Open RP: Evil Missions and the Great Pie Hunt

[usethepoker.livejournal.com]

Susan and Shaun had been cobbling together a guidebook to Hogwarts when the WART broadcasted. The idea was to put together something that would help ease Liz’s transition, whenever she arrived; both of them knew that Liz was definitely not the sort of person who would take some of the weird shit here easily.

“Well, theme music,” Shaun said, looking up. Composition was not his strong point--like many people who are erudite enough in speech, he had a hard time when it came to setting it down on paper, and the carpet around his chair was littered with discarded balls of crumpled parchment. “That’s a bit of all right.”

Susan, who didn’t recognize a single song, nevertheless nodded. “I still don’t fully understand this ‘Halloween’ thing,” she said. Though she’d been at Hogwarts last Halloween, she couldn’t remember it now, and thus the point and significance of the holiday were lost on her. Shaun had tried to explain it, but why something that was more or less the Day of the Dead should inspire people to dress up and get drunk, she didn’t know. Then again, in her experience quite a lot of people would use almost anything as an excuse to dress up and get drunk, so…

Shaun didn’t get a chance to try to explain again. Something odd was going on in his head--something he’d never really felt before, or at least not in this magnitude. The adrenaline-fueled desperation he’d experienced when they’d been besieged in the Winchester slammed back full-force, but this time the fear had been replaced with…something else. Memory of him threatening to gut David with a broken bottle if the man came any nearer his dying mum overtook him--the sheer rage he’d felt in that moment, only now it was amplified tenfold. Shaun was not a violent man--at least, not if you weren’t a zombie--but something in him suddenly wanted to be.

He looked at Susan, who had gone very still herself. A change seemed to ripple over her features--her already pale skin whitened to near transparency, her hair coiling down into something limp and passive, and when she looked up at him her eyes would have scared the life out of him, if he hadn’t been so changed already himself.

They were black--solid black, unbroken save for a tiny, remote pinprick of arctic blue at the center. She smiled, and her teeth seemed…sharper, somehow; sharper, and a good deal more sinister than any smile Shaun had ever seen on her.

They looked at one another. Both suddenly had an inexplicable urge to go do something very unpleasant to someone else, but the two of them were allies--there was an unspoken understanding that they’d do nothing awful to one another.

…LET’S PLAY, Susan said, and the Voice had taken on strange harmonics it had never before held--there was a note of malevolence beneath it, a gleeful, vicious sort of malice that promised all sorts of unpleasant things. She paused. AND THEN LET’S GET PIE.

Shaun picked up his bat, flipping it from hand to hand. He returned her rather disturbing smile. “Play, then pie,” he said. “Gotcha. Shall we?”

They didn’t even bother to use the door--Susan just grabbed his hand as she went straight through the wall, taking him along with her. Neither one knew where they were going, or what they would do when they got there, but both were in silent agreement as to the type and amount of damage they wanted to do along the way. Odd thoughts of dominance were firing through Susan’s brain--the need to overpower, to crush, to overwhelm. Shaun, whose mindset was echoing that, was more than willing to help--they’d get rid of any and all zombies once and for all, intelligent or not.

And then there would be pie. Because dude, every evil would-be villain needs pie, dammit.

((NWS warning: Stephen and Susan's thread eventually devolves into attempted murder, and thence into smut. Yeah, we don't really know, either :P))

Comments

[bantersucks.livejournal.com]

((Remember how I said the scarab's going to react to Death!Susan? Tormenting approved, but give it the option to shift between dimensions at some point, 'cause it's probably going to go that far to get away.))

Jaime had to circle Hogwarts at least twice before he found a window that opened into an empty corridor. He'd picked up a few familiar energy signatures, but after his last encounter (http://community.livejournal.com/hogwarts_hocus/1483237.html?thread=74835685#t74835685) decided to play it smart and make a discreet entrance so he wouldn't be blindsided again.

This idea worked for all of thirty seconds, and then two strangers stepped out of the wall and made him jump back three feet. No, wait, not strangers, that was Shaun, the guy who got dragged into yoga, and Susan - wait dear god no that was not Susan. As he noticed the visible physical changes, the scarab practically screamed in terror - about as much as it had when faced with the Lains, if not more.

As Susan turned those black eyes towards him, the only response Jaime could muster was a weak, "Oh, God no."

