The Rites of Spring [IC]

[trollthumper]

March 20th, 2011

11:00 PM

It was a beautiful night in Freedom. Over the past few days, the sun had broken through a recent spade of clouds -- late snows, the local weather forecasts had said before being proven hideously wrong -- and actually managed to warm Freedom up to the high 60s. Even the night was somewhat warm, with temperatures resting in the low 50s, buoyed by slight humidity. Spring was on the way; robins were being spotted in the local parks in volumes, and plants everywhere were blossoming. And Nick Cimitiere was trying very hard to see the forest for the trees.

Some of the local ghosts had been restless over the past few nights. Stacia at Lantern Hill had been talking about a sudden feeling of longing, a need to go home. Jim at the railyard in Greenbank had been quiet and reserved, and told Nick that sometimes he missed having a heartbeat. Something was making them nostalgic for life, but whatever it was escaped Nick's sense of death. He'd dived into his texts and turned to the papers to see if he could find anything that might account for the weirdness. The approaching Vernal Equinox likely had something to do with it, but Nick had never seen these general wide-spread longing for life amongst the dead, no matter what time of year. He did find, however, a number of suspected disappearances among local gang members -- with notes that the FCPD wasn't considering them missing persons cases just yet, on the grounds that they may have fled town. Nick had taken to the street to investigate the disappearances in South Freedom, and had finally found a hint towards his search.

They're too green, he said, looking up at the trees on the streets of the North End. Indeed, the trees were erupting with verdant foliage, and in the North End, they were the rich, reflective green of emeralds. Old Man Winter's barely out the door, and these trees look like they're in the bloom of spring. I suppose you could pin it on global warming, but why is it so thick here?

Nick opened his eyes to the flow of death in the area. He had a rough sense of chrysalises bursting open to reveal butterflies, the death of an old layer to reveal new life. It was almost overwhelming, but something cut through it -- a feeling like a tornado about to touch down, a whirl of death and fertility he'd sometimes encountered in the presence of the Ghede. And it was coming from the halls of the Hunter Museum of Natural History.

Hmm. Native relics, dinosaur skeletons, ancient texts... why, I wonder what kind of harebrained ritual someone's trying to pull off this time...

[Ecalsneerg]

Jeez. Twenty-seven... Siobhan strolled back across town from her parents' house, having celebrated her birthday with a meal with her family. Unfortunately, a still somewhat strained meal. Her relationship with them wasn't yet that repaired.

But something felt somehow wrong. The trees looked a little bit too green. It was warm, a bit too warm for this time of year. Static tingled in the back of her skull as her acute senses picked up something a little bit out of the ordinary. The equinox is coming... but never has it felt like this. I'd best look into this before I go home.

Ducking into an alleyway, she produced a piece of chalk from her bag, drew a rough star and circle, and knelt in the middle of it. And she felt a flow. As if some form of energy, that of life, death and rebirth, was whirling its way out into the world. Narrowing her eyes, and clicking her fingers, Equinox stood up, the hems of her new-formed trenchcoat scraping across the chalk markings and coming up in a small cloud of white dust.

She began walking towards the source of the disturbance.

[Gizmo]

High above the street, two shadows raced along the rooftops with a flutter of royal blue and crimson. The slighter of the pair finally caught up with the other as he paused on the edge of a building to peer downward. "So, feel like sharing why we're suddenly racing through Parkside and the North End?" Jill O'Cure asked her older brother quietly, looking down herself and trying to spot what he was looking at.

"Shh," Jack of all Blades instructed, holding a finger to his lips. "Sword-senses tingling."

"No," his sister told him flatly with an emphatic shake of her head.

The elder sibling blinked, turning away from the alleyway below. "No what?"

"You're not calling it that," she forbade, gesturing her disapproval with both hands. "That's just... no."

