london ♔ when the gusts came around to blow me down

[wynn]

  iron sky - paolo nutini

WHO || Everyone and their dog.
WHAT || In the aftermath of the attack, the Knights attempt to recover
WHERE || Knights HQ, etc.
WHEN || Dec. 1st-8th, 2015
HOW || Actionspam

As darkness falls all around the castle, the remaining Knights straggle out of their broken castle to survey the damage and count the dead – of which there are three: Rose Hathaway, Kali, and Killian Jones.

What began like any other day for most quickly descended into a nightmare, after Wynn and most of the Section Heads were lured out to downtown London to face a threat of dual dragons, who turned out to be only clockwork creations of deposed Andres dictator Dimitris Sarandis, robotic menaces that were nothing but a distraction from the real threat. Having rallied support from some of the Knights' other enemies, Dimitris sent an army of chipped creatures, Shadowkind, robots, and a giant tank to destroy the Knighthood's headquarters, dropping part of the roof down onto the training room and med center in the initial explosive blast. Sarandis' alliance with a mysterious hacker named One (who turned out to have been the man who invented technomagic in the first place along with Zero) not only downed the Knights' communications, but also their defensive and surveillance systems (with some help from a mentally dominated Eleven). Whatever preparations Zero had made for an attack by One were undermined by the sudden but inevitable betrayal of the humanized robot GlaDOS, who introduced a learning virus into the system before taking off, likely having made some kind of deal with One to restore her robotic form.

The Knights rallied under the remaining sect leaders – Lis'sa and Koraith – to make a plan to fight back and try to take down Dimitris, who sent a taunting message out across the Drakenet, announcing his intentions to leave the castle as a smoking crater littered with corpses. Fearing that the attack might also be meant to target Myri and Vi's children, a group moved them to the Round Table Room, perhaps the most secure location in the building. The attack was a smokescreen of sorts, something Vi realized, taking Elena, Des, and Faith O'Keefe with her to the library in hopes of saving the elven mage, Lazarus, whose blood the villains required to unleash the nightmare god Malaak'a upon the world. The library, however, was already in shambles, thanks to a fire-slinging red half-dragon who had confronted some Knights there (and led Kate Beckett to discover something strange about herself...). Des remained in the hallway to confront a demon, in the same place where Skye had nearly died to an ifrit pyrokineticist named Serafina, one of Dimitris' chipped experiments. Sawyer Kelly and Alex Karamazov butted heads when it came down to sparing the enslaved ifrit, but in the end, Alex made the decision by putting a bullet in her head when Mars wouldn't act – much to Sawyer's horror. Things went to hell pretty quickly when the villainous Mind Master drove into the library on a motorcycle and proceeded to almost slaughter Vi, Elena, Faith, and Gar, making vicious comments to the former about going to see her deceased husband again. When Elena grabbed the Mind Master, she abruptly vanished, and Elena's whereabouts remain unknown. The Mind Master proceeded to make her way into Lazarus' secret chambers beneath the library, slitting his throat and collecting the magic that coursed through his veins in lieu of blood, the lasting effect of his having survived the ritual that sealed Malaak'a away in the first place.

Meanwhile, downtown, while Carol Danvers and Clark Kent played superhero around the city, Sam and Buffy ran into the archangels Raphael and Zerachiel, who were assisting the wounded of London, and Buffy cut a deal with Raphael after he cautioned her that some sort of big demon was also involved in the attack. In exchange for allowing Hell's forces further freedom of movement (the necessary cost to maintain the balance of the universe), Raphael transported Buffy right into the middle of the fray. The demon already gone, the angel advised her to go and protect the children – which turned out to be necessary indeed, as Sarandis had sent chipped, invisible raptors after the babies. Will Graham nearly died in the attack, but no children – or dogs – fell prey to the beasts.

