Summary:Something psychically sinister goes down in the streets of Brooklyn.. Log Info:Storyteller: None |
Related LogsTheme SongNone |
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It starts, for those at a lucky distance, with an itch in the back of the mind. Like a nagging thought that grew finger nails, scritching amd scratching a furrow. Deeper and deeper. For those without a psychic gift, this itch comes with a compulsion. The urge to be somewhere. Restless legs. Excitement. A tingling nervous energy, spontaneous and alien.
For those in the streets of Brooklyn, just south of Uncle Leo's Cuban Deli and Smoke Shop, it's something else entirely. A keening whine in the ears. Like a jet engine powering up. It becomes a screaming, roiling cloud of noise and pain. For those in the epicenter, it's not a mysterious noise at all, really. Screaming. Pained, terrified screaming. First one person, then four. Ten. Twenty. As bystanders stop at the building chaos on the sidewalks, they are drawn in. Adding their wails to the chorus.
A moving truck plows headlong into an electronics refurbishers storefront. The driver screaming bloody murder. The people in the store soon join… then it's over. Across the street, a solitary man lifts his head to cry aloud. Then two more. Four.
It's migrating. Whatever it is, it's left one group of confused bystanders catatonic on the sidewalk. Exhausted beyond measure. Silent finally.
When the sound and the screaming reaches where Darcy's walking down the sidewalk, she is among the many that grab at their ears first. The bag she was carrying drops from her hands as she cries out, with the rest, at the pain of the screaming sound over taking her.
Venom does not like loud sounds. Nope. Not even a little bit and especially not deep down inside, where all the cells bind together and Eddie and his companion beast are, in theory, working on writing a piece while sitting in a coffee shop. The squealing makes his arm lash out and he thrashes his cup onto the floor, grabbing at his hair.
"We do not…like…that…noise," Eddie snarls, black tendrils creeping over his face, half his teeth going needle sharp and long as he falls to the floor and thrashes in pain for a moment.
It was usually silent for the most part these days for Rachel. Unless she were purposefully probing someone there was no need to keep her constant guard up. No need to have half a mental ear attuned to the general hum of humanity's thoughts to ensure that none were about to attack her or her friends. She was clearly slipping.
That itch starts jolting her out of the magazine she'd been reading only to abandon it as she takes off without explanation or warning to others at the school not far off. Nothing needed be said as she launches herself into the air to fly at breakneck speed toward the epicenter of this … noise. This growing roar rattling inside her head sending off every warning bell in her.
Even with her speed it's done by the time she lands in a jog on the sidewalk approaching the apparent epicenter of this noise, her gaze sweeping around to take in those that had survived and were left dazed, if not worse. Her own head aching she shakes it off moving toward Darcy to try and check on her. "What the hell… Are you okay?" She doesn't dare try to mentally probe for an answer to that question. Not yet.
TWO HOURS AGO:
"So you mean to tell me that -NONE- of you have an.. you know what. Fuck you."
NOW:
The Smoke Shop is where it's at. Everything ol' Quinnie desires; bongs, gas mask bongs, hooka rigs, plastic plugged in hooka rigs. Vapes filled with .3% of that sweet indica and sativa. Flowers. Oils. Even -shampoo-! Who would have thought being two years under, Quinnie would wake up to such gloriousness! Granted, it wasn't the real thing, HEMP and CBD, but what can you do when you're on the straight and narrow and don't want to get tested for CBD. You get hemp.
Glassware was inspected, grinders with some weird ass signal of a bat; there was even a janky red one with some spider head on the top of it.
"Weak." She says aloud, then looks up towards the shopkeep, who was apparently too far out of his gourd to even care. "Yo." She says, reaching her hand out to snap a few fingers in his face. Yes, she felt the annoyance. The .. nudge and the nod. It made her head hurt, even moreso to the point where she really wanted to toke up on the streets of Brooklyn.
"Dude. Yo. Gimme some of this fake ass OG kush. And some of that peanut butter mouth. Gimme that glass and screen with that ugly ass batman grinder. Cheapest one, cause it ai.. YO! You liste—-"
And then he starts screaming, Quinn takes a step back, her hand shoved into her pockets as her lips press into a thin line. Alright. Fine. FINE. FINE.
