RE: The Gradual Massacre (GBS2G4) [Round 5: GrandCon]
06-19-2013, 02:31 AM
Lynette glared for a bit, before closing the door on them. LeMarche blanched visibly, Holly was momentarily speechless, and Algernon shoved her aside and slammed on the door.
"Cut that out," came Lynette's muffled voice, still carrying enough practised authority to make Algernon cut it out. He whirled on LeMarche instead, the look in his eye more desperation than anger. Like whatever resolve was pushing him doggedly along would drain right out of him in if he dared to stop.
"So now what? Do we go look for the thief?"
LeMarche shook his head. It'd be faster to convince Lynette to help, but that entailed convincing Lynette, which was the sort of thing which needed mental preparation before an email exchange, to say nothing of conversation in person.
"It'll be chaos down in the convention floor," added Holly. "People running and screaming and those damn bugs everywhere." You just pointed out countless innocents getting injured or eaten, and you don't care at all. They'll - everyone'll just run out the main doors. If they go anywhere. You haven't caught a glimpse of a window, for all you know Countess is tossing bits of security guards into an endless void, because you're too negligent to take care of one little psychopath. Ok, now you're reaching. Shut up and let me think. "If our burglar had any sense, they'd hiding in their room right now."
"Jeez, if you're going to be a pack of socially decrepit nerds, I'll explain everything to Miss Cooper."
"Can you not," hissed LeMarche, at Bartleby. Alex. Whoever the hell this girl was.
"Yeah, seriously. No thanks." Lynette had opened the door again while everyone's attention was diverted, and planted a USB drive in the nearest pair of hands. Algernon's, as it were. "That's my backup. You're not using my laptop. I don't-" she glared at Alex here "-need or want an explanation."
"This is a Grand Battle round Gradual Massacre actually oh and Ouroborous just swarmed the convention floor."
Alex stared back at their faces like there were no problems with her argument or delivery or its content whatsoever. "You're humouring this lot," Lynette eventually deadpanned, at LeMarche. LeMarche shrugged, bit his lip.
---
What a frightful mess, she thought to herself. And Message, she supposed.
Audio off. Can't appreciate the screams if the Ouroborite screech breaks up the feed anyway. It's like singing along to a summer season-long chart topper chorus. Any of them, all of them spilling out speakers onto a crowded street, joining the revellers dishevelled distorted staggering in the neon glare.
Bacchaus. A multiverse-spanning career ago. She'd not only been young, then - she'd been youth. Unrefined, savage boundless glitter knives the night is young, the night is forever, and it will be ours.
She rolled her shoulder, her swamp-proofed shell trickling away and exposing the clockwork. The ticking teeth. Four legs shuffled about, unfolded, steadied themselves on a solid if pointy octet. Eight was a very special number, even before the battles. Eight ways with a butterfly knife to stop a man in his tracks. Eight signs he's into you (and eight uses for his infatuation). Eight districts of Bacchaus, each closed on a different day of the week.
An extrapolation, sure, but eight eights are sixty four amps in her spark chamber ignition. Countess raised her arm, and, finding at the end of it more scythe than hand, shot a bolt of violet lightning into the ceiling. It would've lit up the main foyer if the lights weren't already working, though the spark shattered a ceiling lamp and at least contributed to a more horrific scene being set.
Yelling. Running. Humans - in a cavalcade of stupid outfits - trampling one another in their rush for the exit. A wild-eyed Michelle Davis stood in one corner, rhythmically smashing an Ouroborite to pieces with the butt of her mangled prop gun. There were a set of mandibles embedded in her arm, dripping something acrid where she'd divorced its face from the rest of it.
"Message," chirped Countess. "If it'd please you, find that Jessica girl. Tell her she and I must rejoin posthaste." She pierced a skittering something underfoot, only for three more to leap upon the carcass. "Also, that we shall require a crew - whomsoever she may muster."
Countess, began Message, with a near-audible inkblot of barely-restrained contempt punctuating it, It would behoove you to realise our partnership is far from equal. You as my host have little standing with which to request folly errands of me, and I for one have even less inclination to stoop to such drudgery.
