RP HEX ~final witching hour~

Reyn

Reyn

Sleepyhead
Staff member


HEX
~final witching hour~
It was the first time this particular group of Familiars had been assigned to the same coven, to the dismay of the Tower. Jobs like this, whilst routine, required a lot more co-ordination than you'd think- though, they were assured, as long as the Coven could cast a Circle, things should be smooth sailing from there. This mess didn't seem too large, anyway. A small patch of the Nightmare, infesting a little town somewhere in northern USA- their mission today was more preventative than anything else. Don't let it grow, don't let it spread: kill it, and kill it quickly.

"Alright, ladies- you know the brief."
Said the Strike Director; a stout, masculine woman with a permanent scowl and equally permanent sunglasses,
"Let's try to get this done quick, yeah? You should be getting to position right about now."


She was standing behind her desk in the control room, apparently refusing to sit down until she was listened to. To the Familiars, she was a crackling voice coming through their cockpit. MORGANA, their internal AI, had directed each Witch to a specific point around the Nightmare's perimiter. Once the final Witch was in place, a Circle could be cast- and the writhing mass of madness before them would settle into shape.
 




"All right, here we go!" The worst thing about haunting Nightmares was having to be in the right place at the right time. For a Coven with people behind them to get them there - and giant mechs, don't ever forget the giant mechs - it was more just a matter of getting assigned there and assuming someone else would take care of the fine details.

For someone like Sabine Surekis, it was a matter of being terminally online enough that she could catch those rumors as soon as something got reported, and hope that it was close enough to where she was that she could get there before it was all over. This particular report had flashed up in one of those little bitty nowhere towns, probably reported by someone who'd noticed something out in the fields. It'd have already gotten called in, of course, but most of these things got posted somewhere as well, just to let other people in the area know to stay away from there for a bit.

Or, if those other people were Sabine, that it was time to pack up her gear and start heading up that way. It was only a few hours north of where she was, and that was easy enough on a bike. Packing gear took almost no time at all, because she kept everything ready just in case one of these calls came in, but she did double check her battery levels and make sure all her connections worked. After that - well, after that, it was a few hours of open road, switching her cameras on when she was about ten minutes out.

"You. Guys. Guess what? We're doing it again, heck yeah! I'm about ten minutes out from Woodford right now; the Nightmare reports went up a few hours ago. Can't see any Witch activity yet, but I'll get IDs on them for you as we all arrive so you can follow along at home and get those cross-references going on the message boards. Drive up was nice and easy, and there's no one on the road, so I'm live for questions for the next five minutes and then I'll be switching over to full streaming mode so that you can get in on all the action! Just gotta hope it's another big one like that one last summer, right? That one was a riot! Let's see - kitt-3-cat wants to know if anyone has any idea what Witches we'll be seeing here today. Can't say for sure! We're not super close to any particular jurisdiction, so it could be anyone. Could even be a chance to see some of the new ones we all know they've been working on, might get a sneak peek if we're lucky-"

Sabine let her voice carry her idly, listing off some of the statistics that she'd memorized for times like this. It was important to keep talking, because people wanted the voiceover. The reactions were just as important as the view and all that. For her, though - for her it was all about the view. It seemed to take forever before she could see anything, but it wasn't even long enough for her to run out of easy stats to prattle on about or little questions to ask. She cut the questions off as she got closer, letting the drone cameras pan in on the Nightmare zone and inching closer, closer-

"That is so wild. Horrifying every time, isn't it? Kinda makes your blood run cold. Anyway! Who wants to see me poke it with a stick?"

 
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"In position."

Terse as always, Faith's voice carried over the comms as bluntly as she could manage, the Familiar more than eager to not have to talk any more than necessary. Really, if it were up to her, she would have cut comms completely, so that she could focus, but these were supposed to be team missions. Their coven, as tenuous a link they shared, were supposed to work together to put this Nightmare down, quickly and efficiently.

That was probably why they sent her, really. Efficiency. To her knowledge, and by her opinion, no one worked harder at this. She gave it everything in training, in simulations, in mock combat scenarios, everything.

