deercountry | 🦅 🦅 🦅

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Who: falco grice, others, and you!
What: a catch all for the month including a player plot, general prompts and event prompts in the comments, all open!
When: december; date will be in the header if any!
Where: waves hands at too many places

Content Warnings: possession, violence, gore, self harm, child death, war imagery, child soldiers, racial oppression, genocide, forced experimentation, torture, mutilation, gun violence (against children)

see below for open prompts of all kinds! if you have any questions or would like to plot something specific, hmu at

liberos!

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[ fortunately (or, very strangely), this oddball group will notice that no blood has been spilled just yet, when the titan very, very easily could have once it made contact back on earth with spanned, rattled tail-feathers the size of a bush elephant. it takes a poor fellow straying behind from the centralized crowding between its talons much like an owlet learning how to pounce on prey (tremors, there). no hurt, just yet, don’t worry . . . it traps the man, and underneath him a small daughter, and through the avian beast’s mask it locks its erratically bouncing eyes between the spaces left cracked ajar by its claws.

it doesn’t do what most beasts do without thought— this one observes and causes fright that escalates with the terrible amount of negativity that emits off its feathers like a beacon (for those more supernaturally inclined), too much of it, right up until it decides to take what they’re giving by opening its beak. inside the beak mask is a second set of jaws, with teeth and stretched, cracked lips— and after an urk rumbling up its throat and tipped head, it dunks an abundance of putrid tar of the same purple-sheen slicking its down feathers from the breast bone to its feet.

it’s gross. it’s undeniably gross, smells of rot and it leaves those people not only slowly suffocating under the sludge’s viscosity, but eerily subdued into the same spiral of negativity that comes from this thing’s whole frame. past grudges. remorses. mistakes. bitter wounds that may have even healed are torn open to bleed out like slaughtered livestock. it’s negativity is contagious, parasitic— and makes the bird strut with more disturbing pride and onto the next ones that have fallen behind.

there are only a few that stay purposely— and it’s these fighters that causes the bird’s back feathers to raise like spines. it recognizes them, and its tune changes. it stands its ground, it looks between them and searches for others, and . . . it cries. it cries in silence masked furiously by clicks and pops of its neck twitching out of place or its beak clipping. it groans, and out of the four, it begins to focus on two— bigby and fern— before it funnels its focus onto one. bigby.

he’s the one who’s making falco panic the most underneath the titan’s flesh and behind the small little window of consciousness physical possession still grants him. he’s the closest. he’s the closest one to make a snap at. he knows that the silence is only building his anxiety with the wait, but it’s going to. he simply can’t say or hear a thing. ]

[Childe can feel his heartbeat speed up with excitement. This monster was huge, a beast like no other! It would be an incredible fight, one that would surely test his limits and leave him at the edge of life and death. His jacket is tossed aside- he'll find it later, or he'll just buy a new one- and he prepares for the fight of his life.

It's when he watches the titan trap, observe and eventually regurgitate that slime, the rotted smell it gives off...and what happens to the people it consumes. In that instant, his entire mindset changes about the meaning of this fight. He watches those people writhe and then seemingly give into whatever effect it has on them. And as its focus swaps to Bigby, he realizes that he's not alone here, which now on second inspection is good and welcome, and that its next target has already been chosen.]

Hey!!!!! [He shouts, not knowing the other man's name. His feet take off, dual hydro blades snapping into existence in his hands as he moves towards Bigby. Intercepting and doing damage to the talons might stave it off for a second...maybe.] Move! Move now!

[The call for his name makes him turn his head toward Fern, startled to see the boy here. His arm tightens around his bag of belongings, and he tenses up. This is a difficult situation, but most importantly, they should ensure that no one becomes harmed... but nobody has been actually attacked either, he notes quietly to himself. Which is curious.]

Fern-- be careful!

[It's about then that he notices what the large beast does, even though he doesn't entirely grasp it, even if it makes the hair on the back of his neck stand up and the rest of his body shivers uneasily. All he knows is that those people under the sludge need help, even if the beast is now focusing on him.

