( june event ) who's that pokemon?

[officialnotice]

EVENT: WHO'S THAT POKEMON?

For the residents of Wayward Pines, the 19th is just your typical boring Monday. The sun is shining. The birds are chirping.

Until suddenly, they're not.

That's the first sign. Maybe you don't even notice — you're far too busy with your nine-to-five, or maybe even by poolside, blissfully ignorant to the trouble brewing just out of sight, or to the fact that SPF 15 is basically just water anyway. Or maybe you aren't quite so lucky. You notice the birds have gone silent. You feel the eyes upon you, unseen but still raising goosebumps on the back of your neck.

And then from the woods, that telltale scream.

No, two screams, then three, then five, then more than a dozen. You can't count them, can't figure out which direction they're coming from. It's like they're all around you now. Even above you. Now you spot them on the rooftops — god, they're huge, you can't even fathom how they made it up there unnoticed.

But they're not playing at stealth anymore. One leaps off the roof, a single fluid bound on long thick limbs, and barely lands on the sidewalk for a moment before it lunges at the nearest person — your neighbor mowing his lawn, or maybe the woman carrying that armful of bags out of French's Grocery — long claws slicing through their flesh like a hot knife through butter. Then comes another, and another. Into the streets, the backyards, and the ill-timed pool parties, tearing through every living soul they can find.

By nightfall, the creatures have retreated back into the woods en masse, but anyone foolish enough to wander too far from the safety of their homes runs the risk of being picked off one by one if they're not careful. The 20th and 21st follow a similar pattern; during the day, the Sheriff and a team of volunteers comb through the woods looking for survivors, and during the night, these creatures do much the same.

The morning of the 22nd dawns with the last of the vicious "murder potatoes" (as Linda had hysterically dubbed them on the first day while wielding a butcher's knife with astonishing proficiency) have fallen, and the danger is gone.

For now, anyway. The questions they leave behind, however? Those are here to stay.

MOD NOTES

This is a catch-all for any and all threads pertaining to the Who's That Pokemon event! It covers the battle on the 19th and the lingering danger over the course of the 20th and 21st.

PLEASE INCLUDE IN YOUR TOP-LEVEL SUBJECT LINE: Character Name, date, location, and open or closed, to help keep things a bit more organized.

If you have any questions regarding this event, feel free to ask them here!

Comments

Steve Rogers | 19th-22nd | all over the damn place | OPEN

[paragon]

i. pool party; the 19th, afternoon

[ He's got no suit here, none of the armor plating built into it these days, but it's not the first time he's fought in civvies. The T-shirt and swim trunks aren't really the problem; Steve was made to be a weapon regardless of what covering or symbols he attaches to himself, even regardless of the shield, but it doesn't take him long, when the fight starts, to realize even he needs an advantage. Getting to it is another matter. He barely has time, after the small cell phone in his pocket vibrates nearly imperceptibly against his thigh with Laura's message, to get to the stereo and yank out the plug before shouting a sharp command over the sudden cessation of conversation and laughter into mild confusion and protest — Get inside the house, now! We're under attack from outside the wall! The latter isn't part of her warning, precisely, but Steve can put two and two together faster than most men, put words and action to what most would call gut instinct.

For all the good it does them. The creatures swarm almost immediately, and for all his attempts to put himself between them and the people Natasha had immediately begun to try to herd to safety, it's hard to say if the wet puddles he's stepping into on the deck are pool water or blood. He doesn't exactly have much opportunity to check. He hits hard and fast, but they're tougher and possibly faster. He's mostly keeping them distracted until they realize he's not an easy meal. The only reason he's still alive is because he hasn't been enough of a threat to bring them all on him at once while they tear through the rest of the party.

Well, that and the steak knife.

Seconds can seem to stretch out impossibly in battle, and battles are won by making the most of each one, so he can only keep going with what he's got. It's what he's always done.

He's tangling with one but can see another in his peripheral just as he manages to get enough distance to get a good grip on the knife to throw it into the thing's eye socket, a flash of metal in the hot sunshine. Its death throes are what knock the other one into Steve as he turns to meet it, and his lower back hits the edge of the pool before scraping over it as the creature's weight drags them both into the deep end of the water, the force of it on top of him driving the air from his lungs. He has to fight not to gasp for something that isn't there, a chill down his spine that he's not sure the pool is cold enough to account for, but there's enough instinct despite the shock — there's no time to get his bearings if he doesn't want it to have the same advantage, and he finds something like skin, scrambles along the knobs of its spine for purchase, managing to wrap his legs in a vice around its shoulders, preventing it from reaching back for him as it thrashes. And still he can feel the powerful arms straining against his grip. He's got no idea if it will make a difference to these things, but it's worth attempting the choke-hold anyway, and he hangs on until his lungs are screaming and he feels the body — finally — go slack under his hold. He pushes it down and away from him, kicking against it to the surface, gasping and reaching somewhat blindly for the edge.

