Plot post for February 16th - Poll results and preparation for the Season 1 Finale!

[theearth]

The results of the two polls are in!

RESULTS

In regards to the alien and Wise Snake battles, the majority have decided on Scenario 2:

The alien flees the farmhouse and escapes to Locke City, where it may be apprehended and destroyed. Its destruction will lead to the release of a burst of energy that will be felt by and immediately afterward awaken Wise Snake. Characters involved in the farmhouse battle will be in the fray with no-to-minimal time to prepare or recuperate; characters that participate in the battle against WS may be identified by non-reincarnates.

In regards to a breather period between Season 1 and Season 2, the majority have voted in favor of a breather period lasting two weeks.

So let’s get down to business.

The plot as a whole (the alien + Wise Snake) happens on the same day, but we will be staggering their respective posts. The post for the alien showdown will be forward-dated two weeks in advance. The post for Wise Snake’s awakening will be forward-dated at least a week in advance.

The alien post will go up no later than February 23rd. The IC-date of the post will be March 9th, a Sunday, during daylight hours.

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THE ALIEN

Much of the IC plan draft remains the same. However, Roxy (and Danny?) will use their intangibility to investigate the room with the keypad lock during the one-week period of surveillance (IC date: March 2 - 8) . Therefore, characters will know that the room is decorated to hell and back with various flowers and artificial lighting. There are two inhabitants in the room: the small alien, three apples high, and its "steed", seven feet tall. There are also computer screens and such, the designs of which look like they've come straight out of retro science fiction.

The activity of the small alien will be enough for the characters to guess that it is, in fact, the alien (rather than the seven feet tall robot).

Once the alien has reached a worrisome damaged state, it will flee the farmhouse via flight. It will fly towards Tuning Towers. Characters must finish the alien off. Even if this conclusion isn’t reached through threading, we will go forward with the assumption that the alien will be defeated and subsequently explode.

The explosion will not be traditionally fiery or loud. It will be more like an invisible force bursting outward in a ring that will be felt by both non-reincarnates and reincarnates. The reincarnates will feel it much, much more, though. It won’t hurt, but it will have the effect of knocking reincarnates off their feet, temporarily disorienting them, etc.

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WISE SNAKE

Immediately following the alien’s destruction, an earthquake similar to the one that occurred on December 3rd will strike as Wise Snake emerges from below Tuning Towers. Wise Snake is several blocks long and light pink. It will go on an indiscriminate rampage that does not target any one thing, but will respond to attacks on itself. It does not have any special “attacks”; it is a monster of brute force. However, it is capable of shedding individual scales which reform into miniature snakes ranging approximately 10 to 30 feet long. Unlike David Proud’s statues, they will not explode upon destruction.

Reincarnates will not be the only ones engaging Wise Snake in battle. The National Guard will be deployed to destroy Wise Snake as a threat on the city. They will not intentionally harm those involved in battle, but they will not go to great lengths to prevent harm to them, either. Basically, if you’re in the way, you better get out of the way.

The defeat of Wise Snake will result in an explosion very similar to the explosion following the alien’s destruction. Unlike the alien, however, Wise Snake will not physically explode, but immediately turn into mundane stone and release ethereal bubbles that float into the sky before disappearing, not unlike video game bosses.

Wise Snake will be defeated after taking an unspecified amount of hits from both the reincarnates and the military. The mods will not be NPCing Wise Snake. Players are free to incorporate Wise Snake’s reactions into their threads using the aforementioned information. Players who do not wish to engage their character directly with Wise Snake will have a thread in which they can set up their own open or planned threads in response to the destruction caused by Wise Snake, its miniature scale snakes, and/or the National Guard. In short, characters can be as plausibly involved as their players want them to be.

Wise Snake’s scale snakes can be NPCed by the mods by request.

Players will be responsible for NPCing civilians. Assume they’re in a panicked state similar to city populaces that are under attack – ex. a lot of the city-wide battles in superhero films.

The threading for the actual moment of Wise Snake’s defeat will be restricted to selected characters. The following criteria will be used: characters who possess offensive abilities, characters who have not yet had a moment to shine, characters who can feasibly be involved in the battle, players who are reliable taggers, players who are reasonably active.

If you’re interested, please sign up here before the 23rd. We’ll do our best to make a speedy selection and throw together the team so involved parties may plan how they might wish to go about executing the final barrage of attacks.

Characters who don’t make an effort to reasonably obscure/conceal their identity and use unusual powers will eventually have their identities squirreled out by the FBI.

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THE AFTERMATH – IMMEDIATE

A good chunk of the business district will be in ruins. The damage radius may be larger depending on character action. There will be a lot of casualties. Emergency responders will be working alongside the National Guard in rescue efforts.