So he shakes his head at Childe.]

Help those people. They need you, not I.

[Setting his bag down, he looks at the giant monster. He tries to consider that, perhaps, it is not entirely a mindless beast waiting to be vanquished. It hasn't outright killed yet.

So. Maybe.]

I know not what manner of being you are, if you even understand me. But whatever urges you feel compel you, you need not follow them. It would be easy for you to destroy. Wouldn't it? But you have not so simply.

You can leave now, and no one must be hurt, or worse.

Rest assured, I am too familiar with battling one's worst impulses.

[Welp, this is gnarly. Fern isn't really paying any mind to the fact that the creature hasn't actually killed people yet - it doesn't really matter to him, a monster is a monster and even if it's only scaring people he has the rising desire to just form a sword and put the thing down. It's fun, having half your mind be made up of an eldritch sword monster.

Thankfully he isn't the only one here, and thankfully one of those people is Bigby. He feels a little reluctant to actually listen to him but, at the end of the day, he considers Bigby to be an adult who has his shit together and therefore someone whose orders he needs to follow. Besides, he's kind of right - those people stuck in the sludge look like they're going to die without help, and that's what a knight is supposed to do. Help people.

So he jumps down off the building, making his way over to Childe to help. Bigby can take care of himself, probably.]

C'mon, Cool Swords Guy!

[Sorry Childe, he doesn't know your name but those are some bomb ass weapons. He's going to get closer to the sludge, where those people are, to try and start slicing away at it. And he isn't wasting any time here, he's putting some extra effort into his cuts, hoping to use his whole cursed demonic blade powers to blow the goop away if cutting it won't work.]

[With the monster down and the evacuation well underway, Illarion can venture closer--enough to catch the sense (and sound and smell) of what it's doing to its prey.

Close enough also that the aura of intense and stifling negativity the thing emits washes over him, plucking at all his inward flaws and demanding they become worse. Doubt, despair, guilt, disdain-- The shrike sets his jaw and pushes into the metaphysical storm, letting intrusive thought and emotion slide past him unregarded in his skulking stalk toward the nearest tall building.

He catches the exchange between the other scattered defenders as he moves; catches, also, when one of them (friend, Vileblood) tries to talk the monster down. (The Silence catches at the ember of fond annoyance that wakes in Illarion, twisting and worrying at it. Fury and crippling worry aren't so far off from those...)

It's quintessentially Bigby. It's probably not going to work.

Illarion entertains a fragment of hope anyway as he reaches his target building and begins climbing. He'll need a good ambush position for whatever happens next, while Fern and..."Cool Swords Guy" are preoccupied with rescue. Somewhere above the monster and away from the Vilebloods.]

[ childe’s attempt may have earned them something as little as a fraction; those talons are plated by something close to diamond. if his swords can chip a dent in that, there might as well be a clip that earns no reaction to pain. if it doesn’t— his iron is just a strike less keen.

bigby, on the other hand, has the silence’s attention, falco’s too— the poor boy can see the man’s lips moving so far away but nothing is coming out of it, he can see the man’s expression and his chance of peaceful resolution, and it absolutely fills falco’s heart just by watching. it’s something he would do, it’s something that’s so positively rare that he wished he could cherish it. he cries harder, he pleads in his head for the man to safeguard his distance and flee from him with every looming step the titan vessel took until the man was right underneath its hanging head. give it back, falco begs and forces his brain to jerk his limbs away— give it back give it back please give it back— but they don’t listen. they don’t budge. the tears from this beast’s eyes slide down bone and goops into the same pile its saliva is trickling into. it’s only watching. it’s head jerks to the side then back in a very bird-like way. down, side, back, then nothing. only stillness.

then in a fraction, in something short of a second, both sets of the titan’s maw whip open and crack shut upon bigby. whatever wasn’t in the beak’s line of consumption is snapped clean off, while the rest of him is sent to boil in titan stomach acid with a thick, gurgled gulp.

