(Untitled)
In the beginning, it was a nice day.
This is a word which here means 'pleasing', 'agreeable', or 'delightful', so it may come as a surprise to you, dear reader, to hear the day described as such, given the situation in Milliways these past two weeks. But then, 'nice' is such a relative term, don't you agree? And certainly it would be difficult for ( Read more... )
This is a word which here means 'pleasing', 'agreeable', or 'delightful', so it may come as a surprise to you, dear reader, to hear the day described as such, given the situation in Milliways these past two weeks. But then, 'nice' is such a relative term, don't you agree? And certainly it would be difficult for ( Read more... )
The bunnies out in the forest are taking advantage of the lapse - however slight - in the icy weather, and have begun to congregate in a certain clearing. Make hay while the sun shines, and all that.
Energised by the recent influx of negative serendipity, the bunnies are snuffling and burrowing industriously, nudging and hauling into place their tribute for the Thing. Sheets from the forge, that are shiny and hard like the outside of the Thing. Lengths of long, tough grass stolen from inside the bar, that are curly like the red grass coming from the top of the Thing. Coins and buttons and one unfortunate keychain that glows under the light, like the two glowing eyes on the Thing.
Slowly, as the morning wears on, the tribute begins to take shape, mounting in an odd, misshapen structure around the Thing, to house it from the cold and to show off its splendour. The bunnies aren't much in the way of architects, but they are painstaking. Nice, even; a word which, dear reader, can also mean ' ( ... )
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Enzo does not trust it. The mood may have eased up, but his danger-sense code has not. And one thing looks worse, and that is the crack in the Observation Window.
So he has decided to move the suspicious objects to somewhere which seems marginally safer and is currently unoccupied: the forge. This takes a little while, of course, as to move them, he must move their containment fields, a moderately delicate process. He's got the pike out there already, though, and is now gently shifting the Elemental Stars across the grounds.
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An explosion is heard from the woods (again).
All the lights and other electronics on a straight line from the device to a certain point in the main bar go out.
That certain point is a booth, with a generator of distinctly spritely design sitting on the table.
It goes even more transparent than it already was, power arcs over its surface, and all its blinkenlights go dead.
And in the bar, and in the forge, and out on the grounds, all Enzo's containment fields disappear, the transmitters at their vertices dropping to the ground.
Enzo himself isn't in the EMP's direct path, but he still reels. He drops the field controller, and his hand strikes the Stars' hover-tray as he stumbles. They tip off and go rolling down the hill. By the time he can see straight again, they're out of sight.
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Jack had literally stepping into the bar for long enough to gawp at the changes when he heard the noise.
The thing about Torchwood is that you tend to run towards sounds of doom and destruction.
Occupational hazard.
So saying, out he goes to stare around for signs of trouble.
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The one thing he does know is that he's got a lot of adjusting to do, what with the changes that have been made to him, and all.
He'd figured that Milliways would be a good place to take a bit of time to get it all sorted, but that was before he'd walked in to find everything going to bloody hell. Nick dashes out the lake door, following another chap who looks like he's headed somewhere in a hurry, and calls out to him,
"What the devil is going on here, any clue--?"
His foot strikes against a glowing gemlike thing of some sort. Startled, Nick automatically bends down and scoops it up.
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Jack is headed for the boy collapsing on the floor because that's never good - when something tweaks his attention.
Frowning, he turns back around to the young man who'd spoken a moment ago.
"Did you just... wait..."
There's something burning under the surface of his skin, something that is always there, but is- humming, almost, the way is rarely does.
Only when he first wakes, in fact, but... he's not dead, and hasn't been for a good while.
He takes a shuddering breath, and when he exhales his breath is tinged with gold.
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His hands lock tightly on the Star, clenching it in a fierce grip as power rockets through him. Dazed, Nick thinks he can feel his blood boiling, and from everywhere around him there's a horrific crackling and the acrid, burning ozone stench of Free Magic.
Nick cries out in agony, and the sky answers with the shattering sound of thunder and a shaft of lightning that spears down to strike in fury by the lake. Where it hits, the land tears apart and two large shining silver hemispheres appear, 25 feet apart, humming with an unthinkable power.
Not that Nick's aware of any of it, not any more. Knocked flat by the blast, he's lying face down and unconscious.
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And landing with an ugly and final-sounding crack.
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Felix hadn't particularly intended to leave, but these things happen. Especially now, for reasons that are not very clear. And while he was out, there was the huge Vortex to deal with. But now he's back, and...
... and just in time for the Jupiter Star to flare. He carried that one around for months, he knows what it feels like, and now it's not contained and someone is doing something with it. If anyone got hurt...
Felix heads straight for the back door at a dead run, occasionally swerving a little bit if he doesn't think he's got enough momentum to jump over a table in the way or something. As he goes he draws his sword, and it seems to gleam more than the light in the bar should allow.
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"I think it's starting," he intones, remarkably calmly.
He gets up and head towards the back to get a closer look. Borgel's not the sort who runs away from obvious doom.
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There's a story they tell about the end of the world - a cautionary tale for alarmists. It's about a chicken, because that's how these stories go, and about a lot of other fable-friendly animals, and about a sky that isn't falling down.
No false alarms this time.
The sky opens, with a sound like the foundations of the world being torn apart, and weeks' worth of gathering storms erupt all at once, in thunder and lightning and roiling clouds -
CRACK
- and flesh, and bone, and blood.
There are stories they tell about the end of the world that are full of fire and brimstone and wrath; the blood of the innocent, and the blood spilled in the hope that that day will never come. It's a running theme, in these types of stories. Death. And sacrifice.
CRRRRRRRRRACK
The Darkgate is open. The storm is gone. The sky is still a churning, early-evening dark, but the only sound left is the wind, and the faint hummmm of power ( ... )
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The second one, though, that gets Crowley's attention. It sounded like the whole place was about to come down around their ears.
Emerging at a near-run from the bar, Crowley skids to a sudden halt, taking in the scene.
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