It was weird, though, being synced with Brigid. For starters, the scale of everything was off. She was crouched near but not directly beside the Nightmare, just far enough away to be able to react if it started moving towards her but not so far that once the fighting started, she wouldn't be on top of it. The buildings were small, though she knew she would actually be able to fit inside them, if not for the Witch.

Soon, she found herself mumbling under her breath, only hardly aware of it through her senses being routed through the Witch. What was taking so long? This was supposed to be quick- who were they waiting on?
 
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It takes Meena a moment to find the intercom button; it’s half-covered by one of many sticky notes. She really should get rid of the notes, but she likes the reminder that there were people in this thing before, and there will be people after. It’s almost comforting.

She relocates the note and presses the button. “Present! And in position.”

Her smile is audible, but she refrains from laughing at her own joke, releasing the button before the Director gets snippity. You’d think one of them would grow a sense of humor, but it seems rare in this line of business. Ah, well. Meena can have enough good humor for the lot of them.

There’s a steady beeping from the upper rightmost monitor, and Meena directs her attention there. Ah, looks like it’s almost time. She wipes her palms on her pants and reaffirms her grip on the mech’s controls. “Ready, Athena?”

The mech doesn’t respond, of course, but she gives one of the monitors a pat anyways.

 
“Oh my gosh, that thing is, like, so big.” Lyn chattered. Others might disagree, and certainly the coven’s head was a part of that number, but it seemed to Lyn that now was really the perfect time for chattering. If you weren’t doing it when the big horrible monster was just a swirling mass of terribleness, then when should you be doing it? Never? That seemed like such a lame way to live just bottling up everything until you went and popped! That was so not Lyn Hope’s way of doing things.

Aphrodite, for her part, moved into position before the aforementioned big mass of hatred and unknowable horror. They were right up front, Lyn and Aphrodite, because Aphrodite totally had to be up front where everyone could see her.

“Totes in position.” Lyn announced over the coms. “And ready to kick this off, whenevs.” It seemed like they had a sizable group for this fight, so it seemed like they were taking a little longer to get in place.
 
“Ready to fu-. Ready to go.” Janis cut herself off, trying to appear at least somewhat professional. Familiars tended to get a lot of leeway, but swearing on comms directly to the Strike Director was a little bit much. She couldn’t have even used the excuse of being distracted by combat. As it was, she had plenty to distract her. She’d properly wired into Medusa and was still trying to process all the sensations.

The weirdest by far was that of feeling her own hair twist and coil, moving on its own and tugging slightly at her scalp. She could see them moving in her peripheral vision. She’d named them all, of course, not that anyone but Meena needed to know. Her tail flicked restlessly behind her and gods that was something else that needed adjustment. She was used to having only one lower appendage, but this was completely different. There was no absence like with her leg, just the completeness of the tail.

Moving quickly, Janis opened a second communication channel and switched over to it.

“Good luck, sweetie.” she said quickly, leaving the line open for a response before switching back to the main channel. Janis cracked her knuckles, and Medusa ghosted her, metal joints creaking as she prepared to strike. As soon as the Circle was established, Janis was gonna fuck this Nightmare up.
 
In Position.

The sky was dark, last vestiges of the sun tracing across it through gaps in the clouds. The scent of smoke - of fire - hung in the air, too distant to feel the heat, too close to ignore. Around her, her Coven stood, ready, waiting.

"Parvati."

"Ready."

"Oshun."

"Here."

"Echo."

"Yes."

"Idun."

"We've got this."

"It's a big one, isn't it? They're saying it's a big one."

"We've handled big ones before, Sari."

"I know, but - they don't usually say it like that. Not like -"

"Nat's right. We're ready. Worrying about it's only going to trip us up."

Natalya leaned forward. Instinctively, Echo leaned forward as well. She didn't even feel her hands on the controls, didn't even see the edges of the cockpit. They were together. Tandem. A dance. In ballet, partners had to act as one. It was a play of momentum, a back and forth, and if one partner broke pattern with the other, it all fell apart. This was just ballet. No different.

No rehearsal, and the stakes were a bit higher, but -

Her and Echo were just partners. They were the same. If she went airborne, she would catch herself. If she fell, she would pick herself up. Blades glinted, catching the glow, shimmering through the air. She wouldn't let -

"Don't worry, Sari. I've got your back."