"Alright, listen shit for brains.." She says to the screaming shop-keep. "..I'mma go do this investigating crap we learned in school and when I get back, I better get a discount." She turns and busts out the door, the ring attached to it harsh. "Gave me a fucking migraine.. dick." And it wasn't just migraine. Quinn, sedated by pain and torture, had watery eyes to what felt like a spike through the skull.
Oh, poor Darcy. Poor, poor Darcy. She gets it. She knows. Eddie's taste of this madness comes ever so slightly muted, the symbiote acting as an unexpected filter. Not much of one but every little bit helps, right? It hits Darcy like an anxiety attack on equine steroids. Adrenaline surges in response to utter dread. An overwhelming sense of absolute doom and horror. Rachel and Quinn feel it too, of course, but for these two? It's a whole other show. Nearly fifty people lay scattered on one side of the street, dazed and drained. One man experiencing mild cardiac arrest.
Across the street, a new group has begun singing the song of a people utterly damned. Panicked screaming. Hyperventilating. Unhinged and manic laughter. It builds. Surges. Draws in more… then more… They can all feel the pressure in their heads. It makes the eyes water. Teeth ache. People have started to back away… but as the second group falls to the concrete, spent and weary beyond compare, a woman half a block away lifts her head to let out a mournful wail. It's moving again. Up the street. Is there a purpose? Is this pure coincidence?
Sirens sound in the distance. This has gained attention.
Adreanline. Fear. Darcy is used to these things, but her reaction is perhaps atypical of the normal person.
Some one runs toward her, and she drops her shoulder, braces her feet, and just lets him run into her and fall to the ground instead of bowling her over. Heart racing, breath coming in fast short gasps, she turns her wild gaze on Rachel.
"Fuck off," she says, her voice tense with fear while high and thready with dread. She takes a step back from the stranger.
Rachel Summers holds up her hands when the reaction from Darcy is one of the common ones for someone in terror: Fight or flight. Clearly hers was fight. "No problem. Just seeing if you were okay," she offers even as her head whips around to the new wailing coming from further down. Her head was aching… throbbing at this point. It only takes a bit of effort to try and raise her mental blocks, but she was also trying to pinpoint the source of this disturbance. "Something's going down. Who's causing this…" It's more muttered to herself than anyone else right now as she scans around quickly trying to find someone NOT affected as they move along. Or… or still moving in spite of it.
Venom pushes up to their feet and shakes their head, the combination of the bleeding influence and the noise…god damn the noise…making him feel more than a little irrationally agitated. He isn't exactly a poster boy for mental stability anyway.
"Shut up," he snarls, lashing out at one man and shoving him aside, pushing his way out into the street. As he walks, the symbiote manifests, lashing and climbing up his body, his mouth straining wide and his tongue extending as he lets out a strangled yell of his own, "SHUT THE FUCK UP!"
Stepping outside was -something- else. Quinn moves around a man who wailed as if he had nothing left, then reaches up to tap the middle of his head. "Shut up." He crumples to the ground, and Quinn keeps moving.
'Shut the fuck up!' was heard in the distance, and Quinn obliged a few others with taps that let them crumple. Did she help them fall? Nope. Shouldn't have been screaming. And then there was heart attack man; whom was stood over and looked down upon, her eyes glazing over as her head tilts to the side. She sized him up, weighing him from head to toe, recalling anatomy as best she could with the overlap of pain and noise in her brain. Her hand lifts, fingers curling as if she were cupping the precious heart, her pinpoint TK compressing against the erratically beating organ, attempting to force it into something of a normalcy to draw it out of its hectic state.
Done or not, foot was tapped against his shoulder. "Sleep." Was the command given, and she moves on.
Hands drawn into her pockets now, it was all a casual walk. There was nothing more she could do for those already worn, any intrusion from her would probably scramble their brain, and her nose was already bleeding.
Passing by Rachel and Darcy, Quinn withdraws a hand from her pocket to wipe at her nose. She does slow enough to keep pace with the two women, her hand shoved back into her pocket. "I'd say put the chick down and let us go toe to toe for whatever this is, but beacon." She gestures at Darcy. Fodder. "Figure we should put an end to this quick before my extremely hateful nature decides to scramble the brain pan of ever slag on this goddamned block."
