Michael Myers Resplendent (closed)

[forwantofahorse]

Who: Sayo and those she is close with.
What: Sayo's slow and then rapidly accelerating spiral following the slaying of the Fated Leviathan.
When: Late February to mid-March.
Where: Clockhouse

Content Warnings: Depression, mild mind control induced by the Chocolatier's caramels.

Comments

when the scum begins to circle the drain (Closed to Oscar, early March)

[forwantofahorse]

[There is a stranger in Clockhouse, and nobody else inside the house knows it. He looks like his dear sister, he can fake her bright smile well enough, and while it's difficult to imitate her voice after spending so much time with his voice bent into a lower register, he could manage it.

Kanon, after all, was carved from a piece of Sayo Yasuda. And if there was one talent that "Yasu" had, it was acting.

Putting so much effort into a role that made him even more miserable than it had for Sayo for a person he despised (and he recognized the irony in that, despite his best efforts not to) made Kanon feel like even more of a wreck than usual, though. Which he had a hard time repressing, given that his job on Rokkenjima was to openly feel and act like a wreck when Sayo couldn't.

So, it's come to this: stalking downstairs to get a depression mac 'n cheese at 3 AM because Kanon couldn't sleep with how much he was fuming over this entire insane situation, dressed in nothing but boxer shorts and a tank top because one of the straws he was grasping at was shreds of gender euphoria and he was throwing all caution to the wind at this point.

Which is why it's probably a very bad thing when Oscar comes down for the night's cooking to find Kanon in such a state, his hair slicked so that it more resembles his "hair" back home. He's leaning against the counter, poking at his steaming bowl of mac 'n cheese and sighing melodramtically.]

What am I even doing...

[Oscar may not even recognize "Sayo" like this for a few moments, and Kanon is too busy stewing in depression and impotent rage to notice Oscar has arrived.]

Taggin in...

[justoscar]

[To Oscar, this is still a person called Shannon-- a sweet maid who is one of the few he trusted not to make a mess in the kitchen.

After the mess that had rocked the entirety of Trench at the end of February, sleep was at once both thirsted for like it was water and all but impossible to obtain. Stress had finally knocked him out after the Leviathan fight, and yet all he could do was float in the ether between dreams...

At a loss, Oscar himself was heading for the kitchen to make himself a cup of late night cocoa. With his sleep schedule flipped around, he had adapted to the quiet and usually being one of the only ones awake. Finding that not only was the kitchen in use but that it was Ange's cohort from her home inside was a strange surprise.

Stopping in the doorway, Oscar mopped his hair from his face and regarded her with bewilderment.]

I don't know.

[He commented, dryly.]

It looks like you're having mac and cheese. What's wrong, Shannon?

[forwantofahorse]

[This would be, without a doubt, the worst case scenario for Sayo Yasuda if she was here. Caught without her makeup or pads in a situation like this was begging to get asked more questions than she could bring herself to answer.

Kanon, however, does not give a single fuck at this point, and just shrugs.]

Bunch of people died. So sue me for being depressed about it.

[At least he has the self-control to not visibly wince at hearing Shannon's name, but he still internally cringes when he hears it applied to him.]

too long i've let my self-respect get in my way (closed to Ozpin, mid-February)

[forwantofahorse]

[After Ange's conversation with Shannon about the importance of bonds, friendship, and shady blood magic rituals, Sayo had stumbled out of Clockhouse supposedly to find reagents for the bloodbond. What she had actually done was stumbling into the Cobra Kai dojo, screaming into a corner, trying to work out her emotions through violence, nearly dislocating her wrist, and spending several hours nursing her hand with ice.

During her dazed wander to Gaze to try and find some way to cheat the bond so that Ange wouldn't immediately find out who she really was, Sayo stumbled into the Chocolatier and had an encounter she's finding difficult to remember. Now that she's finally, finally back at Clockhouse with several books to construct an inadvisable ritual with, Sayo idly pops a caramel into her mouth.

So when Ozpin opens the door to check on her and she can feel its effects slide into place, Sayo wants to scream loud enough to shatter all the windows in the building, but alas all Shannon can do is tilt her head demurely and blink.]

Ozpin-san? What can I do for you?

