2019-11-08 - Long Live the Swan Queen

Back at the Harbor Mist Pawn, Byron looks down at his phone before glancing over at James as he mans the register. There was no customers, so that was good. "GHPD messaged me. There's a lead on Lilith, I think." Pushing from where he was leaning against the main counter, he types out a response before reaching into his pockets for keys. "I'm going to lock up the shop if you want to come with." This isn't so much a question, it's just what Byron expected his old D&D pal to want to do...

James is stoned. He kinda has to be, to work at the pawn shop. Flu's long over, and his Glimmer's back, and so the psychometry he still hasn't gotten much control over is back in full force and being surrounded by all the... things... at the pawn shop is like being in a prison surrounded by screaming inmates, all wanting to make you live their stories and crimes. The weed helps keep that to a dull roar. He watches the frantic texting n Byron's part, one eyebrow raising slowly higher and higher as it goes on. "Oh, dang. ", is his first reaction, and then his brain works through the options. Stay here. With the stuff. Alone. Or go find Lilith, outside. Outside, where all the bad things are. "Yeah, no, let's lock up, of course I'm coming with you, someone's gotta watch your back, bud."

It's a blue Chevy truck that rolls up in front of Harbour Mist Pawn, rather than the captain's cruiser. Which would have been wholly unsuited to the trek out of town. He taps the horn a couple of times, but doesn't climb out. Phone in hand, radio beside him on the seat, he looks to be cross-referencing a location while he waits. He's also clearly off duty, says the tee shirt and black cargo pants and leather jacket, with that ball cap tugged over his eyes that makes him look like he's headed to a stakeout.

Byron looks unsuited to make the trek through anywhere with the suit and tie he wears today. By now, however, he's probably used navigating everything that the town throws his way in business attire. A heavy gray cloak and a black leather gloves help keep the chill of the autumn air at bay. When he'd received the message from Ruiz, the Captain didn't say whether it was good or bad news, nor did he mention any important details about the well-being of this person in a white dress. So he wears a stony expression when the cop drops by to pick them both up.

"Captain de la Vega, thanks for getting back to me regarding Lilith's disappearance." Reaching for the door handle to let himself into the passenger side, he idly gestures to the other guy with a free gloved hand, "This is James, a friend of mine. He kept watch over the pawn shop in case Lilith returned when I couldn't be there."

Byron's rented Benz was parked outside of the shop, but there was also another black car with what Ruiz should recognize as members of the Bayside Apartments security team. "Ever since the night of the opening ceremony, " When he was kidnapped, "I had security detail trailing me." As per Alexander Clayton's request. There were only two of them in the car and neither of them glimmered.

James has thrown a jean jacket on over his everpresent hoodie, and is otherwise just in jeans, sneakers, and a ball cap. Byron's got a stony expression, but James is just mildly stoned, and he gives Ruiz a pleasant enough smile and a little wave as Byron introduces him. "Hey Cap'n. Don't worry, not secretly a badass, I really am about as useless as I look. I'll stay out of your way if things get weird, yeah?" He glances back at the security detail. "They're gonna want to follow along I guess?", he asks, as he climbs up to get a seat- inside if there's room, or happily bouncing along in the back if not.

"De nada," murmurs the cop, still scrolling on his phone like he's hunting for something. A set of coordinates, perhaps. They're jotted down on a pad of paper, which is tossed atop the dashboard as his passengers settle in. The other guy he's never met before gives him pause, perhaps unsurprisingly, and he rakes his eyes over the man without any pretense of politeness. "Hello," he greets him in English. The accent's noticeable, though not overpowering; he's clearly put some effort into smothering it.

"Can you call them off?" he asks Byron in regards to the security detail, and signals before swinging out onto the street. It doesn't take too long to reach the forest, and the truck bumps over potholes as it turns off the access road and into the lot.

"Can you call them off?"

