Operation: Saving Private March

[trailblazingspirit]

WHO: March 7th, Evernight, and you!
WHERE: outside of Caleb and March's house, and then in the Spirit Realm!
WHEN: a weekend in mid-January!
WHAT: time to save March 7th from her unexpected journey through the Spirit Realm!
WARNINGS: allusions to past horror, murder, and character deaths in one part, trauma and general fantasy violence, risk of injury. HSR 3.6 spoilers.

It’s cold out. Your shoes slip a little on the slush that's slicking up the sidewalk.

I found March, Evernight had said, not quite pleading the network for help, but not not pleading. Not quite hoping for her plea to be heard, but not not hoping. Now she stands outside Caleb and March’s house, two jellyfish floating breezily around her, and she looks as composed and calm as ever as she twirls her dark umbrella, even as a gate to the Spirit Realm gapes ominously beside her. She smiles eerily on seeing people arriving, then tilts her head to the gate.

“She’s in there,” she says. “I’ve figured out the fastest way to get to her, but I can’t guarantee the kind of shape she’ll be in when we find her. I can tell you this: it won’t be easy.” She opens her umbrella. “Get yourselves ready.”

Comments

OUTSIDE THE HOUSE

[trailblazingspirit]

[For threads before going in! If you want to talk to Evernight please lmk in the subject line.]

[blossominghopes]

[Lia arrives early--with only a few minutes taken to grab her things and let Hugo and Lycaon know where she'll be.

The wonders of teleportation.

She'll be checking over her equipment until everyone else gets there. And double-checking. And triple-checking. And--

(You get the picture.)

The small pink, purple, and white bat clinging to the front of her jacket is new, silently watching as Lia keeps checking her equipment. Lia occasionally reaches up to gently scratch its head.]

[actnormal]

[Caleb spots his girlfriend and stops preparing his own kit to go over and just.

Drop his head on her shoulder with a sigh.]

Evernight then OTA

[dancedwithplenty]

1. Cotton Candy Black Swan (Evernight)

[Danielle feels like she missed quite a few things. First she glimpsed March going through a goth phase at the Christmas party, now she's gone??]

[Of course, when Dani gets to the address, there is gothic March right. there. As if she wasn't missing at all. But her smile is off as she greets those assembled, saying that she (March?) is beyond the gate.]

[Despite the initial confusion, Danielle is able to put two and two together. After the instructions, she walks over to their host.]

...Evernight?

2. Baby Steps

[Normally she doesn't jump into these things directly. But... well, after the last time a friend was in danger, Danielle's not about to sit around and do nothing. Plus she figures someone with teleport aught to be there if they need a quick escape.]

[Still, Danielle is nervous, even if she's trying not to show it. She fiddles with her bangle bracelets and shuffles as she listens to music, one earbud in and one out (just in case Evernight calls them over). Her Songstress dressphere outfit swishing lightly as she moves. Those nearby can possibly hear Huntrix quietly from the other earbud.]

2

[blossominghopes]

[Lia's nervous, too, but for her, it's the usual pre-mission jitters.

She doesn't really know Danielle, but the nervousness is clear. Lia makes her way over, backpack slung over one shoulder and her Anemo Vision gleaming in the light as she approaches. Her recently acquired Palisman has decided to hide in her scarf for the time being.]

Not used to this sort of thing?

[nightfallsghost]

[Evernight tilts her head toward Danielle, her smile a faint thing that doesn't reach her dead eyes. That, perhaps, is the biggest difference between her and March—whatever spark there is in March's eyes that animates her bubbly personality, it's just gone.]

Yes, that's me. What do you want?

[youwouldntdownloada]

Yasuho's not used to being this...unprepared-prepared, before. Normally she comes to spirit-gate gatherings armed to the teeth; her Vision ready at her waist alongside her Arcus, bracelet on the wrist, and satchel prepared with the korok-blessed pockets necessary to pull out any weapons desired. Her very form is something fantastical, and if she had been garbed in any manner of magical clothing, it would only emphasize that fact.

Instead however, the Kirin-mix is wearing whatever necessary to stay comfortably warm in this weather. Her thick tail twitches in anxiety, as do her ears. She can be seen, arms crossed, bickering with a bizarre humanoid form in pink; Paisley Park in all of her map-coated glory shimmers like a strange navigational ghost, and given the rapid beeping, she's a very temperamental one as well.

Whatever argument they're having seems to come to it's end though, as the Stand enters a large robotic device. The pink painted Pod shudders, and rises from the ground, and Yasuho sighs in relief.

At her side, her laptop bag hangs. "Right. ...Now to set up... ...everything else."

Including the various cameras...she was supposed to hand one off to someone, but where are they?

[slideruler]

[ Moriarty may not know anyone present very well—or at all, really—but he notices the apparent disagreement... as well as the fact that the remaining party still seems somewhat ill at ease after the argument's conclusion. ]

Hello there!