Outside, a number of Knights armed to the teeth with grenades, rocket launchers, and flame throwers took on a towering seventy-foot tall Colossus that was ripping the castle apart. However, when Steve Rogers cut its head off with an expertly thrown shield toss, the monstrosity fell into the front of the castle with all of its three hundred tons, (and on fire, courtesy of Baal) and many barely escaped with their lives. Wolverine was the only person trapped in the ensuing rubble, but Nathan Young and Amy Pond dug him free as his body healed up the massive wounds suffered.

A strike team was sent out to take on Dimitris in his tank, and Spike and Dean drove Archer's car straight into the oversized military vehicle as a distraction, while Cora Hale, Rose, and Kali disabled the tank and its weapons and broke their way inside. What they found, however, was merely a projection of Dimitris taunting them, as Cora's werewolf senses alerted her immediately to the fact that no one was actually inside but them. Too late, the girls tried to escape – as the tank exploded in a volley of shrapnel and gout of flame, that also caught Christos La Krail and Grant Ward off guard, who had just arrived at the gate so that Ward might meet with Wynn for his official Knighthood interview. As everyone scrabbled to save the injured, a bag of grenades that Kali had dropped caused a secondary explosion, that took Rose and Kali's lives. Dean and Spike proceeded to look insane when the archangel Michael showed up to collect the souls of the dead, and they were the only two who could see him, but Cap stood his ground anyway with them. Dean angrily refused to give up on Rose's life, despite the fact that the death of her bondmate Lissa less than twenty four hours prior had left her connection to life weakened already. Michael cautioned him against doing 'something stupid', as Dean stalked off with her body.

Meanwhile, after realizing Zero's role in all this and helping return him to his senses so that he and Skye could restore communications and defenses, Lila Zacharov-Gray took off with Alex to the upper floor to find Amara. They discovered the homo magi using her powerful magic to keep the ceiling from collapsing into the entire castle, and while she entreated them to evacuate, Lila refused to leave her, prompting Amara to use her most powerful spell to repair the structural damage that was threatening to capsize the castle, at the cost of alerting her father to her exact location.

Just when it seemed like all might be well, Emma Swan, cursed by Poseidon to turn into a flesh-eating kelpie if she wasn't in water by sundown, came across the body of Lazarus and found her monstrous hunger awakened. Dissatisfied with the bloodless corpse, she decided to make a meal of Killian Jones, magically teleporting him into the pond behind the Knighthood, where in spite of Faye and Alex's best efforts, Killian was drowned. Luckily, however, they prevented Emma from eating her true love.

The other Knights fought bravely against basilisks, clockwork mages, and giant scorpions, while trying to assist the wounded, rescue the trapped, and do everything they could to protect the Knights' assets from falling into Dimitris' hands. With the smoke cleared, their home – thanks to Amara – remains standing, but the damage to it is substantial and won't be repaired overnight, even with magic at their disposal. More lasting will be the emotional scars of watching the only home some of them even remember ever having broken around them, their illusion of safety shattered, and their peace violated – not to mention the looming possibility of the Nightmare God being freed.

[ You are now free to make top posts for your characters in the wake of the attack. These top posts may include multiple sections (with different instructions for whether you want them to be open to multiple threads for that scene or closed to a single thread with multiple participants), that deal with anything directly after the events of the event post, and in the week following. I recommend using letters or numbers to indicate each section, so that those responding can put what they are doing in the subject line, to help others quickly know where to go to jump into any single threads.

There will be a thread about Wynn's return and a subsequent Drakenet post addressing IC-ly where people will live. Those with rooms in the Dragon's Tongue, Dragon's Hide, Dragon's Hoard, and Dragon's Fire wing will find their rooms almost entirely undamaged and still livable, but there is a percentage chance that anyone in the Dragon's Light or squire rooms will have their room destroyed. Please ask me for each of your characters this applies to and I will let you know the extent of the damage. Your characters are free to try searching the rubble for their personal effects – just include it in their top post with a search check please, and I'll let you know how much of their stuff is recoverable. Rebuilding efforts will commence within the week, so if your character has any way of contributing to putting the castle back together, that's also top post fodder. There is limited space in the Knights' downtown London office for some Knights to stay, while others may have their own apartments, etc. Other options may open up eventually. If your character is no longer living in the castle, please use your top post to establish this! I will put up top posts for each potential resurrection attempt, as rezzes take multiple days IC-ly to even be attempted.

