Masks 2

"Yes," the Demon said in response to Maria. "Give me a moment."

She proceeded to get an old t-shirt from Nocturne (courtesy of his ship) and cut it into long strips. Each one was swiftly enchanted with a charm against mind control, and were then given to each member of the team. By this point everybody was on the dropship, and they were moving towards Rainwalk.

"I can't promise this'll hold off everything, but it'll help," the Demon told them all. "I did the same thing last time and it got the job done, though I think whatever eldritch god lurks beneath Rainwalk has gotten a lot stronger since then to be doing stuff like this. Tie the bandana around your head, ideally your forehead. Make sure it wraps around your brain and makes contact with your skin. That's the important thing."

Lady Light momentarily turned her head away and lifted her mask to tie the bandana around her head while Nocturne and La Chat quickly tied theirs as well. Loneblade, having a pretty public identity, just fuckin' tied his.

Wouldn't be long before they reached Rainwalk proper...

Theraea considered the bandana for a moment before tying it around her head. Weaver anatomy, while radically different from that of humans, still included a brain-esque element in the head.

"Wish I'd had time to stop by the Citadel before this, but that wouldn't have been a short trip," Theraea said, looking... maybe worried, slightly? Maybe. She was hard to read. "I've had some basic training in psionic resistance but I don't think that really extends that well to the kind of being we're going to be dealing with here. It was mostly about, like, identifying and shutting out thoughts that aren't your own, not really full-on mind control. I... I can try to give a few pointers if it would help? We don't really have much time."

Theraea really hated the prospect of mind control. A sentiment probably shared by most sentient beings.

Once she arrives with the rest of the heroes, Zil seems to be feeling a bit better about herself! She shows up in her small, normal, Human form, since no one had seen the other one yet. Rather than being dressed like a regular gal off the streets though, she now sported a sleek, black and gold costume and mask that covered half of her face. Seems she'd gotten her wish after all, and managed to get her shit just a bit more together. Now she's heroic! Sorta! There's a pendant she wears around her neck, and she crosses her arms as she takes all the info in, lips pursed in thought.

"Pointers on how to resist mind control sounds good. I'd like to know, at least, and I'm a good fighter so I can cover you on that part, Theraea. Or- cover anyone who maybe doesn't fight so good and is better at thinking and stuff. Figure if we smash enough skulls we can find whatever is keeping these rifts open and eradicate it." She ties the bandanna! "Or, y'know. We wing this until we figure it out, which has worked pretty okay before."

Then, she blinks as a realization hits!
"Oh, will this stretch? The bandanna, I mean. Will it get bigger if I need it to?"

Candy hops off her dropship with a more serious air around her than last time! It seemed her suit changed color into a dark blue look, along with her hair that also had the same color going on too.

She brought with her, her very special suit! Its bullet proof and can climb up walls now! She has a sleek backpack with a backup grappling hook and extra smoke bombs, flash grenades, emps, shurikens, tracker/tracer, and listening spy devices, along with a gun to shoot the microphones that link to her visor.
She has one of each grenade on her belt, her special extending long staff, more shurikens, a couple of pairs of specially designed ear plugs for her and anyone that had to be around her. Three cans of medigel.

She gives a wave to everyone she met before though! She definitely does not ignore them! She also securely ties her headband on her head when she steps into the transport.

"Did we receive any intel about their powers or what they are capable of, besides mind control" She says quietly when there is a pause.

"We're really doin' the tinfoil hat thing, then? Nae just kiddin' with me?"

Finn does her best to keep the wrapping under her hood. Gotta have SOME level of street-cred, still.

"D'we know any sorts of weaknesses fish gods have, by any chance? Can we rely on Pokemon style bullshit fer this? Guessin' fire won't exactly work, but I dinnae ken how electricity'd work against the bastards."

Ken wears his bandanna Solid Snake style. I mean he was ex-PMC so it fitted.

"I mean, it's a cut up t-shirt. It'll stretch about as much as a t-shirt would," the Demon replied to Zil. "Why do you ask?"

Nocturne looked first to Theraea.

"Do what you have time to do, and thank you. Anything helps."

Then to Candy and Finn.

"Sadly, there isn't much to go on. Some people who escaped reported seeing flying horrible dolphins and jellfish that shocked cars out of the sky, so just be as ready as you can for just about anything fish-related. We'll have no way of knowing their weaknesses til we fight them, so stay experimental."

Esen puts on the anti-mind control charm.

"Might want to keep some diving gear handy then? At least a mask and some oxygen if we have it because, uh, I don't wanna drown"

Maria put the mind control charm in her jacket pocket, and zipped it up. "Probably won't need it, I'll save that one in case we run into a friend on the way."