It was a different day. A different place. For a second, it was jarring - she wasn't a part of Echo, she was inside her. She could see the panels in front of her. Feel the seat beneath her. It faded as she regained her focus, but it was enough to leave her disoriented, confused. She was - with the new team. This was a lower stakes mission. Testing the water. Had she - was the intercom on, when she spoke? She didn't remember pressing the button, but she never did. It just happened when she talked. It was ingrained.

"Hello, everyone. It's an honor to fight alongside you. Let's make short work of this Nightmare, hm?"
 
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Media was in full swing, despite everything. Had the public really turned on HEX so much that they were sending out a film crew to a routine cleanse like this? Although, Seren supposed, there wasn't much that could ever be called routine about their job. It made sense that there was an audience, even for shit like this- fanatics, and the like. She had run into a few of them herself, even. Fucking losers. I mean, what was the appeal?

Ceridwen's cockpit was tiny, compared to most other Witches. It had to be- as the only part which couldn't transform (as the familiar would be turned to paste if it could), it had to be small enough so as not to get in the way of all the other moving parts. This would've made it uncomfortable to pilot, were it not for Integration gradually nudging her senses away from her body. That was why Seren appreciated it. If she could focus on the residual discomfort, then it meant she wasn't being fully absorbed by the fucking thing- it could ground her, if she needed, but she couldn't let it slip out of her mind. That was her theory, anyway. She really hoped it was right.

Her team was in place. The two lovebirds, and Lyn, and Lin, with Brigid, and someone else. Unfamiliar. Her name was Natalya, from what Seren had gathered, and this wasn't the first Coven she had been part of. Quite why someone of her standing was doing something like this was beyond her--it made her nervous, even--but she didn't have time to think about that.

"In position." She said, "Awaiting signal."


"Prepare to engage."

The Circle was cast- bright, shimmering light that filled the area before them, seeping into the darkness and pushing it away, like sunlight breaking through shadows on the wall. The Nightmare solidified.

As the shadow receded, the dregs it left began to take form- bipedal amphibian creatures, their skin coated in the tar-like remains of the Nightmare that birthed them, and their teeth sharp and faintly luminescent. Salamanders, these were called. Dangerous in large numbers, as agile as they are volatile, but nothing compared to what was rising up from the middle.

It seemed purely reptilian at first. A wyvern, coiling its tail around an old warehouse, spreading its wings as soon as they were formed. It wasn't until the head formed that the Coven would know what it was that they were fighting. Feathers sprouted from the murk, skin stretched and hung loose beneath its skull, its jaw bent forwards like a single, curved fang.

Then, its voice echoing through the Circle, the Nightmare crowed.

"Well, then."
The Strike Director frowned,
"Looks like you girls have got yourselves a Cockatrice."
 
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After what felt like an eternity, the Circle was finally deployed. Lin had seen it thousands, tens of thousands of times in training scenarios and simulated combat encounters, but seeing it for real... Already, her adrenaline was starting to run. She was getting her chance, to prove herself, to show why she was meant to be here.

The shimmering haze of the Circle enveloped the Nightmare, and it began to shrink, forced to coalesce into a physical shape, rather than a formless cloud. Brigid picked herself up from the kneeling position at Faith's command, now crouched and ready to move, ready to attack. Then, a pang of disappointment, as she registered the Salamanders, one of the simplest forms it could take- easy to deal with, especially with as many Witches as had been deployed.

But something else was rising. Obviously, to a degree, she did care what it was. That sort of information was crucial to killing one of these things, knowing it's capabilities, it's weaknesses, but part of her? It didn't care at all. Lin Faith had come here to take care of business, to burn this thing to the ground.

Finally.

Her voice came across comms. "Engaging." Then, movement, as Brigid responded to her request, her command. The Witch lurched forward, moving quickly towards the Cockatrice and it's surrounding Salamanders.
 
Everything set, everything perfectly in place, and it was totally time to rumble. Even the Nightmare and its little beasties knew it was time to throw down, why they were practically throwing half the street already! And that was just so totally like rude wasn’t it, like you didn’t start a party without everyone. That was just such common knowledge. Just so rude.