Yours by convention alone-
"You've never joined a host in trying to overthrow our employer. Besides," Countess laughed, "I didn't need the Controller to appreciate a good pool of minions." She shot another spark of electricity. It sailed a foot over her target Ouroborite, but cooked another one behind it anyway. Close enough.
-Message slithered from some inscrutable gap in her gears, and made its oily way through the footsteps of the throng. It returned not moments later.
She's in the Genreshift Cafe, on the second floor. To elucidate further violates my policy of being my own Messenger alone.
Regards,
Message
---
The stairs were a breather, with only one skeleton, picked clean and left in a tidyish pile in a less tidy mess of purplish slick and blood. He must've been curled up in a corner, Countess emotionlessly figured.
Jessica was, to what could best be described as relief for Countess, doing a fair bit better. The Genreshift Cafe, being one of Tropic Skies' in-house eateries repurposed for the convention, had a proper door on it and everything. The muffled voices from behind it sounded more like people getting organised than eaten.
Countess couldn't read the would-be Anarchy's expression when she opened the door for the amalgam, though for Countess that was pretty par for the course. A Theresa Wren had taken off her coat and wig, revealing a "Team Jacob" t-shirt and hot pink hair respectively. She clutched a plastic bag with a steak in it like it was a grenade, and her eyes told them to close the damn door already.
The cafe housed a dozen-odd, most of whom just stared at Countess when she entered. One conspicuously alive Brooklyn (one hand clutched round the handle of her prop chainsaw) finally spoke up.
"Ok, so. If you're the real Countess, and the real Message contacted Jessica here-"
"Then we are fucked."
"Super-fucked." Brooklyn nodded. "I figured the best way to save my skin was to help one of you contestants out, and I didn't have the liberty of choosing amongst whichever one of you three invited me along. No offense." Countess just rearranged her cheek a bit, the closest metal approximation of a twitching eyelid.
"Are you sure it's a good idea-" began one Cascala.
"Probably not," laughed Brooklyn. "Seriously though, everyone here's willing to follow your lead. The general consensus is we're pretty fucking real, thanks, and if we have to lend a hand eliminating a contestant to go back to situation normal then Ouro seems the best choice."
"Indulge me then, if you would. What use can I expect you to be?"
"Heh, that's totally the kind of thing Countess'd say," muttered a lady in a Guillemet-coloured shirt and jeans and horns. She got the glare from Annabell, who hefted her accoutrements.
"This is a working flamethrower. It just needs fuel."
"Why did you bring a flamethrower to a convention," asked a horrified Eureka.
Annabell shrugged. "My dad had one in the shed. I like authenticity, ok?"
"How did you bring a flamethrower to a convention."
"There's a gas cooker in one of the cupboards in the kitchen," Brooklyn said hurriedly. "Also, there's a fridge full of steaks, and we've been crushing any bugs coming through the vents, so we've got a secure location and a possible lure." A clang, faint crunch, and triumphant yelling resounded from the back of the cafe, out of sight. "There's always the possiblity I rig this joint to blow up, of course, and Toni over there's the Creature Design consultant for Seasons 1 and 2-"
"Excuse me?"
"Oh, right. You're a Season 2 battle. Sorry, nerd terminology. More to the point, Toni helped design Ouro, so she can help figure out its weak spots and how best to kill it-"
"Mel, I think she's wondering what you meant by 'blow this joint up.' I'm wondering what you meant by 'blow this joint up'."
"Eh, I'm an engineering major. I did a pyrotechnics course last winter, it's easier than you'd think-"
"I'm staff here," interjected a suited woman. Her intricate face paint would've pegged her to a Season 1 fan as Frank/The Executrix. "I've got a map of the convention, and provided the power's still up I can access hotel records too."
"Nice!" A... person in a black morph suit flailed their way through the group, barely holding onto their camera. "Were you thinking what I was thinking?"
"... Probably not?"
"Well, we should find Firestorm's room, and see if there's more to the Battle then what we've all got so far! Or we could find Lyn Cooper!"
"Huh. Hell, we could get them to write us a plausible but happy ending to all of this. Write in some loophole so we can kill Ouro."