be careful in there, bigby. not only is it a contained fryer, but it’s infested with a tar-like substance that beads right out of infected and darkened veins of the stomach mucus: silence slime. infectious negativity is having a ball down there and it wants you. ]

Edited 2021-12-12 17:54 (UTC)

[As far as he's concerned, those people may not be able to be helped- and his focus was on the monster. But far be it from him to deny this man whatever opportunity he's seeking right now. There's a long pause as he looks back at Bigby, understanding what the man was going to attempt, as it's written on his face. He doesn't agree with it nor think it's a smart idea. But if that's what he wants to do, then Childe won't stop him. That silence is broken by Fern, and the Harbinger turns to follow. Cool Sword Guy? He supposes.

The sludge is even worse up close, the foul smell invading all of his senses. He plugs his nose for a moment as Fern starts swinging. He takes a step to the side, forming his blades now into a bow, and starts shooting cascading water at a different side of the sludge. Waves of water slam into it, slowly washing away the foul substance.

That seems to help. He'll leave Fern to pull them out, as this isn't his main concern anyway.

He turns in time to see something horrid, something right out of the nightmares he's had of the Abyss; the monster snaps Bigby up, just like that, and the man he'd locked gazes with not a moment ago is gone. Just gone. An intense shudder ripples through him. This was a situation he expected, but it's another to see it happen.]

Hey... [His voice shakes, trying to get Fern's attention.] We need to move, right now. Unless you want to get eaten, we need to find higher ground immediately.

[At the very least, the combined efforts of the three of them - Bigby buying them time, Childe washing some of that sludge away, and Fern cutting through it - to get to those people. His Finn side is winning out momentarily, save the people instead of slaying the monster, so despite the foul odor and the awful mounting negativity at the back of his mind he inches closer, until he's at a good range that he can unform his sword and stretch his arms out into split viney tendrils. The vines dive into the muck, splitting further and spreading, until they hit solid objects that feel like people.

Then, in one big motion, he wrenches them out and (carefully) tosses them aside for a few other Hunters to retrieve. Cool, one problem solved! Sure, he's now got a good coating of the sludge on his arms and it's now clinging to him mentally just as bad as it is physically, but that's no big d -

And then Bigby gets eaten.

Fern sees it happen out of the corner of his eye, a scene that, if the monster were a regular bird, really wouldn't be all that strange within the bounds of nature. A bird found some prey and ate it. Who cares, right?

Except that's Bigby, was Bigby, all that's left of him is a bloody stump of a leg. Fern's entire body lets out one large, visible ripple as he stands there, staring at the spot where Bigby was a second ago. Childe's voice is some distant thing that he doesn't pay any mind to, as the negativity from the ichor swallows him. He sort of just stumbles a little, grabbing his head as his grass keeps on twitching and sharpening, some of it into thorns of varying sizes, some of it fully blooming into venus flytraps and water hemlock and strangler fig vines twisting around his limbs and head. Even his fingers are sharpening into claws and teeth into fangs, and his eyes taking on a more slitted appearance. The shift in his body is chaotic and messy and reflect his currently volatile mental state of having just seen someone he likes very much get eaten, and how he did fuck all to prevent it from happening.]

[No.

No, that definitely did not work.

The motion of the beast's bony head is almost too fast to follow but Illarion doesn't need to to know what's happening, what's happened, he's already thrown himself from his perch with an unearthly shrieking howl as the beast swallows his friend. He's barely got the arc to reach the beast's head; he waits for the last possible second to flatten all his feathers into visibility, the air resistance dumping his momentum as he grabs onto the toothy jaw and clings like a burr. Golden insectile eyes widen as he sets every feather on end in a truly remarkable threat display.

if anyone was going to eat that Vileblood alive it should have been him

He at least has a sliver of reassurance the others don't: Bigby's still mostly in one piece in the beast's gullet and he's tough, he's possessed of something that won't die quietly.