“Moving in.” Lyn said brightly, as if she weren’t about to go tussle with a band of angry monsters. Aphrodite moved, as smooth as her own leg lifting and falling, though it still felt like wading through water. Heavier than you expected, but that didn’t come as a shock.

“I’ve totally got the little ones, like, locked down.” Lyn said over the coms. There was a pleasant hum from Aphrodite at her words, that sort of joyous nervous twist of anticipation in the pit of one of their stomachs as mana flowed, and the Apple set into Aphrodite’s core glittered with a beautiful polish as she slid into rabble of salamanders. First to make them love her, and then under that glamor, to fight over who had the privilege to die for her.
 


Oh, her wife is speaking to her! It brings a smile to Meena’s face, but she can’t for the life of her remember which buttons she should press to reply. Janis would get all shy if she tried the main channel, and Meena has never had much of a head for the deeper intricacies of technology.

Ah, more people are talking. It seems she’s missed her chance. Hmm. Oh! She has a whole mech that she isn’t doing anything with, at the moment. She turns until Athena’s head is facing the Medusa mech, and after some fiddling forms a wonky heart with her giant mechanical fingers. And then one of the hands lifts to where the mech’s mouth would be, and she blows a kiss.

That should do it.

Athena’s head starts to turn almost before she directs it to, and with a sigh she directs its main focus back to the swirling nightmare. It’s strange, that, how it still feels like Athena is her own entity, Meena just there to direct the spear and shield when the computations take over her processing power. Most of the other Witches she’s spoken to don’t seem to view it the same way.

Well, perhaps with time she’ll learn to ‘integrate’ more fully. But for now, she takes the spear from Athena’s back and directs the mech to circle behind the mainline fighters, ready to pick off anything that gets past them. Already, she can feel some of the resistance leave the controls as Athena’s focus shifts to analyzing the cockatrice. Just as well.

“I’ve got your six. Don’t worry if they get past you, Aphrodite.”

 
The shimmering light enveloped them all, and they were in another place.

Not in some remote section of the United States countryside. Not on the outskirts of London. Not at a Baghdad market street. Not in a Polynesian cape. It was the same place, now, the known place, the place where you did what you had to do, and lived or died by how well you did it. The Nightmare before them shrunk, taking form.

Cockatrice, the distant voice said. She didn't need to hear it to know.

"Engaging," she almost unconsciously repeated, pushing Echo forward in the wake of Aphrodite and Brigid. "Be careful. This will be a bit of a tough one, if it's your first time. Cockatrices can be dangerous."

Echo disappeared. Nothing followed.

Then, everything again. She was in front of the wyvern-shaped nightmare.

"I'll draw it's attention for now." Help weaken it. Help make this a bit easier. "Focus on your strengths. If you make a decision, commit to it, or you'll die."

Nothing. Something again. She was behind it, angled behind one of its legs. And, as if to demonstrate what she meant by her words, she lunged forward the moment she reappeared - hoping to stab it in the ankle.
 




"Whoa-ho-hoh damn!" Sabine had, with some difficulty, managed to locate a stick. The difficulty wasn't in finding sticks, but in finding sticks in such a way that the cameras stayed where they needed to be and didn't end up just panning to shots of random trees. She had to keep the Nightmare in focus and have the stick be a thing that happened on the side, in the periphery. There was a lot more to making it look good than people thought there was, at least for the boring little stuff. Now, once she got around to actually poking things with it, people weren't going to care quite so much about the viewing angle - the action was more important.

She wasn't going to get there, though, because the mechs had arrived and the Circle was going down. Even Sabine wasn't going to interfere with an actual circle once it was in progress. There was the sort of idiot shit that could get you killed, and there was the sort of idiot shit that could get everyone else killed, and she knew where to draw the line. That didn't mean she could just sit back and have the air be dead, though, because that sort of thing lost viewers even if she did have a nice scope on things as they were going down.

