. Down at the jacksl and the horrible yawning abyssal emptyness of blackness.
"Aw," she says.
"This again."
Keiko can hear Koa talking. "Okay. Jackals. Maybe Egyptian again. And a Class SK reality breach. There should be something-"
He looks over and sees the tattoo mage. "Oh. Miss Kurita. Fancy seeing you here. I need to close this breach. Mind giving me some cover while I ward?"
He pulls out a small pendulum - an eight sided crystal on a thin silver chain. The moment he does the nearest Jackals growl and begin to stalk toward him.
Similar happens with Eve though she might initially be less worried because Jackals are notoriously bad climbers.
That is suddenly made a lot less relevant when a huge mass errupts from the center of the hole. "Voidspawnnnnnnnn." A voice hisses. There are fortunately at this point not many people around to hear it. Just Koa and Keiko at this point really.
But that's not the problem. The problem is when that mass, which is revealed to be a HUGE tentacle, makes a grab for the gardener.
Something that will probably also grab Keiko's eyeline.
"Agent Turner, why am I not surprised to find you here?" Keiko snarks at the WAND agent, rubbing her arms as the jackals prowl. "Did you cause this?" That's accusatory, totally. "And you might as well call me Keiko…"
The request gets a snort from the asiatic handywoman. "Give you cover, how exactly? Those Jackals look like they might find you a tasty meal…"
As the Jackals start to stalk the agent, her sleeves are rolled up, her fingers brushing almost lovingly over the image of the wolf there. Several seconds, a huge glowing wolf appears not far from. "Bella. See to the agent and keep those dogs away from him."
Bella growls and leaps off, placing herself between Koa and the Jackals.
As to the tentacle reaching, that does draw her eye. "Watch out, Miss… Is that the woman from the other day, Agent?" What was her name …. Adam? No, Eve!
"Oh, fuck /me/," says Eve as the tentacle comes lashing out towards her.
There's really no time to dodge it, of course, so instead she just braces herself. Braces to catch or be enveloped by it because what else can she do? She's got nowhere to go.
Still, she's not without advantages. Hopefully, it'll grab her rather than SQUISH her. The latter takes longer to come back from.
It does just grab her and it's got a very familair kind of wrongness to it when it touches her. It mangles the fire escape though the building itself mostly escapes unscaethed. Then it lifts her high, out of the way of any obstacles and starts to reel Eve back into that pool of darkness.
Wherever that goes, it's a pretty sure bet that she doesn't want to go there. Commmmmmmmmmmmmmeeeeeee. As if it's giving her a choice.
Koa kneels on the ground as the jackals close in. Bella growls. They growl. Then there's a flurry of snarls and biting. It looks like Koa is inscribing something by scraping the ground with that crystal. It's leaving glowing marks in its wake. Bella manages to keep them off him long enough for him to finish and he gets up and starts running to another point along the circel. "Bella! Come!"
For the moment - though it is likely to change - Keiko is free of Jackals herself and can see the tentacle pulling Eve toward that dark pool in the center of the intersection. This is possibly not good. Nor is what looks like a second, smaller tentacle slowly creeping out. This one with an eyeless, fanged maw on the tip.
Bella snaps and snarls, moving around quickly as the Jackals lunge at Koa. When the agent takes off, the glowing wolf raises her head and looks at Keiko. "Do as he says, Bella. His safety is yours to safeguard." The wolf takes off, seemingly ready to obey the obnoxious WAND agent.
While she's talking, the asiatic woman touches another tattoo on her arm and a few seconds later a dragon, a gosh darn dragon, hangs in the sky. It screeches as Keiko gestures and sends a blast of fiery air at the lower part of the tentacle.
YOu know what?
Eve is taking her time. Adjusting her biology. While it's not exactly part of her public profile of powers — she's been doing the minor superhero gig for years at this point — she is more than capable of lifting a few thousand pounds on her own…
…and she really doesn't want to get pulled into some Carpenteresque anti-universe full of anti-god and his cheerful friends.
It's why as she's pulled off the mangled fire escape, she strains. Strains mightily, actually, against the tentacles enveloping her. She doesn't need much room. Just enough to slip free and haul herself onto it.
.. if she can. It's a bit of a big if.
By the time Koa is done inscribing the second symbol and bolting to the third the jackals are getting pretty thick around him. There are dozens now and with the size they are it only takes a few of them to try to box the Agent in. He's having to do some fancy footwork out there. But he's still moving or so it seems.
Keiko and Eve have other problems. The fire blast does combine with Eve's own straining to give her the window she needs. The coils are defintiely loose enough now though below her is swarming with VW sized Jackals which are now looking up and slavering in her direction.
Keiko's problem at the moment is that tentacle with the fanged maw. The moment her dragon did it's thing, it came right for her face.
Bella almost herds Koa, massive jaws snapping at any jackal that get's close, shouldering the Agent in the direction he needs to go and out of their way. She's a clever one, this wolf.