All that's a background process in the shrike's head as he scrabbles for purchase on the diamond-hard bone of the beast's beak, trying to climb higher and get to its ever-dripping eyes. He doesn't expect to make it; at his size, he's an annoyance at best, but it will buy time for the others to act.]

[ one would think absolute muteness was a gift, but it was all the more terrifying as he watched from every corner of his eyes the reactions up ahead born from losing bigby. it’s one nightmare after another— falco’s never going to forget the feeling of bone between his teeth, blood on his tongue or what it felt like for something human shaped slide down his throat as simply as a forkful of pasta would. there was a reason why shifters never remembered their first time, and it had unfortunately not been falco’s first. he wants to throw him back up far before the second that ugly weight hit his stomach but only found deeply rooted nausea to provide any amount on consolation. he wants to disappear and close his eyes but the silence kept them open— more energy generated, that way. more despair to keep its claws on his reins.

fern was a fantastic side banquet blossoming into a delicacy from afar, and it had almost been an ironic cue, that judging from falco’s recognition, he was next to dance with. the more he screamed and exposed his ire, the more the silence made the puppet of a bird salivate and puff its feathers up with delighted anticipation— it’s everything it’s always wanted. it fits perfectly in trench. the sleepers are where it belongs.

there’s . . . a pest hooking onto the jagged edges of its beak, though! a little sparrow thinking that a peck or territorial shrieking would leave any lasting impressions on an eagle (these sparrows are quite different and the ghost parasite is full of itself), but it wastes no time in getting the invader off of its ride. before illarion puts a scratch in the jaw titan’s snazzy new paint job. it ducks its head low to the ground before using giant momentum to fling him far, far into a recently abandoned barn.

finally, the avian monster bellows it’s own displeasure at how long it’s taking for dinner to be served, the glutton that it was. weren’t they coming—? to give it that delicious self-loathing and hate?

(wait for it—) ]

[This is already going from bad to absolutely horrible. Within the breadth of ten seconds, Bigby is swallowed whole, and Fern is losing it right next to him. Not only that, but he hears the shriek of another who's thrown themselves into the fray, or to be more exact, onto the titan's face with absolutely no regard for their life, it seems. He has to think, but there's no time- so first things first. Fern needs help, and he doesn't know if that sludge is the reason why his body is beginning to contort into some kind of dendro anomaly or if it was because he just watched his friend being eaten, or both.]

This is gunna hurt-!

[He yells at Fern, hoping that at least some of that got through to him. His bow is aimed above his head, loosing an arrow that explodes and a shower of rain come down far harder than any natural shower ever would- forcing that sludge off of Fern's body. Childe wastes no time, grabbing a hold of him and risking whatever damage Fern's ever-mutating form does to him as he moves quickly to a more advantageous position.

The Harbinger chances a look behind him, and off Illiaron goes, flung off of Falco's head like a small child had just flicked a bug off of their arm, followed by a roar that chills him to the bone. Saw that one coming, he thinks to himself, summoning more water to assist with his escape. A bubble of water envelops both of the men, and Childe uses his hydro vision to propel upwards to the top of a building, using the roof as cover.

Boy, is he getting sick of running away from this thing. He's ready to face it head on himself, now that he knows a little more about it. There's no way he'll be able to do anything in his current state, given the feeble attempt he had at the talons of the titan, but thankfully Childe is no one trick pony. He doesn't wait for Fern, letting water and electricity envelop him as he transforms, dark energy enveloping the area around him and releasing outward, and a beam of purple radiating upward out of the single eye, giving their position away.

The beast should know where he is now.

Good.]

[On a normal day, Bigby is always fighting his worst instincts. The beast inside always yearns for the worst, to follow through with rage, to hunt, to feast. It is something he is well practiced in battling, trying to push against the rabid thing inside of him. So, with the struggling against the unusually high amounts of paranoia, it has been that much harder, but he has been trying. Meditation, resting, keeping himself occupied. Trying everything to keep himself calm around other people, for their sake.