Byron arches a brow at the Captain's request, but pulls out his phone all the same to do just that. Placing it to his hear, he murmurs to the one in the passenger seat of the security car, "Stay there. Keep an eye on the pawn shop," there's the briefest of pauses, before he adds, "in the case that this falls through." While he didn't type out an agreement that he would he follow Ruiz's instructions to a T, he'll do this much.

For those who grew up in Gray Harbor, the Firefly Forest was a familiar playground that they used to explore as children. The Adventurer's Guild camped out here as well, even if some of them would rather roll dice at Kevin's house, they'd set up tents here and run a one shot campaign every so often. So yes, this place was very familiar to Byron Thorne. In fact, he'd checked here at least once before. He spared nothing when searching for Lilith-- Well, mostly nothing.

As they trek through the camp ground and move deeper into the woods, the masked figure in the bloody white dress creates a vividly morbid image against the backdrop of the decaying forest with most of the leaves having already turned brown and fallen to the forest floor. "Lilith?"

Ruiz might notice that costume was slightly similar to the woman he had taken into custody at the opening ceremony, except Amelia Birchwood was a black swan instead. She'd since been released.

If Ruiz or James doesn't stop him, then Byron will quickly make his way to crouch down beside Lilith's prone form and try to carefully dust the leaves from off of her and to remove the mask from off her face.

James does not look surprised at all at the cautious reception he gets from Ruiz. I mean, he's probably look at himself the same way if he was in that driver's seat. He rides along in relative silence- it doesn't take focusing on his emo-radar to feel the tension in the vehicle as they approach the coordinates and get out of the car. "... dang. Were these woods this creepy back in the day too? I mostly had good memories out here.", he murmurs, more to himself than anything else. Soon enough, though, they run into the corpse- I mean, that's James' first assumption upon seeing her, because he's not exactly a glass half full kinda guy. "... oh, shit.", he says, and brings a hand to his mouth, trailing more slowly after Bryon. "Fuck. Is she..?"

Ruiz loiters in the truck a little longer, and collects something from the glove compartment while he's in there. It doesn't take Sherlock Holmes to figure out what that likely is, given that he shoves it into a holster under his jacket before he climbs out. Boots crunch the gravel then as he hikes out after the other men, and into the treeline. He moves like someone trained, ready, and probably expecting shit to go sideways, and hangs back a little as Byron stoops to remove the woman's mask. His jaw's tight, but he doesn't look away. Even as- "Thorne." Just that, a sliver of tension stitched through his shoulders.

It's here, settled down on one knee beside Lilith's body that Byron removes from of his gloved hands once the mask is off. With bare fingertips he feels the cold of her skin starting from against her pale cheek before he lets his hand graze down the side of her arm. While he could feel her heart beating, her slight wrist held within his hand, her lowered body temperature was a huge concern for him.

Slipping the removed glove between his teeth to hold, he quickly shrugs off his heavy coat , one arm moving to lift Lilith's body up as he wraps her within its warmth. It's only after that that he removes the other glove from his hand, before taking both and stuffing it into the coat's pocket. Fully focused on caring for Lilith and making sure that she's comfortable and warm, Byron barely catches the subtle change within the mist until only after he has the brunette tightly wrapped up. "We have to get her out of here now." He murmurs, looking prepared to just scoop her up in his arms and carry her back to Ruiz's car, but that's when he notices... something, a glitter in the air. "God damn it."

James is momentarily distracted by the shift in the air- glittery. Sparkly. Pretty. But a mere fraction of a second later, the chill and heaviness of it hit him, the growing scent of weirdness in the air, and he gives an involuntary shudder. He seems about to say something, but stops, mouth half-open as he tilts his head, listening intently. "... uh, hey, guys? Do you... hear that? Voices. Little ones. I don't think we're alone out here.", he calls, even as he moves to make sure the other two guys are between him and, well, as much of the rest of the world as he can cover with just them two. The growing sense of dread in him causes his long-neglected gifts, minor as they are, to flare up a bit, as there's a blink-and-you'll-miss-it gleam over his skin, his Glimmer instinctively cushioning him from the world.

