OCTOBER EVENT PT2

[teamboba]

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OCTOBER EVENT PT2

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→ THE BEGINNING

(click to expand - happy early Halloween)

It's on the evening of October 28th when everything quickly descends into madness.

It begins with faint static in the air, gradually becoming louder and louder until it's impossible to ignore, the pattern of cries that was once hidden now audible to everybody as it grows and grows until it culminates in an explosion. The walls of the local bookstore burst outwards, a rampaging Hydreigon within unleashing Hyper Beam after Hyper Beam without any rest in between. Its trainer, an old man, hobbles up to it in a panic in order to ask what's wrong, but the Pokemon knocks him to the ground, ignoring him and continuing to destroy everything in its path while its trainer lies motionless on the ground, blood pouring from his head.

Further down the street, another eruption shakes the city, a group of Galarian Rapidashes slamming themselves against walls and windows until they break through, careening and crashing through buildings with wild abandon. Occupants inside a cafe scream as they attempt to flee, crushed under rubble and trampled by merciless hooves. From the sky, Murkrows and Natus swoop down on residents on the streets, long talons outstretched to claw at any exposed skin and pluck out any staring eyes. All around the city, Pokeballs burst open on their own and the Pokemon rush madly at human and Pokemon alike, disregarding orders or pleads from their trainers and attacking anything within sight in a wild frenzy.

Fires blaze across the city as children wail and adults scream. All the while, the pattern of cries continues...

→ THE RAMPAGE

(click to expand - you're in for a bad time)

Throughout the night, dark, ghost, and psychic-type Pokemon rampage throughout Mango City. Wild Pokemon appear from the outskirts of town and attack anyone and anything on sight, while companion Pokemon force themselves out of their balls and turn upon their trainers. No other types seem to be affected, the other Pokemon just as confused and distraught as the humans as they're forced to run from, defend against, and fight the Pokemon they were once allied with.

While many of the mad Pokemon physically assault those around them, other use innate abilities to wreak havoc. Musharnas emit a dark mist that engulfs entire beings and brings their fears to reality, forcing all those within the fog to face the same delusions. At the same time, Shedinjas steal souls away in their shells and keep them captive in a shared endless nightmare of their worst experiences relived. Similarly, Beheeyems cause those nearby to reexperience their most feared and hated moments, erasing all memory after that moment in order to trap their victims in that vulnerable mindset of the past. Meanwhile, Zoroarks trap their targets within grand illusions that force them to undergo a series of deaths over and over again, causing them excruciating pain and suffering while their physical bodies continue to live. Haunters phase in and out of walls to surprise and lick their victims, sapping years off their life and causing a frigid shivering that won't stop until they wither away, and Gengars loom in the shadows, sapping heat away from its surroundings and causing the small and the weak to slowly freeze to death. Umbreons spray poisonous sweat all over the street, causing people to choke and convulse if they stay too long near the toxic areas, and Cofagriguses drag humans into their coffins and wrap them up as mummies, bound so tightly nobody can hear them scream. No amount of pleading nor bargaining will cause any of them to stop; the only option left is to defeat them in battle, either by killing them or knocking them out.

It'd be kinder to do the latter, but in the heat of the moment, it's difficult to hold back. It's desperate times, after all, as the city streets soon begin to fill with the cold and still bodies of both Pokemon and humans.

→ HELP...?

(click to expand - is anyone even sane enough left to help)

At the outskirts of town bordering the forest, herds of Stantler lead the unaffected and helpless deeper into the forest into an area where the trees are so densely packed that even the shine of the moon can't break through. The only source of light are the small Litwicks that scurry towards the humans, smiling and holding out their little hands. Follow them. They'll keep you safe(?).

Perhaps it's time to abandon the city, where the fires continue to grow and rage throughout the streets, threatening to engulf entire neighborhood blocks. The hospital and Pokemon Center get repurposed to disaster zones as the doctors and nurses struggle to treat their patients while fending off rampaging Pokemon at the same time. Mari's large Steelixes wrap themselves around the buildings to become iron walls keeping the wild Pokemon out, but even their great defense struggles against the never ending attacks.

In the midst of the ongoing disaster, the radio tower remains undamaged and completely abandoned, untouched by the rampaging Pokemon outside. The receptionist has fled long ago, leaving the front doors open but the door to the stairs and the elevator up remaining locked. The tower stands empty and silent, completely free of the static and pattern of cries playing outside, the one place of reprieve from the hell that has descended upon Mango City.