And now he is in the belly of another beast, numbly aware of what just happened: it's eaten him. His leg is gone. It feels like he's being boiled, and regrettably that is not the first time he has felt that particular sensation. What is different is the surge of sensation of negativity, the rank smell of it, seeping into every part of him. The paranoia, the fear, the anger -- it flares uncontrollably inside of him.

Nothing will come to save him. He is on his own, he's always been on his own. You said you would visit my cell! You lied! he'd wept to himself once before years ago while no one listened.

He is not prey.

(Distantly, he remembers seeing liquid run out of the bird monster's eyes. Was it crying? Is it indeed a slave to its worst self?)

The chains around his person burst off, leaving him only in shackles. A howling scream rips out of his throat as he transforms completely, regrowing his leg as he changes. With dagger-like claws and improved strength, he begins to rip his way out.

And on the outside, the others will see an arm violently clawing out.]

[Childe's warning goes unnoticed, just a buzzing at the back of Fern's mind that he doesn't bother taking heed of. Which is probably a good thing, honestly, because it means he doesn't get out of the way of the sudden downpour. The force of it is hard enough to make him stumble and almost lose his balance but it works, it's enough to wash away the sludge coating his arms. With it some of the fear and anger washes away, leaving only his own mind, his own emotions that aren't particularly feeling like they're even his at the moment.

So he's still left with the sensation of drowning, and the desire to force all of that outwards, to start destroying things until he feels better. It isn't until he hears another howl, one from Illarion, and for Childe to grab him and yank him further away from the monster that he realizes he needs to get a hold of himself. He's useless like this, and if he doesn't shape up all he's going to do is drag everyone else down and get them killed.

It's good timing, because there's a glimmer of hope - Bigby, alive, and clawing his way out. That snaps Fern to attention and he shifts his arms into vines again, whipping them out at the monster to twist around one of its legs and try to keep it on the ground.]

[And away Illarion goes.

The shrike's feathers and talons vanish the instant he loses contact with the beast's skull, tucked back away into higher reality. With them gone he's got a split-second of clarity, a fraction of a moment to ((feel)) through the monster and the confusing jumble of its innards.

He notices two things: Bigby's alive and fighting. (Cause to rejoice, there.)

And there's another body embedded in the creature, too high up the neck to have been a victim of its hunger.

Interesting, and confusing, and also something he can do damned little about with a one-way ticket to gods-only-knew-where. Most of his thoughts are currently on not getting splattered across the landscape or so irrevocably broken he can't limp back to the fight, and so--

His Omen manifests herself at the top of her Sleeper's arc, scale-and-feather wings tucked close to her body as she dives into the fray. A tiny thing--no larger than a big songbird, or an enormous moth--she'd be easy to ignore in the chaos except she's frantically broadcasting a...very confusing image to any other Omen near enough to hear, something like a smeared cross-section of the titan and its innards (and passenger) if one could view it all from outside three-dimensional space. Look! Look at this!

Give her a bit; she'll get words to describe what she's seeing eventually.

Somewhere far in the distance, Illarion falls through the barn's roof with a tremendous crash.

Then the rest of the rickety structure promptly falls in on top of him, sending a cloud of dust, snow, and debris high into the air.

He'll be a little while getting out of that one. Iskierka will have to carry his contribution to the fight until he can.]

