MOD LOG #3

[bequiet]

MOD LOG #3

Arriving in style
Content Warnings: Fighting, death, violence
Themes: Survival, plot

It's early in the day when it happens. The red dust that seems to be everywhere sweeps through the city streets, mixing with the steady patter of rain and making it hard to see and breathe. All red and leaving the taste of copper if inhaled, what could have been an easy day without any trouble quickly becomes anything but. While those in the community are heading for cover or finding ways to continue on through it, the new arrivals begin waking up in different cities all over the world. There won't be anyone to greet them, and leaving the room through the door is their choice - after doing so, they'll immediately step out into the city they were assigned. The streets are empty, houses abandoned, everything crumbling and in ruins. There will be signs noting their location, which they'll catch a glimpse of before a sharp push forward causes darkness to engulf them.

Waking up for the second time, in Reims but not in the Reset Room, they'll come to inside the red dust as it whips through the streets of the community. They won't be alone for long. Another person will be waking up beside them, and after a few moments of disorientation, try to attack. They might have weapons or use their hands, and they will not stop until they've taken a fatal blow. Their blood is dust, and they, along with their weapons, disintegrate after they've died. Can you stop them on your own? Will someone come to your aid?

The Sight of Lightning
Content Warnings: Poison, sex
Themes: Survival, plot

The day after the storm, the same red dust will find its way through Reims and come into contact with every person. Since the dust is everywhere, some might not notice that it's floating through the community and know that something is off. The effects don't begin until night fall, where everyone will feel the desire to seek out companionship of many different kinds. Though it is not always the case, the people that saw each other in color will "want" to be with that person more strongly than they might already, and will be more likely to confess or do something about it. Some might feel an intense need to be around another person, though not necessarily sexually - almost as if they need that person around them to be happy or content. For some, it might be a desire that can only be fulfilled by more than one person.

The effects wear off the next time the person gets wet. This can be a splash of water across the face or fully submerged. Or even drinking something.

OOC
From your mods:

Please be mindful of content - if something triggery comes up or if it goes up a rating to say, something sexy, mark your threads in the subject line. We're very flexible and allow any material; we just want our players to be respectful of each other. If you have questions, pp the mod account, use the faq or comment to the appropriate post below. Have fun! The OOC Plotting Post.

NAVIGATION

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Comments

natasha romanoff | mcu

[vdova]

PROFESSIONAL WIDOW ( arrival in style )

[ At first, there’s disorienting darkness. Natasha doesn’t know what way is up until she lands(?) on the floor, cold and hard, and it takes her a moment to push herself up on her hands, red dust coating her knees and palms, settling on her jacket in stark contrast to its dark leather. She frowns, trying to brush it off, but all it does is make the color on her hands darker, and she gives up. The room is bare, with a door, and for lack of anything else to do, Natasha strides toward it, opening it carefully.

She’s not expecting to see a city outside of it, and the sight gives her startled pause, because it’s not the city she would have assumed. The last place she was in was Berlin, not Columbia. She takes a tentative step forward, taking in the abandoned buildings covered in red dust, the decay and ruin, the metallic aftertaste of blood in the back of her nose. She doesn’t see whatever it is behind her — just feels the sharp push, and she stumbles forward, into darkness.

When she lands(?), again, she almost feels like she’s going to throw up. The scent of blood is everywhere, copper invading her nostrils and mouth, a sea of red whipped up by high winds as far as she can see. She almost doesn’t see the man coming straight for her.

The fight is quick and brutal. He swings a knife at her, but she dodges at the last second, grabbing his arm and pushing up on his elbow, breaking it at the joint. He screams in pain, but she ignores it, using his momentum to toss him over onto the ground. A cloud of dust trails out of his arm, but she doesn’t see it. She’s too busy stomping on his chest. He grabs her ankle and twists, sending her to the ground. Natasha lands with a loud thud, the breath in her lungs escaping too fast for her to catch. The man launches himself onto his feet from his back, lunging at her with the blade in his hand. He narrowly misses her head as she rolls out of the way. She shoots out her hand as she moves to stand up, grabbing at his wrist. There’s a brief scuffle — punches flying from both of them, one landing on her face that will very likely leave a nice souvenir for later — but Natasha comes out of it with the knife. There’s no hesitation in her eyes: she darts forward, plunging the blade into his abdomen, puncturing his intestines. He coughs once, a cloud of dust coming from his mouth and nose, and then he’s gone, the knife left in Natasha’s hand. There’s only the briefest of seconds to take a second to try to figure out what the fuck just happened, and then she sees the rest of them. ] Shit.