Jack heaved a much put upon sigh. "Everybody's a critic," he bemoaned, before tilting his head abruptly as though listening to a sudden sound. "Something's definitely going down, regardless," he noted more seriously, his eye narrowing slightly behind his bandanna mask. "Let's go." With that, the pair were once again speeding on their way.

[Lone Star]

Warlock was walking back to his house on the West End. It had been surprisingly warm tonight, and he held his thick coat over one arm. He sighed, and succumbed to loosening his tie. There was a supposedly haunted house in Hanover, but it had turned out to be a false alarm. He had been getting more and more of those lately- people's nerves making them think they hear spirits in their sleep. He chalked it up to paranoia. In Freedom City, where the un-normal was commonplace, people had a reason to think their suspicions might be real.

Although he could have easily teleported home, it was pleasant enough outside that he wanted to walk. He stopped for a moment, sensing a disturbance. There was some difficulty he had adjusting to his abilities, but he knew that there was some magical disturbance.

"The hell is going on?"

He decided to call Nick. "Hello?"

[trollthumper]

Nick's cell phone rang at a slightly inconvenient time. "Hey, Blake," he said. "Yeah, I'm at the Hunter Museum in the North End... yeah, there is some sort of weird going on. It's like spring came out early and swinging. Probably has to do with the equinox... and speaking of that, I see Equinox coming up the steps. And... holy crap, I think that's Jack of All Blades. Yeah, looks like he's swinging down from the roof with a friend -- dang, almost slipped there...

"Oh, me? I'm just trying to break into the museum without setting off the alarms. The usual..."

[Lone Star]

Blake's eyebrows raised. "I'll be there momentarily." He quickly shut his cell phone and clicked his heels together three times. He didn't need to, per se, but he really enjoyed doing so. He disappeared in a flash of light, appearing for mere moments on the rooftops, his feet moving quickly. Within a minute or two, Blake was next to Nick, his heels smoking with magical energy. "So what's the dealio?"

[Ecalsneerg]

Equinox smiled at the necromancer. "Well, don't we just keep running into one another?" smiled Equinox to Nick. "Any idea what exactly is going on here?" Her eyes went to the museum's doors. "Other than trying to break into a museum."

She turned and looked slightly confused at the teen standing next to him. There's something about him... "Sorry, but do I know you?" she asked. "You seem familiar."

[Lone Star]

"You sure do!" Warlock said, extending a now-normal hand. "I do believe we had a mission together once. I am the Artist Formerly Known as Kid Cthulhu...now known as the rather normal Warlock. I do plain-Jane magic now. No more Unspeakable One for me." The young hero turned to Nick. "So what exactly is going down here? I got a disturbance in the Force, and decided to give you a ring."

[trollthumper]

"Not sure, exactly," Nick said. "Something's... building in there, but I can't really feel what it is. It's life building from death and going back again in cycles -- could be like the twin essence of sex and death in the Ghede, or the cycle of creation and destruction Kali represents." He put his hand to the keypad and said, in a voice like a dying alarm clock, "Speak to me."

The keypad began beeping as if someone had set it off wrong, but slowly the beeps began to coalesce into a voice. "State yourself!" it said, in a voice like a chirping soldier. "I am a Vigilix Model 9000, set to guard this building in all its functions. State yourself!"

"Just a local visitor," Nick said. "I'd like to know who's inside."

"Visiting hours are over! And... wait... visiting hours are over... why do I feel numb? I can feel my front and my rear, but my limbs... they're cut off."

Nick turned to the others. "Someone must've cut off the alarm in certain wings to avoid notice." He turned back to the system. "What areas are cut off?"

"The halls on local native tribes, the dinosaur wing, the Mesoamerican tribes wing, and the exhibit on relics from the Holy Land."

"Yeah, really hoping it's not the Mesoamerican tribes wing; that'll get messy quick. Do you see anyone?"

"I see... my eyes are working. I can see the doors, and... there are men, in the Holy Land and Mesoamerican wings. And they are not in uniforms! They are not guards!"

"Okay, what are they wearing?"

