knightsoflegend | london ♔ when the gusts came around to blow me down

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. ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Party in the ballroom... jk worst party ever. Faye notices that Alex is hanging around a lot and eventually puts it together that he knows the blonde. Kali. Faye only knows about her through Skyes brief summation, but that doesn't really matter to Faye. Apparently Alex cared about Kali too. She waits until he moves away, probably to curl up in a corner to try to sleep because she just has that sort of luck lately.]

Hey... Can we talk?

[he glances up at her from the corner where he sat down to take a nap ... and slides to the side a little as if to make space for her.]

Yeah, sure.

[She moves quietly, taking the spot that he's made for her, pulling her legs up to tuck her knees up to her chest.]

You didn't have to come after me. I was just trying to make sure Lila knew where I was so she didn't...

[She sighs because she's just bad at this shit.]

Thank you.

I was already split up from Lila. With everything that was going on, I got a one-word text and assumed the worst, you know? [his shoulders roll in a shrug.]

I know we're not best friends or anything, and that's fine. But I do care about you. As a person. And I'll always have your back.

As a person. [It's weird how that clarification still hurts to hear. She doesn't feel like she's still in love with him (even though part of her probably always will be. first loves are annoying like that.) but it just...sucks. Which is part of why she's gone out of her way to avoid him for as long as she has.

So why is it that she feels comfortable sitting beside him now?]

I would probably be waiting for my rez right now if you hadn't come after me. Or worse, I'd be at the bottom of that lake and no one would ever know what happened.

Shit, it could've been both of us. I felt her try and cast something on me while we were in the water.

Yeah...thankfully your trigger finger was faster than hers. [If she makes jokes about it, maybe carrying her pseudo mother's bleeding body to shore will be less traumatizing.]

[he doesn't even crack a smile. whoops. just diverts his attention towards ... his knee.] I didn't mean to hurt her that bad, you know. But I don't exactly feel sorry about it, either. She killed Hook, and she would've killed us, too. So ... yeah. No. Fuck that.

I'm not asking you to apologize. She would have killed you.

[Faye struggles to see that Alex's actions were really to protect her but she's also not mad about that. She's just got a weird concept of her own importance because all of her parental figures really suck right now.]

She would've killed us.

[yeah, he felt bad at first, when he thought he actually killed her, but then he didn't and now he's had lots of time to justify his actions to himself. and think about how they almost got murdered. and how hook did get murdered. and then saving emma's life gave him a seizure, which really just pissed him off more than anything.

his jaw clenches, followed by a frown.]

Nothing feels safe anymore, does it?

[She's quiet, pulling her knees a little closer to her chest, as if holding on like that will somehow make this less overwhelming. No. Nothing feels safe. Nothing will probably ever feel safe again.]

This is the only home I can remember. I'm not-- this is all I am.

[And they almost lost it. Lost everything.]

I came here 'cause I ruined my last home for myself. So I really wanted to make this one last. I think I could restart, if I wanted to. I'm an expert at surviving. But I don't want to. Not like this. I'd be mad if I weren't so fuckin' exhausted.

Maybe we don't have to give up on this one. Not yet. [Trying to be optimistic is hard when you're...not.]

You were trying to sleep over here, weren't you? Sorry. I didn't mean to-- My timing has been terrible lately.

Little bit. But it's okay. I don't mind. [he reaches out to pat her shoulder.] Good talk. You can nap with me if you want.

[It's tempting, but she knows that with everything that's happened and how vulnerable she feels right now, she would take a comfort in being close to someone, being close to him that would set her back a few steps.]

I kick in my sleep. [She says, not even trying to cover up that it's a lie. She gives him a sad sort of smile.]

I miss hanging out with you. And I know that's on me, but-- I'd like to maybe try. Just friends. None of the other stuff. [The sex. Her feelings. That stuff.]

After things stop being completely fucked up, I mean.

Me, too. [a beat passes before he thinks to clarify] ... I also kick in my sleep. But, the other stuff too. It's a yeah. We could be friends. None of the other stuff.

[She nods, glancing down at the ground in front of her because it's still tempting to just want to take comfort in being close to someone. But she knows herself and knows that she needs to just...get up. So she does. Pushing herself up to standing, she gives him another smile- thin and strained, very much not her usual.]

Take care of yourself, okay?

Yeah, yeah. You, too.

london ♔ when the gusts came around to blow me down

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