2021.11.24 - Rabbit, Rabbit Finale: Trailer Park Throwdown
The story continues in: 2021.11.24 - Rabbit, Rabbit Finale: Rich Man, Poor Man, Bitterman
Autumn is in deep, full swing as the trailer park sits under gloomy skies and whipping winds. It seems, to be in it, there could be countless numbers of the trailers, lined up in neat rows, but as it happens, there are one hundred and forty-seven in this fairly expansive park, with lots for more that remain unoccupied. Few people are seen, and it might even seem like few people are actually there. Presumably, they're just all either out doing something, or indoors, avoiding the cold day.
Bubbles has gone with some of the others, including Ruth, to investigate the central nexus of disturbance. That's where Bitterman, the cursed film's director, seems to be. But the backup team, with quite a punch to pack, remain a safe enough distance away. They're close enough that they can come to the rescue quickly if needed, but far enough away that a trap or something gone sideways won't mean the whole group is out of the fight.
Nicholas and Madison have chosen to pass the time by sharing a cigarette.
Leif has never really considered himself a heavy hitter, so it's a surprise to him to find himself on the backup team. He leans against his 1940 Indian Chief motorcycle, legs kicked out in seeming casual fashion. Next to his boot-clad foot rests a long-handled hammer, made of steel, with a head the size of a cinder block. The teacher is wearing a denim jacket over a light flannel shirt, seeming little protection against those high autumn winds...which don't seem to be buffeting the group much, at all. "I hope the others are all right," he says, making conversation to fill the awkward gaps. "If the thing at the drive-in was any indication of what Bitterman can throw at them, I mean."
Nic shows up, hands in his pockets and his leather jacket pulled around him. He walks up to the others, booted feet copping along the ground. "Hey," he calls out with an upnod. "So we're on cleanup?" he asks as he approaches the group. He sniffs the air a bit, giving a rather subtle wrinkle of his nose at the smoke from the cigarette. "So what's the signal for us to come running?" WIth that, he moves over to lean against the nearby trailer wall and puts his foot up so the heel of his boot is against the side of the trailer. He nods at Leif, "Yeah that was intense. Good thing we had the magic backup!"
"We'll know." Nicholas takes a draw off it, then passes it back to Madison, who just casually smokes it for a longer while. It's really her cigarette.
"The old girl's gonna shout in your mind, probably," Madison comments, with a tone as arid as most deserts. She holds the cigarette out to Nicholas, who holds a hand up. He's had enough. So she casually shrugs and goes about finishing it herself. "So be ready. Having Bubbles McGee in your mind is an experience."
But then, there's something in the air. Madison and Nicholas both notice it instantly. She tosses the remains of the cigarette on the ground and stamps it out with her stylishly practical boots.
And then, the sky goes wrong. The whole area seems like it might have slipped sideways, or perhaps that's just the atmosphere where they are. The color isn't right, on anything. And there are all the people who live here -- except they're not people at all. They look a little like people, if you squint and don't look too long or assume too quickly. But as they come closer, it becomes clear they're not human at all. Their bodies are overrun with corruption. They look like they were pieced together by someone who had only seen "close enough" illustrations of humans. It's not like it was, at the drive-in. These are Abominations. They have the obvious taint of Outside.
Leif chuckles. "I have young telepaths testing themselves on me all the time," he says, rolling his shoulders. "Although, Ms. Mc Gee is probably on a whole other level." He offers the younger trio a brief grin, and then the world shifts.
Leif shudders at the wrongness of the sky, and the feel of the air, and he winces a bit as he stands up. "Shit," he says when the not-residents appear. "This is going to be bad." He hefts his hammer to one shoulder, and watches the slow advance. "Touching them seems unwise," he notes, a roll of thunder puntuating his statement. Lightning flickers across that tilted, wrong sky like a sick strobe light.