Keiko has been watching that tentacled maw and has stopped to pick up a metal bar that's out with some trash. It's sturdy enough, at least she hopes. She twirls it, expertly, watching that tentacle - the moment it lunges for her, she strikes out quickly smacking it aside and turning herself.
It's almost poetry in motion as she duels with the thing.
The dragon shrieks again, turning from Eve and her predicament, to dive at speed at the maw on tentacle that's following Keiko - claws outstretched to close around it. Much like a bird of prey might catch a snake.
So, there's Eve, freeing hersefl from the tentacled monster when she's distracted by the fact that there's a frigging DRAGON over there that she is just now noticing. This is a problem, see, because it;'s incrediblt distracting.
She slips out of its grasp and promptly srarts to plummet towards all those jackals, bracing herself for the fall. She hits the ground with a crash and some poretty nasty cracking sounds from her ankles, but that doesnb't stop her fro mstggering forward. The earth, even in the city, is never absent plants and she's weaving quickly to draw thorny vines up from between the cracks, letting them thrive and bloat and to grab onto the odd jackal creatures thermselves.
She can do this part. "Ow," she adds, reflexetively.
The city's plant life responds VIOLENTLY to Eve's urging for self defense but even more than Koa, she is being swarmed and unlike Koa it's quite clear that the Jackals also want to drag her back inside that blackness.
Speaking of Koa there are occasional flashes over by him. He's made nearly a complete circuit of the circle now. This is, if Keiko counts right, his fifth stop. There's green bolts of energy near him but it's hard to see him honestly and she has other issues. She neatly dances and side steps the fanged maw but she can't kill it. She can keep it away though.
Or can she? Something has snaked in on ground level and tries to pull her feet off the ground at the same time as that big tentacle makes another grab for Eve. It's much harder now with all the thorns and what not though.
The dragons talons close on the maws 'neck', dragging it up and back away from Keiko. At the same time, it's powerful jaws close over the 'head', prepared to chomp down hard and try and kill it.
That gives Keiko a moments respite, but not for long. The tattooed woman feels the tentacles close on her feet and she tumbles - almost like a gymnast performing a round up - to land on clear of the writhing mass for the moment.
The metal rod twirls, catching the light, Keiko bringing the end down hard right into the middle of the tentacle. That should pin it, at the very least.
Bella's still Koa, leaping about and snapping and snarling. Etheral green icor leaking from several wounds and sticks to her fur in patches. This hasn't been easy for her, but she's still fighting, still keeping the way clear for the WAND agent.
"Ack! These are one of my favorite pants! Let go!"
One of the jackals has latched onto Eve's leg and is violently dragging her towards the hole, yes, and another is on her arm. The plants are helping, but you know, she's bleeding pretty considerably at this point, not that it seems to matter to her. "Fuck! Ow! Stop that!" She grabs one of the jackals approaching her with her other, freer arm and bodily kicks it with her free leg to send it hurtling away pretty violently in turn. Her plant-friends are still doing what they do, but yeah, she's being savaged into a bloody mess.
Is that bone? Yeah, that's bone. Visible bone — but it isn't apparently hampering her at all.
There is an angry shriek from the reality breach when Keiko pins the tentacle. It's starting to look like there might be too many jackals after all. Eve is getting… really badly torn up and even Bella may not last much longer.
Then bright blue light criscrosses the breach in several directions. The five symbols Koa had inscribed connect to one another to form a pentagram. Light flares brightly and then blue energy washes outward with concussive force, dispelling all the jackals except for the couple that Eve had actually kicked INTO the hole. As the breach is sealed Eve, and possibly Keiko, will here on the winds We are your destiny, Voidspawn…
When it clears the street is normal again. Except for the small obsidian statuette of a jackal at the center.
"Keiko? Eve? How bad?"
Koa calls from where he's standing up. His arm has blue sigils glowing over it and the tree behind him has interestingly entirely withered.
"Oh hell. Eve do we need to call you an ambulance?" She's bad enough that Koa can see it from where he is. Keiko… doesn't seem hurt?
The dragon twists and turns in the air, battling the tentacle it's munching on. The thing won't die and it's winding itself around the glowing dragon. Trying to crush it? Perhaps. The dragon bellows a challenge one more time as the breach is closed and it's freed. Glydril hangs in the air, wings out held, looking down. Waiting for instruction it seems.
Bella stands near Koa, panting heavily, her tongue lolling to the side. As the scene clears, she limps over to the stauette and noses it, looking back to Koa and then nosing it again.
The message is clear.
Keiko isn't badly hurt. She's scrapes and bruises when she was struck and grabbed. And a bruise where she turned and hit a trash can (shhhh, no one saw that).
"Eve … " she pants, dropping her makeshift 'staff' and limping to the woman. She's a mess and Keiko isn't sure she's going to make it. "Call an ambulance, Agent. This looks bad."