[The most awful cherry possible atop a day which ranked among the... top ten, or top fifteen, Sayo had ever experienced. The rest of that list was stiff competition.]

[clocktowers]

[ It is briefly but profoundly unsettling to see her whole and in motion, when he'd so recently been mopping up the pieces. He tries to think of it as relief.

Ozpin smiles at her, a little tenuously, and says: ]

It's very good to see you well, Shannon. I hoped I might interest you in another pot of tea... or, barring that, that you might join me on a walk.

[forwantofahorse]

I'd be happy to oblige you for either. A walk sounds lovely, though.

[Shannon gets up and neatly dusts off her skirt, smiling all the way. Sayo feels like a prisoner in her own body with her wardens her personas on the best of days, but this is really raising it to another level. No matter how much she rattles the bars, her body won't listen to her as she gets up to follow Ozpin's every command.]

when the house goes up in flames, nobody emerges triumphantly from it (Closed to Ange, 3/13)

[forwantofahorse]

[It might be that Ange only notices that something is odd with their bloodbond after the incident with Ozpin, where Sayo was found sobbing in his study, clutching a blunt, heavy object and body so wracked with Corruption she looked more like a garishly painted puppeteer's marionette than a living human being. For even while she was apparently about to snap and murder Ozpin, all that Ange could pick up from it was a constant, low background level of happiness and contentment, the same as always.

Yet once Sayo wakes up from almost a full day of sleep... that feeling of warm satisfaction cuts out without warning. Then, a few minutes later, the bond is reestablished—except it's a churning roil of misery and self-loathing with a strange undercurrent of both resignation and determination instead.

That's when Ange gets a message from Sayo.]

i need to tell you something, ange

in person

privately

come to my room when you're ready

[When Ange arrives, the door is open, and Sayo is sitting on the windowsill looking out at Trench with her back facing Ange. She's dressed... differently than normal. A hoodie and cargo pants as opposed to her usual getup of cute, if somewhat frumpy, skirts and blouses. Maybe it's depression wear?]

...hey, Ange. ["Shannon's" voice is lower than normal, and raspy from exhaustion. She'd said she was going to bed, but did she really sleep at all?]

[entreats]

[ Honestly, Ange's first assumption is that something is wrong with the bond itself. Maybe they carried it out in some way that was wrong, leading to the bond itself not fully working, transmitting the wrong feelings. Maybe there's some other factor at play here.

But when Ange is right in the middle of researching about the possibility of that happening, that's when the feelings kick in. If it wasn't for the fact that Ange is doing so much better these days, it would have been hard to peel those feelings that roll in away from her own - since they seem so familiar to her. An awful pit of feelings that she's been stuck in so often over the course of twelve years, only barely having managed to climb out over its edge by now.

Between those feelings and the message, Ange knows something is wrong. Especially considering the events of just the other day. But considering the kind of research she was in the middle of, Ange's guess before actually seeing the other is just one thing - corruption. Maybe she's on the verge of bursting at the seams because of it.

Ange doesn't tell anyone, but when she heads over there, she fully steels her heart to be ready to fight if Sayo turns into a beast on the spot. Just in case.

Thankfully it's not the scene she finds when she arrives at the room - though the atmosphere still feels tight with tension all the same. Not to mention everything is so off. The way the other looks. The way she says her name, without any honorifics.

This sure is going to be a day. ]

I'm here.

[ Something about her words is very calculated. Without any of these circumstances, she surely would have greeted the other with care and concern upon hearing that she woke up - but this tension doesn't feel right. It makes Ange instantly retreat behind her pokerface, behind her carefully calculated flat tone, while she's trying to find out what exactly is going on here, and what to do about it. ]

[forwantofahorse]

[She remembers Jessica's face, twisted with disbelief.

She remembers being alone, alone, alone, except for herself. The same as always.

She remembers slipping back into a familiar illusion, hearing the seagulls cry just outside the windows of the manor.

She remembers it shattering, twisting, distorting when she walked into Kinzo's study and found a walking corpse.

Sayo knows that she could crawl forward on all fours, haul herself onto the familiar shores of the masquerade. Play it all off as a momentary bout of corruption, nothing to be concerned about, Ange-san, she'll recover.