[ She flips the knife in her hand to reverse grip, and stands ready. ]

SPARK ( Wildcard )

[ In the following days, Natasha wanders the community, careful not to tread off the sand paths, though she's a silent mover anyway. She takes in the buildings, scrutinizing them, shaking her head every now and then — this isn't Reims, and she knows it isn't Reims. The buildings, though crumbling, are incorrect.

Of particular interest, though, is the theatre. The message spraypainted on all sides has her wondering, and she sends out a message when someone wanders by: ]

Why aren't we allowed inside?

( OOC: If you’d like a prompt for the second half of the event let me know; I’d prefer to keep it platonic if possible. If the prompts don't tickle your fancy, feel free to leave me something else, too! Natasha can be found at the library curating her romance novel collection, working as a sandpath tech or wandering the paths trying to figure out how to tell the NPCs that, hey, they’re in Rouen, not Reims, whoops. She lives in House 1, in the family room, and might drop by the knitting club to check it out. )

professional widow

[justbeingknife]

[ There was someone making his way through the crowd: a tall man in a dark formal tux, with the glint of a gold chain visible under his loosened collar. He bore a tantō in his right hand, and he flicked the blade across an attacker's jugular in a swift, remorseless arc. The man blew apart in a cloud of red dust, leaving Majima a clear line of sight to this new stranger.

Oh. Hmm.

Well, none of the others had seemed capable of speech, and it didn't seem like these people counted her as one of theirs. ]

Town center's that way,

[ he said, indicating a direction straight through the crowd. ]

[vdova]

[ She whirls to look at him and in the same momentum strikes one of her attackers in the nose with her elbow. She feels it collapse under the fabric of her jacket, but pays it no mind. She's too busy staring at the guy in the tux just casually strolling through the carnage like it was no big deal.

She turns to follow his gaze for a brief moment, and then turns back to him. ] What's at the town center?

[justbeingknife]

Housing, the hospital. People who ain't rageout dust zombies.

[ One of the strangers came at him, armed improbably with a claw hammer; Majima bowed gracefully backwards and plunged his blade up under the man's rib cage at the same time. ]

Figured everyone had the sense to stay indoors, but then I remembered we got teenagers.

[vdova]

[ She doesn't flinch at the violence in front of her, turns to the side as another one comes at her with a frying pan — the look on her face is both disgusted and confused — and reaches out to grab their face and neck, snapping it in one smooth motion. ]

There are kids here? I can't leave them. I'm sorry.

spark ( wildcard )

[assguardian]

i've been wondering that too. maybe there are dead things inside?

i feel like i've seen a tv show like this before.

[vdova]

You mean something like Paranormal State?
Aliens exist. Why not ghosts.

[ She looks pretty nonplussed at the idea. ]

Professional Widow

[lednikovyy]

[ Bucky's been out in the dust and rain fighting for a while, but he's not done yet and there are still people out here. He's escorted a few to shelter, split up with others who could hold their own, but he'll be out here as long as there are people who might need help. People bursting into dust is probably one of the stranger things he's seen, but he's taken a lot in stride here and this is just another thing on that list.

He catches sight of Natasha's red hair in the dust as she's fighting the guy and wonders briefly if it's actually her. They'd barely interacted, but she had helped him and Steve escape Stark. He doesn't know her reasons for it, but that doesn't change how much it helped them.

Jogging up to what he expects to be a fight, he gets to them just in time to watch her stab the guy. Of course. ]

This is the part where I would have helped you.

[ His voice is still hushed, even with the sound of the storm around them. It's becoming habit for him to be cautious about sound, even when it's allowed.

There's a small smile playing at his face, but it's not really the time. ]

If you needed it. Which clearly you don't.

[vdova]

[ The knife in her hand dissolves with the body, and the lull gives her time to catch her breath. Natasha pushes her hair out of her face, turning to look at Barnes over her shoulder. He's not instantly attempting to kill her — a first, really — but she doesn't know how he feels about the last time they saw one another. They were on opposite sides, and while she had let he and Steve go it didn't change the fact she'd started out on the other side.

So she's wary as she responds, not quite turning to face him. ]

No, I don't. [ She tilts her chin up, raising an eyebrow. ] Did you just wake up here, too?

[lednikovyy]

[ Bucky shakes his head. It seems like a lot of people have just woken up in the storm today, but he hasn't been here long enough to have a measure as to how strange that is. Maybe these storms just happen and no one's mentioned it to him. He's not exactly Mr. Connected here. ]

I've been here a few weeks.

