ArchivedLogs:Flame Night

Flame Night
Dramatis Personae Doug, Dusk, Hive, Rasa, Peter, Sebastian, Shane, Daiki, Flicker
In Absentia	2014-03-18 Worst game night ever.
Location <NYC> 403 {Geekhaus} - Village Lofts - East Village
There's kind of a college-dorm feel to this place, though some of its occupants have left college behind. Entering the apartment finds visitors greeted by the perpetually messy living room, a mismatched assortment of couches and chairs (and milk crates) surrounding the wide table in the center. The wall holds a range of posters; some political, some sporty, some from video games, and a string of white lights strung over the kitchen doorway might be a holdover from Christmas. A widescreen television stands against the wall opposite the couch, shelving beside it holding a host of video games from different consoles. More shelving beside the windows on the far wall carries stacks of board games, as well as sourcebooks from various RPGs. The kitchen adjacent is just as cluttered, its table unfit for eating due to its perpetual covering of books, papers, cereal boxes, projects; the fridge is usually sparsely populated. Ketchup. Beer. Not a lot of food. There are two bedrooms here and one bathroom situated between them, split between the three people who live here. More recently the apartment has become littered with /stars/ -- stained glass stars catching light in the windows, star-mobiles swinging from the ceiling, glowing ones stuck to the walls, bright metal ones and cheap plastic ones and glittering star-shaped rocks, stars of every color and make scattered about the place to give it a rather ridiculous amount of kitschy cheer. Tuesday night, and Geekhaus is /preparing/ to be more packed than it usually is. In addition to their temporary houseguest, Game Night tends to draw quite a few visitors. At the moment Dusk is doing some last-minute tidying -- or maybe it's /past/ the last minute really given that a few of their visitors have already arrived. Dressed in his usual -- well, /lack/-of-dress, he's only in jeans, no shirt, no shoes, currently shovelling the remains of some ooold takeout off the wide table and into a trash bag. Flicker is in the kitchen, /actually/ dressed in v-neck sweater over a turtleneck, khakis, warm thick socks; he's doing /dishes/ for once (though with Aly's arrival their usual ENORMOUS STACK has dwindled to a more manageable amount.) Scrubscrub. Scrubscrub. The twins are here already; today they've brought along (/okay/, honestly, /been/ brought along by) Rasa for the festivities. Sebastian has been settled on the couch -- possibly because at the moment /walking/ is proving difficult. The boy has been steadily-slowly changing /back/ into his normal form; there's patches of rougher blue skin creeping into the brown, gills slitted against the side of his neck, /teeth/ intermittently falling out, a very /excruciating/-uncomfortable process of his bones shrinking and /reshaping/. He is -- not in much state to be Moving About, and so he sits curled into the corner of the couch with a deep uncomfortable frown, glaring at the table like it's done him wrong. He's in a pale blue-and-white wrap skirt, soft white sweater over a darker blue blouse. Thick tights. Shane, though, is in the kitchen nabbing /beer/ from the fridge. "Here," he tells his brother, "this'll make you feel better." Sebastian eyes the beer very skeptically. "I think it'll just make me feel drunker." Shane shrugs, flopping down onto the couch as well. "Same diff." It's not unusual for Doug to be stopping by the Geekhaus on a Tuesday night -- he's usually up for a night of boisterous gaming. But tonight he looks less game-intent as he exits the elevator. He's dressed in a pair of jeans and a Captain Caveman shirt in blue over a long-sleeved grey henley. His laptop bag is slung across his chest; his peacoat shoved through the strap in anticipation of its need shortly. In his hands, though, Doug has a couple of card game boxes, as well as a couple of video games and the accompanying strategy guides. It's a bundle that requires careful positioning as he tucks it under his arm to knock firmly on the door of apartment 403. It may or may not be in the rhythm of 'Shave and a Haircut.' Rasa is early! Ze brought the twins! Ze also the remains of a headache from earlier in the day and is hovering near the kitchen, waiting for Shane to finish in the fridge before ze leans over and gets a beer for hirself. Ze is a little less comfortable with just snagging booze from Geekhaus, but ze has a fine example to emulate in Shane. Ze borrows the bottle opener before tilting it back and tasting some of the frothy liquid. "Oh. Shane. Did I tell you. Some random guy gave us money at Pandemonium today before freaking out and vvtt'ing himself out of existence. It was a strange day." Ze considers for a moment, then adds. "And Flicker's now my ho." When Doug knocks, ze glances to the occupants of the room and asks, "Should I answer it?" "S'true," Flicker answers lightly from the kitchen, "Rasa's my /pimp/." "Wait, what?" Dusk is looking up from his straightening with a puzzled look. "Flicker when did you start turning tricks." "This afternoon, apparently. -- I got it." Flicker blips out of the kitchen, answering the front door with still-wet hands and staying only long enough for a cheerful: "Hi, Doug!" before zipping back to Dishes. Dusk isn't quite as cheerful -- not exactly /un/cheerful, his smile comes