But she'd said the same thing almost a month ago, when she chopped herself into pieces. How often will this happen? Will she fall to pieces, literally or not, with the fresh horrors each new month brings?

Sayo can't take it anymore.

This cannot continue.

As much as she owes Ange this confession... Sayo needs to let the burden of Shannon go if she wants to take so much as a single step forward for her own sake.]

...there are some things I haven't told you about Rokkenjima. You, of all people, deserve to-

[Grinding her teeth, Sayo shakes her head violently.]

No. No. I can't talk around this any more than I already have. I think... it would be better just to show you.

[And Sayo turns around to face Ange. No makeup to hide the sharpness of her face or the depth of her eyebags. No pads or frilly clothes to conceal her boyish frame.

She smiles wanly.]

Looks familiar, doesn't it?

...I'm so sorry, Ange. You deserve better than me.

You deserve the "real" Shannon, if she exists somewhere out there. She would've been a better friend to you than I've been.

the prom queen's caught in the high beams (3/10, closed to jessica)

[forwantofahorse]

[As Sayo gazes up at the swollen moon hanging above Trench, she realizes that the scene she's set for the final appearance of Shannon almost seems romantic. The isolated balcony, the starry sky, the beautiful moon, the hushed invitation... she can almost hear the strings keening a suave melody to accompany the lines she's rehearsing in her mind while she waits.

What a waste of a lovely night. This would be the perfect time for a tension-filled dance number if she wasn't about to tear down the entire theater.

The realization had hit her after their shopping trip, while Sayo had been, blushing and stuttering in several different kinds of embarrassment, trying on all her new outfits in their shared room. Things had felt warm, comfortable. Like she could stay Shannon forever. And then it dawned on Sayo that she would unless she confessed, and soon.

So now Sayo leans against the balcony railing, looking out at the moon forlornly while dressed in a black turtleneck and slacks. Her makeup and pads are both gone—nothing to disguise the shabby truth of her body.

She hears footsteps.]

Jessica. [Her voice is lower and huskier than normal. Not quite in the range of Kanon's, but close enough to perhaps make Jessica do a double-take.]

[snakesdonthavelegs]

[ It's an appropriate atmosphere, in more ways than one. The kind of night that might remind her of that one with Kanon, the night that Jessica almost reached her, but fell short. Later, she'll wonder at all the times like that one, when she could have changed things if only she hadn't been so weak of heart.

That had been a nice day, as much as any can be in this glum country. It had reminded her of the best times they'd spent together before. Better, now that Jessica was given the grace of a second chance to really be a friend to Sayo. No more arbitrary barriers, no more ignoring the truth. Even George had never had that, had he? She almost feels guilty, the same way she had for feeling jealous that he was stealing her friend away. She didn't quite process what it meant yet, but Sayo looked so pretty then.

A fitting finale for her innocence.]

Oh. Hey!

[ Jessica has seen her without makeup before, without the ways she disguised her form. As she always had, she behaves like nothing is different, her smile is the same as usual, but— there's something in that voice that tickles at that suspicion she'd never been able to admit to herself.

She's probably overthinking it. There's no such thing is a "there's something I need to talk to you about" that doesn't make you nervous, right? And she still can't say she's settled after learning of what happened to her family from Ange... at least in Ange's world. She still tries to tell herself that. ]

What's up?

[forwantofahorse]

[What made it so painful for Sayo to tear herself from these sunny days away was the spare ray of honesty she shone on Jessica, in all her cowardly charity. A sharp-tongued barb here, a tease there, a deadpan dead-eyed comment hither, disproportional frustration at games of chance yon... it was so easy to show what, in a better world, would've been all of Sayo's heart.

But this is not a better world. It's the epilogue past a dead-end Fragment, where if she had been allowed to take a few more steps, Sayo would have either saved or damned Jessica. It's the least she can do to follow up on her whispered promise to her Jessica to finally let the truth slip loose, slice open her guts and let her divine the truth from her intestines.

Sayo stares at Jessica, framing that perfect, innocent face in her mind, fixing this peaceful moment in her mind for all eternity. She imagines Fragments where she could nurture that expression into blooming as many times as she wanted... and crushes them all one by one. No more room for doubts, even as she steps forward on the gory remains of her dreams.]