[ Just him and Stark, the good old pal. He's not sure if she'll make that situation better or worse, but it probably can't get too much worse, right? She'd turned on Stark to do the right thing, but there's no right thing to do here. Bucky's not on his way to stop a potential disaster. He's just here with not much to offer and his hands soaked in decades of blood. ]

I don't have a lot of answers about this place, but the natives aren't immediately hostile. I definitely don't know what that's about, but it's not the first time I've seen it today.

[ He gestures towards where the man had turned to dust. ]

[vdova]

[ She frowns, flexing the fingers of one hand, wishing she had some kind of weapon. The knife in her hand had vanished when the body did, and she doesn't like the implications of that. Monsters, magic, all of this — it's not her forte, and it never will be. She's not some genius billionaire playboy philanthropist, or a genetically modified super soldier, or an alien god. She's human. And this, this smell of blood in the air and in her nose, soaking into her clothes with the rain, bodies vanishing after you've killed them, it disturbs her.

She's wary of Barnes, posture aloof as he gestures. ] What about at all? Are you sure the people here haven't just been waiting?

wildcard —

[sparke]

[ thor picks a room and soon after all the fighting, he goes to sleep -- or tries. sleep doesn't come easily when he is plagued by doubt, by worry for his people, by questions that he has no answers to.

so the next morning, when he stumbles toward the breakfast nook, he is not entirely awake. perhaps that is why he doesn't immediately react to natasha sitting there beyond a brief lift of one hand, a quiet good morning. like it's perfectly ordinary that she's sitting there.

which. wait. no. he hasn't seen her in ages. he blinks and then lifts his hand again. ]

Natasha! Hi [ he mouths the words. ]

[vdova]

[ She hadn't slept well. Visions of red running down her hands, a ledger she can never truly erase. When the sun rises, she rises with it, frowning at the carpet she's slept on. On today's to do list: find at least a pillow. She's slept on (and in) worse, but that doesn't mean she wants to continue to do it.

She's sitting against the wall, legs folded underneath her, device in her hand as she scrolls through the network. Spotting the movement out of the top of her vision, Natasha looks up, eyes growing wide though her smile does as well. She lifts her hand in wave, raises her device to type: ]

Thor! It's been a while.

[sparke]

[ thor hates these devices. they’re so small and old-fashioned he’d and inconvenient. he still takes his out, typing back: ]

a lot has happened since i last saw you

[ as though the short hair and missing eye wouldn’t clue her in to that. ]

it is good to see you again
how have you been?

[vdova]

I can see that. I like the haircut.
It suits you.
What happened to your eye?

[ Because the last thing she wants to talk about is how she's been. It's terrible, Thor, everything sucks. ]

professional widow

[gimmesometassel]

[Everything's gone crazy.

Carpet doesn't understand what's going on, or why--just that fights are breaking out all over town, and people are getting seriously hurt. He's not exactly a gallant hero, rushing in to save a damsel in distress--he's utterly waterlogged, and his brilliant colors are partly hidden by smears of slick red mud, and so far, Natasha is holding her own. Still, he doesn't like the looks of just how many people are coming to gang up on her. How could she possibly fend off that many herself?

There's a streak of color as Carpet bursts onto the scene, frantically beckoning to Natasha as he swoops towards the ground. Come on, come on, hurry and get aboard! They can't hurt her if they can't reach her, right?]

[vdova]

[ It takes her a long moment to notice the carpet — she's busy kicking and punching, trying to keep the now swarming attackers away from her.

She actually trips. Falls on the carpet, sitting straight up when she realizes it's not the ground she's expecting, but — well, a rather plush, ornate, carpet. It's dirty and soaking wet, but Natasha can tell it's expensive and it's such a bizarre thing to land on in the middle of a dusty rainstorm that she can't help but to push everything else out of her mind. ]

A carpet?

[gimmesometassel]

[Natasha is already toppling over before he can stop her, so Carpet doesn't try to. He waits for her to sit up instead, just enough time to get her balance as the attackers close in, before he moves beneath her. One end flips up, covering and protecting her as well as he can with a few feet of himself, while the other end wraps around her to keep her seated securely--and he bolts.