easy enough, but it's quite serious when he says: "Yo. Doug. You got a minute, we need to talk." "Woah free money? Where do /I/ find people like that?" Shane puts one beer in Sebastian's hand, clinking the top against the nose. "Heyyy, Doug." His chin jerks upwards at Doug's arrival. Daiki sticks his head out of Flicker's bedroom, where he has been assisting with the straightening. "Hello." "-- Why did he give you money?" Sebastian sounds intrigued. "Did Flicker --" He cuts this question off before it even really starts. Though Shane happily finishes it: "Oh my god did you fuck a dude /in/ Pandemonium?" He finishes this with a cheerful: "I've done that." "Hey, Flicker!" Doug's smile is bright when Flicker opens the door, although he blinks a bit when Flicker immediately disappears back into the kitchen. He enters the apartment, hovering near the door and offering a wave to Shane and the rest as they greet him. He holds up the stack in his hands when Dusk speaks, and lifts his eyebrows. "I've only got a couple of minutes," he admits. "Tonight is my once-a-month evening lab. But I brought games." He indicates the card boxes. "Star Trek Uno and Apples to Apples, and a couple of the LEGO video games that are an unhealthy amount of fun." Dusk's seriousness seems to take a minute to filter through, and when it does, his brow twitches. "What's up?" "Flicker was complaining about how crappy vacation is without dough and the guy must have thought he was hot -- well, he said destitute or something -- enough to need a sudden influx of cash so he didn't have to work." Rasa gives a little wave, wearing a pair of roomy trousers in gold, red, and black, with a russet brown, long-sleeved tunic over the top, the bottom hem split to allow hir the ability to walk. Ze has a transparent scarf in red around hir neck, a hijab ze opted not to wear inside. Ze sips hir beer and shrugs as ze turns back to the twins. "I think we raked in a couple hundred. Don't worry. I only gave Flicker like... fifteen percent - or something like that. Gotta keep him earning or how else am I going to make my millions?" There is an awkward shuffling at the door! And suddenly, Peter is here, clad in his black hoodie and sweat-slacks, the hood pulled down to expose his chitin-clad face -- shuffling forward, his hands shoved /deep/ into his pockets, hiding the wrist-shooters he's got on. "Did you guys know," he announces to the room as he approaches the coach where Shane and Sebastian have flopped, "that Titanfall is the /best/ game ever made?" "It's just," Dusk is meandering over to take the boxes from Doug, glancing over them with a nod of thanks, "-- hey, thanks. Um. It's about the cameras," he explains. "I know things are kind of -- tense for you with -- certain people but you can't just take them down. If you give me the equipment I was going to put them back up, it's -- it was a really good idea when you did it first and with everything that's happened with people around here now it's even /more/ --" That's as far as he gets, though. There's a deafening rumble-roar; the entire apartment /shakes/. With a crackling creak of crumbling plaster, a /blast/ of sudden heat -- part of the floor has /caved/ in, part of the wall is falling; there's smoke and a glowing red-orange burning somewhere past the new-made holes and starting to lick into what's /left/ of the apartment. Dusk's wing fans out wide, /scooping/ around Peter and Doug to /drag/ them bodily closer and away from the wall. Flicker has vanished from the kitchen, blipping outward to the rather fiery living room. And then vanishing -- with one semi-crippled Sebastian in tow. Shane doesn't say anything at all -- possibly because the sudden rapid flickering of his gills has rendered breathing impossible. As he's thrown back from the couch he reaches towards Sebastian, though his fingers close on air as Flicker takes his brother off. He's digging a pair of webshooters out of his pockets -- unlike Peter he doesn't live with them /on/ but carries them with him regardless -- to strap them on, wide-eyed. And stare towards the bedroom where Daiki /had/ been and now a mass of flame is instead. He starts to move -- starts to /try/ to move -- it's only then that he even seems to /notice/ the blood that's dripping down his hand, his sides, debris /embedded/ in his skin. Doug nods at Dusk as he speaks, his smile fading into a more serious expression. When the world erupts in chaos, it takes a half second for him to acknowledge that Things Are Happening, and a piece of the falling wall catches him across the back, forcing him forward. Dropping the stack of games in his hands, he stumbles away from the fiery hole, making him an easy target for wing scooping. His jaw works silently until Dusk's wing brushes his back, and then there is a muffled groan that forces its way out of his chest as his arms wrap around the other man. "What is it?" might be louder than he means it to be, and filled with panic. "What's happening?" "--are you talking about the cameras--" Peter begins, speaking to Dusk, when suddenly -- his body goes rigid, his head snaps to the left, and there's a strangled noise emerging from his throat -- eyes wide as saucers. An instant later, and -- BOOM. The wall behind him has crumbled, vanishing in a spurt of flame and debris; Dusk's wing sweeps over past him to scoop him out of the way of the falling, burning rubble -- but a wave of fire and ash has already splashed against