Before anything else, Jessica, I wanted to...

[She bites down on her tongue. Already going off script, are we? No. That won't do.]

...nevermind that.

I'll start off with a basic premise, then. I believe Ange is familiar with this particular flourish of the pen, but even though she gave you a truth of 1998, I doubt she imparted knowledge of the layer of our story my favorite trick of convention is from.

Everything I say in red is the truth. No need for explanation or proof, [she snort-chuckle-cackles at that,] although that last part won't apply to this conversation, will it?

[Sayo is quiet for a moment, but only for a moment. She can't lose momentum, or she'll play this all off as a prank, another revealed idiosyncracy of Jessica's best friend brought to light by her light.]

Ange already told you the story, did she not? I know we've been avoiding the subject, [cowardice is a fault they share,] but at midnight on October 5th, 1986, Rokkenjima is engulfed in an enormous explosion, consuming the Ushiromiya family manor in its flames. All of us die, except for Eva, who departs for the mainland with the riches of the Golden Land at her beck and call. [Sayo won't say it in red. She won't kill the hope of her Jessica surviving.]

Your baby cousin was condemned to a future of loneliness because of that incident. All of us perished, although nobody but those who were on the island that day and Eva know what really happened. [You know she's serious since she's not busting out the elaborate Schrodinger's Cat metaphors and instead getting straight to the point.] This immense tragedy, this unforgivable sin...

It's my fault. All of it.

I'm the c- [Sayo chokes for a half second, unable to repeat "culprit" in red, but she breezes right past that mistake,] instigator of the Rokkenjima Explosion Incident... and the murders that preceded it.

[Bear witness to her sin, Jessica. Please, please don't look away.]

everybody loves a winner (Closed to Kainé, 3/15)

[forwantofahorse]

[Sayo shows up at Kainé's door dressed in an outfit reminiscent of what George had once worn on their date in Okinawa—a jacket thrown over a simple t-shirt, with khakis and hardy boots to match. After everything that had gone so disastrously wrong in the past two days, Sayo was seeking any scrap of familiarity they could anchor themself to. (And for once, it felt nice to cast aside any vestige of "Shannon." They hadn't been lying to Kaworu in the catacombs; Shannon was dead, and without the Golden Land or the witch's game, there would be no resurrection for her. All that was left was for Sayo Yasuda to figure out who they wanted to be.)

The offer was simple: go out for drinks as friends, and make sure that Sayo didn't overdo it, as they were wont to do. As counterintuitive as it sounded, Sayo needed something relatively normal like this to start rebuilding their life after they blew the whole house down themself. They teetered on the precipice between total self-destruction and painfully, laboriously climbing to a new "normal," and no matter how wretched Sayo felt after baring her truth to Ange and Jessica...

Lawrence-sensei. Chara. And Kainé.

(Lion's hopes for them, too. There's a reason why they're wearing their hair back in a ponytail this auspicious night.)

There were still things to live for- no, not even that. There were still people Sayo would hurt if they fell into the pit of despair.

So when Kainé opens the door, they smile weakly, opening their arms.]

How do I look?

[foulhussy]

[ Life in Trench continues to be... eventful, for Kainé, and between her brutal work hunting monsters and Beasts, all the fuckery the Moss King was getting up to, she was staying busy. All said she's facing those challenges with greater resolve now than she did when she got here, and she's quite conscious of how much of that she owes to the people that had it in them to care about a pitiful broken monster like her. The irony is not lost on her that there are those that feel similar things about themselves. People like Sayo.

But if misery brought them together, it's the solidarity they found that keeps them there. Sayo's situation sounds downright byzantine, and she's not really sure there is a right answer for it, but if she can't offer them a solution, she can at least offer them this. A way to feel real, for a while.

She gives a small, barely perceptible smile as she opens the door. They look good. Damn good, in fact. That they are changing their look around like this seems to mean a lot from somebody who puts a lot of stock in the roles they play. ]

Like you could use a damn drink. But put together pretty good.