On a more light-hearted side, though, if there’s enough interest, players will have the option of a news reporter pulling their character over for a brief interview. Players are free to NPC their interviewers or request a mod to NPC. We’d probably add this thread onto the Wise Snake post later on.

If you’re interested, let us know!

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THE AFTERMATH – TWO WEEKS

This will constitute our two-week breather period.

The entirety of the business district will be without power or water for several days. Rescue efforts will continue. Schools will be closed for a few days. The FBI will investigate the remains of Wise Snake, but the monster will, for the meantime, remain where it fell. The area will be guarded in part by local police, sniffer dogs among them.

Locke City and its “real life superheroes” will be a hot topic around the world. There will be several shitty phone videos of Wise Snake’s rampage in which characters may be (poorly) visible if players wish uploaded onto YouTube. Some people will think they’re great. Others will think they’re an abomination. Still others will think this is all an elaborate hoax. Feel free to come up with different public opinions!

The FBI and local PD are going to want the identities of any reincarnates who displayed unusual abilities during Wise Snake’s rampage. However, during this two-week period, no characters will be openly investigated. All characters whose identities were intentionally or accidentally revealed will be covertly monitored.

This gets tricky for the characters who Echo back mecha units. Their size makes them easy targets for the FBI to locate and potentially acquire. Players who are planning to Echo back large, easily noticeable robots/units/etc., please go to this thread.

Regardless, we’ll put up another OOC post specifically for the two weeks after the defeat of the alien and Wise Snake once we’re closer to it. The rest of what happens during these two weeks – damage control, relief aid, national confusion, worldwide attention, etc. – will be considered background noise.

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ECHO OPPORTUNITIES

Participation in the battle with the alien grants one Echo. Proximity to Wise Snake grants one Tier 2 Echo independent of the monthly Tier 2 limit. As always, canon recurrences grant related Echoes!

Please direct questions regarding these plot points to the thread below and not the post in general.

Comments

SIGN-UP FOR WISE SNAKE'S MOMENT OF DEFEAT

[theearth]

[keywarding]

Understandably Holly is a 14 year old kid so I will of course understand if you think adults would be better suited to this end game thread, that stated I wanted to put in a bid anyway and here's why.

Upon the arrival of Wise Snake, Holly will be getting back some majorly offensive cards and useful cards. By this time she'll have enough magical power, as it's been growing steadily since she echoed some of it back in December. She'll have also tested this power out and will have tested calling a card as well. She will be able to use most of the cards she'll get back in quick succession. That said though, there is a limitation for her. She could use Firey and Earthy at once but won't try for another. She may be able to use Fly with two other cards just because the Elemental cards are on their own a lot stronger but with the Fly not being that draining she's still certainly not Grand Sorceress or anything.

As originally stated when Wise Snake was first mentioned, I plan on having her get back her elemental cards which are the strongest ones in her deck, Light and Dark being on a whole different level. Since she got back the Firey prior to this, I'd like to give her back some other useful card, like Fly. If that's still okay.

As it stands, when Wise Snake comes out, she'll have her Wand, her summoning chant back, all her elemental cards [Firey being one she already had, with Earthy, Windy & Watery coming with Wise Snake, and perhaps Fly to replace Firey]. While all the elemental cards can be considered offensive both Firey and Watery are better suited to being offensive, with Windy and Earthy being more suited as defensive. These could all be useful.

So yeah. My bid! Sorry to tl;dr. >>''

Re: SIGN-UP FOR WISE SNAKE'S MOMENT OF DEFEAT

[hollowleg]

Signing up for this. Shiro will have access to a nearly unlimited reserve of spiritual energy from the Alien echo, and Getsuga Tenshou from the snake itself. Obviously the attack won't be quite... THAT nuclear, but it's nothing to sneeze at. Shiro can "fly" by walking on air and he's stronger and more sturdy than a human. He also has his regeneration going for him. His weaknesses are a lack of stamina and an unwillingness to work in a group once he really gets going.

[bravelyspoken]

Throwing Merlin in just because he's nosy and fearless enough to be around it anyway. He has pretty powerful TK powers (that canonly sort of throw things around and stop them midair) so he'd make good crowd control if nothing else!

He's shiny-new though so if someone older is more desperate to shine they should probably get a go first!