Ruiz is aware of that something in the air. Fine and crystalline, almost like glass or rock dust from a quarry when breathed in. He has no such facility with pushing as some have termed it, and though he seems to have some sense of the air shifting in response to James's glimmer.. he doesn't appear to know where it came from. "Go," he tells Byron, reaching under his jacket to draw his firearm. "I'll cover you both." His eyes flick to the left, then the right, then briefly up toward the canopy before he prepares to trail them back out of the treeline. Assuming they make it that far.

He doesn't know why he reaches for the swan mask, but Byron does so, keeping it in hand until he's able to lift the covered Lilith up in his arms, then the mask is set down to rest upon her form. He's not sure what it is that James is hearing, because he doesn't hear the voices at all, but he does notice the way the air just sparkles like... glitter. Terrible glitter. It's hard to defend oneself when you're carrying an unconscious person, so Thorne is grateful when de la Vega plans to be play defender so that the rest of them can rush to safety.

"Thanks." He calls out with his Lilith bundle, before looking towards James. See, he can see the light within James and he can even tell that they share a similar power set, the mentalist gig. But the guy's been out of town for years and only just now returned. It's at this moment of contemplation when he notices a spark? But at the moment, it looks like more glitter, so he thinks nothing of it, "You might want to get the hell out of here too." Though it already looks like his friend has the right idea as he starts on his way back towards the truck.

Ruiz's pistol comes out, safety off, and a round dropped into the chamber with a quick rack of the slide. Braced in his left hand, he pivots around remarkably fast when he hears that trill of command from up high. A step backwards, two, to try to body block Byron, and his finger finds the trigger and squeezes it once he has a bead on one of them.

James is in fact moving almost before Ruiz tells them to go. "Way ahead of you, bud-", he calls, and then grits his teeth. Make all the jokes about gingers being soulless that you want to make, James can't just run off without at least asking- "You need help with Lil?", he asks, just as the chirping chaos beings and poisoned arrows rain down. "Shit! Shit!", he yells, as he moves over to Lilith and Byron, trying to cover Lilith's other side with his far too small to be an adequate shield body. "Quit it with the arrows, you dicks!"

How many of those little guys were there? Byron doesn't stop to take a head count. When running away from ranged attacks like arrows, he knows enough to not run in a straight line, taking the time to duck behind tree cover whenever possible, if just to get them out of line of fire for a brief moment. Only once a barrage of arrows are shot and he figures they need to reload, he'll continue to run alongside James, all while trying to make sure that he's covering enough of Lilith so that she's not hit by a stray arrow.

It's during one of these breather moments that he stops to mentally reach out through the depths of the dark forest, his back resting against a tree. Unlike inside of the town proper, there were animals to be found within the Firefly Forest. If he can find some, he then might be able to command them to do his bidding and take those bow wielding poor excuse for toys out of the picture.

James definitely lets Byron take the lead as to where they're headed- but at least with his help it's probably a little easier to carry Lilith, freeing him up to move more nimbly, or, y'know, mind-control foxes, as you do. He just mutters, "... don't wanna get shot with poison arrows..." over and over even as he continues to try and cover Lil's side like a skinny bearded ginger human shield. The shots fired by Ruiz make him jump and wince- clearly not a man used to combat.

Ruiz backpedals as quickly as he's able while shooting; walking the dog, so to speak. Two loud cracks echo through the still air and startle a few crows from their perch. His aim is good, but his shots don't quite take down his target, and he racks the slide, strafes to the left, and fires again while the others continue to retreat.

James winces as he notices the bloody thing glaring at him. "Eat me, you little-", he begins to shout at it, until he notices the approaching swarm. "Oh hell no. Guys, we gotta get out of here!", he yells, as he tries to keep covering Lilith and hurry them away from this place. The arriving weird foxes only get a momentary blink from him, because by this point, they're the least weird thing about this situation.