Destroyed/heavily damaged sections of the castle: front hall/lobby (the Colossus is still there)/stairs, but there are currently ladders to access the second floor; the Dragon's Light wing/office/small library/bathrooms; the chapel; the med center; the training room; the armory; the bowling alley; the piano room; billiards room; parlor; the Dragon's claws bedrooms; parts of the dining hall; the library is intact but heavily damaged, many of the books destroyed by fire. After the first couple days, additional doors have been added to the castle at the far west end of the horizontal squire bedrooms hall, and beside the Dragon's hoard wing to enter the building, and a door has been installed at the southwest corner of the dining hall to allow people to cut through it to circumvent the Colossus still taking up the lobby and blocking access to the main hall. ]

Comments

Deryn || OTA

[theshadowspeaks]

[A. Multi thread: First night]
[ Deryn stood watching the scene with Wynn and the other's unfold, but stayed silent. He pushed his jacket against his wound to try and stop the bleeding and not bring any attention to himself. He was just sad watching it all. He was still adjusting to being around so many people and feeling welcomed and wanted in his new home this was the most violence and death he had ever seen…at least that he could remember. With his feathers lost to the battle and he was idly picking bits of broken butterfly clips out of his hair as he watched everything happen, chewing on the ends of a bit of his long bangs. With the chaos all around he didn't know what to do, so he stayed still for a long while.]

[B. Multi thread: The next day]
[ By the time Deryn got to his room he could do little more than frown. It was half destroyed, he took a risk that night dosing in a corner that wasn't that bad off. He didn't want to impose on anyone. But, come the next morning he had the door open and was looking for anything he could salvage from the destroyed half of the room. (Search 10) Tossing what he could save into the hall just outside of his door. Pretty much everything he owns is black so it's a dark pile outside of his door. He wasn't sure where he would sleep after tonight but for now that was fine.]

[C. Multi thread: The rest of the week.]

[ Deryn moved along the other nights like a ghost along the halls, there to offer help if anyone asked him. For the first time since he arrived his black hair was laid flat and unstyled except for the clips holding his bangs back. His clothes a bit dusty from the construction and just not changing since day one. He moved quietly through the halls but true to his nature he mostly stuck to any shadows he could find.]

[delicere]

[You might be able to hide your injuries from those around you Deryn but you cannot hide them from Ava. She's been feeling his silent suffering through the spell she'd cast upon him and it's not long before everyone emerges from the Castle that he'd feel her hand wrap around his arm. The warmth of healing magic flowing through him. (Cure Light Wounds: 14HP).]

You should have come to me. [Voice gentle.]

[theshadowspeaks]

[ He didn't move at first when he was touched, his green eyes still taking in the sight of those gathering around Wynn and the bodies, it was when she spoke that he looked to her and gave her a soft but sad look. Now back to full HP he moved the jacket away from the rips that remained in his shirt from where creature had bit him and the brass knuckles were still on his hand. He seemed a little shocked by just how fast she healed that mean bite/acid burn he had. ]

Thank you, but there are others who need it much more. I'm glad to see your not hurt. [ He spoke completely sincere.]

[delicere]

And they shall receive all the help that they require but I could not rest easy until I could feel that you were well. [Which she does mean literally, feel that is because his injuries were a constant pulse inside of her that had her stomach in knots until now.]

I am perfectly fine, I assure you. [Well, aside from the odd cut and bruise that came from falling debris.]

We clerics were very well protected by a group of brave Knights. [And a tree! Which at any other moment Avaleen would have been excitedly telling him about but for now. It doesn't seem like the time or the place.]