[strikeraid]

throwing up Skyler for snake beatenings, but only if Holly ends up being present at the moment - he wouldn't take Wise Snake down on his own initiative. Magic-wise, he has his most basic arsenal back (Blizzard, Fire, Aero, etc) at the lowest tier (with the exception of Spark, which is at its second stage of Sparkra.) He has plenty of physical capabilities that make fighting large enemies a bit easier to manage, and coupled with his cybernetics and the fact that he'll be echoing back his full Super Glide (I think?), he can at the very least fend for himself. Mostly, he'd be there to heal and support, acting as a point man, but if someone needs someone to punch the snake in the face, he can do that.

also he'd be there in his Blood Key disguise so HAHA ~*DRAMA*~

[siesinddasessen]

Signing up Blaine. She'll hopefully have her titan body, minus height, back when this happens, so she'll have enough offensive power. She'll mostly be fighting because she's starting to go stir-crazy inside already and will just want to do something by the time the battle rolls around.

[flamberge]

Adding in Karl to at least help deal some good damage to the wise snake. He is good with a gun and decently good with a sword, which coupled with super strength can deal decent damage. Plus, he is going to be echoing back this spell, Judgment, which packs a hell of a punch. Any final killing can be left up to someone else, though. He'll just soften ol' Wise Snake up. Also, he can help out with healing everyone else fighting Wise Snake to help keep them going.

[neonnerd]

I'd love to have Benjamin there for the moment of defeat! He will (hopefully) be echo-ing back his giant robot form for a bit, so should be able to do some pretty heavy damage and will be pretty durable. He has a buzzsaw right now that will obviously go giant with the rest of him, but I'm not sure what (if any) other weapons he may have echoed back by then.

[thebalrogslayer]

I'd like to put Gabriel up for this. While he doesn't have any offensive abilities to speak of at the moment, with a tier 2 and hopefully something echoing the fall of Gondolin from the event and possibly other things between he should at least have enough of his fighting skill to hold his own (I'm aiming for his sword and his skill with it for the tier 2, and if I get the option to get something else back offensive in the meanwhile I will). His elven spirit would also effect those around, although I don't know if the snake would count as evil to be effected by it? By this point his sight will be good enough to notice if a scale is about to fall or slight indications of movement as well.

There are definitely characters around with more firepower, and if that's what you're looking for then he's not going to be the best person for the job, but it is in his character to stick this sort of thing out until the end, and not from the sidelines either. He would get involved, ignoring the personal risk, and he would put his all into it.

[icy_heavens]

Okay, yeah. Throwing Toushirou's name in the hat, here. He's got the cryokinesis, the super-high-speed movement, some insane durability, his sword and the skills to use it. Courtesy of the Tier 2 echo I've got planned for the Wise Snake encounter, he'll have his shikai back, which would mean that he'll be able to create big, eastern-style ice dragons that he could send crashing into the thing. That would probably put him among the heavy-hitters and he'd be inclined to fight Wise Snake as it is.

He's likely to still get thrown around some, and he won't have the best control of his shikai, but that's part of the fun.

[argents]

slamming banagher into the running. mostly because he'll hopefully have a giant robot that can tangle with the snake on its level, but he's also more than willing (and will probably make a conscious effort) to cooperate and protect people who don't have 24 tons of metal between them and the snake, despite what armaments it may or may not come with. the unicorn will likely be able to last the duration of the battle on what fuel/energy reserves it has too.

banagher's been fairly involved plot-wise, but he's done a lot of sitting on his hands since april since he's never had the 'big guns' necessary to get into any frays to protect what's important to him. basically, this is the chance he's been waiting for.

[needsmorezippers]

Ok I'm probably going to regret this but throwing Phillip in since he'll be this thing and he's kind of immortal. Who the fuck is going to tell him he can't? I will add that there is the potential for him to Echo back some of the specific skills of the form and not just... the form, but his Death form has enhanced strength anyway so he can hit it with his sword and do a lot of damage.

also if this is actually going to be a smaller group than i won't be scared about tagging it!!!

[theboywiththebook]

Henry's going to go to the snake thing because he thinks he might be able to help. Hopefully, he can be when he gets another unlock for the truest believer thing from being around the snake. Also because Henry has yet to say no to something dangerous.

[chalicejoker]

I'm signing up Hajime for this. His bugmonster form gives him super strength and inhumanly fast combat reflexes, as well as superhuman healing and cockroach-given toughness. He can also transform into a couple of other forms to fight with and has a snazzy transforming motorcycle, plus he'll be echoing back a ranged attack of some sort once I decide if it's going to be one of Joker's attacks or one of Chalice's.

Re: SIGN-UP FOR WISE SNAKE'S MOMENT OF DEFEAT

[hawaiianheir]

Mac has a decent selection of mid-tier windy powers, but he's going to be bringing a huge-ass hammer to the fight in the form of the Telescopic Sassacrusher - allowing him to do considerable damage to the Wise Snake. He will be coming here straight from the alien fight, but he'll be able to command rather large shaped gusts of wind as well as short-range windy teleporting powers. I can see him attempting to hop onto the snake and then beat it relentlessly with the Pogo Hammer (in his real hands) and the Sassacrusher (in his spooky ethereal super strong ghost hands).