Fleeing out of the middle of a mob like this would be sheer madness, except for two things: first, he doesn't care how many people try to punch or kick or club him, and even knives catching in his fabric are little more than nuisances. Second, and probably more importantly, he's going from a total standstill to lunging forward with several hundred miles per hour of force and momentum. Anyone unlucky enough to be in the path of his escape route will probably be seriously hurt themselves from being rammed into and flung aside.]

[vdova]

[ It's almost — almost — like being swung around by the Hulk; at the sensation, her heart seizes just slightly, but it's not from fear.

The carpet plowing through bodies, too, isn't an unusual sensation for her. She does nothing more than buckle down and hold still, maintaining her balance surprising well, despite the speed and the, ah, speedbumps. ]

sobs on you aggressively - spark

[clussy]

(This is a face that he hasn't seen in a particularly long time. Natasha and him hadn't really been able to get to know each other, but she had seen one of his darkest memories in the flesh and had instantly helped him afterwards. Not only that but she hadn't made him feel foolish for being upset. She had simply taken him to get some junk food and just...

She just talked to him.

It had been one of the most positive brief meetings of his short-lived life and one he recalled with fondness. No, it didn't automatically mean he trusted her explicitly, but it meant that the moment he saw her face looking down at him, he felt something warm and immense bubble up inside of him. Relief. The same relief he had gotten when he saw Tetora, when he saw Clara, and Nill.

He forgets to respond to her message, instead smiling a bit shakily at her and automatically stepping forward to wrap his skinny arms around her waist. Maybe they didn't quite know each other well enough for that....But....Natasha meant two simple things to Eddie: safe and without judgement.

He had missed her.)

SOBS BACK

[vdova]

[ She's watching the guards watch her from across the road, too caught up in trying to figure out the mystery of the theatre to really pay attention to her surroundings. Deadly and stupid, she thinks as the body collides with hers, but it's too small and too intimate to be dangerous. She raises her arms in surprise, eyes going wide — Natasha stumbles back a step or two at the addition of his weight.

She wants to say something, but the warning from the natives keeps her mouth shut, though her expression says everything she'd like to say anyway: Who are you?

But her confusion doesn't stop her from slowly lowering her arms around the boy's shoulders. A return of his hug. ]

[clussy]

(Eddie realizes only a couple seconds after hugging Natasha that he probably should have approached with a bit more warning. It's too late now though, and he doesn't feel too bad about possibly catching her off guard. It's a slow, hesitant hug, lacking a familiarity that has Eddie leaning back to stare up at her with curious eyes.

Only he's not offended by the blatant confusion on Natasha's face. He remembers Clara being stunned in a very similar way when she had first arrived. And Tetora had been confused too. It seemed to happen sometimes, and Eddie doesn't hold it against her.

Instead, he grins at her, and gently removes himself. He takes out the device and quickly types up a message to show her.)

Hi. I'm Eddie. We've met before- although I take it you don't remember me? It's okay if you don't. It happens sometimes here for some reason.

Wildcard

[flyguy]

[Natasha is wandering around, Tony is wandering around. Specifically he's surveying buildings, for a new lab, stopping every so often in front of a likely candidate and letting light from the glasses he's wearing project out to canvas the place. F.R.I.D.A.Y. does the rest indicating disrepair, structural integrity, building components and so forth. It's a great time until he spots some familiar red. He's inclined to brush it off, but F.R.I.D.A.Y. is always running facial recognition and a message pops up on his lenses.

Boss, Miss Romanoff is here.

He stops. Looks in Nat's direction. Back to the building. Back to Nat.]

On a scale of 1-to-10 how cool are we right now? Because I really don't want to throw down in the apocalypse, Romanoff. Hey.

[vdova]

[ There are a myriad of expression that cross her face when she sees Tony standing there: anger, disappointment, hurt, suspicion. It's an amalgamation of all four that it settles on, and she regards him cooly for a moment, trying to decide if she wants to just walk away.

But they're not in metaphorical Kansas anymore. So the least she can do is respond. Although she doesn't look at him as she does so. ]

Why don't you tell me?

[flyguy]

[Response is a good sign. He supposes. Her being tense makes him tense though and he grimaces. Looks away.]

I suppose I deserve that.

[He doesn't immediately follow up on that thought, reaching up to grab the image of the building F.R.I.D.A.Y.'s projecting on his lenses and crumple it, tossing it in the virtual trashcan. No good. Not what he's looking for.]

I will say I've been here two months. Bucky one. Ross's near daily calls demanding I put a task force together to hunt you and Rogers down is kind of so far down my priority list they wouldn't even rank as a quark. And

[A pause.]

It's good to see you.