[ This seems like the perfect time to score some brownie points. Maybe. Depending on what's wrong, anyway. ]

Do you need help with anything?

PART ONE: THE SKYSPLITTER

[trailblazingspirit]

[nightfallsghost]

You step out of the portal and onto the Skysplitter: a skyship meant to host one of the most prestigious martial arts tournaments in the universe. Banners hang from sleek silver walls, depicting symbols that belong to various factions from all over the place. The sunlight gleams off various swords—all of them shattered and broken. Bodies litter the Skysplitter’s floor, blood spatters the walls.

Those who were on the Event Horizon will recognize the manner many of the people died in, though the bodies themselves belong to Cloud Knights clad in blue armor. Those who have memories of March’s universe will recognize the borisin claw marks. Evernight steps onto the stairs, her two jellyfish trailing behind her.

“The Event Horizon,” she murmurs, before she turns to the group. “Her memory of it is—distorted, but I know that something used her to enact its violent, murderous schemes.” She smiles, but it doesn’t reach her dead eyes. “It’s lucky it’s out of my reach, or I’d drown it in a sea of oblivion. Still—it’s clearly left behind marks on her memories.” Her fingers trail over a deep gouge in the walls, and she tilts her head to the side.

“Come on, the way out should pass through here,” she says, and guides the group out of the bloody scene and into the corridors.

She pauses at a door and pushes it open, to find what might’ve been a small, private room for a Wardance participan. Instead of Luka, though, a gently pulsing orb spins in the middle of the room—the cause of all the Event Horizon’s horrors, rendered inert by its nature as a shadow of a memory.

Scattered around the orb are various objects important to March, all frozen in ice. Some are obvious, out in the open, while some are hidden away in the corners of the room. “If you can pick some of those up, they might prove important for later,” says Evernight.

[every item picked up will add +1 for part 3!]

[unreachableside]

[Blade looks... surprised when they step through the portal, like this is the last place he expected to be. And there's a reason—this ship was not seen often in his memories. The Event Horizon stuff is unsettling, as are the bodies, but he has no personal connection to the events of the horror plot a while back.]

... The Skysplitter? I didn't realize March had been here. Although it is usually a livelier place...

[Then there's the side room. These items look almost like talismans being offered before a long, arduous journey. He feels compelled to take one, so he makes his way around the room, poking into the corners to see what's there.]

[blossominghopes]

[Lia doesn't really have anything to say about the Event Horizon-- it was well before she showed up in Kaisou to stay, but the scene makes her frown a bit.

She makes a face at the orb in the middle of the room. It might be a memory, but she still doesn't like the feeling it gives her. More importantly, she should start looking through some of the objects. If Evernight says they'll be important for later...]

Even beyond the ice, this place is giving me the chills.

[... She'll start looking into the corners of the room, she thinks.]

[doublethumbsup]

[Oh.]

[Oh this is. Not where they want to be. Or where they expected to be. They reach up to pull their hat further down over their eyes - anything not to look around and suddenly be back there for real. They'd wanted to come and help, be a real Hermes, who wouldn't have thought twice about pitching in for someone else. They'd thought maybe doing this would make them less afraid of March, start fixing the broken part in their head.]

[Instead they're back there and it's taking everything they have not to throw open a Doorway and run. Do what the Pope said. Just close your eyes and breathe. They're not a fighter, like the others. But they're dressed in a thrifted leather jacket, and sports pads. They have the brick on a rope over one shoulder.]

[They're breathing. They're better prepared. It's fine. It has to be fine.]

R-right. I uh. I have... I have a brick? For - the ice?

[Maybe if they just look at the stuff and not the too familiar corpses, they'll be fine.]

[actnormal]

[Caleb vaguely remembers this place. He didn't spent much time here, but he remembers it.

He ignores the bodies (they're not real) and the orb (no context) and starts digging around for things of March's when he realizes that's what is in the the ice.]

[clawsomeproprietress]

[Cifera looks around the moment she steps out of the portal.]

Oooooooo, a treasure hunt you say. Now you are speaking my language. Let’s see just how much I can get my paws on.

[She is bouncing from one foot to the other, clearly forgetting about the actual danger of the situation.]

[centralfiction]

[The Skysplitter and Cloud Knight armor meant nothing to Ragna as he walked through. Passing through a mysterious and once sterile den of corpses wasn't unfamiliar to him. But it was that familiarity that made his canine ears pin against his hair.

Ragna would have loved to forget the Event Horizon. Forget the memories he saw there, of his mother and Johan and...

And Jin Kisaragi. Whose demeanor at peak insanity Ragna saw in March at the time. She even tried to injure him just as bad as Jin had in his past life.

Seeing the orb in the center as Evernight directed them, Ragna was half tempted to draw his massive sword. A hand was clinging onto the hilt since he walked in.]

... I'd fucking destroy that thing again if I didn't think it'd phase right through.

[He's right there with you in the murderous rage towards anything that messed with March, Evernight. What can he find scattered about, though...]