→ MOD NOTES

⬥ Welcome to the Halloween event! Due to the nature of the prompts, please properly warn for any potentially disturbing content in your threads/tags for all players.
⬥ This event is forward dated to the evening and night of the 28th and may last past the 28th if no proper IC measures are taken to stop the rampaging Pokemon. The OOC deadline to solve and fix the disaster will be October 29.
⬥ Please comment to the mod question & investigation thread to report any actions that characters may take to stop the events of the log.
⬥ Have fun! :)

Comments

[thetyger]

[He tries not to flinch too obviously at the yelling, because he's done that himself while hallucinating, and this is very similar. The only difference that Atsushi can see what Sagi does, can see what haunts him; projected from his innermost thoughts by whatever is causing this. He says nothing as Sagi seems to collect himself, and Atsushi admires that, his strength in this. Because if it was him, he'd be too far gone already.]

Let me...

[He doesn't finish the sentence, because he doesn't want to ask Sagi to be quiet or stop walking off. He tries to tune everything else out, and the static and the squiggly noise... which direction is the Pokemon in? He hasn't heard it before, so he won't recognize its movements as belonging to the right creature... but there's something over there.]

Go right.

[scension]

[Sagi doesn't glance back - that would mean looking back at where the body was - but he turns to his right the moment Atsushi says it. He may as well. His bearings from outside the fog are completely shot now, and he can scarcely make out any of the buildings around them at all any more.

He keeps going, step by step, until...]

Found you!

[Something moves up ahead, a hazy round shadow in the mist. He can't even see if it's a Pokemon, but Sagi reached the end of his patience when the second corpse showed up to toy with him.]

Blue, water-gun it down! Make it pay!

[His Marshtomp complies, firing off several jets of water into the unyielding inky darkness.]

[thetyger]

Wait! What if it's-

[Too late. It could be the Pokemon, or another person trapped in the fog.]

[scension]

[The shadow... fades, with no indication of what it was other than another muffled bumping noise somewhere deep in the fog. Did it hit something while retreating? Did it collapse? The static makes it hard to tell, and yet more fog is rolling in.]

Get back here, you coward!

[Sagi immediately breaks into a run. He doesn't get far before stumbling on the edge of another sidewalk and having to catch himself. He looks wildly from side to side at the indistinguisably roiling mist - it hardly matters how bad the visibility is getting when all he sees is red.]

Hiding behind some creature who didn't ask for this... You can't use my mother like that and just run away!

[But it's no use, at least for his senses. When the adrenaline finally ebbs a little, he sags, almost doubling over again, breathing heavily. He hates this. He hates feeling helpless. It's enough to make you understand, not for the first time, why a dying god would curse the world.]

...Atsushi? [He got the yelling out of his system again, for now. It'll be back, he's sure.] Tell me where it went this time.

[thetyger]

[Sagi's panic has the opposite effect on Atsushi and he's managing to remain mostly calm as he keeps Sagi in sight. The fog leaves no hints at where they are, or which direction to go in. His stomach clenches at Sagi's yelling; it was his mother. He loved her, to have that much of an emotional reaction. Atsushi doesn't have attachments to his own mother and it's a feeling he doesn't understand, that anguish.

When Sagi asks for another direction to continue his blind hunting of whatever's out here, Atsushi is hesitant to give him the information. It will only lead to a loop of chasing this thing, that may not even be real. Sounds could be illusions too. In the end, he can't lie, because it still might be the way out, and if it's fake, Sagi can get some sort of closure out of it, maybe.]

It's that way.

[He points a little to the left, but it's not a sharp turn, closer to ahead of Sagi.]

[scension]

We'll get it this time.

[Trusting this unconditionally, Sagi takes off at a run once again. Trusting him in turn, his Marshtomp lumbers after him.

Almost immediately - very close to Atsushi, but eerily silent - the face of a strange tapir-like creature, its eyes wide open and staring, looms out of the fog.]

[thetyger]

[Atsushi starts to follow Sagi, but the Musharna appears through the fog, hovering and the most creepy thing he has ever seen. He shrieks and punches it in its weird blobfish face. Thanks for the idea, Efi.]

[scension]

[This Musharna's skin is unsettlingly humanlike to the touch. It wobbles in mid-air from the impact, but seems unharmed. It fixes its blank stare on Atsushi, fog pouring from its forehead all the while.]