[forwantofahorse]

[Life goes on, even in someplace as nightmarish as Trench. It felt like the world should've ended with shattering all of Beatrice's illusions, that they should've collapsed into a pile of dead butterflies like the rest of her lies, that Sayo Yasuda should've been revealed to be nothing more than a fiction too.

(They're reminded of the Fragments Will showed them, of the fate of the first Beatrice. If only things were that simple.)

Yet here they were. And Sayo knew well by now that death wasn't an escape from their problems while they were in the Waking World, and what's more, that despite everything they didn't want to die.

Life went on, and without a familiar routine to dive into anymore, Sayo would have to make their own, a way to feel real instead of just another illusion with shards that would pierce their friends' hearts once it fractured.

They blush when Kainé compliments their outfit, rubbing the back of their neck and looking away.]

I was expecting "like shit," frankly. I just... figured I could use a change, after so long having to be Shannon. Or, er. Convincing myself that I had to be her.

Might as well follow up on all that nervous nonsense I posted anonymously to the OmniNet a few months ago.

You are right, though. I do need a goddamn drink. Shall we?

it's a big scene (Closed to Ozpin, 3/12)

[forwantofahorse]

[It's a beautiful day in Clockhouse on Rokkenjima.

Outside, the streets are awash in Trench's usual gore ocean gleams a brilliant blue, and the batcats seagulls shriek their usual, comforting "nyaas."

And Sa SHANNON SHANNON SHANNON, of course, has a job to do! Windows locked, check. Fridge stocked, check. Trash taken out, check. Bookshelves and other miscellaneous surfaces dusted, check. Her limbs clack crack clack with the sound of the wooden marionette being awkwardly puppetted through the house echoes in her own ears, not that she can hear it. All that was left was to make sure Kinzo-sama's usual tincture was prepared for the upcoming...

Upcoming...

Upcoming what?

Nevermind. Furniture shouldn't concern itself with such things, after all.

She knocks on the study door, clearing her throat.]

Ah, madam? May I come in?

ONE MONTH LATER (expected cws: discussion of incest/sexual abuse, unreality, violence)

[clocktowers]

[ He can tell something is wrong.

The wood-on-wood clack isn't familiar. The tenor of her voice— madam?— catches him off-guard. Ozpin does not rise from his desk, but he looks up with a frown etched in the lines between his brows. He sets down his book.

The study is beautiful: its windows look out over the estate, and his great wooden desk is spread with books for his collection. Shannon does not typically come and disturb him here, because the room adjoins his bedroom. His great king-sized bed is a sea of green silk just through the doorway. (He has had no visitors to it since the one with a shotgun.) ]

Come in, Shannon.

i am ready for my close-up today (Closed to Satoko, 3/17)

[forwantofahorse]

[Life in Trench was too stable to ever have a true rock. If nothing else, this month's ventures into the catacombs proved that not even the ground beneath their own feet could be trusted.

But Sayo was falling, falling, falling, and even though she'd slowed her descent it still felt as thought she'd lost any handholds to haul herself out of this abyss of her own creation. Half the Sleepers were bound to hate her, given how entrenched the Clockhouse was in the community. Paul knew her ugliest face in Cobra Kai, not letting her escape into violence even though he never said anything. The archives felt too lonely, and while she was used to isolation by now, being trapped in a world of books was not to her taste.

It only left one thing to her:]

Satoko~!

[Even in all the chaos of Sayo's life, Satoko had been a refreshing beacon of normalcy. Someone who understood what it was like to be an ordinary human swept up in a world of outer gods and magicians from other worlds, someone with her same sense of humor (and taste in books, apparently, now that she'd been happy to see)... they met once or twice every week in between their "jobs" to play cards, discuss mysteries, and anything else that crossed their minds, and every time she whiled away the hours with her Sayo could almost physically feel the tide of her Corruption receding.

They weren't best friends or anything like that. If anything, Sayo wanted someone casual enough to just have fun with and not poke at her various insecurities and neuroses without feeling emotionally fraught for lying to them. But even though they weren't entwined, they were still good friends, and Sayo needed that more than anything else right now.

