If God Was In Hell We Would All Be Dead [OPEN | MINGLE]

[inconsequence]

Who: Who wants to kill some slavers? You do! Of course you do!
When: May 15th and onwards
Where: Slave trade outpost in the Runoff
What: The slavers that targeted the crew of the Moira in July are overdue for some justice. Chara breaks some regulations to make that happen. THIS IS A MINGLE LOG; anyone and everyone who wants to get in on this and kill some slavers is absolutely free to do so! Chara is relying on there being some chaos for this to work.
Warnings: PROBABLE DEATH. Probable references to slavery, trauma, and also death. Chara.


The Ingress opens to a spilling wash of gray and white, a monochrome cast of shadows and hard angles. The Runoff, it seems, is not a place of many colors; every inch of it is drab and washed out, cold and impersonal as the people who would employ such a place for their own twisted ends. A swirled nebula of stars glimmers overhead. It is night.

Knives are useful tools, but their reach is limited. A quiet transmission to the network, a select few messages delivered to a select few individuals, the hissing strike of a match igniting on the edge of a box. The place is angular and looks to be comprised of some sort of galactic equivalent of asphalt, likely inflammable. Still, it is entirely too dark. Too gray. Too poorly maintained. Tents and shabby establishments line the streets, places where, evidently, personal agency may be bought and sold on a whim.

It does not take long to find a structure of cloth and wood, and the whole of it soon emanates the rank, coppery tang of some interdimensional brand of gasoline.

Knives are useful tools. But they did not come with knives.

Or rather, they did not come only with knives.

One of the stalls is alight in a matter of moments. Red and gold tongues of flame gobbling the establishment whole, filling the place with both the color and light that it so lacked. Knobs of wood harvested from the wreckage form handy torches to set anything else aflame, to thoroughly raze the entire area to the ground, every stall and ship and vendor that supported and enabled the inflorescence of slave trafficking and slave keeping. Armed guards begin to converge on the disturbance at once. But small as said disturbance is, there is no guarantee that it will not come to grow.

That is, of course, where you come in.

One child alone cannot possibly take the entire place down, and flame can only take things so far. It is hardly enough when their aim is one of total destruction, however unrealistic an expectation that might be. They'll need help. Lots of it.

So won't you join the dance?

Comments

[coercive]

Hair stands on the back of her neck as he turns and yells at her, and her first instinct is to lash out. As much as she wants to please him and make him proud, as much as she loves him, she's a very damaged and traumatized girl that needs a lot of help. On the inside, all she can feel is anger and upset, and she isn't sure why. So she lashes out, making an angry growl as she tries to throw a punch at his chest.

"Because!" She cries, pummeling lightly at him. It's a short lived fit that soon has her pulling away and looking like a wild beast that's about to run off to keep attacking.

"Because they did to children what was done to me! And they should be punished. Like Pierce and Rice, and all the others."

He's helped her here. She doesn't understand why he's angry at her. She vaguely remembers Chara's words over the TAB making her upset as she thought about him, but it feels like a distant memory now. That doesn't matter. The here and the now does, and she's covered in blood from head to toe and is caught up in wanting to spill more. Her instincts have consumed her, and it's hard for her to come back down from this one.

[el_paso]

Laura comes at him and he lets her, because she can't hurt him any worse than she already has. Now that he has her back, now that he can focus on everything else, it's betrayal that comes right up to the forefront, scalding him from within and making all those physical pains seem so much less by comparison.

The fires burning on the hill behind him make his shadow stretch long and black across the grey terrain, catching Laura in its wake.

"That fucking psycho kid got you to do their dirty work." He reaches to take her by the arm, his claws an ever-present threat. "Just like Rice wanted, Laura. Did you forget every single fucking thing I told you?"

Logan's so impatient, so incensed he actually shakes her.

[coercive]

She screams at him again as tears fill her eyes. His shaking her does a good job to snap her out of things, and she's filled with a sense of self-loathing as the crushing blow of reality is dealt to her. Her mind thinks of his dying back in the world they came from, thinks of what he told her. She thinks of how close they've become here, about the home they're building together, about the fact she's finally called him Daddy without her being upset.

She can't call him that now, not when he's looking at her like that and shaking her. Struggling against his hold on her, she growls and snarls and tries tearing away. The urge to run and hide fills her, shame and fear of losing him driving her actions.

The men she killed back in their world, she felt no remorse for. Here, right now, with the bodies piled around them? She feels something she doesn't understand. It consumes her and smothers her, and makes her gasp for air as her breathing comes on too quickly for her to keep up with.

Unable to answer his question with words, she shakes her head and goes limp in his hold on her. Her legs give out from under her and she drops to her knees.

[el_paso]

He won't let her go, no matter how hard she thrashes, while her rage flares hot and burns itself out into guilt, into pain and sorrow, all of it read so easily on her small face. His own fear keeps his grip tight, because what if she runs? What if she's caught again?

When she goes slack, boneless as a recalcitrant toddler, Logan's claws finally retract, and he steps in to heft her up into his arms. Pissed as he is, disappointed as he is, she's still his child. "Grab onto me. I'm taking you back."

Then he can round up the rest of their idiots-with-death-wishes.

[coercive]

Her hands reach up to grab hold of him, and she turns her head so it's resting up against his body. She doesn't want him to see her crying, though she knows he can likely feel it since he's holding her so close. He starts to walk and she grabs hold a little tighter.

"Sorry," she finally says, the single word taking such strength and effort to mutter now. There's more she wants to say, she just can't.