Someones in a bad mood! Plus someone was still saying 'Shut the fuck up.' So at least she wasn't the only one.
Darcy's reaction, atypical as it is, maybe dealing with Asgardians has left her more mentally fortified than some. Judging by the scores of bodies still on the ground, there may be some merit to the theory. The effect leaves her but the imprint remains. Tension. Exhaustion. Fear.
Shields up and focus narrowed, she's looking for immunities and is not seeing one. The chaotic choir is in full swing up the block. Expanding. Shrieking. The pattern she is seeing? Expansion. Contraction. Seemingly spontaneous revival. The group grows, grows and grows. When it can add no more, the screams all end abrupt and in unison.
If you thought the bystanders were terrified before? Eddie Brock being swallowed whole by a greedy, sentient oil slick sends whatever good samaritans that rushed over? Rushing riiiiiiight on back with screams of their own.
A life has been saved amidst the anarchy in the streets. Quire's efforts stabilizing an elderly mans cardiac condition enough for the time being. An odd thing, feeling the frantic beat of a human heart… with your brain. The omega class anti-authority powerhouse now joining others in this strangeness.
As if by some form of shout magic, the crowds go silent at the roar of an alien monstrousity. Then it happens again. A young man, couldn't be more that seventeen, starts to scream aloud. This one turns, looking back at the collective that is Darcy, Rachel, Quinn and Venom. Still screaming, tears running down his cheeks as his sister and mother join the horrible chorus. The screams intensify. Car alarms going off. Windows rattling. Humans all joining together, gearing up toward a shared, disruptive frequency.
The mental screaming moving on, Darcy staggers, fatigued and tense and frightened. Trying to catch her breath, her eyes lift to Rachel to ask what's happening when suddenly there is another round of screaming. Her eyes slide over to look, and there she spots the black monster, Venom. …and it actually helps calm her down. A little bit.
"The fuck is going on?" Darcy finally asks of Rachel.
Venom lashes their tongue across their teeth and stares for a moment at Darcy, the woman they rescued from muggers last week improbably nearby. It actually works to help snap him out of his momentary pain fugue, the unexpected bringing Eddie back to the forefront.
"Shut them up," he mutters and he extends his hands, long, lashing tendrils of symbiotic darkness trying to get the weeping family, intending to muffle them and still their tongues whether they like it or not.
"This is madness here and for once, it is not ourssssssss," they say, looking back at the others. "A little help here?"
Rachel Summers sighs in sheer frustration as it builds again. It was the tension in her own body that was making it hard for her to think and decide what to do as people start asking what's going on. What should they do? They need to stop it… Even when Quinn shows up, she's still left feeling flustered. "Shut… god I wish…" Rubbing her hands over her face a breif moment they fall away from her face revealing her lips twisted into a snarl of anger.
Anger was good. Anger would help her focus. Anger would help her do what she'd been trained to do… even if most of those memories were hidden from her by the Pheonix Force moments before it dissapated into nothing in this universe.
Deeply inhaling she focuse on her own psychic defenses to focus them outward to surround those that were still functional. Darcy first, being so close, receives the benefit of the added layer of protection. Then Quinn, then Venom… And then she strides forward PUSHING her mental sheilds outward to protect the people as well while her gaze fixes on the epicenter of the newest yowling: The boy.
"Starts with him this time… So let's see what's going on," she utters with hand outstretched to rest on the boy's face. While she keeps her defenses up around the others she opens herself just enough to peer into the boy. What was causing it?
"Mouth of the south.." Quinn comments of Darcy appreciatively as she reaches inside of her jacket pocket. At least she had one joint left, that was taken and placed in between her lips as she hunts down various pockets for a lighter. Her head was -banging- like a drum; the banging nearly stops as she sees the crawling body of the klyntar moving near.
Okay. This is the point where Quinn faces the all too familiar record scratch; she does a little double take, pressing her lips hard against the joint, then slowly releases with a sigh. At least -he- was bothered. Though trying to eat the people.
"You're not going to eat us when this shit is over right?" She points at him accusingly. "That won't be cool at all." And then there's the kid. And his family. And the screams. Quinn clenches her jaws and closes her eyes, gaze canting towards Rachel as she focuses upon the boy.
