PLAYER PLOT - FEAR GAS - WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEE MY MASK?

[notmydiagnosis]

CHARACTERS: Scarecrow, everyone under the sun.
LOCATION: Oxygen gardens / spread out from there
WARNINGS: Crazy paranoia. There's going to be a lot of people getting triggered, violence, etc
SUMMARY: Crane can't wait any longer. Takes place from Friday the 11th to midnight on Monday!
NOTES: And it begins! Plotting posts were here and here. I took the advice of a few lovely people and made this a catch-all post but feel free to use communications/the network as you see fit. Most importantly have fun and if I've missed something, please please please PM this account or plurk me about it at realthingshakes! This is my first player plot EVER so I'm trying to make things as simple as I can. And just in case I fuck up royally, the anon-enabled HMD is over here. shhh I'm paranoid





The mask felt good, it felt in place. It felt perfect. And that's what this plan was--sweet perfection layered in the form of fear and paranoia and violence. Chaos.

Scarecrow was going to be severely disappointed if no one died tonight. And he was Scarecrow now, not the polite and courteous (and ridiculously uninteresting) Dr. Jonathan Crane. That man was gone now--he'd gone the moment the Bat-Man had dragged him to Arkham after Rachel, the moment he was a patient in his own asylum.

Instead, it was Scarecrow now. Suit sharp, noose dangling over his tie, the manic stitching of a hastily sewn burlap sap with a gas mask in it. It was more than just a simple mask, it was almost another personality. It was everything the silly, bullied Jonathan Crane couldn't be, the quiet, dearly, fearful revenge he'd longed for for so long.

He willed himself to stop shaking. There were so many theories--so many people that might react to fear differently. This was Scarecrow's petting zoo now, the Tranquility's passengers his pets. He wants nothing more than to watch them squirm and scream and cry and panic; misses the way the body stiffens in terror, wants to see fight or flight reflexes kicking in. He had four canisters--two of which he had given to his young apprentice, the others in his own possession--four canisters of beautiful, raw fear.

He'd been expecting the vents upon his arrival--and with no Batman to stop him, he thought he was in the clear. Even picked up a few interested parties. There were friends of Batman, yes, but the sadistic smirk on his face never left as he finally released the canisters, laying them near the vents. Scarecrow turned to Tate, voice transformed by the mask:

"We have work to do."

Comments

[slayer_not_player]

"There we go kid, just keep looking at me," Tillman eased. He took the gun from its holster and laid it on the ground slowly. The last thing the situation needed was for Simon to get a hold of a pistol. He caught Murphy's eye and subtly gestured to it. He didn't know much about the guy except that he had agreed to help and that he was rational and hadn't hurt Simon. In this situation, that was enough of a resume for Tillman.

His focus shifted back to Simon. The terror was evident in his eyes and the stiffness of his muscles, but he wasn't fighting or fleeing. He was just standing there. "Everything is alright," he stated and slowly decreased the gap. Simon followed him with a jerky motion of the neck and then it occurred to him that he recognized the posture. It was the standby posture a Slayer took up when his player wasn't issuing any controls. That explained a few things.

Without another word, he reached out and eased his arms around Simon. He pulled the boy tightly to his chest-- not the most comfortable hug, given the stiff body armor he wore, but Simon would just have to deal. "This isn't a match, kid. It's okay," he whispered.

[player_not_slayer]

Simon breathed a hair easier when the arm around his throat disappeared, as the presence eased away and it seemed like it was only him and Kable as he kept eye-contact with his I-con like it was his goddamn lifeline. He could still see them, the other Slayers, out in the corners of his vision, but looking at them would mean looking away from Kable and Simon just knew the moment he looked away his player would decide that that would be the best time to attack. He couldn't control it, he could feel his muscles tensing up again in preparation to resist as Kable so fucking brilliantly decided to bait the tit sucking fucker who'd gotten control of his head and step up close, but then the bastard had to go and do something nearing suicidal.

It felt like being hugged like a fucking grenade scented fridge but Simon didn't care about that.