Right, listening, learning, shaking her head to herself. These sounded nothing like the things they encountered last time. Not much handy advice she could give on those bad boys, sorry Candy. But...

"... It's Siren. Pretty sure she swam from here to DC in a few hours once. If you're in water enough to warrant diving gear, pretty sure you're screwed. If it comes to us being in the splash zone, we might do better close enough that I can keep us in a more even playing field. And if we're in that, then I promise, you're not going to drown." Had an awful lot of practice taking water out of lungs, after all. "Not sure 'getting rid of' her is an option either. There's some... Funky stuff under this city. And it doesn't sound like what we've heard. That says to me that this is only going to get weirder, and that kinda weird only answered to a weapon that... She had. Gonna have to be on our toes... And listen good to Theraea."

Wasn't like Siren was the only bright eyed, bushy tailed hero to lose some shine. But fuck if anyone took that much of a nose-dive naturally, under these circumstances. Hurk.

"Sounds like this is going to be a lot of improvisation. This doesn't sound exactly like anything I've seen before, but if I can get those portals closed, it should make our lives easier..." Theraea pondered for a moment. "Oh! Right, the whole... pointers thing."

And so, Theraea would give as brief a crash course as she could in resisting psionics - identifying and shutting out thoughts that aren't your own, keeping your own thoughts safe, and all that. Honestly, with as brief a trip as this was likely to be, it probably wouldn't help much, but something is usually better than nothing!

Nocturne listened to Maria, his face obscured behind his mask. At the end, he looked at the floor a moment before looking up.

"We just need to see what the situation on the ground is," he said. "Once we figure out what we're dealing with, we can start to plan. It'll take improvisation, but sometimes these things call for that."

"We're landing! ETA one minute!" shouted La Chat from the cockpit above.

The Demon quickly finished up her enchanted bandanas and left a number of spares on the ship, just in case. Then everybody stood up and prepared to disembark. The ship stopped in the air and came down, landing softly on the streets of Rainwalk. Then the loading ramp came down and they stepped off...

To most of them, the city looked pristine. Clean streets, undamaged buildings, celebratory balloons flying up above, banners hanging from the street lamps, and normal well-to-do citizens walking the streets with a bit more pep in their step than usual.

To Maria, the city looked like hell. Windows were broken, many of the walls had bullet holes, plenty of blood lied in splatters along the streets and sidewalks, and seaweed banners were hanging from the street lamps. The citizens walking the streets were still peppy and well-to-do, though they looked a bit sickly. Observing closely, Maria saw that a number of them had gills, or fins, or clammy skin, or glazed eyes. Rather than balloons, she saw freakish jellyfish floating through the sky above.

Through Polybius, Ken was sensing a LOT of interference. The poor drone could barely see anything, and was occasionally stuttering as it moved around. Seemed that SOMETHING was interfering with them. At the same time, Theraea saw that there was a hint of some sort of Other about the townsfolk, but she couldn't tell what was up with them. She'd never seen anything quite like it, it was like they'd done the dimensional equivalent of swimming through a really gross swamp.

Cheerful, jaunty music was playing and seemed to be coming from a square nearby.

"...So this definitely isn't right," Theraea said, looking around. "Something otherdimensional going on with... every living person. Hm."

Theraea made sure her Reality Anchor was running at full capacity, then set her computer to do a scan of the area. See if it picked up anything particularly unusual, because regular unusual described this whole place.

Thank god nobody could see the Face Journey Maria was going on. It wasn't a good one.

"Yeah, you think?" She asked, and then like, immediately dropped the sarcasm because she couldn't just let this scare her so bad as to lash out at Theraea. "How could this have happened so fast that nobody... Nobody would have raised an alarm?" She whispered, not wanting to... God, they landed in the street and these people didn't seem to notice them. Ugh. Gross, gross, gross. She held tightly onto the handles of her front two knives, and stepped quietly, forward and close to the group.

Esen notices the two seem very disturbed by the city sights and is very confused.

"Uh, so are you guys seeing something I'm not? Because all I see are people walking around and some balloons. Looks like a party to be honest."

"No, I see that too, but there's definitely something wrong about it all. I... wouldn't trust anything you see here, it's all..." Theraea squinted as she glanced around. "...weird."

"Whatever it is," Ken said, petting his drone. "It's messing with my baby. I feel like this psychic - I'm making an educated guess - bullshit and electronics do not get along."