A Cultivator glared at Cascala. "That plan sucks."
Cascala shrugged. "Just cause you can't handle things getting meta without it exploding through the entire series-"
Countess shot a bolt into the air. That shut them all up.
"Well, you've clearly no shortage of ingenuity. I approve." She grabbed a nearby table and snapped one of its legs off. She tossed the metal bar to a girl in a white wig and goggles, all bedecked in silver. "What we still require, however, is a plan. Ouroborous cannot be exterminated by simply walking out and stepping on it."
"No shit," muttered Creature Design Consultant Toni, who'd been trying to avoid attention since Brooklyn/"Mel" had pointed her out. "It won't count as a kill until it's unable to breed and propogate. Ouroborous could be split in two swarms by now."
A Soft cosplayer approached with a reassuring smile. "Even knocking its numbers back should help, right?" she said to Toni, before turning to Countess. "Heya. Huge fan of yours. Read all the supplementary stuff, too."
Brooklyn, messing with something in her chainsaw, shot up in warning. "Dude-"
"Nah, come on. Paige here knows there's nothing like a little spree of violence to ease tensions up, right?"
The cafe went deadly quiet. Countess took a step toward the kid, somehow driving the silence to an even deadlier place. She tilted her head, bared her teeth, and raised a claw.
Before anyone could panic or start thinking about how they might actually stop her, she'd rested those talons on the girl's shoulder. Almost gently.
"That's right," she purred, then giggled. It wasn't an audio clip she'd had prepared, and it made everyone's hair stand on end. She spun around, the giggle distorting into a somehow-natural cackle.
"Once we're done tonight, they'll be wiping the floors of bug juice for weeks!"
She laughed, a glint in her eye and another dismantled table in her claws. "Let us fucking do this."
The assembled ladies managed a cheer. Let the bug hunt begin.
"Cut that out," came Lynette's muffled voice, still carrying enough practised authority to make Algernon cut it out. He whirled on LeMarche instead, the look in his eye more desperation than anger. Like whatever resolve was pushing him doggedly along would drain right out of him in if he dared to stop.
"So now what? Do we go look for the thief?"
LeMarche shook his head. It'd be faster to convince Lynette to help, but that entailed convincing Lynette, which was the sort of thing which needed mental preparation before an email exchange, to say nothing of conversation in person.
"It'll be chaos down in the convention floor," added Holly. "People running and screaming and those damn bugs everywhere." You just pointed out countless innocents getting injured or eaten, and you don't care at all. They'll - everyone'll just run out the main doors. If they go anywhere. You haven't caught a glimpse of a window, for all you know Countess is tossing bits of security guards into an endless void, because you're too negligent to take care of one little psychopath. Ok, now you're reaching. Shut up and let me think. "If our burglar had any sense, they'd hiding in their room right now."
"Jeez, if you're going to be a pack of socially decrepit nerds, I'll explain everything to Miss Cooper."
"Can you not," hissed LeMarche, at Bartleby. Alex. Whoever the hell this girl was.
"Yeah, seriously. No thanks." Lynette had opened the door again while everyone's attention was diverted, and planted a USB drive in the nearest pair of hands. Algernon's, as it were. "That's my backup. You're not using my laptop. I don't-" she glared at Alex here "-need or want an explanation."
"This is a Grand Battle round Gradual Massacre actually oh and Ouroborous just swarmed the convention floor."
Alex stared back at their faces like there were no problems with her argument or delivery or its content whatsoever. "You're humouring this lot," Lynette eventually deadpanned, at LeMarche. LeMarche shrugged, bit his lip.
---
What a frightful mess, she thought to herself. And Message, she supposed.
Audio off. Can't appreciate the screams if the Ouroborite screech breaks up the feed anyway. It's like singing along to a summer season-long chart topper chorus. Any of them, all of them spilling out speakers onto a crowded street, joining the revellers dishevelled distorted staggering in the neon glare.
Bacchaus. A multiverse-spanning career ago. She'd not only been young, then - she'd been youth. Unrefined, savage boundless glitter knives the night is young, the night is forever, and it will be ours.