"Who we got here, anyway? Brigid? Solid. Y'know, we still don't know what happened to the last Familiar? It's super sketchy. Hit me up with your conspiracy theories on that one, guys - I'd like to say I've seen 'em all, but it's possible there's a new one out there. One of these days we're going to find out what really happened - I'll gift a three-month premium content subscription to whoever calls it first!" With all the weird theories floating around, one of them had to get it right. Sabine hoped it was one of the really bizarre ones. That stuff made for way better content.

"Athena's out here, too. She's always been a favorite with a lot of people. They're saying the new Familiar there is shaping up really well, might be one of the better syncs we've seen with her. Athena's been around long enough that we can actually get some interesting data, so there's a lot of nerd-types watching her to see what we can figure out. I bet some of them are watching this channel, so if you want to share your spreadsheets - I know you've got spreadsheets, I love a good spreadsheet[/i] - we'll put them up for everyone to take a look. I think we're going to be seeing a lot more information available on what gives us a good sync, and that'll be something that gets looked for in more detail in the future. Can't wait until the dystopian hellscape where we start training Familiars for specific Witches in kindergarten, am I right?" Sabine had a feeling that was... well, maybe not already happening, but if someone up there didn't have spreadsheets on kindergarteners and whether or not they might be a potential match, she was going to be really surprised. Maybe the dystopian hellscape they were all waiting for was right now!

"They've got Medusa here too. With the Familiars linked, that's probably a good call, especially since Medusa is one of the newer Witches and we're really not sure how she's going to perform yet. Athena can probably sit on her if she goes bonkers or something. Really interesting design on that one, though. Doesn't look standard at all, and there's some theorization that maybe we'll start seeing more nonstandard builds as things develop. I've seen some people saying that they can add a lot of battlefield flexibility, but they're a lot harder to contend with as a Familiar than the standard bipedal variant. I'm going to be watching that one for sure to see how she moves." Sabine wasn't even sure how a person could get their brain to work that way. Obviously someone had managed it, because here she was, but what did that mean, exactly. Was it harder to become human again, once you got out? Sabine had a theory that the psychosis progression was going to be a lot faster, and she was being very careful to keep that theory to herself, because spouting that shit out loud was the sort of thing that got your channel censored hard, if someone cared to listen.

"Aphrodite too, another, ah, fan favorite. Familiar's linked with Brigid. We're seeing a lot of that lately, where deployments are being designed based on the synchronization level of the Familiars themselves and not just how the Witches work together. I think it's a departure from earlier tactics, and might represent a shift in thinking. We'll see how it goes, I suppose, and what all that ends up meaning as the situation progresses." Did having someone you cared about fighting next to you stave off psychosis, or did it make it worse? That was a great question, and Sabine was willing to bet she wasn't the only one asking it - and also, that if it had already been answered, the people who knew the answers probably weren't planning to share them. She was just going to have to keep an eye on it and see if she could extrapolate based on the decisions that were getting made.

"And that one will be Echo. Her Familiar's been with her a bit longer than most of these others. It almost looked like it was going to be all newbies for a little while, but maybe not. She's been in quite a lot already, and tends to give some pretty high synchronization numbers, so maybe she's here to show the new ones how it's done." Or maybe she was here because she was starting to go off the deep end. Sabine had looked up everything she could find on that, and a lot of times... well, the Familiars started getting comfortable in the Witch, and then after a while the Witch started getting comfortable in the Familiar. Sabine suppressed a shudder. No. Fuckin'. Way. Not her. She wasn't going to bleed that into her programming, though, so she kept her tone light, as always. "I guess we'll just have to see what she does this time!"

"And it looks like Ceridwen, probably with tactical control of the group. I've always liked watching her. She does some super wild stuff sometimes, so we'll just have to keep a camera on that one so we don't miss any of it. Circle's down, got some little salamanders in there - pretty standard. I think they're kinda cute. I wonder if you could keep one as a pet? You know, put a little collar on it and dress it up in tiny hats on the holidays? Unfortunately, no one ever lets me have any fun, so I guess we'll just have to imagine - but if anyone wants to send me their doodles of salamanders in tiny hats, you better believe I'll repost them! And the resolution is a cockatrice - remember that one time I wrote a limerick about- you know what, let's not go there. Time to sit back a little and see what they do!"

[/i][/i]
 
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