Oh yes, one more thing. Keiko looks up at Glydril, sketching a symbol in the air. The dragon … disappears in a puff of green. Bella, for the moment, remains.
"Naw. No need. I'll be fine. Ouch. That smarts."
Eve looks down at her leg. "It'll be fine in a moment." She puts her fingers to her lips and turns to go have a seat. She'll still be covered in blood, and she's definitely limping, but it's the kind of limp borne out of the limb being rendered less than functional than out of any real sense of pain.
"I'd be fine well before they get here." Her blue hair is matted with sweat to her forehead, eyes shutting. Hey, her leg seems to be healing. Her arm too, actually. And the bite on her shoulder. And all the bruises. They're taking their time in going away, but they ARE going away. It's just taking her some inwards focus to make it happen, apparently.
Koa is about to call when Eve says she'll be fine. He looks dubious but he'd read a bit of her file - the part he was cleared to read - and so he puts his phone away.
And picks up that statuette. And walks over.
"Egyptian. Second Dynasty. I'd say circa 2700 BC? Clearly magically charged…"
He waves a hand in front of his nose as if something stinks.
"And not in a nice way. This isn't something that just falls out of the back of a truck. It was left here deliberately. And it seemed to be quite interested in YOU Eve?"
He glances to Keiko for confirmation on that. The various manifestations seemed almost singularly focused on the plant controlling woman. Who should have bled into unconsciousness by this point but somehow hasn't.
"Thanks for the help by the way, Keiko."
Bella whuffs at Koa as he picks up the statuette and falls in beside him, limping back to Keiko, her tongue still lolling to the side.
"Good girl, Bella…" Keiko murmurs. "Sleep now and recover. I'll try not to call on you until you're mended…" Another symbol is sketched in the air and Bella dissolves into smoke that seems retract and settle on Keiko's arm.
"Are you sure, Eve …" Keiko frowns as she sees the wounds slowly healing. "I agree, Agent Turner, they were focussed on Eve here. They only became interested in me when I started to intervene."
She eyes the Statuette. "An Egyptian artifact?" she sounds skeptical but who can blame her.
"Ehhh. Who can say. I mean, sure, it liked me most of all, but that might just be because I'm magically delicious and full of lucky charms. I wasn't even in the area when this started. Came up later, so let's not conflate what /might/ be coincidence into a bigger thing until you know more about it, eh? That's /your/ job, right? Or am I just gonna be assumed to be causing trouble again?" She gives a skeptical look at Koa, clearly taking issue with the assumption that this might be All Connected To Her somehow.
Even if it might be. Keiko get a weird look. She saw her. Saw the dragon. All the weird.
"Oh I'm fairly comfortable at this point saying that this is not your fault, Eve." Koa says with a faint smile. "Regardless of the reason it was left here, I also feel confident in saying it wasn't an accident. But you're right it might have targeted you for other reasons."
Given that he doesn't mention any of the things the breach was saying it's entirely possible he didn't or couldn't hear them.
The agent turns the statuette over in his hands. It's not very big. Small enough to fit comfortably in the hand. About five inches long all told. "Mmmhmm, Keiko. Egyptian and quite old. Five thousand years old if I had to hazard a guess, give or take a couple of centuries."
"Well, do you feel the need for any official assistance? Or would you prefer to just heal up and be left alone?" Koa wouldn't blame Eve either way.
"And do you require anything Keiko? You've been quite helpful."
Yes he saw that dragon too. Second time he's seen it and that's not something just anyone can do.
"You're right of course. It's an assumption." Keiko says quickly, looking mild at the look Eve is giving her. "Agent Turner seems to enjoy jumping to conclusions." She so enjoys needling the WAND agent. Fishing in her pocket, she pulls out a card and hands it to Eve "If you ever need any help, you can call me."
Koa hasn't got one of those…
"Not right at the moment, thank you Agent." She turns back down the street to the light post, tearing the poster off and taking it with her.
The cars is carefully tucked into her pocket. "I just need to get back to my car and get a change of clothes. These aren't even /artfully/ shredded." Eve is asnnoyed by that. She LIKED these pants. They had just the right amount of wear and tear to go with her goth ensemble, y'see. Also, she is /so frigging pale/. Even where she's not wearing makeup.
Now back to Koa. She just eyeballs him some more. Warily. After all, guys like him have the authority to order she be requested into a bunker fifty feet below the earth somewhere. Probably.
Really, she doesn't want to find out.
"That's… really old. Well, okay. ANWYAY. I should… get back to my car."
Koa probably doesn't personally have the authority to do that but WAND might. Of course even if WAND did, there's paperwork. The guy that Eve really needs to worry about is Stephen Strange. He might just decide to put her in that bunker. Or pocket dimension. Or something.
"Have a good day then, Eve." Koa smiles again and turns to head back to his own car. He has another mystery to solve.
Or perhaps… the same one.