[slideruler]

[ Valiantly volunteering to be on camera duty—specifically, having the camera strapped to him in his ermine form—had seemed like a brilliant way to make himself useful to the team at the time.

Now, as Evernight encourages the party to pick up the scattered items, Moriarty sits there and considers his conspicuous lack of hands.

It'd be one thing if he could levitate objects with his mind or had some sort of magical inventory system he could stash one of these items inside—BUT HE CAN'T AND HE DOESN'T! HOW UTTERLY INCONVENIENT!

His black-tipped tail whisks with momentary annoyance. Maybe there's something really small he could carry in his mouth or slip around his noodle-like neck? He frankly doesn't know anything about March, but if he's lucky, maybe she likes jewelry??? ]

I may have miscalculated.

PUZZLE

[nightfallsghost]

Evernight guides the group out of the room and brings you towards an elevator. Where a panel would be, though, is a five-by-six grid. If you have a fondness for word puzzles, you might recognize its construction.

Evernight cocks her head to the side, and says, “That’s right, she’s been on a Wordle losing streak, lately.” She touches the panel, winces as a spark jumps to her fingers, and quickly draws her hand back.

“Looks like this part is up to you guys,” she says.

[heng_like_a_dragon]

[Dan Heng has picked up an item from the previous room belonging to March. It's one of her little stuffed animal friends that he remembers her being very fond of on the Express. Conjuring a sturdy vine, he ties it securely to his belt. This way, he can keep his hands free while escorting a piece of March back to her.

Seeing the grid lined out the way it is, the dragon crosses his arms loosely. He glances at Evernight when she says that March has been on a losing streak, but frowns when he sees her get injured by the puzzle. Dan Heng looks back at the Wordle and sighs softly.]

Knowing her, this is going to be either extremely difficult or very easy.

[March is a girl of contradictions. Though, how much of that is Evernight's subtle influence is impossible to say.]

PART TWO: JANUSOPOLIS??

[trailblazingspirit]

[nightfallsghost]

The elevator carries you all upward, but when it opens, it’s not a ship you step into, but a pathway towards a temple that looks like it came right out of Ancient Greece. It would be more familiar to certain people from Amphoreus, only—did the Temple of Janusopolis ever have a statue of a nipple-tasseled god in front of it? And did the pathway out from the temple ever lead to a bustling city that looks a little like—

“That city Kaisou has made an impression on her,” Evernight says, looking somewhat distracted as she turns in a circle. “She loves that place quite a lot—the boba place she visits everyday, the home she shares with her best friend, the people, even the animals…it’s almost as if she’s found a place to put down roots at last.” She cocks her head to the side, eyes narrowing at something no one can see.

“I remember this part,” she says. “When she entered the Scepter’s system, she drew attention from a certain Genius…” She closes her umbrella, spins it in her hand idly, and looks back at the rest. “You’re going to meet someone charming in a moment,” she says. “In the meantime, I have a dangerous memory to distract. Try not to raise too much of a fuss.”

As she walks away, she steps to the side. A moment later, a tall young woman with long red hair bursts out of the temple, running like hell before she skids to a stop and blinks at the assembled group. “Help,” she pleads. “I have—I need to get out of here, the priests—”

From within the temple, a cry is raised: Find the Holy Maiden! She killed the Titan!

“I know a way,” she says, and stumbles forward, steely determination in her eyes. She looks as if she’s holding herself together through sheer force of will. “I know the way, I remember the way, but I need—they can't see me, please.” She puts a hand out and wrenches open a golden gate through the fabric of reality, and says, “I…We will guide you.”

Step through the gate, and you’ll find yourself in the thick of the city of Kaisou—and the Holy Maiden staggers as she leaves the gate, before she shuts her eyes and seems to…glitch, like a computer program that's met an error. Then her body dissolves, reforms into multiple little redheaded girls, all of them looking very tired but determined. They’re swaying on their feet, but staying upright with all the strength they can muster.

“We have to move without being seen,” says one of the girls, and nods to the paths that branch away. From here, you can see patrol groups of various sorts, ranging from blue-clad humans to monsters in green with ginkgo leaves sprouting from their bodies to glitchy orange-black things with bladed arms. “We can guide you, but you have to be careful not to get their attention. If you do…”

“Then the really super mean bad guy will notice!” says another redheaded child.

“The bad guy didn’t notice us until we’d already gone on our way, when Miss March guided us,” says a quieter child. “You guys can do better, right?”

[every thread rolls three times. each successful thread will weaken the boss fight, while each failed thread will alert the boss and strengthen its summons.]

[actnormal]

...Tribbie?

[Caleb can't believe it.]

Sure, we totally do this. Right guys?

[He looks around at the rest of the rescue squad.]

BOSS FIGHT

[nightfallsghost]

[watch this space~]

FINAL PART: FINDING MARCH

[trailblazingspirit]

[nightfallsghost]

[coming soon!]