[theshadowspeaks]

Will you be able to rest well? [ He asked honestly, unsure himself if he will even be able to rest after all of this.] Look at whats happened around us.

[ he was bothered by all of it and couldn't even try to hide it. It was written on his face. He finally offers her a half smile turning to face her, to try and take his mind off the horrors around.]

I am glad you are alright and thankful for the nights that protected you and the other clerics. I was worried for you and the others.

[delicere]

[Her smile is tinged with sadness, her golden waves shifting as her head cants to one side.]

If I do not rest - [Voice gentle.] - then I can be of no assistance to those who are in need of my help. [As if it could really be that simple.

For Ava at least, it was. She had a reason to try and block out all that has occurred. It's all that will allow her to ease the pain of others in the coming days.]

If we allow ourselves to fall down now, then this man who has brought such sorrow to our doorstep shall be allowed to claim victory. I am certain, that is not what any one of us wish to see happen.

[Trying to focus on the positive, she offers a decisive nod.]

I must find some way to thank them personally. We were very lucky indeed. There was a large, tree person and a raccoon and a very handsome young man whom our Astrid seemed to be... quite taken with. [That's Ava's polite way of saying that they were three seconds away of reenacting a Marvin Gaye song.]

[theshadowspeaks]

[ How is this woman even real?

He looks at her a long silent moment taking in everything she said. She was right, to give up and fall was to let the bastard that hurt their home win and that he just couldn't live with. ]

Groot. His name is Groot. He was squired in when I was, isn't he amazing? [ Deryn spoke this is as pleased as he has sounded since she found him minutes before. He think's Groot is just awesome as hell okay.] I don't think I know Astrid but maybe the handsome man and her can find some happiness in this dark time.

[ Irony in his tone, darkness is where he felt most comfortable, and yet this whole situation felt wrong.]

[delicere]

[Cartoon birds. I'm just saying.]

I am certain that if I can find nothing else to be grateful for, I may at least have the fact that I may have taken this Groot as a friend. [Of course... by friend she means that he carried her fireman rescue style across the room and then patted her on the head but for Ava, that's friendship.]

I believe... that is entirely possible. [Eyes wide as she feigns innocence, her lips pressing together. Translation: Such happiness may be very short-lived but she would never presume to pass judgement.]

[theshadowspeaks]

[ And bunnies, don't forget the bunnies.

He nodded, focusing on her positive vibes, because the Fetchling could use her kind of positive outlook.]

He does seem very kind. I'm sure he is your friend now, how could he not be. You're the kindest person around, Ava.

[ He nodded some, and finally slipped his jacket back on the way his sleeve was ripped his arm tattoo was visible for a second or so.] Good, good, I'm happy for them, and I heard the mother's and their children are safe, so that is a bright spot as well. [ Though if he had seen what she had seen, he'd not buy a for a second that was happiness. That's lust. That passes.]

B

[byyourleave]

[in his hunt for checking on people, Baal found Deryn in what was left of his room. Baal's room was totally gone, so he didn't both to really search it. Not that he had a lot to call his own to look for anyway.]

I came to check on you, my friend. See how you were fairing.

[theshadowspeaks]

[ Deryn didn't own a lot but mostly everything Deryn owned had come from the woman he lived with before, he treasures everything he owns. Which was a minor problem when some of it was surely destoryed.

Hearing Baal's voice he looked back and offered a sad smile. Motioning him in.] Be careful on that side, it's likely not safe. I am alright, Ava healed me right after everything happened. What about you?

[ His bluff is only 8, he was physically okay but had never been around this much destruction that he could remember.]

[byyourleave]

I am doing well, all things considered. Much better than most.

[he came in carefully, trying to avoid anything dangerous]

Mostly I am trying to make myself useful.

[theshadowspeaks]

Yeah, if the body builder called Sideburns hadn't fallen through the roof, me and the team I was with would probably be dead. We were where the giant fell.