"They are not in uniforms!"

"Oh, right, security system. A bit particular in what you perceive. Well, Vigilix, I'm going to need you to go to sleep for a while. Okay?"

"I... I... yes... rest..."

The alarm shut off as the doors unlocked with a click. "After you," Nick said.

[Gizmo]

Following the confusing combination of synesthesia-like sensations provided by his metamagi awareness of energies in both the mundane and mystical spectrums, Jack led his sister across rooftops until they perched across the street from the Museum of Natural History. "Well, something hinky's going on in there," the elder sibling noted, rubbing a hand over the stubble on his chin.

"Hoo, museum. That's bad, right?" Jill asked, furrowing her brow. "Old stuff's more magic-y?"

Jack frowned for a moment before turning to look at his sister. "No idea. Is it?"

"...you don't know?" she asked flatly.

"How would I know?" the fencer protested. "The sword-senses didn't come with a manual."

The teenage girl rubbed the bridge of her nose vigorously through her bandanna mask. "You-- don't call-- can't-- argh!" Making a vague strangling gesture, she sighed in resignation. "So we're going in with no idea what we're facing, huh?"

"See? You're totally getting the hang of this," Jack commended, vaulting over the edge of the rooftop to the shadows below. With a barely contained sound exasperation, Jill followed suit.

[trollthumper]

Nick turned back as he heard the sounds of boots touching down on grass. "If it isn't Jack of all Blades," he said, waving. "Pleasure to meet you. Name's Nick Cimitiere. Guessing you're here for the same reason I am -- namely, that there is some high-class weirdness going on in that building. From what we understand, the weirdness may be taking place in either the Holy Land or Mesoamerican artifacts wing, which in either case likely means strange and probably messy ritual. Up for dealing with some cultists who won't respect visiting hours?"

[Lone Star]

Warlock cracked his knuckles, and adjusted his tie. "Ready when you guys are. I've dealt with their kin before. It's probably just some Yellow Sign jerks trying to resurrect Yog-Softserv or something. No big deal for guys like us." Blake reached into his pocket and whipped out his lightning wand, which sparked. "Let's kick some ass."

[Ecalsneerg]

Equinox pulled her wand out from inside her coat and let her force field expand outwards subtly, the light from it intentionally muted to avoid her lighting up the whole building. "Hopefully we can talk them down before we have to come to blows," she said grimly.

"But if they're messing with things on the scale I felt... I fear we're not really going to be much chance to talk it over." Equinox smiled sadly. "But I suppose that's all in a day's work." Not how I wanted to end my birthday.

[trollthumper]

"Hopefully." Nick clicked open the bar on the door, opening it as softly as he could. "Who knows, maybe we'll get really, really lucky and they'll see reason. You never know. Miracles happen."

He turned to the main hall, and quickly realized there was another problem -- the lights were out. Not everywhere, but at least down the main hall.

So the museum's completely taken, he thought. Don't know why I expected otherwise. If they were trying to do it without the guards noticing, all they'd need to do is disable the systems locally... He peered down the darkened hallway, illuminated unevenly by the lights that were still on in the various wings. He realized the light from one of the wings was flickering unevenly, as if something inconstant -- like a bonfire -- was shining inside.

And he realized that there was something moving around in the shadows.

"We've got company," he whispered to the group behind him.

[Gizmo]

"Heh, looks like my reputation precedes me," Jack noted with a smirk, royal blue greatcoat sliding across the grass as he stood from his slight crouch and stepping forward.

"Not sure how pleased you should be about that," Jill drawled under her breath, rolling her eyes as she took up a position beside her brother. The elder sibling for once offered no immediate rejoinder, instead focusing his attention of the sorcerous trio. The makeup and what he hoped were prosthetics made if difficult to tell, but the black and white clad young man who's addressed him looked to be about the same age as the swashbuckler. To his energy sensitive nature, bright purple and faint green scents rose from him, tingling across the hair on the back of Jack's neck, reminding him of a more elegant, controlled version of Dead Head's unnatural synesthesia-reek.