[ there they are— the light, the change in childe pulling fern off. and there it goes. the titan vessels don’t feel dolor, but it doesn’t mean they lack at least some form of sensation. the shrill it gives is of alarm and short lived surprised, and only a second after that comes the larger limbs of the monster it had eaten prying himself right out of its belly. flesh tears open to make way for the furious, shredding like layers of paper, and once bigby has freed himself from his prison he pours right out, right along with scorching vapor, acid, sludge, tissue and blighted membrane (luckily, titans don’t have a completed digestive tract— no entrails or even important organs like the liver slip out to join the gore; the jaw titan has none). the shower of blood that pools and spews beneath and about bigby’s escape is as milky white as the moon. this creature is a paleblood at its base, but points of indigo begin to stain its pristine hue like paint being dropped into water. the slime infects it like invading vines and spreads once it hits the air, leaving more black than the earlier pearl.

that should be enough to incapacitate any living creature, but the bird, with an open abdominal cavity hanging like mangled strips of meat for show, does little to express the slightest sign of disability. there’s more steam that clouds the premises, makes the air heavy with heat the bird’s flesh gives off— it lifts one of its talons to aim a curving strike at the abomination that crawled out of him, then proceeds to use that very momentum to propel his body up. it’s too large to take off so quickly, so then came the slam of its gangling arms to the earth for more impulse, the spread of its limbs into much more suited wings nearly four times its own length. the only problem with its getaway is the yank back on its feet from plants, causing a gale to whip up from the thunderous claps too close to ground level as it faltered for balance and fought to climb for one reason:

its abdomen is mending itself, and it would do much better to heal in territory few could reach. bigby had the right idea, but not the right location. ]

Edited 2021-12-14 01:13 (UTC)

[A lot of things happen all at once.

Bigby bursts from the titan's stomach, and he instantly realizes, despite the change in appearance, that the man had lived. No doubt, the scene itself was gruesome, with what he believes is corruption turning that shimmering paleblood into something far more sinister. But his fellow Sleeper had clawed his way out of the grasp of death itself- impressive. Steam rises and the ground becomes harder to see, and he hopes those vines of Fern's hold steady. Wind threatens to blow him from the rooftop itself as the titan tries to take to the air, and in one blink, Childe teleports above the titan itself.

While he floats and prepares for a strike from above, he gets some interesting information from Illarion's Omen. Sergei, his fox Omen, wisps out in a dark cloud of smoke around his neck, to convey the information. He's gone as soon as he'd appeared, leaving the Harbinger in shock.

There's someone inside? How...?

It doesn't matter how. He's sure whoever is inside is probably the one commanding the titan, but he can't quite tell how to reach them. There's no time like the present to get started, and he lets himself fall, his double bladed polearm that glowed with the constellations in the night sky pointed directly down to spear where he thinks this puppeteer is. Electricity begins to shoot out of the blade, arcing erratically in the air around him, intent on searing down as far as he can.

Either way, his aim is too low. Even if he manages to penetrate the skin of the titan, it's below the nape of the neck. The mental map didn't give him a good enough idea of where Falco lay inside of the titan.]

Edited (fixed a thing) 2021-12-14 03:07 (UTC)

[Though the titan is successful in striking Bigby, the abomination howls out in rage and digs it's claws into the foot. No, he refuses to be shaken off that easily. The anger ripples inside of him and Bigby sets to starting to climb up the limb.

And he goes still, his omen forming at his side, receiving the message. The black, shaggy wolf snarls and jerks his head up to glare at the back of the titan's neck. The abomination snorts, watching as Childe makes his attempt.

Then he needs to make sure the others have their chance.

With a howl, Bigby makes his way toward one of the wings, intending to start gnawing and slashing his way through to make it impossible to use. Yes, it will heal, but the intent is to distract, not succeed.]

[Despite all the gore (yeesh, going to be hard to get that mental image out of his head), a wave of relief washes over Fern as he sees Bigby tear his way out of the creature. Good, okay, he's mostly in one piece and not dead. That's good.

He can't relax, though. That monster is trying to make a break for it, and Fern's grass shifts and expands over his clothing, transforming his body into something far, far taller, more knightly, covered in buglike armour. From there his roots extend out of his legs, burrowing into the ground to help keep him from getting dragged into the air. And as he catches Cool Swords Guy teleporting above the monster, he sends more vines out of his body out to grab onto it, reinforcing his grip. His Omen, a pink and white orchid mantis, will even form itself into the size of a large dog to help him, at the same time chirping out the message she's getting. Something about a... weak point? Geez, a weak point would be really useful right now.]