[ He spoke as he found a pair of his tripps and tried to tug them out of the wreckage, for once he was glad he is a slob.]

I am glad to see you are okay. [ He looked over to the other after tugging the pants free of the wreckage, tearing one of the strap's off them in the process.] I should be out trying to be helpful, but I want to salvage what I can.

[byyourleave]

[no, Baal is going to snort at that description of Wolverine. However, he isn't going to correct him because that is just too funny (bluff 26) and he will nod]

Well, I can tell you that it was a team effort that brought the giant down. But if for nothing else, I am glad that it did help save you and your team.

[he looked around the room a moment (search 9).]

Anything in particular you are trying to find?

[theshadowspeaks]

[ Deryn looked back at the snort but didn't think much of it, just nodding at the explanation after.]

I'm glad for it to. [ Mostly for Ava than himself, he can't imagine what she would have felt had he died like that with her spell on him.] Your team is very strong. You must be very strong as well. [ He looks over to Baal then and offers a light smile.]

Everything honestly. It's something for me to do and not be in anyone's way. That and I think my feathers are under there. [ He motioned to the destroyed half of his room.] And my music player.

[byyourleave]

I didn't do much of it. Captain Rogers and Sideburns did most of the work, along with those on the ground.

[he had a plan to help, but of course Steve's shield cut the fight short for him]

Perhaps we could look together? One lift the heavier slab, the other get under it and search for them?

[theshadowspeaks]

He was the one who got you the ladder, yes? [ He doesn't know everyones names but he does try.

He looked to the slab then shook his head.]

There are others who have lost more... it's likely best to save your energy to help them, my friend. I'm sure if I call Hilde she would send me new feathers. [ Theres a note of guilt in his tone when he says the womans name. He doesn't want them knowing what happened.]

When everything is better... would you mind teaching me to use a sword or something stronger?

b)

[buttholy]

[at some point, dante walks by while deryn tries to save his room. he remembers him as one of the people who helped fight the basilisk in the lobby, and even if he didn't ... he would see if he needed help anyway. because that's just the kind of person he is, ok.]

You need a hand with that?

[theshadowspeaks]

[ Deryn was kneeing by a bit of the heavier destruction to his room trying to see if he could fish anything else out from under the wreckage. Hearing the voice he looks back, he offered a weak smile to Dante. he had his sleeves rolled up, so his ink is visable, a very bold tattoo on one arm just spelling Dynasty.]

I don't think even together we could lift it. I am just trying to save what I can.

[buttholy]

[he asses the damage with a frown.] Huh ... yeah, guess you're right. I feel bad, that it hit the squire wing so hard. So many of you guys are brand new, and now you don't have anyplace to stay.

[theshadowspeaks]

I appreciate the offer though.

[ He pushed himself to his feet and then nodded.]

Yeah, it does suck, Im not even sure where I will stay tonight if anywhere. I'm not worried about that much though. Others are a lot worse off.

[ He offered a pale hand over.] I'm Deryn, I never got around to introducing myself.

[buttholy]

I know a lot of the squires have been doubling up in the untouched rooms. If you can't find anyplace else to stay, you can crash in my room in the Hide wing ... you just gotta be careful, because I collect weapons.

[he takes his hand for shaking.] Dante. It's fine, especially considering the circumstances.

[theshadowspeaks]

Collecting weapons sounds pretty cool. Though, I'll try to find somewhere else first. Thank you for the offer... maybe one day I can see your collection?

[ he asked, fascinated by the idea. Shaking firm but not to much and then taking his hand back.] I'm glad though, all of us together at least did some good even if it was bad tidings.

[buttholy]

Sure, any time. [but then he nods, more solemn.] We did what we could ... I just wish it could've been more, somehow.

[theshadowspeaks]

[ He nodded but let that one go for now, He'd show up sometime soon to see.]

I agree. [ He looked over at the crushed bits of his room.] This is our home. And it's been violated, it shouldn't have happened and I want everyone to be okay again.