The thought of the zombie hero jogged the fencer's memory as he glanced from Nick to faintly glowing woman with jet black hair. "You two were at that shindig 'Head threw in the cave last Hallowe'en, right? Good times." Where Nick called to mind the rotting rascal, Equinox recalled another supernatural being Jack had met in the woods the same day he'd encountered Dead Head the first time. Though the power that shone through her every pore in his vision was focused through her wand, waves of burning cold and wind tossed surf and stone rolled from her in tides of raw, electric-tasting elemental power.

The third of the small assembly, the youngest, was a different matter. The trinkets and bobbles he carried about him hummed with the faint, sleeping power of enchantment, but for all his bluster the youth himself seemed surprisingly normal. Whether or not that was true Jack didn't care to hazard; having run into a handful of power sources which simply didn't register to his metamagi awareness had taught him not to trust it too completely. "So are you guys like part a wizard club for wizards?" he inquired quietly as he followed them into the museum, letting Cimitiere take the lead, since he seemed to have a better idea of what was going on. "Hangin' out talkin' 'bout wizard stuff, organizin' wizard bake sales, workin' to get important wizards' birthdays made into holidays?"

The withering look his sister gave him looked nearly capable of casting destructive magics all on its own. "This is why we don't get invited anywhere, you know," she noted. Fortunately, their banter was interrupted by Nick's warning of company. With a faint crackle, a shimmering blue field of force appeared in front of Jill's out stretched hands while a flick of his lighter provided the spark for Jack to form a rapier of semi-solid, rippling flame.

[Ecalsneerg]

"I'm not a wizard, I'm a witch. There's a fair bit of difference," informed Equinox. Then Nick's warning came, and she raised her wand, casually pointing it at herself. Let's see what's going on here...

"Although, admittedly, we can both show off when we feel like it." Then she glowed, her aura of forces and wards burning into white light, then burning even brighter, filling the area around them with pure, unblemished magical illumination. "Like so."

[trollthumper]

The light from Equinox's spell quickly flooded the darkened hallway. It caused the darkened shapes to jump back in fright a second before it washed over them. Three men -- one white, one black, one Hispanic -- stood clad in only loincloths, feathers, and moth-eaten jaguar skins. Each one carried a wooden club studded through with squares of jagged obsidian. The white man had a figure that was strong but portly, whereas the black and Hispanic men were lean and athletic, bearing tattoos running up and down their arms that seemed familiar to Nick.

Well, that explains those missing gang members, he thought, and why the security guards weren't raising the alarm. Now what exactly is --

His thoughts were interrupted by a rustling from the ceiling. He looked up to see three similar men, wearing gowns of feathers with the heads of eagles, pressed against the ceiling.

No. Not pressed. Hovering. With a cry in Nahuatl, the eagle warriors descended, and their jaguar brethren joined with them.

"Yeah. This is gonna be messy."

[trollthumper]

The shadows of the warriors danced across the floor, and in a second, two moved to close the distance. One of the men in eagle garb removed a club ringed with obsidian shards from the folds of his robe and swept down on Jack, but the swordsman was too quick, stepping to the side as the blades chipped the polished floor of the museum. The jaguar warrior dashed forward, aiming for Nick's head, but Nick managed to duck quickly enough to avoid the killing blow.

"So, don't suppose you're gonna tell me who exactly you're spilling blood for?" he asked. He was met with a string of indecipherable and angry Nahuatl in response. "Ah, well. Worth a shot."

[Lone Star]

Warlock wasted no time in taking out his metal lightning wand and pointing it at their attackers. "So I'm guessing these guys are cultists, right? 'Cuz they sure look like cultists to me." He concentrated briefly, and sparks shot from the end of it. Warlock aimed the end of it at the jaguar warrior, and a stream of blinding lightning flowed from the wand.