He also has super strength, though of a more middling caliber than most everyone else. But he'll be full on ready to fight.

[wirsinddiejager]

I'd like to sign Alan up! He'll be in titan form and thus definitely has the fighting ability to participate in the fight. His attacks are pretty much limited to just punching, but I think he'd still be able to do some fairly serious damage.

[ursoreckless]

Shou is still pretty much a squishy human, but he has with him tactics and a car. What he'd probably do is try to run his car right into the snake to slow it down so the rest of the heavy hitters can get their collective stuffs together and join in and with his ninja brat skills, he should be able to get out of the car before the ramming part. He'll also be able to lob explosives at it and use his guns, but I figured that he won't walk away totally uninjured.

As for echoes, he will probably regain a bit of the strength of his vampire self, just a touch and not the full skill. Like with the healing, he can't can't have the big return unless it's a fatal injury.

[chernobolt]

TOSSES HAT INTO THE RING

Kara has already echoed back her alien strength and may also be getting back some form of starbolts or flight from her snake echo, so she's got a pretty decent amount of punch to pack. She's also absolutely determined to do whatever she can so she won't be backing down unless she gets beaten senseless.

[boredallready]

I'll sign up Lloyd since it's about time he did some fighting here. Plus I'll be Echoing back something that will allow him to carry the giant swords he got a few months ago~ He might be able to get in a few cuts, but he's not very experienced yet. It's the thought that counts?

...Wait, this is Lloyd, what am I talking about...

[buildyourworld]

Preemptively signing Eugen up for this IF he gets his Gundam back in working condition.

He would try protect people who are escaping from the Wise Snake and take some hits for them since he's piloting 67 tons of mecha. He would also provide cover fire for anyone fighting the Wise Snake. He'll be able to last long with the Gundam's infinite power so he'll be a useful tank.

If he doesn't, I will delete this.

[originaloddcouple]

Adding Isaac and Miria with their van. They could probably give people rides and such to the battle.

Actually, let's edit that. The couple will mostly act as support in the battle, helping where they can with both civilians and Numbers Club fighters. They'll bring people to healers and stuff or they'll just help people get away if they so wish.

They are also pretty much immortal now, which they will no doubt discover during the battle.

[wonk]

roxy has some decent super martial arts for the sake of maneuvering and a high-octane laser gun for attack itself. having been killed by a snake once, she is going to be pretty intense about taking this one out. i'm planning to echo back permanent intangibility and also perhaps flight for her, so there's that too.

[metalbent]

I'll throw Sophie in since I do like signing up for things; she has earthbending and metalbending back, though the first to more intermediate level and the second to more beginner level. I'll probably bump up her earthbending further from the wise snake proximity. She's going to actively be trying to help out for the end-season-one stuff, certainly; if she's not in this, she will play backup wherever for the wise snake nbd.

[soulsborderline]

Asuka will be receiving her Evangelion once again as an Echo from the Snake itself, and will definitely be fighting it. She won't have any of her combat skills or weapons back other than her previously-Echoed AT Field (forcefield for her mech), but her sheer size and recklessness will be enough for her to at least try fistfighting the thing.

I'm back on the bandwagon for activity too now, but I'll understand if you pick some more consistent folks over Asuka. If that's the case, it's alright for her to fight the main snake and then run out of batteries or something, right?

/SLIDES IN HERE

[alilyinthemoonslight]

...after making up my mind, ahaha.

A'IGHT, SO. Lils here is fairly active, but besides some exceedingly brief peripheral knowledge of the Proudnapping while trying not to get murdered by Stinky, hasn't had much of a major hand in plot shenanigans. After all, she's only been a magical girl for under a month.

But you want someone with offensive abilities? She's got 'em in spades. Boosted superhuman attributes and fighting skill to match are the general name of the game, with the ability to fire off concussive energy blasts. Upon facing Wise Snake, she will obtain her Moon Tact weapon, and with knowledge obtained from a just-approved echo, will be able to summon up an entire aura of energy that will launch her like a freaking rocket at anything unfortunate enough to be standing in her path. Also: Let's power those little energy blasts up with fairy sizable waves of energized force.

Basically, she's like someone from Dragon Ball Z if powered by ~love and flowers~

It would take being struck dead en route to the scene of the battle for her to NOT be there. Fighting giant rampaging monsters is pretty much a Precure's modus operandi. Of note though, if it so happens that Winter and/or Jasmine do not end up present, and she doesn't know where they are? She will not be a happy camper, and an angry Moonlight is kind of a scary Moonlight.

But by all means, that would not stop me in the slightest~