"Not sure I wanna have anyone in my mind. Guess I don't get to choose though right?" He shrugs a bit and looks around "So what are they expecting to find inside?" As he's saying this, he looks up at the sky when it goes very wrong and the hair on his neck bristles and stands on end. "Guessing that's the signal!"
Seeing the abominations, Nic transforms immediately into his battle form, "Looks like it's time to bat cleanup." He starts to move towards one of the abominations in a way to put himself between it and the others, especially Madison.
It's like a horde of zombies, and they're not even unliving as zombies are. They're just these masses of flesh, and it's festering flesh, flesh that somehow wasn't made properly, and now it's breaking down. Their eyes are all black, except for pinpricks of red, right where a pupil would be. But all around their eyes are dark too, like the eyes were scorched out but still somehow present.
"Not optional." Madison comments, before holding out an arm and narrowing her eyes at the approaching crowd. A cluster of them levitate and smash into several others with a sickening thud, scattering them on the ground some distance to the side. "I'm guessing we wanna keep them around here."
"So they don't infest the city." Nicholas picks up the thought, concentrating and then hesitating. He's not sure about Elementalism. He's sure Concilium is the wrong choice. Though Transmutation does present its share of attractions. Perhaps...
One of the things seems to disappear for a second, and then it reappears...right where another one happens to be. The sound they make somehow sounds like ear-piercing static, both high-pitched and a low roar at the same time, with tones of glass breaking and rusty nails down a chalkboard. For a second, it seems like this may have stopped them, but it's really this stunt that shows more how wrong they are. Now they're a gestalt entity, though neither seems to be sentient or aware. It's just a thing, a fleshy thing, now with more limbs than it should have, continuing towards the little group.
Leif frown as the shambling masses draw closer, and the thunder deepens as he draws himself up. Holding the hammer out in front of himself, he faces the horde. Air crackles around the big man, literal arcs of electricity running along his body and that of the hammer before he -shoves- the hammer at the unliving, sending a thick bolt of lightning that pinballs through several before its charge is depleted. With a gesture of Leif's other hand, a spiral of wind knocks another group back and hopefully toppling them like bowling pins. Big, gross bowling pins. Which is probably a bad thing, given their newly demonstrated ability. Which gets a frank stare from Leif. "Well, -fuck-," quoth the educator.
Nic is approaching one of the creatures when it suddenly merges. While he doesn't look afraid, he does pause in his approach to assess the situation. WIth a low gutteral growl from his throat, NIc extends his hands down to his side and extends his claws. "You can say that again!" he says over his shoulder to Leif. Then he suddenly rushes at one of them, head down and claws out hoping to slash across it's chest and stomach. As he moves forward, he snaps his jaws but keeps them from getting too close to the disgusting creature.
"I just tried to...teleport them. It's a teleportation accident." Nicholas explains, so that the others don't become discouraged. It's not that they have the ability to merge naturally. "They're not alive, not in the sense that we know it. At least that confirms that."
Madison bowls over another small group of them, intent on keeping them in a limited space. "Even if they were alive, there's no coming back from this. Look at...that." She sneers in disgust, sending one of the slowly-closing masses spinning head over heels into another one and knocking them out of the way. "I hate it. It even feels wrong when I'm not physically touching them. It's like I'm leeching gross off those things."
They're not so tough for Leif or Nic to defeat, but that same unsettling, revolting quality is strong with any contact. It's a vile experience to even share the same plane of existence as them, even more so to be in close quarters with the horrors.
"Everything about this feels wrong," Leif agrees with Madison, using another eddy of air to send a group sailing backwards into the dark. "Even the weather." He offers another shiver before holding up his hammer and sending another bolt of electricity spider-webbing through the horde. "It's like our own personal Niflheim." He grimaces, and uses his hammer on one that gets too close, driving it back with a squelching sound. "Only far less cheerful."
