It's a show, so don't cry your eyes away~ [OPEN]

[tidesnpc]

Characters: The crew of the Winding Way
Content: A surprise attack by disguised puppets sets the ship into turmoil!
Time: Mid to late afternoon
Setting: Throughout the Winding Way
Warnings: Violence, please let us know if the severity goes above PG-13
Notes: The groups and their locations are here, go ahead and post with your group name in the

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[flailingbento]

Watanuki, safely out of the range of all terrifying noises down in the galley, had for the better part of an hour remained unaware of the carnage going on higher up. Or he had until Giselle had suddenly turned, smiling, and tried to put a carving knife through his eye. He had snatched the nearest weapon - his largest frying pan, sitting on the stove, still with four eggs cooking in it - and in a state of shrieking panic taken her head off through the power of wild flailing alone.

He grabbed a knife to go with his pan and was now pelting through the corridors throwing terrified glances over his shoulder, finally able to hear the yells and gunshots from above. Did he stay below and wait for the danger to pass? No, his friends were up here! Did he try to fight the things or attempt a rescue?

He opted for turning a corner and nearly tripping over the captain instead. Well, all right, that was something anyway.

"CAPTAIN!" he shrieked, waving the enormous pan to emphasize his terror. "Something bad's happening! I just decapitated Giselle and everyone's screaming! What's going on?!"

[stampeded]

Vash swiftly moved over to Lucas and Ryuzaki, offering them both a hand up, and thanks to being so close he barely managed to duck under the pan Watanuki was waving around. As it was, the tips of his spikes got subjected to a little eggy residue.

"I don't know what's going on! Those gunshots are the deck above us, I heard screams, but I don't know where-"

That was about the time that he realized just what Watanuki was shouting about, and turned to face him, with an absolutely horrified expression.

"... Wait, you did WHAT to Giselle?!"

[omegalove]

Lucas' expression was beyond horrified, and maybe a little angry. He completely forgot about his dream and the fact that he'd knocked the captain over to ask the same question as Vash at the exact same time. "You did WHAT to Giselle?!"

Were he a less composed person, Lucas probably would have hit Watanuki with his own pan himself. Now, though, he could only think of his beautiful cake-baking princess, scrambling along the floor, decapitated, and trying to find her head.

[sugarforteatime]

Unlike Vash and Lucas, his own thoughts were more along the lines of how Watanuki had managed to decapitate someone, likely with a frying pan, and why the frying pan had no blood on it.

He reached out to grab Watanuki's wrist, pinching with two fingers. "If that is the murder weapon it does not appear to be bloody."

There was still the matter of gunshots as well. Those hadn't come from a rogue skillet.

[flailingbento]

Watanuki gaped in mute horror. They thought he was the perpetrator?! "No!" he snapped, flailing with one arm, as the other was in L's grip. "It wasn't Giselle! It was some creepy thing that looked like Giselle! She attacked me with a kitchen knife! Giselle doesn't attack people with kitchen knives!" The vision in his right eye was flickering in his distress, but he ignored it in the face of the larger problem.

[stampeded]

With a confused frown, Vash simply put a hand under Lucas' and Ryuzaki's arms, hauling them back up to their feet. With one of them being small and the other thin, he had more than enough strength for that. If it was true that Watanuki had been attacked by a fake, then...

Now, his frown had turned far more serious. "We have to keep moving! There could be more of those Giselle-things running around." There must be, those earlier gunshots couldn't have been coincidence. "We'll be sitting ducks if we stay here."

[omegalove]

Briefly, Lucas recalled the first time he'd heard about Watanuki. Though he'd seen the cook several times since then, he just could not help thinking that he was a scary person. Watanuki got angry a lot, right?

Once he was back on his feet, he became serious. Various members of the crew attacked him earlier, and Lucas had not wanted to believe it. But the ship must have been under attack. There was no way Giselle, or the other people on the Way, would hurt each other. But how else would these doppelgangers get on-board?

"What'll we do? We don't even know what they are!" Candy Mountain was still fresh in Lucas' mind. He'd had enough of magical creatures. Ah, magical? Yes, he sensed magic... At least, he thought he did.

[sugarforteatime]

He frowned and let go of Watanuki. His earlier suspicions confirmed. Watanuki was not the murdering type, regardless. He stretched and looked into the engine room. There wasn't anyone there. Where had those gunshots come from?

"The engine room seems to be secure." He thought for a moment. That didn't make any sense. If he were going to take over a ship with robot-puppets that looked exactly like a number of the crew, he would certainly make a bid for the engine room early on. "Perhaps they are not here to take over the ship. We will head towards the bridge and see if there are any further disturbances."