"I'm gonna k-..gonna k-" He couldn't complete the thought or the word, nor could he hide the slight hiccuping noise that escaped between his attempt at coherent speech. How the fuck could it be okay, dude. He knew all the weak spots on Kable's armor, knew just where his player could have him hit if he had a weapon, if Kable had a weapon, if--

But they didn't. The worst Simon could do to Kable, being this close, was break his hand trying to punch him in the dick. That thought cut through the fear, cut through the panic and the horror and the control, and Simon sagged like a ragdoll in relief.

Kable had him, he couldn't kill Kable, and that was enough to keep the monsters at bay, at least for the moment.

[yardbird]

One could only assume that this was the most that Murphy could do here now. In Simon's frame of mind, something that was familiar and not going to pose as a threat seemed to be exactly what the kid needed.

Murphy glanced to Tillman as he set the pistol down -- then to the gun, and back to Tillman again. He could take a cue when it was laid out in front of him, and in this case, it was the gun. He had been on this ship for only a couple of days, and even with makeshift bludgeons at his disposal, he still felt vulnerable without any actual firepower to back him up. Already he'd had someone pull a gun on him and nearly attack him, and given this ship's track record that he was already aware of... Murphy wasn't going to make any stupid risks just for the sake of being humble.

Quietly, he shifted around the two in order to retrieve the pistol from the ground, and holstered it behind his back. Out of sight, and out of mind -- and out of reach of a teenager who'd been throwing death threats just a few minutes ago.

He then looked back to Simon and Tillman. While the kid didn't look like he was about to start flailing all over the place in a mad and futile fray, Murphy still wanted to make sure that he was going to make it out alright. Just in case.

[slayer_not_player]

"You're not." Tillman rubbed Simon's bony shoulders in reassurance. He took it as a good sign that there was no resistance. His plan would have mirrored Murphy's if there had been, and that just wouldn't have been fun for anyone involved.

When Simon sagged against him, he shifted his grip and picked the boy up like an overgrown toddler. Simon had lost weight since their arrival on the Tranquility. The kid hadn't had much weight to lose to start with. He kept such observations to himself for the moment, though once Simon was better he was going to have to endure a lecture about food groups and how peanut butter wasn't one.

Simon in hand, Tillman pivoted to face Murphy. "Cover me to the lift," he said, voice low. He couldn't be sure what would set Simon off. He wanted to get back to the familiarity of his room as soon as possible.

[player_not_slayer]

It should have been so awkward, having Kable hugging him like this, with murmured reassurances and all that emotional bullshit, but it blanketed Simon's mind like a balm, shutting out the spectres and cutting off that sense that his body was not his own to control. So he didn't protest when his Slayer just picked him up, just burying his face into the seam between Kable's bodyarmor and his neck.

He could still feel the adrenaline coursing through his system, still feel his muscles twitching in preparation to react from some unseen force, but with his eyes closed the horrors seemed to be only at a distance, and less real. Much less real than Kable,who smelled like a battlefield and was carrying him in a way that would have been completely gay and undignified in any other circumstance.

"S-sorry, man." He managed to mumble into Kable's neck, voice as quiet as Kable would ever hear him.

[yardbird]

It was refreshing to see something go somewhat right for a change, after it seemed like most of the time Murphy got involved in something, things always went south. He suffered for it, his family suffered, Cunningham suffered...

Shaking off his concerns and doubts, Murphy nodded at Tillman's command. "No problem. I got ya both." At least this time, he could say that he wasn't going unarmed in a place where fear-stricken people were running around with guns.

One thing was for certain, as he glanced between Simon and the way out -- they should get the hell out before one of those aforementioned people would come running across... Maybe mistake them for something else, just as the kid had.

Murphy really wasn't looking for a repeat incident...

[slayer_not_player]

"Nothing to be sorry about, kid," Tillman muttered back. It was a good thing that Simon had settled down on his own. There were times that he wanted to strangle the rambunctious teen, but this was not one of those times. There would be no lesson learned for strangling him now.

"Don't know if you've been briefed on the cause of all this?" He said to Murphy as they moved. The area around them was clear for the moment. "A terrorist released a hallucinogenic toxin into the air in this sector. It induces fear, paranoia, waking nightmares. It's not fatal and the effects should wear off on their own as long as people don't kill each other."