What happened?!

[Sagi had been in a hurry, but he didn't make it out of earshot before Atsushi screamed. He turns on his heel and sprints back, overtaking his long-suffering Marshtomp on the way.

When he gets close enough, the question answers itself. That thing doesn't look like any monster he knows of from home. Either Atsushi was hiding a deep-seated fear of pigs this entire time, or - more likely, considering the mist streaming from the strange hole in its head - they've found the culprit.]

... Shoot it!

[Marshtomp, waddling to catch up as fast as his webbed feet will carry him, responds by loosing a Mud Shot at the Musharna's creepy face. It splatters everywhere on impact, forcing Sagi to shield his eyes.

The Musharna itself isn't as quick to react, wobbling in mid-air again as it blinks furiously. It remains silent as a grave while it steadies itself. The air immediately around it, however, begins to thrum with psychic power...]

[thetyger]

[Oh shit. All they've managed to do is anger the thing, and it's going to release its fury upon them. Atsushi finally grabs one of his pokeballs to release the Tirtouga, his only good one. But... it's the wrong ball, and out pops the Wailmer.]

Uh. Um, eat it!

[Wendy just stares at him. She's not going to eat that yucky Musharna.]

[scension]

Just hit it! Throw it off before it can charge up!

[He knows he's not supposed to yell at someone else's Pokemon, so he has no idea if the fish thing will listen to him, but who's overseeing the rules now? Lives are in danger. If not his, then Atsushi's, not to mention everyone outside the fog.

Hearing his instructions, his tiny Snom bursts out of her ball too. She promptly flings herself at the Musharna's muzzle, slapping her stubby bug legs against its nose.

Again, the creature is thrown off balance, the stream of fog from its forehead wavering for a moment. Its wobbling is more like violent mid-air thrashing this time, a maddened attempt to dislodge the bug on its snout. It's probably a bad idea to get too close.]

[thetyger]

[Sagi has a more commanding presence, and so the Wailmer will listen to him. Unfortunately, she is still very low level, but she tries her best with Astonish, shouting at the Musharna to startle it while it tries to remove the Snom.

Atsushi digs out another pokeball, and this time it's- the Tirtouga! Rocky does what he does best, speeding straight at the Musharna and slapping the fuck out of it with both flippers.]

[scension]

[Tirtouga's slapping proves too much for the Musharna to weather after it's already flinching from Astonishment. With another jet of water to the face from Sagi's Marshtomp, the combined assault overwhelms it. It emits a soft squeal not entirely unlike a deflating balloon, whumps onto the sidewalk, and doesn't move again; from its intermittent twitching, it seems to have been knocked out.

At last, the dark fog starts to disperse. Once the rest of the street swims back into view, they don't appear to be far from where Atsushi was when it set in. Somehow they ended up circling around.]

Look at that... It's clearing. I guess the magic only lasts as long as it's awake.

[Good to know. That's not always the case. Sagi may or may not be living proof.

When the creature fails to immediately spring back up and surprise them with another attack, he approaches its unconscious body. His expression is still wary, and his knife is still in his hand.]

Did it do anything to you?

[He means just now when Atsushi shrieked, but it's ambiguous. Go on. Give him an excuse. The mockery it made of his mother in particular is almost enough.]

[thetyger]

[The weird creature caused all of this, and it's doing it to other people. What horrors are they all seeing?

Atsushi gets closer to the Musharna as well, but stays further away than Sagi.]

I saw things too, but... I found you before it... did anything.

[Apparently, excuses to kill it aren't going to be forthcoming. If this encounter had been after the Hien fiasco, he might have a different view on things.]

Can we capture it and keep it contained?

[scension]

When mine turned, they broke out of their containers. Whatever's driving them, it's strong. It's like its heart is flooding theirs out.

[He looks down at the twitching Musharna again. His pulse is still racing from what that thing tried to do, but when he inadvertently puts it like that...]

...I feel bad for it.

[The entity he really wants to hurt right now is somewhere else. Maybe untouchable, possibly at the radio tower, but definitely not here. He flips his one empty magnus card out of his pocket and puts his dagger back inside.]

It'll have trouble getting up again to hurt anyone else. That buys us time. Let's hurry.

[thetyger]

[Atsushi nods. He feels the same way; they're all being manipulated or affected by something, probably related to the noise, and the Musharna doesn't deserve to be killed. Trying to capture it, however, is a waste of time.]

Right. Let's go.