She knocks on the door insistently, not bothering to paint on a smile because she's sure even Satoko would see through whatever mask she put on right now, but still doing her best to concentrate on the fun, stress-free hours ahead (and praying that Satoko won't comment on how she's lost several cup sizes and changed her fashion sense from "mildly out of touch librarian in training" to "sulky teenage boy who wishes he was cool enough to smoke weed").

[loopsbian]

[ it's strange. even knowing what she does about miss sayo - about "other hers" and "other chances at life," about the possible connections from one fragment to another - sayo is honestly one of the few ordinary friends she has in this place. they draw together; they even read together, thanks in large part to sayo's superhuman persistence. (the mysteries satoko has been lent have all sorts of traps, both of the mind and physically constructed; they've been at the very least enjoyable ways to pass the time). perhaps that's why satoko has a genuine smile when she opens the door- ]

Miss Sayo!

[ perhaps that's also why she can't stop the look of clear confusion that crosses her face when she finally processes what she's seeing. ]

Ah, um... It's good to see you. [ there's a moment's delay before she steps aside, granting sayo access to the shared housing. ] Would you care for some tea? I didn't think to put the kettle on, but I'm sure it wouldn't take too long...

[ her voice isn't hesitant, oddly enough - just clearly baffled. after all, she can put some of this all together, and certain other parts are coming to light right now. she just wasn't expecting it today, is all. ]

[forwantofahorse]

[Sayo's stomach drops when she sees Satoko's expression. She winces, expecting a barrage of questions and resigning herself to having to explain to her one normal friend that she was a wretched subhuman murderer... only for Satoko to let her inside without any fuss. Expression lighting up with a relieved—if exhausted—smile, Sayo walks in. This is why she came to Satoko's apartment in the first place: to have a conversation that didn't hinge on earth-shattering revelations for the first time in what felt like days. A weight vanishes from her shoulders as Sayo enters, back straightening after she takes off her shoes and places them by the doorway.]

Tea would be great. [Her voice is different from what Satoko remembers; it's slightly lower than Shannon's high-pitched, girlish tone. In fact, it sounds a lot like Lion's, except without the refined, dignified edge that was characteristic of the young heir.]

What did you think of Nine Wrong Answers? It's probably my favorite Carr. Some people find the format grating, but it felt like I was playing a game with the author even more than most mysteries. [Settling into a cozy routine (that didn't involve self-imposed servitude) like their two person mystery bookclub was a start to rebuilding something like a normal life, at least. Sayo tries to savor the feel the feeling.]

the fire's bright and the frame's tight (Late March, OTA)

[forwantofahorse]

a. well i find myself in the wild unknown (Giant Frogs)
[Sayo feels oddly at peace as she prowls the jungle (more literally than she'd like, given that she's sprouted a lion's tail and ears, and her hair has grown into a blond, shaggy mane) of Jumanji despite the omnipresent sense of lurking danger. It may come from the sense of finally getting her karma: after so long treating Rokkenjima like it was her on personal gameboard, it felt as though fate was finally giving her her retribution.

That, and board games were like catnip to her, moreso if they were deadly or otherwise dangerous.

After nearly getting caught during "shift changes" a few times, Sayo's learned to sharpen her senses. Which means that while she's wondering whether lions can get high off catnip, something pricks at the corners of her awareness. She turns on a dime, leveling her heavily modified shotguns at the apparent apex predator of the jungle: a giant frog. She'd find a certain irony in a lion getting hunted by a frog if it weren't for how she was about to die.

Bite the tongue. Drink the blood. Take a step back from the larger gameboard.

Aim carefully, carefully...

Move her piece. Fire. Cut the tongue in two with the slug. Skip to the side. Spin second shotgun around, barrel parallel to arm. Use as focus. Cast-

A jolt of crackling red energy launches out from the back of the gun-

And cast again-

Followed by a roaring ball of thunder-

Both impact the frog, at least stunning it for a bit.

Unfortunately, that wasn't the only frog. Nor is Sayo the only victim. Swearing under her breath, she skips to the side, firing another Jolt through the tongue heading for her apparent comrade and propelling a blast of air toward that frog as a follow-up.]