[usethepoker.livejournal.com]

((HAHAHAHA, HELL YES! You just killed me dead. XD))

Susan and Shaun looked at him, their glances unnervingly syncronized. JAIME, Susan said--even in this state she knew him. JAIME, HOW...NICE TO SEE YOU. There was something undeniably predatory in her expression, and she advanced on him with the silent stalk that was her grandfather's trademark.

Shaun recognized Jaime as well, regarding him thoughtfully. The guy wasn't a zombie, obviously...but maybe Susan could change that. Maybe she could make people be zombies, just so he could kill them.... The fact that the school had, well, a no-kill rule, was completely lost on him at the moment--he just wanted to hit something with the cricket bat. Hard.

[bantersucks.livejournal.com]

((Said it before and I'll say it again: Jaime!muse HATES ME SO MUCH right now. Feel free to stop him from getting to the window. Shaun is welcome to try the cricket bat, but it won't hurt and he may risk breaking it.))

Every once in a blue moon, Jaime and the scarab actually agreed on something, and this was one of those rare times. Right now, he could completely identify with the need to RUN THE HELL AWAY. "Nice," he repeated weakly. "That's one word for it."

Oh shit oh shit oh shit oh shit - Through the panic, his mind was racing. The no-kill spell was still intact, he'd noted that when he went out the window. So she couldn't kill him, right? Then he remembered what she'd told him: "My grandfather is that world's Death." If that's what she was now - would the no-kill spell even apply to her? (Shaun and the cricket bat were barely registering on his radar, as was the fact that he'd just gotten outed to yet another person.)

He had to get away. No way he could take her on. Had to find Brenda and Lola, warn them, see if they were okay. Which meant being entirely unoriginal, but at this point he was willing to repeat himself in order to escape. There was no one else in the hall, so hopefully nobody could get caught in the crossfire.

Jaime backed away hastily, forming a plasma cannon as he did so and fired - at the ceiling between him and Susan. (Right now, not even the scarab was insane enough to try to blast Susan herself.) The blast ripped through the rafters, and chunks of mortar and stone and dirt started raining down between them as Jaime lunged for the window, hoping and praying the distraction would buy him a second to get away.

[usethepoker.livejournal.com]

O RLY? Neither Susan nor Shaun appreciated having half the ceiling crash down in front of them, and without a word she reached out and took Shaun's hand, snapping her fingers and stopping Time in an instant. The last falling bits of stone froze in midair, and she and Shaun stepped carefully around them.

Susan stopped in front of Jaime, taking in his justifiably terrified expression. Shaun took up position just behind him, cricket bat still in hand, but he wasn't going to use it just yet--that armor looked a bit too durable. For now, he was content to watch, like a spectator at a football match. He'd get his turn soon enough, surely.

Susan looked over Jaime's shoulder at him, and with a feral smile snapped her fingers again. Time came rushing back, heralded by the last thundering crashes of stone.

((Feel free to have Jaime either dodge or smack right into Susan))

[bantersucks.livejournal.com]

"--AAAAH!"

--and the next thing Jaime knew, Susan was right in front of him. Unable to stop or change course, he plowed headlong into her instead of throwing himself back out the window again.

He'd have preferred the window, honestly.

[redonme.livejournal.com]

Shaun, watching, actually giggled--an almost drunk sort of giggle. Susan, still grinning that unpleasant grin, took Jaime's shoulders and held him away, her black eyes dancing with unholy amusement.

NOW, NOW, she chided, DON'T RUN OFF. IT'S RUDE. She took his chin in one hand, forcing him to look at her. The tiny points of blue fire in her eyes seemed to flare brighter for a moment, as she stared hard into his own eyes, apparently trying to see through to the back of his skull. WHAT EXACTLY IS IN YOUR HEAD, CHILD? Neither she nor Shaun seemed to realize that there was something inherently odd about a twenty-five-year-old woman calling someone as old as Jaime 'child', but then the thing that had overtaken Susan was older even than humanity.

[bantersucks.livejournal.com]

In other circumstances, Jaime would have glared at Shaun. Instead, he pretty much paid no attention to the giggling minion as Susan somehow managed to grab him by the shoulders even with all his added strength added to the lunge. "...temporal manipulation?" he gasped as the scarab mentioned it. "That would've been nice to know a minute ago, dammit!"