After that, he did so. No reason to stay here. There were no strange mechanical doppelgangers here. "Aim for the head."

[flailingbento]

Watanuki nodded, hefted his frying pan and carving knife, and screwed his courage to the sticking place with a shaky breath. The air had a very faint odor of the supernatural - it stood to reason that the things had magic in them - but it was easily bearable at this distance, barely even there.

"Does-- does anyone else have a weapon?" Watanuki asked, with a sinking feeling that he would end up directly involved in defending somebody.

[stampeded]

Vash watched for a moment as Ryuzaki started walking, then turned to Watanuki with a bright smile.

"I've got one!" he said, pulling his .45 revolver out of its holster. "Do you think it'll do any good against those things? It's not a frying pan..."

He held the gun pointed up towards the ceiling, considering it for a moment. Vash didn't wait for a reply, then saying in the same overly friendly tone, "Let's try it out."

He leveled the gun at the captain's back and fired, the shot echoing loudly in the corridor. His aim was off, thanks to the hard kick of the gun, but the bullet still managed to find a new home in Ryuzaki's right shoulder.

[omegalove]

Everything happened so fast.

One minute, they were standing there. The next, the captain had been shot. Lucas could only watch in horror. Just who in the hell could you trust here?

Vash had shot Ryuzaki. Vash must have been one of those puppet things. Something inside Lucas began raging. His powers weren't strong, but they were apparently instinctive. It was not very smart to act so irrationally, but the time he needed to prepare wasn't available.

Aim for the head.

His eyes began to glow, body drawing in psychic energy. In a quick movement, Lucas brought up his hand and sent a small blast of flames towards Vash. "PK FIRE!"

[sugarforteatime]

He wasn't entirely sure what had happened. He turned around just enough to see Vash holding a gun towards him and the hot pain flared through his shoulder. Vash...? But he...?

He fell to his knees and he felt the shock up his legs. He couldn't think of anything. He couldn't think of anything. Vash had...

He collapsed and reached up to touch his shoulder. His white shirt had a rapidly expanding pool of blood in it and his fingers were covered in red when he pulled them away. He just couldn't think his vision was white and in that brief moment he wondered if he was dying. It seemed -- unfitting. He wasn't supposed to die like this.

[flailingbento]

The confusion that filled Watanuki was utterly crippling. For a moment, he couldn't even force himself to react - he just stared with his weaponry hanging down by his sides and his mouth open in horror, the flickering vision in his right eye the only sign that something momentuous had just happened. That had been Vash! It had looked just like him, sounded just like him, hadn't stunk of magic or spirits or anything. Watanuki was supposed to be able to see these things. He was supposed to see what was going to attack that other people couldn't. What did it mean that he hadn't?

The burst of Lucas's flames brought him to his senses. He dropped to his knees beside the captain, frying pan raised defensively. "Captain!" he said, his eyes flickering briefly to L before returning to the danger before him. "Stay awake! Please! Please stay awake!" If L dropped unconscious there would be panic, and if he died-- no, Watanuki wasn't going to think about that. He hoped fervently that Lucas's flames worked.

[stampeded]

The Vash puppet hardly moved as the flames hit, catching in his hair and melting the paint on his face. It was an eerie sight, to see the paint sliding down the intricately carved features, which were now twisted into a smile. It was Vash's smile, what would have normally been friendly now looking far more out of place.

The puppet turned, lowering the gun to his side, only to reach out and grab the front of Lucas' shirt. It didn't seem at all bothered by the fact that its hair was now on fire and starting to smoke.

"WHERE? Do you all scurry around like frightened mice?!"

[omegalove]

OH GOSH OH GOSH OH GOSH.

Lucas froze when the Vash puppet grabbed him. What did he do now? He should have known that his powers weren't strong enough to take down a magical puppet. And now he'd just made it angry. Tears pricked at his eyes as he grabbed at the puppet's hand, attempting to claw him off.

[ooc: sorry to like... disappear at a crucial moment, guys. 'A'; I'm back now fhdjgh]

[sugarforteatime]

His vision was going fuzzy now, and the first moments of shock were wearing off enough to actually make him aware of exactly how much he hurt right now. He couldn't believe Vash had shot him. His mind just didn't quite seem to have processed yet that the wooden puppet who had shot him wasn't actually Vash. The image of Vash staring at him, wicked look in his eyes, tufts of smoke rising off of the gun barrel seemed to be permanently burned into his eyes.

"... Help." He could keep his eyes open, at least, he groaned and looked up at Watanuki. "Help ... Vash...."

His mind just wasn't working, his brain felt hazy and sluggish and slow, but he knew something was wrong with Vash. He needed help.