She rolled her shoulder, her swamp-proofed shell trickling away and exposing the clockwork. The ticking teeth. Four legs shuffled about, unfolded, steadied themselves on a solid if pointy octet. Eight was a very special number, even before the battles. Eight ways with a butterfly knife to stop a man in his tracks. Eight signs he's into you (and eight uses for his infatuation). Eight districts of Bacchaus, each closed on a different day of the week.
An extrapolation, sure, but eight eights are sixty four amps in her spark chamber ignition. Countess raised her arm, and, finding at the end of it more scythe than hand, shot a bolt of violet lightning into the ceiling. It would've lit up the main foyer if the lights weren't already working, though the spark shattered a ceiling lamp and at least contributed to a more horrific scene being set.
Yelling. Running. Humans - in a cavalcade of stupid outfits - trampling one another in their rush for the exit. A wild-eyed Michelle Davis stood in one corner, rhythmically smashing an Ouroborite to pieces with the butt of her mangled prop gun. There were a set of mandibles embedded in her arm, dripping something acrid where she'd divorced its face from the rest of it.
"Message," chirped Countess. "If it'd please you, find that Jessica girl. Tell her she and I must rejoin posthaste." She pierced a skittering something underfoot, only for three more to leap upon the carcass. "Also, that we shall require a crew - whomsoever she may muster."
Countess, began Message, with a near-audible inkblot of barely-restrained contempt punctuating it, It would behoove you to realise our partnership is far from equal. You as my host have little standing with which to request folly errands of me, and I for one have even less inclination to stoop to such drudgery.
Yours by convention alone-
"You've never joined a host in trying to overthrow our employer. Besides," Countess laughed, "I didn't need the Controller to appreciate a good pool of minions." She shot another spark of electricity. It sailed a foot over her target Ouroborite, but cooked another one behind it anyway. Close enough.
-Message slithered from some inscrutable gap in her gears, and made its oily way through the footsteps of the throng. It returned not moments later.
She's in the Genreshift Cafe, on the second floor. To elucidate further violates my policy of being my own Messenger alone.
Regards,
Message
---
The stairs were a breather, with only one skeleton, picked clean and left in a tidyish pile in a less tidy mess of purplish slick and blood. He must've been curled up in a corner, Countess emotionlessly figured.
Jessica was, to what could best be described as relief for Countess, doing a fair bit better. The Genreshift Cafe, being one of Tropic Skies' in-house eateries repurposed for the convention, had a proper door on it and everything. The muffled voices from behind it sounded more like people getting organised than eaten.
Countess couldn't read the would-be Anarchy's expression when she opened the door for the amalgam, though for Countess that was pretty par for the course. A Theresa Wren had taken off her coat and wig, revealing a "Team Jacob" t-shirt and hot pink hair respectively. She clutched a plastic bag with a steak in it like it was a grenade, and her eyes told them to close the damn door already.
The cafe housed a dozen-odd, most of whom just stared at Countess when she entered. One conspicuously alive Brooklyn (one hand clutched round the handle of her prop chainsaw) finally spoke up.
"Ok, so. If you're the real Countess, and the real Message contacted Jessica here-"
"Then we are fucked."
"Super-fucked." Brooklyn nodded. "I figured the best way to save my skin was to help one of you contestants out, and I didn't have the liberty of choosing amongst whichever one of you three invited me along. No offense." Countess just rearranged her cheek a bit, the closest metal approximation of a twitching eyelid.
"Are you sure it's a good idea-" began one Cascala.
"Probably not," laughed Brooklyn. "Seriously though, everyone here's willing to follow your lead. The general consensus is we're pretty fucking real, thanks, and if we have to lend a hand eliminating a contestant to go back to situation normal then Ouro seems the best choice."
"Indulge me then, if you would. What use can I expect you to be?"
"Heh, that's totally the kind of thing Countess'd say," muttered a lady in a Guillemet-coloured shirt and jeans and horns. She got the glare from Annabell, who hefted her accoutrements.
"This is a working flamethrower. It just needs fuel."
"Why did you bring a flamethrower to a convention," asked a horrified Eureka.
Annabell shrugged. "My dad had one in the shed. I like authenticity, ok?"