He didn't get a chance to yell much more at it before Susan was already forcing him to look into her eyes. He tried to turn away, but they were like twin black holes, inevitably pulling his gaze to lock with hers. The second he was locked in, it felt like she was trying to drill into his head with her gaze. "WAIT, NO, DON'T!" he cried out. It wasn't clear who he was screaming at as electricity suddenly arced between the prongs on his back as the scarab lashed out mentally at the intruder.

Last time this had happened, the intruder had been bleeding out every orifice and landed in the hospital. So it might give Susan pause. And with his luck, piss her off.

[usethepoker.livejournal.com]

All right, that was enough to sting even her. Susan stepped backward, eyes narrowing, but instead of snarling in anger she laughed--which was almost worse. She'd managed to earth enough of it that it left her with little more than a few superficial burns on her hands, and she looked from them to him with a horrible fascination in her eyes.

HOW DID YOU DO THAT? she asked, advancing on him once more. Before he could answer, though, Shaun had brought the cricket bat around and smacked Jaime upside the head.

Unfortunately for Shaun, all it succeeded in doing was take a chunk out of the bat. He scowled at it, and at Jaime--the boy had tried to defend himself. Against Shaun's surrogate little sister, no less.

"You're gonna regret that, pal," he said, and aimed a swiping kick at Jaime's ankles. The armor might be proof against the cricket bat, but Shaun's workboots could handle a kick.

[bantersucks.livejournal.com]

Jaime barely felt the cricket bat - his head was already pounding enough as it was. He stumbled backwards, dazed and suddenly free of Susan's grip, and Shaun's kick caused him to crash into the wall. He slumped down the wall, head pounding and ears ringing. "No, that wasn't self-defense, you idiot!" he gasped as the scarab tried to answer. "Blocking! Not attacking! How many times do I have to say that?"

His attention returned to the pair looming over him. "It wasn't me," he gasped. "I tried to stop it, honest, and it doesn't matter 'cause oh, God, I'm dead anyway, aren't I?"

[redonme.livejournal.com]

Susan, whatever her other powers, could not actually hear the scarab. She tilted her head to one side, still regarding him with that inhuman intensity.

WHAT IS IT, REALLY? she asked, reaching down to lift his chin with a finger, her almost-lightless eyes searching his face. I DON'T WANT TO KILL YOU UNTIL I KNOW WHAT IT IS. Taking him apart wouldn't be any fun until she knew, after all. Part of her was fully aware that she couldn't actually kill him, but clearly he didn't know that.

Even Shaun was curious, in his crazy-evil-would-be-violent way. He took up station on Jaime's other side, glaring.

"Answer the lady, man," he said.

[bantersucks.livejournal.com]

Even though Susan was using the Voice, the scarab was screaming so much it came close to drowning her question out. His face was contorted in pain, and electricity had begun to spark between the prongs of the armor again as she lifted his chin. "Don't... really... know... what it is," he ground out, trying to focus through the pain and the screaming. "It's... alien... agh!"

He cried out in pain as the armor started charging up, the electricity sparking and fizzling all over the suit. "What - NO! Not that way!" he screamed as a faint glow spread across the armor. "You know what happened last -"

That was the last thing he managed before he suddenly - for all intents and purposes - faded away, as the scarab pulled him into the space between dimensions. Jaime screamed at it one last time before everything went black.

[estebanmd.livejournal.com]

Stephen did listen to WART quite regularly. Television might squick him; radio did not. He had found radio intriguing from the very first WART broadcast (and even more intriguing once Luna Lovegood broadcast a show about numbers stations (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numbers_stations)).

Various wards protected him, and a Protego charm shielded his person. Against Fraser's air-transmitted spell, however, there was no active defense. Stephen listened to the entire Mountie show, musing on the odd thematic unity of the requested selections, and half dallied with the idea of making a request of his own.

He never got around to it. The enchantment set in and rooted deep, running insidious tendrils through his psyche.

To turn an evil person good, and to turn a good person evil, might seem a fairly straightforward task -- when one had as working material a person who started out straightforwardly good or evil. Stephen Maturin did not consider himself evil, nor did he labor under delusions of sanctity. He had morals and he knew he often failed to live up to them.

What Fraser's spell did to him was perhaps the worst thing that anyone could ever do to this man, a man who'd spent his life delicately balancing high ideal with stark necessity.

It stripped him completely of all scruples.