"Aye, I'm not going tae start assumin' the whole lot o' the heroes that led us here're daft, funny as it'd be. There's definitely somethin' up." Nimue nods Maria's way. "Just point n' yell if ye need me tae zap or stab somethin', aye? I'll try not tae let the look o' things throw me off."

... Maybe she was vulnerable after all. Maria turned around, threw up her hood, and took her helmet off. Put that headband on, slap the helmet back, undo the hood.......

Nothing. Nothing changed. Oh no oh no it wasn't her. Headband back in the pocket, "Ok, uhh, I don't see any- balloons, this is all... Fucked. Everyone's got gills and shit... There's uhh... Lotta blood, everything except the people's shot up... Jellyfish up there..." She pointed up to the balloons, and returned to a defensive stance. "... I'll keep us as clear as I can, I guess. Nobody really seems like they're paying attention, at least..."

A woman full of ellipses... Just for this Bullshit... She uhh, would make sure to move the blood from people's way, whenever they moved, so they wouldn't comically slip in a blood puddle they couldn't see...........

Down the road, bells began to toll at the central square down the street. Lady Light zoomed up into the sky to take a look, getting UNCOMFORTABLY CLOSE TO THE "BALLOONS" in the process. Squinting for a bit, she zoomed back down.

"Looks like some kind of church gathering. Want to check it out?" she asked the group.

At the same time, La Chat was squinting towards the central square.

"Usually I can see through buildings but there's a lot of disturbing interference here," La Chat told them. "Like a thick mist that carries over through every spectrum..."

Jim began walking towards the central square, hand on a throwing knife. Didn't seem like he was one to wait.

A strangled little "NO-" came from the ground.

"... Should probably see where this party's going down..."

Steppy... steppy........

Cadence turned on her visor and started to scan for any infrasound or ultrasounds that they might not be aware of yet. She will also set it to record to pick up on any audio she can replicate for later.
A few quick taps on her suit changes the color to urban camo.

“Are we going to try and extract any of the turned people?” She whispers as she follows Maria and the group.

"I feel like it's mandatory we should try," Ken pipes up as he follows the rest of the group. "For a number of reasons, but I have no idea how we should approach trying."

Well, Zil was asking because she can get real big! She would have let the Demon know that, but if it's too late, it's too late.

For now, she's still small. Her arms are crossed as she observes, eyes squinted.
"I'm gonna try to extract some people for sure. Goal here is to close shit up and also save people, yeah? Church gathering does sound like a good place to start, though..."

"Sounds about right. People need out, and human sacrifice is on the table, actively screws our prospects for shutting this down. Dunno if everyone will be... Happy about it, but we'll see how we have to run this..."

Zil could loosen her bandana and grow into it if she needed to. Shrinking back down would be a problem, but she'd live.

They continued on down the street towards the source of the bells, being run past by numerous citizens as they made their way towards the square.

When they got to the central square they set their eyes upon a church named Saint Anthony's. To most of the group, it was a beautiful old stone church with a nice green lawn, cheerful sign, and a heavy iron fence.

To Maria? It was a mess. Glowing eldritch symbols were carved into every brick, the windows were shattered, bulletholes ran throughout, the lawn was flooded, and the cross at the top of the building had been snapped off with a chunk of the tower.

A glowing circle sat in front of the church, drawn in blood and surrounded by glowing runes. Theraea, upon seeing this, saw that the circle was absolutely AWASH in otherworldly energy. Everybody else saw the mosaic as a large, ornate, elaborate mosaic. It was rather strangely-designed, resembling tangled, symmetrical seaweed. Around the circle, the citizens of the city knelt down and began their prayers.

"Please, Thiotz’ma, save the other cities like you've saved this one. Bring us salvation in your oceans, and smite the enemies of the Deep..." they chanted together. "Bring the Deep Water to purge those cities of the corporations. Save us, O Thiotz'ma..."

Near the circle, a tall brown-haired man in red robes led the prayer and congregation. He chanted his praises to Thiotz'ma, and numerous willing citizens walked forth. Maria saw that they were already rather fishy, but when they stepped through the runic blood circle they transformed into six foot tall humanoid fish-creatures. They were each given barnacle-covered guns or harpoons by attendants, and they went off to stand in formation nearby as they said their own prayers.

It was then that everybody noticed a figure being held behind the priest by a couple of his attendants. It was Sam, very hungover, very delirious, and VERY unprotected from mind control. His usual clothes were dirty, ragged, and damp and he himself looked like he'd been through absolute hell.

But, for the moment, he was resisting the mind control of the city somehow. Jim, seeing this, stepped forward as he went for his throwing knives. He was about ten feet in front of the group.