"I got the rest."
Her hand lifts, fingers splayed as she searches for something in the area. Pinpointed to the grass. Pinpointed underneath the car. Rocks begin to roll out from their prospective spots and flung towards the mother and daughter, popping them clean in the middle of the forehead to knock them out in an unkindly gesture.
Hopefully, the boy would be left screaming.
"I'm going ahead." And so, she begins to walk, moreso towards the mother and daughter and not the boy himself.
When the group first came upon the scene as it were, chaos reigned. People screaming in unison, others running away and smartly so. Those that gawked, those slowed by indecision were dragged into the terrified singers ranks. Like a balloon, pressure built with each additional voice. Then it would pop. Only to start again within earshot.
Now, seemingly supernatural anxiety attacks are one thing. Having half your face enveloped in a cold, clammy tendrils somewhere between liquid and steel? That is worrisome. Also effective. As mouths are covered, screams diminish. All save one. The boy. His voice grows in terrible strength. Disolving any alien grasp. A web of tendrils could silence the crowd but the epicenter, the focal point, it would not be silenced by physical means.
Thok! Thok! Quinns cast stones have the desired effect, knocking out the women stone cold. Left to fall limp, held up only by the gentle embrace of Venom. Yeah. Rachel's shielding expands wider and wider. The boy, rage and absolute terror in his glassy eyes, screams ever louder. It's when Rachel's hand makes contact, it's when she delves deeper that the script flips. In her minds eye, she sees it clear as day. Like a flourescent worm, a twisted little light inside the boys mind. Thin, ghostly lines extending like a web. Looking. Feeling for weakness. Escape. It rails against the shields, unable to pass them and searching still.
Blue eyes lock on Darcy, the boy shaking with effort as he turns every bit of focus and fury on Darcy and Rachel's shields.
It's when Venom starting 'attacking' people that Darcy rushes forward. She has no idea she's being protected by Rachel, nor that the boy's blue eyes, filled with nate and malice, have turned toward her. Her attention, after all, is focused on Venom. Without fear of the sharp toothed, demon-tongued monster, Darcy runs right up to the symbiote, hands reaching out to grab the side of his head and force him to look at HER and not anyone else.
"Hey! Right here, Buddy," the woman is saying to the monster. That she is actually worried about this murderous, hungry, vile creature coupled with the sudden focus and fury aimed at her by the boy is just enough to overwhelmed those shields Rachel is holding into place. Venom/Eddie… Veddie… Nomdie… Nomdie gets a front row seat to the infection taking over Darcy's mind. It's fast, it's aggressive, and it slams home in her eyes with the lungful of air she'd pulled into to rambling at Venom turning into a full throated scream of pain and hate, fear and anguish. Worse, there's no remorse for any potentially shattered eardrums or cracked glass in the widening cone in front of her.
Move over Banshee and Canary. There's a new Screamer in town!
Venom had been focusing just a bit too much on the boy who was the threat. Focusing on the actual problem at hand is actually a novelty, since he often tends to amuse himself by tormenting others and instilling fear in the lesser beings involved. When the muffling doesn't work on the boy, Venom redoubles his efforts, sharp points forming on the tendrils on the boy's mouth and starting to flood in, working their way back. In a matter of seconds, his vocal cords are in danger of being shredded - and, if that doesn't work, they can always burrow up to the brain.
And then suddenly that scream hits him and he falls to his knees, the symbiote peeling away to bare pink skin for a moment as it thrashes in agony. Whether his tendrils have done any of their work before they withdraw back into him remains to be seen.
"What the…" Rachel stares in surprise. First at the THING inside the boy's mind. Second at the black tendrils sliding into the boy's mouth when her eyes refocus on what's in front of her instead of that imagine of the mindscape. For just a moment the shield she'd set up flickers. It's just enough for the virus to pass on to Darcy unfortunately.
She slams her shields back up grimacing, and pushes the mental thought into the boy to sleep. One down hopefully. "It's a bug! Somehow! A… a worm or… It's the noise!"