He looked the same as ever. He sounded the same as ever, walked the same as ever. The concealed weapons on his person were the same as ever (mostly multipurpose, just the medical instruments he always carried, a catling or a scalpel, a Morton's retractor that came in handy for picking locks and opening gates). If a sinister light glinted from the spectacles he normally wore for reading, surely it was all in the viewer's imagination.

He decided to go out walking. It was a good night for gathering intelligence. And for once, he didn't care how he got it.

[usethepoker.livejournal.com]

((Repost because I can close my html tags, rly))

Susan and Shaun, in their continuining quest for mayhem and pie, were moving with little rhyme or reason through the classrooms and corridors. They rarely bothered to actually follow said corridors--walking through the walls was so much easier. Normally, Susan tried to obey the laws of physics, but her current self didn't even see them as guidelines.

To Shaun's disappointment, he'd yet to run across a single zombie, while to Susan's disappointment they'd yet to run across anyone save poor Jaime Reyes, who hadn't deserved what they'd done to him. Add into the equation the decided lack of pie, and Shaun was beginning to get...cranky. Susan wasn't, but that was mostly because she was currently incapable of any emotion save malicious mischievousness.

Their slightly schizoid progress halted when they both nearly ran into Stephen. Shaun, ascertaining that he was not, in fact, a zombie, shook his head in frustration even while he smirked. Some sixth sense told him Stephen was currently of the same mentality as both he and Susan, and thus was someone to run with, rather than run over.

Susan, also recognizing that indefinable something, smiled as well, her black eyes alight with something delightedly wicked. "Stephen," she said, her sharp-toothed grin widening. "Are you out to play as well?"

[estebanmd.livejournal.com]

Stephen cast a skeptical glance toward Shaun's cricket bat as Susan posed her question. "That rather depends on the game," he said smoothly. His accent, in English, always seemed to cant toward the Irish side of the family; tonight there was more of a continental flavor to it, the Catalan of his infancy slipping through in the odd vowel here and there, as though it refused to be repressed.

"What game are you playing?"

[usethepoker.livejournal.com]

"We're hunting," Shaun said--and did not add 'zombies', because he was the only one searching for the undead. Susan was just after everybody.

AND SO FAR HAVEN'T FOUND MUCH PREY, Susan put in, as the Voice subsumed her normal speech yet again. HUNTING ISN'T ANY FUN IF YOU DON'T CATCH ANYTHING. I DON'T SUPPOSE YOU'VE RUN ACROSS ANYONE, HAVE YOU? She wanted to attack, to...well, to play with someone, as a cat might play with a mouse. She could not, however, attack one of her fellows, and this made her antsy. AND AT SOME POINT THERE WILL BE PIE, she added, apropos of nothing.

[estebanmd.livejournal.com]

Stephen raised an eyebrow. "You would content yourself with easy prey," he said, half a question, half a condemnation. In his present state he felt no impetus to protect Susan's and Shaun's potential victims, only a distaste for the banality of their project as he understood it. "I have run across nothing as yet that would interest you, I think; nor will you need direction from me."

Let them have their sordid little games; let them play cricket with human heads if it pleased them. Stephen had bigger quarry in mind. The spell had not stripped him of his life's chiefest and most virulent hatred.

It was a shame, though, he thought with a sort of dispassionate regret, his attention turning from Shaun's cricket bat to Susan's form. A shame she should spend her time on trivialities. He could think of better uses for it.

[usethepoker.livejournal.com]

Both of them thought about that. "Easy?" Shaun said. "Nah. Easy's no fun, mate."

Susan thought about poor Jaime, who even with his armor had been ill-equipped to deal with them. The problem was that there wasn't much in this school that could put up a decent fight against her--some of the gods, maybe, but even the Yellow-Eyed Demon would have been no match for her in this state.

YOU HAD SOMEONE ELSE IN MIND? she asked, intrigued. SOMEONE WHO MIGHT ACTUALLY POSE A CHALLENGE? If anyone could find a decent nemesis, it would be Stephen--Susan didn't know why she thought that, but think it she did. She smiled again, her feral, unholy smile. IN THAT CASE, WE'RE COMING WITH YOU.

[estebanmd.livejournal.com]

"I am afraid that would not be the best idea," said Stephen, just as smoothly as before. "Though, naturally, I should like nothing better, I find this sort of work goes most uneventfully when a man works alone."

He paused, and cast a quick ward against eavesdroppers. The enchantment might have made him unscrupulous and slightly deranged; it had not made him stupid.