Peter's left flank, scorching a long, jagged path across his hoodie and jeans. Even within the constraints of that wing, Dusk can feel the heat -- and the tense clench of muscle as Peter /thrashes/, yowling in pain. The fire probably isn't going to mix well with the interior of Dusk's wing, either. Thankfully, despite the agony, Peter has enough control to not try and /tear/ his way out of Dusk's wingfolds. Rasa cusses when the walls start shaking, then, when the floor gives out underneath hir, ze shrieks. As panic sets in, ze transforms, skin quickly grows hir own type of chitin as hir hands and feet scramble to hold on to whatever ze can get a grip on. It helps that hir desire to hold on makes hir immediately able to wallcrawl, clinging desperately to a section of slanted floor, hir tail swiftly blossoming from under neath hir layers to give hir some semblance of balance. "Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit!" Ze clings, slowly cooking over the fires below, struggling to make hir way upwards, away from the inferno. Dusk's wing relaxes, after the initial jerk, giving Peter room to move away. His wing curls in tight against Doug, and he seems similarly oblivious to the blood and blistering smeared across his skin. Other wing folded across his mouth, he drags Doug over towards the window, throwing it open wide to climb out through it -- the other man still held tight, in his wings now instead of arms. "Guys -- /fire/ escape --" Though the explosion, it turns out, has smashed through the outside wall one story below, taking the fire escape down there /with/ it. Out on the balcony, he spreads his wings wide -- they shed ash and drops of blood as he beats them hard to take to the air, carrying Doug with him as he heads out and to the ground below. Flicker reappears in a sudden flash, blinking hard against the smoke and ash. And then he closes his eyes, not even /bothering/ to try and look -- this is probably because he doesn't need to, at the moment, to take tally of the room. Hive's voice sounds /from/ him, not sledgehammer-hard as it usually is but quiet. << How many people are still here? >> Flicker's already blipping up towards the demolished couch, grabbing Shane next to vanish with him. "Nghahhhgh..." Peter's stumbling away from Flicker, his fingernails raking across his still-smoldering hoodie -- fingers curl hard as the fabric is torn with a wretched /tear/, fabric stretching -- before rending, exposing a web of ever-expanding threads as he /rips/ the burning portions of the hoodie off of his skin. The hexacomb-patterned black armor beneath gleams; portions of it have started to smolder underneath his arm and near his neck. And then -- "--ghnRASA." THWP. THWP. Weblines snap out from his wrists, aiming to strike Rasa on the shoulders -- and to /haul/ hir with him, as he stumbles and struggles toward the fire-escape, clad in half a hoodie and the body-armor beneath. Almost imperceptibly, the bodysuit has started humming, its coolant system struggling to deal with the sheer heat of burning debris that still clings to Peter's body. "Rasa -- /Dai/." Shane manages to rasp this out, rough and croaky. "-- He's -- bedroom. Oh -- god -- Peter." Shane looks like he wants to struggle towards the bedroom where Daiki is, but instead he starts dragging himself towards the -- maybe towards the fire escape? It's hard to tell. At some point he stops dragging, just kind of lying bloody and fish-gasping on the ground; his /already/ perpetually-overtaxed respiratory system is not really loving trying to cope with the smoke. Rasa has to consciously let go of the floor bits ze is clinging to, but does so after a few tugs from Peter. Hir clothes are fairing poorly, but ze doesn't have a spiffy suit underneath. Instead, hir skin is starting to burn, the chitin cracking and blistering as well. Once in the blasts of cold air from the outside, ze breathes deep and shudders for a moment, hands and feet transferring their grip to the stone outside. Hir eyes widen on Shane as he collapses before moving to one side, heading toward the bedroom window. "Pete. You get Shane! I'll look for Daiki." It soon turns out that there's no need to get Shane; Flicker appears in the room again with a quiet flutter-pop entirely lost in the blaze. His first step is pulling Daiki -- battered, bloody, but on his /feet/ still, just /trapped/ by the fire -- out to the living room to deposit him near the window. << Flicker's got Shane /someone/ help Dai down, >> Hive's voice slips out from Flicker again, just before the teleporter vanishes with Shane, leaving the teenagers alone with the fire. "Nngh." Peter's response to Rasa, upon pointing out Shane's gasping figure -- still lurching back as he drags hir -- is a strangled, muffled groan. But then he's moving -- just as Flicker flutters into existence, flashing out with Shane -- and re-appearing with Daiki -- before flashing out /again/. "--fringh. Got him." THWP THWP THWP THWP. Daiki is getting /webbed/; Peter drags the teenager toward him, one arm looping around him -- the one that /isn't/ currently covered in burning debris -- as he hefts him up and struggles to join Rasa, on the exterior of the building. "Help," Peter croaks, shoving Daiki toward Rasa as he dangles, trying to smack his other arm against the wall - THWACK, THWACK! -- to knock out the burning debris. Together, they'll probably be able to carry him down the wall, toward the crowds and sirens below.