Maybe he could use a hand up. ]

ii. around town; the 19th, afternoon into night

[ He helps Bucky and Natasha and any others fortify the Quill residence against attack as much as possible before they run the couple blocks to the house (give or take, since they cut across the street and through the neighbors' yards). There he puts on some dry clothes he's not especially attached to and leaves the house with his friends, shield on his arm. Natasha wants to go to the station to see about getting some of the guns they'd spotted on Sheriff Griffith's men and the strangers he can only assume came from the helicopter on the hospital's roof in the distance. Steve goes with her and Bucky to provide cover along the way, but splits off from the station, leaving them to haggle, presumably, while he sees how the shield fares against the intruders.

Turns out it's pretty darn well, though he won't mind a hand then or at any point during the battle. He can be found at various points throughout the town in the coming hours, usually some number of feet between himself and the enemy if he can manage it, to give himself the space to throw it. If he can't manage it, or if he's been able to debilitate one of the creatures enough to get closer, he'll keep the shield in hand and aim crushing blows at a skull or windpipe.

He fights until the end, even past the point where he's distracted by a friend dying as she fights by his side, taking a talon to his own gut. He'll heal fast, but not that fast, so it's a good thing this shirt is no great loss. It slows him, but only somewhat more than the exhaustion already at hand and taking its toll on even him after fighting so long.

It's all familiar, at least, a history written deep into his bones more than this town ever was. ]

iii. hospital; the 19th, night

[ Natasha plows through one of what seems to be the last of the creatures, Steve having been unwilling to give it the chance to run into the woods. It spells the end of the station wagon (and thank God something good can come of this) but knocks the thing right into his path, and he drops the shield onto its head, star-side down, boot following into the curve in quick succession, a blur of motion.

He nearly collapses into the car.

At the hospital, he can be found either getting stitched up by Natasha (the doctors have patients worse off to deal with, at least as far as Steve's concerned), or laying in a hospital bed with her afterwards. Maybe that would indicate a private moment any other time, but the hospital's overrun to a far greater degree than it's ever been at the start of the month — anyone around will be practically tripping over beds and gurneys, and there's only so much intruding possible. Steve's fresh bandaging may be visible between the previously blood-soaked, now dry and stiff slash in his shirt, while Natasha's noticeable bandages are wrapped around her wrist, and she may or may not already be asleep. ]

iv. skirting the woods; the 20th - 22nd, night

[ He takes the opportunity of that night and the next day to rest and, ostensibly, heal, though there's only so much of either he can indulge in when night falls again. He's still hurt, but recovered enough to fight for those who can't, and alongside those who will, patrolling the edges of town that night and the next, alternately sleeping during the day and waiting for reports on the casualties. ]

ii

[unweaving]

[ She's not enjoying herself. Obviously. That would be barbaric. But Aranea's livelier than she's been in some time, maybe in the entire time she's been here. Familiarly awful is still familiar, after all, and after so much confusion and uncertainty there's something almost soothing about this return to what she knows. Find what's causing trouble, and stop it from causing any more; she's done that on two sides of the same war now, and she slides back into it like a favorite pair of gloves. Or set of armor, in this case.

She's not enjoying it, and there's nothing to indicate she's not taking it seriously when she sees Steve in the thick of it and decides to pitch in, making a leap that's higher than the rooftops surrounding them before she drives her lance down through the body of one of the creatures approaching him. But after blades drive through flesh and blood spatters pavement, she turns to him with a grin as she yanks her weapon free. ]

Knew you didn't get all that teaching art.

ii.

[avicula]

[ dutch doesn't know how long she's been fighting. training and luck mean that she's not hurt too badly yet, bruises and scrapes more than any wounds that would take her out of commission, though she thinks her wrist might be sprained. she's fought with worse. (she'd fought sabine on a broken leg and won, and sixes are notoriously hard to kill. these monsters remind dutch of sixes, though at least they have the fucking decency to look like monsters instead of like her friends or family.)

not everyone's gotten so lucky, it seems. ]

You look like you could use a breather. [ dutch comments, a little dryly, when she spots the blood on steve's shirt, the wound in his stomach. it beats acknowledging that he's hurt and that it looks bad. it beats panicking, not that dutch ever would.

a moment later, she whirls around to push a large kitchen knife into one of the monsters' throats. trying to give him that breather, if he'll take it. somehow, she doesn't think he will. ]