It all comes out in a rush as she tries to figure it out. Maybe she could PULL it out of Darcy and… Either way she runs over to clap a hand over her mouth attempting to muffle her while Venom writhes on the ground.
|ROLL| Quinn Quire +rolls 1d50 for: 3
The shift. Quinn felt it as soon as she came in close range of the boy; shoulder to shoulder, her eyes canted to the side as everything seemingly slows. (It doesn't, movie effect.) As soon as she inhaled to yell, the boy begins to crumple, and she turns swiftly to actually catch him to ease him to the ground. "Son of a bitch.." She mutters to herself.
And then there was Darcy, that loud yell that was reminiscent of alien movies, where the jaw extends and discord fills the air. She was already approaching the small and aware gathering, her fists clenched, ready to do a world of damage until Rachel's words finally reach her own brain pan.
"Jesus fucking christ." Quinn spits out, finally reaching the rag tag crew with her hands outstretched. She didn't want to do it but… "..time for a ride."
Hold on to your asses because it's going to get bumpy!
THE REAL WORLD:
Quinn touches the shoulder of Rachel and Venom, creating a circle of happy-fun-not-so-good feelings which would cause their world to go dark and maybe ooze/bodies to fall upon the concrete.
ASTRAL PLANE:
It was a whirlwind motion; complete with the Beyonce fan effect of rushing hair that blows into faces and cloaks or whatever else it was that dangled loose to whip quickly into the air. The area begins at first dark; like the several days of creation that it took to create this hellish landscape of Earth, there comes light. And it was horribly pink. That pink color slowly dissolves into something a little bit more natural; night. Stars that are not really stars that fill the sky; the landscape shaping and forming into rolling hills and uneven terrain, the sole light in the sky was an emblazoned "Q" created of fire that only appears to burn hotter than the sun, but with the light of the moon.
The Astral plane was created on connundrum; born and ran on ley-lines. Stripped down by the being that enters and creates a landscape of their own doing. Like such; trees sprout from the ground in an earthquaked movement. All bare and barren, gnarled branches that seem to reach for the sky with nary an end in sight.
Quinn leaves the minds of those willing; their appears may or may not change in this fabled world; the battleground shared by their combined willpower alone.
"Welcome to the Astral plane bitches." Quinn says through manifestation of her 'avatar' as most would call it, right hand curled into a fist and smacked hard into the middle of her palm, which creates a sonic boom effect that ripples the surroundings.
"Let's do this shit so I can go get high."
Black tendrils slithering down the screaming throat of a psychic captive, thorns tearing all too defenseless flesh. It would have worked too, savagely at that, but the cost would have been great. To the others. Venom? Maybe not so much. The fear and revulsion, the momentary jarring of sensibilities is just one of many little cracks in the defenses tested by the Psychic Virus. The boy crumbles to the ground, injured but free… The same can not be said about Darcy.
The connection is made. The frequency was just right. The moment of weakness, all it took to let slip inside this little brain bug. A self replicating, auditory transmitted thought virus, now hijacking Darcy Lewis and using her like a pirate radio station. Her scream is like daggers to Venom, shredding back the Symbiote and his own defenses. A horror show of every terrifying and painful moment in Darcy's life put on a high speed playback in her mind. It wants out. It wants… Eddie. So vulnerable there on his knees. Darcy's scream is muffled by the hand of one Rachel Summers. The feeling is not unlike extreme vibration. Knuckles popping, bones suddenly painfully numb. Her shielding is the only thing between Eddie and being hijacked as well. Nobody wants that. At all.
It's when Rachel calls it, when she casts the mystery aside and reveals the truth of the matter, that things went just plain wrong. She could see the glow of power inside Darcy's head, eyes bloodshot and pink tears escaping her eyes. The virus was threatened. It reacted accordingly. Dropping bodily safeguards, Darcy was going to feel these effects for a week at the least.
The efforts of all have been vital. Each one responsible for the downfall of this mental abomination. Bringing them all… here. With Quire's help, of course. The Astral Plane. Darcy's image before the three is a terrifying sight indeed. Jaw distended, throat wide and letting out a torrent of silvery, moonlight white tendrils. Seeking weakness. Looking for anything to survive another moment. All it would take now is a concerted effort. Pull it to this side and out of Darcy or… you know, Venom could just eat her head. That may work too.