"How did you bring a flamethrower to a convention."
"There's a gas cooker in one of the cupboards in the kitchen," Brooklyn said hurriedly. "Also, there's a fridge full of steaks, and we've been crushing any bugs coming through the vents, so we've got a secure location and a possible lure." A clang, faint crunch, and triumphant yelling resounded from the back of the cafe, out of sight. "There's always the possiblity I rig this joint to blow up, of course, and Toni over there's the Creature Design consultant for Seasons 1 and 2-"
"Excuse me?"
"Oh, right. You're a Season 2 battle. Sorry, nerd terminology. More to the point, Toni helped design Ouro, so she can help figure out its weak spots and how best to kill it-"
"Mel, I think she's wondering what you meant by 'blow this joint up.' I'm wondering what you meant by 'blow this joint up'."
"Eh, I'm an engineering major. I did a pyrotechnics course last winter, it's easier than you'd think-"
"I'm staff here," interjected a suited woman. Her intricate face paint would've pegged her to a Season 1 fan as Frank/The Executrix. "I've got a map of the convention, and provided the power's still up I can access hotel records too."
"Nice!" A... person in a black morph suit flailed their way through the group, barely holding onto their camera. "Were you thinking what I was thinking?"
"... Probably not?"
"Well, we should find Firestorm's room, and see if there's more to the Battle then what we've all got so far! Or we could find Lyn Cooper!"
"Huh. Hell, we could get them to write us a plausible but happy ending to all of this. Write in some loophole so we can kill Ouro."
A Cultivator glared at Cascala. "That plan sucks."
Cascala shrugged. "Just cause you can't handle things getting meta without it exploding through the entire series-"
Countess shot a bolt into the air. That shut them all up.
"Well, you've clearly no shortage of ingenuity. I approve." She grabbed a nearby table and snapped one of its legs off. She tossed the metal bar to a girl in a white wig and goggles, all bedecked in silver. "What we still require, however, is a plan. Ouroborous cannot be exterminated by simply walking out and stepping on it."
"No shit," muttered Creature Design Consultant Toni, who'd been trying to avoid attention since Brooklyn/"Mel" had pointed her out. "It won't count as a kill until it's unable to breed and propogate. Ouroborous could be split in two swarms by now."
A Soft cosplayer approached with a reassuring smile. "Even knocking its numbers back should help, right?" she said to Toni, before turning to Countess. "Heya. Huge fan of yours. Read all the supplementary stuff, too."
Brooklyn, messing with something in her chainsaw, shot up in warning. "Dude-"
"Nah, come on. Paige here knows there's nothing like a little spree of violence to ease tensions up, right?"
The cafe went deadly quiet. Countess took a step toward the kid, somehow driving the silence to an even deadlier place. She tilted her head, bared her teeth, and raised a claw.
Before anyone could panic or start thinking about how they might actually stop her, she'd rested those talons on the girl's shoulder. Almost gently.
"That's right," she purred, then giggled. It wasn't an audio clip she'd had prepared, and it made everyone's hair stand on end. She spun around, the giggle distorting into a somehow-natural cackle.
"Once we're done tonight, they'll be wiping the floors of bug juice for weeks!"
She laughed, a glint in her eye and another dismantled table in her claws. "Let us fucking do this."
The assembled ladies managed a cheer. Let the bug hunt begin.
peace to the unsung peace to the martyrs | i'm johnny rotten appleseed
clouds is shaky love | broke as hell but i got a bunch of ringtones
eyes blood red bruise aubergine | Sue took something now Sue doesn't sleep | saint average, day in the life of
woke up in the noon smelling doom and death | out the house, great outdoors
staying warm in arctic blizzard | that's my battle 'til I get inanimate | still up in the same clothes living like a gameshow
clouds is shaky love | broke as hell but i got a bunch of ringtones
eyes blood red bruise aubergine | Sue took something now Sue doesn't sleep | saint average, day in the life of
woke up in the noon smelling doom and death | out the house, great outdoors
staying warm in arctic blizzard | that's my battle 'til I get inanimate | still up in the same clothes living like a gameshow