[ the vines are thick and would need attention if it wanted to break free, a swipe with its talons should do— but even one of its wings is under furious attack. the jaw titan’s feet make for a grasp at fern’s vices and pulls, but not long after does the bird forfeit its getaway for a messy landing; it shrieks toward its lower limbs to damage the green chains, but quickly switches its focus to its closer opponent.

its abdomen has mended almost completely, but now what was left was the beast plucking at its wing. almost as if frustrated, the bird folds its limbs and strikes the ground with all four of them to become mobile— from its mouth spurts an unholy amount of gunk to safeguard itself somewhat from below, but then the rest is up to its own offense.

it tries desperately to harm bigby now that they keep to ground level, its two jaws snapping for him bone to bone, uplifting anything in the way if it could at least take quite the nasty chomp out of him— even some of its own messily feathers are pulled or snapped. steam radiates high off each bite bigby leaves that had been enough to make it past the first layer of skin to expose paleblood flesh. they’ll also find its unbelievably hot.

now that it has little choice for locomotion, it’ll gladly wait for the rest of the group to come to it. just— mind the nape! even the silence doesn’t want the party to end so soon, and if one dares to get close to the nape, the bird’s crystal hard talons rise to cover them.

if anyone wanted confirmation on a location, they had it, but slashing through studded, scaly armor was a stupid move. ]

[It seemed he struck nothing at all- and to make matters worse, the monster doesn't even seem to notice him, as if he was a mosquito who's bite at worst would itch for not more than a moment in time. That told him two things, that he was way off and that it's possible that the monster doesn't care about the passenger in its neck. It's also possible that Childe is wrong, that the person inside isn't the puppeteer at all, but rather a prisoner.

Bigby's assistance doesn't go unnoticed. The titan seems to be mostly focused on him, steam rising up as the Sleeper rends through its with the snap of giant jaws behind him. It's a moment to take advantage of, and the Harbinger suddenly snaps out of existence and reappears in the air, wielding a giant hydro bow that's aimed now at the eyeballs of the titan.]

D͖̝̝͆͋͘i̠͙̦̽̒̒ë͎͍͉́̾̔ h̼͚͍e̺͇͜r͔̞͉e͙̺.̼

[Large water arrows slice through the steam to try to blind the monstrosity, to give Bigby more freedom to wreak havoc as he sees fit.]

[Fortunately, like this, Bigby is much more agile than he would be as a man. So, he does manage to dodge away for the most part, but the powerful jaws do clip off the end of a horn. It earns a frustrated howl from the beast, and his first instinct is to attack back--

But he has the clarity to see the prolonged problem: getting to the back of the neck isn't going to be so simple with talons protecting it.

The idea he has is foolhardy, but he is regrettably used to unusual decision making in the face of such powerful foes. If they can't get to the nape from the outside, then...

After Childe launches his arrows, he'll find that suddenly Bigby is tackling him, dragging him away. The next time the titan goes in for a bite at Bigby, he's leaping toward the mouth instead. He has mind enough to try to shield Childe best he can so the other man isn't injured in the process.]

[Fern isn't even sure if his vines will hold. They're strong, but at the end of the day they're organic matter and organic matter breaks a lot more easier than something like wire or steel. This monster is huge and strong, and he does want he can to reinforce the tendrils, with bark and stronger chloroplasts despite the heat radiating off of its body and more of that awful goo. He can't let this thing fly off and start wreaking havoc, he needs to keep it as pinned down as possible so the others can get their hits in.

But Glob, if this thing ends up burning him to death Varian is going to be pissed.

At least he can see that the others are making progress. They've got the monster angry and defensive and more importantly, distracted. So while Bigby and Childe do their thing he takes the chance to redirect a few vines, sharpening them before winding them around the creature's talons to try and peel them away from the nape. If the Omens are right, then any attempt to get that weak spot exposed and attacked is going to be useful.]

