CHAPTER FINALE ♔ darling can't you see it's now or never

[romanticidal]

♬ Astronaut (A Short History of Nearly Nothing) - Amanda Palmer ft. Zoe Keating

WHO || Rafael Giovanni, Eterna Jade, Burt Becksworth, Isabella Alessandro, Finnick Odair, Myrilandel de Tanos, Buffy Summers, Spike, Elena Gilbert, Dawn Summers, Desmond Descant, Jeanne Gar, Kat Samcelot, Mark Sandazhard, Violet Fiore, Sterling Archer
WHAT || CHAPTER ONE FINALE: Rafael Giovanni & Finnick's televised international concert debut
WHERE || A music hall in Chicago, IL
WHEN || July 3rd, 2013 [ forward dated]
HOW || Actionspam

The hour is finally upon our heroes, to learn whether their crazy plan to invest in making Finnick and Rafael international superstars under Burt Becksworth's management will pay off, and keep control of NOVA Records out of the hands of Chad Becksworth and his sinister compatriots. Now, as the Knights finish taking their seats in the balconies directly overlooking the stage, the concert goes live, broadcasting around the world, to where even other members of the Knighthood in London can gather to watch.

The camera pans across the endless sea of gathered, curious fans, who shake their arms wildly for their two seconds of fame, and then zooms in on a blonde figure on one corner of the stage, where she stands ready with a microphone: Buffy Summers.

[ the action of this post will be continually propelled by the interspersed musical numbers performed by finnick and rafael. each musical number will be up for a short amount of ooc time, in which players are free to create mini-thread responses directly to that song comment. these can be for internal reflection, to make commentary to the neighbors seated in their rows, for backstage convos for those involved in the program, or for 'host' commentary between some songs by archer and kat. threads that result from these responses should be kept short and sweet, as each song is only 3 to 5 minutes long, which doesn't leave a lot of time for in depth conversations. ideally, by the time the next 'number' is posted (as a direct response to the last musical number comment), your response threads from the previous number should be considered over and done with, and you can continue anything going on in them as a new mini-thread under the most recently posted song. in order to keep track of when things are rolling on to the next song, I highly encourage everyone to please track this entire post. ]

Comments

[romanticidal]

[ rafael cuts a glance up at the balcony and looks legitimately as frustrated at someone interfering. as des scoops up the gun, rafael marches closer to him, and as he stands again, the italian grabs his wrist and pulls his hand and gun up so that the barrel rests against his heart. there's agony in his eyes, his grip on des' wrist nat 20 strong, and he looks the other man in the eyes and beseeches once more: ] You are right.

End this.

[isisagent]

[Archer still doesn't notice the giant fucking reptile hulks, with a nat 1 spot check. All he sees, is Des pointing a gun at the Italian Stallion. He KNEW he was going to have to babysit this rookie - but this is ridiculous.]

[Well There's no time to reload, damnit.]

Heads up, chuckles!

[Archer begins to sprint over to the two, but before he runs, he just throws his shotgun at Des. - using an action point to boost this roll, b/c there's going to be millions of negatives for an improvised weapon throw... ATK roll of 19+6 from AP = 25. I'm assuming they're about 20 feet away, so -2 from range increment penalties and -4 from improvised and -4 from throwing into melee. Total ATK 15. If that hits one or either of them, Damage... 13 (Yep. Critical Shotgun Toss. Only Archer.)]

[watcherjunior]

[ As Elena straightens, Dawn steps back to give her some room. She knows that feeling--people being concerned for her when there's other things afoot, bigger things. It's a strange thought, considering she has memories of fighting and stuff from back home. Now really isn't the time to try to sort it all out. ] Come on, we should at least get out of.. up here. [ The words are accompanied by a gesture and a nod toward the exit, where Isabella is already heading down. She moves to follow. ]

[shootfirst]

[ kat hesitates because WOW NOW RAFAEL IS GRABBING DES AND MAKING HIM POINT HIS GUN AT HIM AND THEN TWO SECONDS LATER, ARCHER THROWS A SHOTGUN THAT CRACKS DES' CHEST AND REALLY PEOPLE???? but ok she realizes she's not doing much good up here. kind of. and slips out with the others to the backstage area.

which is on fire.

just a little bit, though, and a few really dedicated stagehands are trying to put them out. meanwhile, those two remaining behemoths? are fleeing towards the back door, the bodies of the other two sprawled here. ]

[nosdacariad]

[ mark surges forward on the stage finally and tries to grab archer by the collar to pull him backwards away from everyone but he sure can't catch the highly trained field agent (atk 15, i doubt that hits). ] Why is everyone attacking each other?? [ those siren sounds get really close. right outside now. ]

[bigbad]

Myri. [He doesn't want to let go of Buffy, but he can see the toll this is taking on Myri (wis 17). He does shoot a suspicious look towards Bloom because WHAT THE HELL IS WITH HIM? No time to worry about that, though. He puts his arm around Buffy and guides her firmly (str 24) towards Myri before crouching down and putting his hands on her shoulders.]

Stop it, love. You're hurting yourself.

[witchwoman]

[Myri has no idea what it is that pushes back the darkness trying to drag Jade away, but she's thankful for it. She's healed enough people to know what her own magic feels like. This isn't it. But as her gift seeks out the damage, she can tell that things are at least stabilized... but there's no telling how long. She pulls back her magic slowly, but doesn't move. It's almost as if she believes that if she shifts from this spot, that all the good might be undone.

When Spike crouches beside her, touching her, and jumps, looking at him with wide, scared eyes.]