"Fuck! Yeah that didn't work well," he growls, glancing at Nicholas out of the side of his glance, yellow eyes flashing in the darkness. "Don't do that again," he says with a sneering grin as he tears into the merged creature. When Madison rushing them, Nic moves to take on the other group to keep them cornered and in one area.
"They are disgusting," Nic agrees then stops talking in order to better use his claws to grab and tear off body parts as needed. He cringes, face contorting as he touches them but he pushes past that in an attempt to keep them from moving or striking him with their fists. Each time he connects, there's a growl of disgust and he seems to be holding back so as not to sink his claws too far into the creatures' bodies. "How do we kill them?" he growls over the sounds of battle.
The horrible thing about any sort of attack used on them, at least a physical one, has that horrible sound, the horrible feel to it, and a horrible response. The skin, which wasn't right from the start, warps and ripples. Sometimes another mouth or an eye will appear, then pop like a soap bubble. Sometimes it's bones, or teeth. It does seem to do damage to them, though. The ones they've attacked so far don't seem to be getting back up again, but they might not have ever been alive, as Nicholas said.
Though the comment from Nic just gets a look from Nicholas. "Thanks, I'm glad you gave me advice on my application of the Seven Wonders." It's not entirely cold, but it's not that affectionate, either. It's that kind of situation. "Leif, do you think you could get me some rain? Can you do that?"
Madison stays in place, not rushing them bodily or even getting close physically, but using her telekinetic gift to great success, it seems. There are just so many of them, and they just keep coming and they don't stop coming.
Leif would likely make his father proud with the effort he's putting forth in this battle. The teacher pulses air from his fist like a cannon, knocking shamblers left and right. He grunts with each effort, which isn't so much a physical reaction as it is just...a guy thing. Every now and then, a spider's web of electricty racks through the mass, slowing it down even further.
Nicholas' request gets a nod from Leif, and his eyes darken a bit. Overhead, the clouds thicken further, roiling into place. A few seconds later, rain begins to fall in fat, heavy drops. "It won't last," he cautions Nicholas. "There's not enough moisture in the air. Whatever you're going to do, I'd make it fast." Advice given, he goes back to dealing with the horde, taking care to keep the bulk of them clear of the witches.
Nic shrugs a bit at Nicholas, not understanding the intricacies of the magic. Then he's busy trying to deal with the horrible feeling of trying to keep these things. When one of the creatures swings an arm at him, he manages to duck but takes a brush over his left shoulder which leaves that arm feeling a bit numb. Taking a different tactic, he starts to grab at a large piece of metal, tearing off a stop sign nearby and uses it to smash into a tangled mesh of abomination.
Then the rain starts and Nic gets purchase in the ground and swings the stop sign towards the creature's arm and attempts to hew it off with the flat part of the sign.
"All right. In that case, fall back a bit, the two of you on the front lines. Madison, can you push the crowd back a bit?" Nicholas breathes deeply in, setting his gaze on the crowd drawing closer, though Nic and Leif, working with Madison, have taken out a good number. There are fewer than before, by a significant margin. They may just be able to brute force this.
Madison just scoffs and steps closer, waving her arm in a sweeping gesture and knocking the frontmost things down like a wave. They fall back like wheat in the wind, but she looks as if that's quite a feat for her...though as it's Madison, she pushes it back and puts on a stoic face. She's a stone cold bitch, according to Queenie. Got to keep that impassive mask.
Nicholas keeps his focus, bringing it to a point as the rain tumbles down in fat drops. It takes seconds, but then the rain turns to snow, and once the snow starts falling and melting, it turns to ice. His eyes begin to glow. A trickle of blood comes from his nose. The wind whips the bitter cold air around them.
Leif falls back when instructed, and he's there to offer a strengthening hand on Madison's shoulder when she pulls off her big feat. When Nicholas steps up and begins to alter the weather, Leif frowns deeply. "Why didn't you say you wanted to freeze them?" he asks without censure. "Freezing weather is easier than rain, most of the time." He sets down his hammer, resting it against his leg as he rubs his palms together and adds his own inherent magic to that of the witch's. His own winds wind in among those Nicholas controls, helping to bring the winds down to bone-cutting iciness, and turning the rain into tiny razor bullets of ice shards.
