Shepherd's Haven Event: Devil's Night

[devils_shadow]

Who: Damon the doppelganger and OPEN TO ANY IN SHEPHERD'S HAVEN
What: Devil has an announcement to make in the form of arson and violence. Aforementioned player plot shenanigans.
Where: Shepherd's Haven
When: Forward dated to the night of October 30th, and probably into the morning of the 31st. Devil's night, in other words.
Status: Open with some closed-ish subthreads!
Warnings: Arson and violence?

No night had ever been so aptly named.

Shepherd's Haven wasn't anywhere near Michigan, but that didn't mean the festivities of Devil's Night couldn't be spread to far and wide locales. It was the perfect night, in fact, for the creature known as a demon to remind the sleepy little haven of precisely why it was unwise to prod the beast. Perhaps the one who called him there had forgotten, or perhaps he simply thought the devil had more bark than bite.

Oh, how wrong he was.

It began with fire. Several fires, to be precise. Small at first but fed with whatever accelerant Damon could find on hand. Fuel left unguarded, dry hay or straw. Did you know compost burns very well? It does, oh how it burns. And each fire set at different locations across the town, so quickly and so close to simultaneous one might almost think that they were set by several people at once.

Or one that could move very, very quickly.

The cherry on top was a door with a fading red "X" painted on it, ripped from its hinges and set ablaze, then left on the steps in front of the town hall.

[[OOC: Leaving this fairly open for anyone to react to and have their own threads/etc. of what's happening. Separate threads will go up for some more planned stages of the event, but if anyone wants to be unfortunate enough to run across Damon while he pursues his arsonist rampage through SH go ahead and put up a toplevel and just toss in the comment header that you want me.

Have fun dealing with those fires and rampaging demon, guys!]]

Comments

[brotimaeus]

The nauseating and all-too-recognisable smell of scorched flesh hits him a moment after he appears, as if from nowhere, on the tail end of a flash-step. Somewhere along the line he lost his shades, but it hardly seems to matter.

"Damon!" he snarls out over the sound of Misa's screaming, already scuffed and bruised from an earlier tussle with the doppelganger but now all the more determined to see him off in any way he can. "Why don't you try pickin' on someone who presents more of a challenge?"

Most of it, really, is him trying to give L and Misa a chance to run, or get away from here any way they can. He has to present a more interesting target than they do, and if he doesn't.. he can definitely make more of a nuisance of himself than this. For now he places himself between Damon and the two injured people on the ground, eyes narrowed on their attacker.

He's only sorry that he didn't get there sooner.

"You an' me, we got some unfinished business."

[devils_shadow]

There was something satisfying about watching the two would-be heroes go sprawling like a pair of knocked over toys. It would be even more satisfying to leave their broken and battered corpses on the street as a warning to anyone else. But roughing them up a little so that they can remember fear is an acceptable outcome as well.

He's charging another Drive when Richard appears on the scene, and while it was meant for the pitiful martyr and his screeching counterpart instead he launches it in Richard's direction. So many people eager to die tonight, what a joyous occasion!

"Oh, are you disappointed I left you alive the first time? Very well, I'll be sure to fix that."

But first this stupid ice needs to go. He starts to wrench against it, already weakening and cracking away from his feet.

[numberedshepherd]

It's simultaneously very horrifying and very logical that there's not any pain to speak of. The injured leg is there, of course, visible and sickening and singed, and that means it warrants alarm, but the shock of the injury and certain nerve damage makes it difficult to register beyond what's visible. Starting above Lazarus' ankle where his boots offered more or less adequate protection and extending a couple inches above his knee, one side of his right leg is in pretty rough shape.

Working to even out his quick, frantic, catching breaths, he finally looks at Misa when she screams. She's not covered, didn't even have the cursory protection of normal garments, and her bare legs largely took the brunt of the attack. His first instinct is to use the dropped stave, just a foot away and within easy reach, to encase them in soothing ice. If they were going to live through this, that would carry dangers and risks of complication: frostbite, of course, as well as intensifying hypothermia as the body loses heat faster through burned flesh.

But they're not going to live. That much, by now, seems abundantly clear, and instead of reaching for the stave, he wraps his arms around her, holding her tightly, offering his body as a paltry shield because it's all he has. A few seconds of pain, and then perhaps they'll meet again in the next life.

As the sound and charged air announce the beginning of the attack that will likely finish them off, though, a familiar voice causes Lazarus to lift his head and his gaze. "Richard..." he murmurs under his breath, maybe loudly enough for Misa to hear if she's stopped screaming. His eyes widen as he recognizes what this is: a chance, if nothing else, to actually get away, offered by someone far better equipped to face Damon and live.

"Misa, come on...!" he turns, shifting his weight experimentally. He doesn't have the strength of most men, but all the honest labor around Shepherd's Haven has improved the wasted physique of a former addict with hangups about food significantly. He does his best to position their bodies in a way that promises the most efficient distribution of their weights, and then he seizes the ice stave, using it to create a solid makeshift harness that can hold her in place against his back. It's not perfect, but it's the best he can do in a single desperate second.

Two deep breaths. Bracing on his good leg and leaning the rest of their combined weights on the stave, he manages to pull them upright. Even though he's shaking from adrenaline and shock and his injured leg is infuriatingly useless as it drags alongside the load-bearing stave, he makes clumsy but steady progress away from the battle with Misa in tow.