She's... she's alive. [And she is... in the loosest sense.] I don't think we can move her. I tried-! I... [Even with renewed hope, Myri knows that it's bad. Jade isn't waking up. The bleeding seems to have stopped, but she's lost so much blood already... And there's no telling what damage the bullets have done that cannot be reached. Glancing down, she sees the blood on her hands, the blood on the stage, and the unconscious woman.

Her gaze shifts quickly, and she stands, dazed. She doesn't step away from her, but raises her voice in the direction of Des and Rafael. Her voice cracks with emotion as she speaks.]

She'll be gone soon. You need to say goodbye. She needs to know you loved her.

[rationalizes]

[ gar keeps elena's arm as they follow isa, dawn, and kat out to the backstage. she looks around despondently at the scene and her eyes land on one of the dead thugs here. frowning, she goes to his side and kneels, turning him slightly to look at the back of his neck ] Oh no...

[nothingsodivine]

[Des's sternum is definitely broken. He hits the ground hard and shoves the shotgun off of him and tries to sit up, only for that to be a bad idea. Hearing Myri, he realizes he's not going to make it down there.

Fitting, really. She doesn't know him from Adam.

He shoots Rafael a hateful look.] Well, go on, Fluffy. Tell her you're sorry. Tell her you just couldn't stand that she didn't remember you. [He grunts and rolls over to his side, cringing through pained laughter] She did it for you, you know. She couldn't stomach living without you. That's why she couldn't remember. So go and tell her how much you loved her. Maybe if you didn't, she'd still be alive.

[slay]

[ buffy use her enhanced slayer eyeballs to realize at this point that myri is in a pretty bad way. all that healing took something out of her, but it's more than that - or at least, buffy's pretty sure it is. but she's not ... realizing what is actually going on. seeing orlando bloom adds a layer to this that everyone is going to think she's crazy for.

she marches towards him, reaching out a hand to shove at him. ]

You! [ her hand meets air as he easily moves out of her way, turning like he'd already seen the move coming. she stumbles, then turns wildly to glare at him. ] What did you do!?

[romanticidal]

[ rafael stares down at des, looking lost again now that he doesn't look ready to murder him. apparently this is a hundred times worse. his gaze drags over to myri and jade and... then he gets distracted by buffy being crazy.

orlando bloom turns to face her... and when he makes eye contact with her, it's enough to make her forget how to breathe.

it's hard to explain what it is that she sees in his eyes, but it's impossible to look away - and deep behind them seems to glow some kind of bright, warm physical light, in which it seems like she can see the unity of everything in known existence turning somehow. his expression is neutral, except for the deep pain she can see reflected there, but there's something much, much stronger than that, a sensation that immediately swells up inside of her unbidden.

hope. and love. not of the romantic, melodramatic variety people had displayed so much of tonight, but something richer, and more all-encompassing, and deeper. it feels as if it threatens to overtake her entirely, and with her will save of 10, she'd be moved to actual tears herself, perhaps without even realizing it.

he doesn't answer. just continues to look at her evenly, as if he knows what she's seeing, and it's a better answer that any other he can give. ]

[65]

[wow a lot of shit sure did go down just now. he can't even process it. people are getting shot then pistols are getting shot then collarbones are being broken WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE and now jade is alive again?????

but yeah he's just standing there in the audience. not moving. essentially frozen in place. just thought u should kno.]

[slay]

[ buffy stares at orlando bloom and feels unable to look away; though he doesn't answer her, the sight draws the anger and confrontation out of her like a sieve. she doesn't notice the tears that begin to trickle down her cheeks, too stunned by the sight and distracted by the warmth spreading through her. ]

[isisagent]

[Archer scoops up his shotgun, and kicks Des's gun away.] Play nice, chuckles, so I don't have to put you down, again.

Wake the hell up Rafael [Archer slaps him]
My God do I have to do everything?

[He shrugs, then goes and retrieves his discarded pistols]

[bigbad]

[Buffy is crying, Myri's breaking down, and Finnick is clearly useless. Really, what's the point of Myri having a boyfriend if he's going to go completely catatonic at every little battle? Spike stays by Myri, rubbing her shoulders, but he looks up at Buffy and Orlando Bloom and... still can't tell wtf is up with that, though as with all the things about Orlando Bloom, it still doesn't exactly seem bad. He just can't tell if it's good either.]

Buffy...?

[romanticidal]

[ ♬ bang bang (my baby shot me down) - nancy sinatra

but buffy doesn't get a chance to answer. because chris knows my life, and it's at that moment that the police burst in on every side, guns drawn and pointed at everyone as they move into position, the scene shot in dramatic slow motion.

"Everyone, weapons on the ground, hands in the air! Nobody move!"

across the stage floor, paramedics rush in, wheeling in a stretcher and moving double time to the stage. gar, kat, and mark, comply instantly, weapons dropped, hands up, and orlando bloom looks towards the oncoming medical help, breaking buffy's gaze and giving her relief from the emotional flood, although the feeling of having a lot of her darker emotions burned out lingers a bit. when buffy and spike follow his gaze and then look back at him... he's gone. as if he was never there.

the police move immediately to pull out handcuffs, approaching archer, des, and rafael in particular to cuff. rafael offers no resistance whatsoever, his eyes skidding back to jade, as the paramedics reach vi and myri and jade, and move to take over transferring her to the stretcher, the police holding off any resistance the girls put up.

as rafael is pulled away from the scene, isabella shouts his name in protest across the stage, but he merely shakes his head and says, very quietly as he's led away: ]

It doesn't matter.

Nothing matters anymore.