Gather Up Your Loved Ones, Gather Up Your Friends

[hfm_npcs]

Warnings: Nox. So many Nox. All of the Nox. And also violence.
Location: All over the city
Characters: Everyone, and also so many Nox. Did we mention Nox?
When: Not long after the repairs on the sinkhole start
Summary: People getting kidnapped by Nox. Yikes.

The repairs on the sinkhole have been going well, but somehow, the city hasn't been the same. There's a heaviness in the air, like a thunderstorm building on the horizon. The normal sounds of a city night have given way to hoots and howls of creatures. The Nox are restless at night and quiet during the day. The local people are opting to stay inside when they don't absolutely have to go out.

Something is coming. Something big.

Then it happens, on a unseasonably warm fall day. High noon and the streets start rumbling, the violent rattling of the manhole covers loud enough to drown out thought. Then, shadowy tentacles burst out the street from every underground entrance, blindly grabbing for whoever they can snatch, overpowering their unlucky victims and bodily dragging them into the nearest available manhole or sewer entrance. If you’re lucky, you get away. If not...enjoy your private tour of the unending blackness and horrifying whispers that is the sewers.

[OOC: Feel free to play out your character's kidnapping or reactions to the chaos however you want in this log! If you want an NPC Nox to react to, just let a mod know!]

Comments

[goddamngrenades]

"The HELL do you think I'm doing?!" Up. He needed to get up, he needed to get Wash up- like hell he's leaving the kid (not a kid, not anymore and that still feels five kinds of weird but he's not leaving him behind for anything) for the tentacles to grab. He darts left and ports right, hand extended for Wash to grab. "I can get us to the roof come on-"

[unrecovered]

Wash's priorities are exactly the opposite: his magic lets him fight the Nox, whereas York can't do anything but run, so he needs to hold the line until York can get out of here. Right now, it looks like they might be able to accomplish both, and he runs for York, reaching for his hand-

And stopping just short as a tentacle he'd missed snakes around his ankle and holds tight, sending him sprawling hard on the pavement, stunned. It's a moment before he can get his thoughts back in order, and another before he can focus enough to bring his magic to bear; unfortunately, that's more than enough time for the darkness to tighten around his ankle and crawl up his leg. Shit.

He tears at it with another gust of wind and struggles to get to his feet. "Get out of here!"

[goddamngrenades]

He's got him. He's almost got him, fingers skating against Wash's palm as he stretches to grab him, get him out-

Yanked down and caught and no. Fuck that. Fuck. That.

He'd left him once without thinking forever ago and everything went wrong and he should've looked harder. He should have tried to find him before blowing up the ship and this isn't then, this isn't that, but it's close enough that he sprints for it and makes a grab for him. That he takes the first solid port to get them further down the street. "Go- go go, jesus christ- go-"

[unrecovered]

"Not without you-"

Teleportation is disorienting as hell, but he still gets to his feet, shaking quickly dissipating darkness tentacle bits off his leg and grabbing for York's wrist, taking off in the general direction of the park. They'd be safer there - no manholes.

[goddamngrenades]

"Shut it and run!" Damnit only ONE of them is allowed to play the 'take the bullet for the team' card at a time and he called DIBS! He can freaking teleport, Wash does not need to stick around and help him out, he can get himself out of there all on his own.

Another port, further, higher- five feet up instead of even but he's twitchy and panicked and pushing Wash forward even as he hits the ground to keep going-

They might make it. Jesus christ, they might actually make it-


And of course that's when a gigantic fucking trunk of a tentacle hooks around his middle and yanks him backward. "Sonovabi-"

[unrecovered]

Wash hits the ground running and goes, keeping an eye on York all the while - this much teleporting can't be easy for him, and he's not about to leave York behind-

Which is when something the size of a fucking kraken snags York. Wash turns on a dime, already gathering magic and hurling wind at the tentacle. It slices into the appendage, leaving it bleeding darkness, but it's not enough - Wash isn't focused enough, the Nox is too big, and York is getting further away by the second-

"York!"

[goddamngrenades]

"-tch!" He couldn't get away. Couldn't untangle himself, couldn't twist free, couldn't even port- even panicked, stuttering attempts only managed a few inches before there was another tentacle- another tendril, another fucking SOMETHING dragging him down to the nearest manhole.

"RUN!" Damnit- fine. FUCKING fine. If he can't get away he'll keep the damn thing too busy to try to grab wash- flickering from limb to limb in a (futile) effort to get free and only gathering more and more of those fucking shadows till he's at the lip of a manhole and-


This is going to suck.

[unrecovered]

Wash isn't giving up, throwing wind and fury and whatever he can muster at the darkness clinging to York, but-

But it's not enough. He's unfocused; he doesn't have the precision he needs; and there are just too many tentacles grabbing at York, dragging him back to a manhole, and- no, the underground nearly destroyed Bones, he can't let that happen to York-

He hurls everything he has at the Nox, praying it will be enough.

[goddamngrenades]

This would be the ideal time for some sort of witty one liner but York can't think of a damn thing, scrambling and porting no more than a foot in any one direction at any given time, bound up in shadows and pressure and darkness and fuck fuck fuck it's like what happened after Tex and he can't deal-

Wash is spared watching him have a panic attack only by his being hauled down by those damn tentacles, lost to shadow.