[trollthumper]

The lightning tore town the hallway, ripping through two of the jaguar warriors and sending them stumbling backwards, convulsing all the while. As the bolt cut out, their compatriots dashed forward, both across the floor and through the empty air. One swung at Jack, trying to succeed where his comrade had failed, but missed by a country mile. Another drove his club at Equinox, who stood out by shining brightly in the hallway. And another brought his club down on Nick, only to have it repulsed by his Styx-soaked jacket.

"Could be," Nick said. "You get all types in this city. But it feels like there's something... more going on here. I don't know many Freedom residents who know Nahuatl."

[Gizmo]

Nimbly stepping out of the way of the warrior's bludgeoning attack, Jack of all Blades laughed aloud, a melodic, spirited sound. "Obviously another big fan of the wizard club," he noted wryly, his light footwork setting him apart from the spellslingers as he ducked down on one side of a jaguar warrior and came up abruptly on the other with a single, well placed thrust of his blazing rapier that burned a smoking hole in the old pelt even as its mystically focused energy struck the wearer. "Hey, hermanita," he called over his shoulder as he effortlessly kept another of the earthbound cultists busy, bobbing and weaving through clumsy swings, "you're got a classmate who speaks Not-At-All, right?"

Without warning the fencer dropped back from the fore of the melee and his sister sped forward, stepping into the sudden opening and raking a maliciously glowing hand across the chests of both cat-themed opponents in a single swift sweep. A sickly green with spots of darker floatsam moving about it, the light from her fingertips seeped into her targets' chests, causing them to stumble back, heaving as they struggled to keep the contents of their stomachs down. "Remind me to kick you in the shin, later," she drawled nonchalantly to her sibling as she snapped smoothly up into a ready stance next to him, beckoning the third jaguar warrior forward with a dismissive smirk.

[trollthumper]

"Nahuatl," Nick said, seemingly undeterred by Jack's hideous pun, "language of the Aztecs. I'm not fluent in it, but I know the general structure. Could mean these guys are being possessed by ancient Aztec warriors... or they could be really devoted to their work." A smirk crept across Nick's pallid face. "I know something that might help..."

He opened his mouth, but no words came out. Instead, there was the sound of a rusted gate slowly opening, its bars rattling like strung-together bones rather than grating steel. As the dreadful noise subsided, it was replaced by the sound of rustling paper and a long, drawn-out breath. Many of the warriors stood their ground, but two of the men in eagle garb looked on the noise with fright. One broke the night with a piercing screech, dropped his club to the ground, and flew off down the hallway.

"...huh. Not big fans of Mictlan. Could go either way, then, but I'm leaning possessed."

[Ecalsneerg]

Equinox let out a cry of pain as the seemingly enchanted weapon shattered through her magical barriers, and dealt her a solid blow in the chest. Reflexively, she spread her arms wide, white spectral wings mimicking her movement as they appeared on her back, carrying her up off the ground towards the roof.

"Well, this isn't going to plan," she remarked, aiming at an eagle warrior with her wand. She let loose a powerful blast of super-frozen air, the icy torrent... missing completely as her aim for hurled off, her arm forced upwards by the recoil of the powerful attack. "Hmmm... that's always a problem at this time of year."

[trollthumper]

The man in eagle garb swooped down, swinging wildly at Nick, desperate to shut off the source of the dreadful sound. "Frost magic?" he said to Equinox as he side-stepped the crazed assault. "Yeah, I have trouble working that stuff this time of year, too. Must be all the new life --" Something clicked in Nick's brain, and his expression turned grim. "Oh," he said. "Oh, yeah, this isn't going to be pretty."

[Lone Star]

Warlock didn't catch up quite yet. He ran, his Converse sneakers squeaking noisily against the tile floors of the museum as he drew a handful of dust from his mojo bag. His hand outstretched as he hurled the sleeping powder at the eagle warrior who attacked Nick. "Go to sleep, crazy-face. What are you guys talking about? I've personally never used cold magic myself."