"You know, I am sure, of the menace posed by that scoundrel Napoleon Buonaparte. He is not himself within reach. His agents are another story. I intend to extract every bit of useable intelligence from them that I can, by whatever means I must. It is a game they themselves do not shrink from playing; let them sit at the other side of the board."

He grinned, suddenly and alarmingly -- that grin that had once led a French agent in Mauritius, regarding Stephen from a distance, to term him a nasty old crocodile.

"You will understand why I must do this alone."

[usethepoker.livejournal.com]

Susan, even in her current state, could understand why he'd want to go alone, but she didn't much like it. 'Extracting intelligence' sounded like far, far too much fun--the last thing either she or Shaun wanted to do was miss out on it.

ARE YOU SURE YOU DON'T WANT HELP? she asked, her smile turning predatory. IT DOES SOUND LIKE EVER SO MUCH FUN. Her black eyes danced with a truly terrible anticipation, an anticipation that was only echoed by Shaun. He wanted to bludgeon something, dammit, and if something useful could be derived thereby, so much the better.

LET US COME WITH, Susan said, the Voice somehow infused with a kind of persuasive purr. WE REALLY CAN HELP. I PROMISE.

She held out a hand, and a moment later it held a long, curved stick. Shaun, bewildered, looked at her, but she didn't seem inclined to explain just yet.

[estebanmd.livejournal.com]

It was persuasive, yes, and something else too. Stephen's grin faded.

"You, then," he said abruptly. "I think Mr Riley may deploy his considerable talents elsewhere, for the time being, yes? He may owl us when he finds a target of strategic importance."

[usethepoker.livejournal.com]

Shaun, who was itching to hit something already--something that wasn't protected by weird blue armor, dammit--tipped a lazy salute. "Happy hunting," he said, twirling the bat as he disappeared down the corridor. He was going to find some zombies if he had to search the whole school (though, for his own health and safety, it would be better if he didn't find Catelyn Stark. He'd get torn apart by both Ned and Silas.)

Susan watched him go, certain that when she next saw him, he'd be covered in someone else's blood. The thought pleased her to no end.

Her black eyes turned back to Stephen, the tiny pinpoints of arctic blue flaring brighter for a moment. WHERE SHOULD WE START? she asked, with a small smile that would have been impish if it hadn't been so very evil.

[estebanmd.livejournal.com]

Those eyes should have disquieted Stephen. Ordinarily, they might have.

"We should start," he said, "with a briefing in my office."

[usethepoker.livejournal.com]

A briefing? Well, considering she didn't actually know where any of those Stephen sought might be--and couldn't find them, without knowing who they were--it was probably necessary. It just meant she'd have to wait before she hurt something.

SHORTCUT? she suggested, taking his hand. Why bother with all those pesky walls?

[estebanmd.livejournal.com]

Ah. Yes. That talent.

He took her hand in his own scarred hand. "You could get a fair bit accomplished with a talent like that," he murmured, and let her lead him through the walls. I could get a fair bit accomplished with a talent like that. "Locked doors no hindrance; what of locked chests, strongboxes, smaller things? Could you reach through the walls of a secured trunk?"

She had the location of his office by heart, he already knew (and this knowledge gave him no trouble whatsoever, the circumstances being what they were; not a twinge of guilt, nor of bad memory). He let her lead them there, and once they had arrived, did not bother to make her comfortable. She could do that for herself, and he fully expected she would. Creatures like them understood one another. It was why he knew she'd be on his side, against the Corsican upstart who called himself emperor of France.

"Naturally you oppose tyranny," he began, with that assurance in mind; "a tyranny that stifles the free exchange of ideas and the advancement of science."

[usethepoker.livejournal.com]

I CAN, she said, leading them both straight through the wall. She could, and had, more than once--no trunks, true, but several safes and strongboxes had proved no match at all. And doors--the problem was not walking through them, but remembering not to, though in this state she hardly cared about that. IT HAS BEEN...USEFUL, BEFORE NOW.

EvilDeath!Susan had no compunction about immediately taking up residence on the arm of one of the fat armchairs, the long, curved stick laid across her lap. The concept of science (and, indeed, of tyranny) were at the moment somewhat beyond her, but if nodding meant she could have at something with her currently innocuous-looking weapon, she'd happily do so. OF COURSE, she said. While her grandfather's Voice was almost invariably calm, she could not quite conceal a certain hungrily anticipatory resonance.