Madison very subtly rests a hand on Leif's shoulder, but she doesn't put much weight behind it. Just the fact that it's there is enough to give her something more of a stability. The sides her mouth pull into an extremely brief, tight smile that she figures will be enough expression of gratitude, and for her, it probably is.
Nicholas starts to grin, and his eyes fade from their almost lamp-brightness, back to a more manageable and more regular luminescence for eyes. Reaching up, he wipes the blood away with his hand. "Didn't know if you could direct it like that...thanks!" That makes it easier for the young witch, even if he does have tremendous potential. The scion of a god doesn't hurt to have on one's side.
The creatures are coated with ice, and Leif's contribution makes them even more frozen in place. It sinks deep, paralyzing them, casting them statuesque in place. It should be sheer simplicity to finish them off...shatter them.
But then the wave of psychic wrongness ripples out, throwing Nicholas stumbling nearly off his feet. Madison leans much heavier on Leif, throwing an arm around his front to try and stop herself from going down like a sack of flour.
Leif mirrors Madison's smile, closing one eye in a wink as he and Nicholas work to freeze the horde. "I'm full of surprises," he assures the young witch, moving the air where it will do the most damage the quickest.
When the mass is stopped, the teacher allows himself a bit of a smile, and thunder rumbles again as he he prepares to unleash another, possibly gigantic bolt of lightning. But then that wave hits, and he staggers like the witches, although his own psychic damage is much less than theirs. Still, it's enough to piss him off, and he hugs Madison protectively before his eyes flash and he sends a round of chain lightning at the icy shapes. "Goatfuckers!"
When the snow turns to ice, Nic barely feels it at first through the blood rushing through his body. The weather talk goes by him without much of his attention as he focuses on the battle. When the creatures start to freeze, Nic laughs in that gutteral way and his eyes flash yellow. "Abominable Icicles," he growls and starts taking that stop sign and swinging it wildly. The first creature he hits, shatters into large chunks scattered on the ground. The next one takes several whacks to truly bring it to a stop, seeming to split the ice frozen creature in half.
As he looks triumphantly at the crumbling ice, the wave hits him, sending him staggering back, dropping to one knee as a loud growl is ripped from his throat and his head thrown back at the wrongness.
The creatures seem all but demolished, especially by Nic and Leif's brutal attack. The wave fades, thankfully, almost as soon as it hit, but it still hurts. Nicholas raises a hand to his forehead and parts his lips to speak, but then...
Another wave hits, and then a third before that's truly faded. But then it's all quiet. Everything is still.
Madison, at this point, fair clings to Leif, and it's all Nicholas can do to stay on his feet. But after a few more seconds of nothing, he looks around himself. Then he speaks, and it sounds almost like everything's hushed to hear him. The snow hasn't turned back to rain. "We'd better get to Bubbles and the others. Just in case."
Leif is a solid thing to cling to, even as the waves crash into him nearly as hard as they do the witches. "I'm guessing that is fallout from whatever Ms. McGee is encountering," he says, his voice a bit ragged in the hushed air. He seems unbothered by the frigid cold, and Madison will note that his body temperature remains unchanged as he all but carries her towards the interior of the trailer park. "We'd better hurry," he says, looking over to check on his student, and Nicholas. "It's a bit too quiet for my liking."
Nic stands after the second wave, withstanding the third with some effort but his face controls in rage as he starts moving at Madison's direction. "Let's go!" He nods also to Leif as he mentions the quiet, "Quiet that soon is never good." With that, Nic starts moving towards the direction where Ms. McGee was and remains in his game face.
The story continues in: 2021.11.24 - Rabbit, Rabbit Finale: Rich Man, Poor Man, Bitterman