Don't think running is an option here. Tongues have too much reach. [Reload shotgun.] We have to fight. What can you do? Need to know your capabilities so I can move your piece optimally.

b. bring me a dream (Quicksand)
[Unfortunately, there are some problems you can't fight your way out of. Typically those are the problems Sayo excels at, really; being able to do anything but flail ineffectually during a direct confrontation is a new development for her, and one she's quite proud of.

There's not much you can do when the ground turns to quicksand beneath your feet without any warning, though.

Sayo at least has the good sense to relax her body and let the sand flow around her, her passivity turning out to be an asset for once in her life. However, bereft of a partner in the game, she's realized that there's not much she can actually do to rescue herself.

So she stands, and stares, and contemplates her life. Really, this was a good metaphor for all of Sayo's mistakes: things would get undoubtedly worse if she flailed unnecessarily, but doing nothing ensured her doom anyways.]

How poetic, [Sayo muses, not noticing anyone who may be approaching.]

a; cw gun violence against frogs

[makingthetime]

[Leon has his own gun, a handgun he wields with an ease that speaks to years of fighting with it. He's more annoyed by the giant frogs than anything, landing a dead-on shot that sounds rather like it might've broken something important in one of the frogs' legs.

He backs up to keep out of its reach, swapping between his gun and his knife fluidly, as if he's been doing this most of his life. For all that he's sick of the fight, he is damn good at it.]

Uh—I have a gun, a shotgun, and a knife. Couple of grenades. [A beat, then somewhat reluctantly:] Usually I can poison my own weapons with my blood, but that's been a little off lately. [And has been all month. He'd like to not accidentally heal something he's trying to kill, thanks.]

[forwantofahorse]

[Sayo body nods tersely, and up above, within a tea room in the layer between Trench and the board game, she adds Leon's capabilities to her mental notebook and properly places his piece on the table. She might not be able to control it directly, but knowing what your ally can do is crucial to any fight.

Probably. Hypothetically. Sayo really hasn't been in many straight fights—it's mostly been training on the mat in the dojo, assassination attempts of various smoothness, and frantic laser dodging while hiking up an unnecessarily poofy skirt while screaming at the top of her lungs that one time before Forneus threw her soul back into Trench.

She slides behind Leon, covering his back as she reloads.]

Should be enough. Don't seem too powerful. If we stay calm, we have a wide margin for error.

[Careful. Methodical. Jolts of magical energy, elemental force, and good ol' fashioned scattershot and lead slugs erupt from the Winchesters in Sayo's hands, her breathing steady—and for once, it isn't because she's forcing it to from her view above the battlefield. After what she witnessed on Nephele, some regular, if upsized, frogs weren't enough to throw Sayo off her rhythm.

What does is one of the frogs torpedoing into her before she can react, opting to slam the full weight of its grotesque body into Sayo rather than watching her neatly dodge or sever its tongue from a distance. She stumbles back, once-focused eyes clouding with the fog of fear as the frog wrenches its mouth open wide to swallow her whole. Even trying to treat her body as a piece in the game above does little to alleviate the shaking in her hands as she flicks one of her shotguns in just the right way, reconfiguring it into a blade that she ineffectually jabs into its torso.

She might need a little help.]

b

[azurestar]

[Well, this isn't the fist time he's come upon someone stuck in quicksand, but it's definitely the first time he's come upon someone just placidly accepting they are in quicksand. And honestly? He's had that kind of day, where you just go 'this might as well happen' and don't fight the death that's coming. Plus the jungle is a huge trauma trigger for him, so… #mood.

He stops at the edge of the quicksand and presses his lips together for a moment before saying something.] Uh, am I interrupting something or do you need a hand?

[forwantofahorse]

Pity. I was looking forward to having another dip in the Pthumerian Ocean. I miss having tentacles. [With her droll delivery, it's impossible to tell how serious Sayo is being.] I would appreciate it if you donated a hand, though. I'm afraid that lending isn't an option, since I don't really have a way to pay it back with interest. [It may sound like she's quipping off the cuff, but really that's Sayo stealing a line from a short story she's been writing in her head while she's been stuck.

(The truth is, while she may joke about dying, Sayo is too miserably committed to life at the moment to refuse an offer of help freely given. Letting herself fade would be a greater insult to Ange and Jessica than anything else. She had to live to atone, if nothing else.)]