[After nearly getting crushed by one vast taloned hand slapping down on the titan's nape--where she'd been trying to land, thank you!--Iskierka goes up in so much glittering smoke like a thing dispelled.

No, not dispelled, recalled, because not so long after she vanishes--cutting off the sluice of confusing telepathic imagery--her Sleeper slips back into the fray, tattered and dust-covered and with one arm hanging limp at his side, but otherwise no worse for wear. He makes his way toward Fern--

he steps through one of the monster's flailing pinions as it slams into the ground between him and Fern, neatly avoiding being smashed to paste, and joins his fellow Darkblood. If nothing else he can provide cover until he has a better ((feel)) for the evolving course of the battle. Their adversary's intent on protecting its--what, rider? Hostage? Weak spot?--and he can't envision any direct attack not getting retaliation.

Though, also, Bigby, what the fuck.]

What the fuck, [he actually says aloud; paradoxically, his tone is without much inflection--despite the (ostensible) excitement of battle and the tremendous, awful psychic pressure coming off the monster in waves.] He really is doing this?

[Apparently. Illarion would have more to say on the subject but he has to stop and cough up a marble(??) as discreetly as he can.]

[ the shots to his eyes are a bull's eye each; they burst with milky blood, purple infecting residue and long ribbons of steam, blinding the beast as it gave a long, continuous cry and shook its head to throw the supposed objects off their mark. not because of the pain, but because the group had taken away the possessor’s primary source of energy: the pilot’s suffering. falco blinks within the nape and feels his biggest, most overwhelming sensation of relief until now. he can’t see, thank god— not many would praise blindness, but in this case, it’s a source of sudden calm for falco. it puts a dent right into how the silence works.

that shows in the titan’s behavior, if not for just a few blips. he can’t see, he can’t hear— he’s only in a heated suspension now, the vines prying his talons away from his nape becoming a success as the muscle slowly gave way to inches and inches of space only accumulating the more fern pulled.

the ghost’s last resort was to panic, and panic it did like a cornered animal with little options left to stay within the game. from the second of calm, it erratically began to thrash and snap in an viable direction available. weight passed its tongue, and like a snare trap, or a gator, its jaws clutched tightly and attempted to chew whatever was in there. ]

[It's almost as if the next few moments move so quickly that he feels as if someone had hit the fast forward button on this fight. His main focus is, of course, the titan before him. Satisfaction sweeps through him as his arrows connect, but it's short-lived- suddenly he's being slammed into and grabbed, being carried toward the trashing head of the beast that snaps and threatens to cleave the two of them in half with its teeth.]

N̼͜͜o̡̼̺!̦̼͕ W̟͕̙h͇͔͜a̡̠͉t̝̠͜ a̺͚͉r̙̼̪e̡̝ y̻̝o͙̻͜u͙̦-̢̞̟!̝͇͓

[He's so caught off guard by the fact that one of his own 'allies' in this fight seems to want to drag him to his death, the gaping mouth of the monster fills his sight and all of a sudden it's just black.

The heat of being inside of Falco's mouth hits him through his abyssal armor, struggling to gain a foothold on a tongue that's trying to push himself and Bigby towards its teeth to crush and grind them into tattered pieces of flesh and bone to be consumed. His body scrapes against the top of the mouth, and Childe grits his teeth- it would take everything not to become lunch. All he can do right now is try to stay away from the teeth, summoning two abyssal blades that he shoves into the roof of Falco's mouth with all the strength he can muster, and he just hangs onto them for the moment.]

Edited (forgot some of my html lol) 2021-12-23 04:55 (UTC)

LETS GOOOOO and cw for slime gunk, from the mouth

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unfortunately, there was not a starbucks on illarion's route back to the fight, so he's just late

he’s late, with a marble (cw: brief eye stuff)

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