Two more shots fired; that little bugger is hard to get a bead on, but Ruiz is a man at home with a sniper rifle half a mile out from his target, and finesses the shots well enough to bloody the little critter again. Unfortunately, it's still charging at him, despite missing its shot with those nasty poison-tipped arrows. Just as the bandana'd toy soldier lunges for his leg, he lets out a vicious-sounding snarl; and like a circuit being closed, his whole body arcs with electricity.

The only other time where Byron allows himself to slow down is when he's looking over his shoulders at their toy nemesis, just so he can mentally direct these black forest foxes to the pint-sized gnawable toys. Other than that, he keeps on moving. Hearing Lilith's words only distracts him a little, his eyes towards the road where the truck is parked. "We're getting you out of here, Lil." A pause, before he adds in, "Princess..." And as much as he'd love to stop and kiss her, that's not in the cards at the moment. Especially when it would take just one arrow to down either of them. Or that's how he pictures it in his mind, if anything, since none of them had been struck by the rain of pointed projectiles, they might not hurt so badly at all.

All the while, he could hear Ruiz's shots being fired behind him, but he's not sure how much the toys had closed in. He does continue to see James, however. Nice of him to keep the company. "How many of them are left?" He calls out to the duo. Oh shit, he hears more little footsteps coming from somewhere.

"Ow! Fucking hell, you little douchenozzles! Go... go decorate some goddamn lawns!", James yells at the gnomes, wincing and bringing a hand up to his head where a bit of blood is trickling down from the impact- a lot less than he would have expected given the hit he just took. Hooray for magic shield? He keeps doggedly moving towards the car, covering Lilith, not quite realizing he'd probably be safer using her as cover instead of the other way around.

What's grouchy, weighs about 190 pounds and electrocutes things on contact? A pissed off Captain de la Vega, that's what. His body channels around 1500 volts of electricity into the poor creature that tries to latch onto his leg, killing it near-instantly; it doesn't even have time to actually bite him. Another attack is dodged as he rapidly backpedals, and hoists his gun back up to take a potshot at James's attackers as they retreat.

The urge to stand and fight grows stronger each time an arrow whizzes past his head off into the distance. There's even this moment where he's giving James the look, though Hecker could interpret it any way he wants, but Byron's actually considering handing his precious baggage over to the other guy. He's hesitant to do so, however. As slight as Lilith is, this is James Hecker we're talking about. "You think you can take her from here, James?" He asks all without slowing down. Despite the question, there's this reluctance to actually follow through with what he's asking of the other guy even if he does move in closer towards him.

"Probably!", James replies back frantically at Byron. "Go, go, I got her. Not gonna let her fall, mostly because I'm terrified of what she'd do to me if I did, now go do your thing!", he adds, making sure he's got Lilith's arm over his shoulder. ".. please don't be dead weight, please don't be dead weight.. oof." And then he continues trying to drag her out of here while the action heroes do the action hero thing.

Ruiz shoots, strafes, shoots, strafes, does a quick shoulder check to make sure the others are well on their way to his truck. And jerks his head back in time to spot a veritable swarm of little gnome-like critters leaping out of the trees with little spears pointed at him. "Fuck's sake," he grunts, swatting at a couple of them to fend them off, and knocking one to the ground with the butt of his gun. Then a crack of electricity shunts into him with a hiss as it slices through synapses and muscle and bone and fingertips, arcing from one creature to the next in his immediate vicinity.

It was hard to focus on the foxes when you're running for both you and your loved one's lives all without looking back on the enemy if you can help it. So when the furry forest creatures do attack next, they are more scattered than united. It's only when Byron is able to get his hands free, passing Lilith off to James, that he finally stops and turns to get a better view of this incoming hoard. At this moment, the air shifts with a spark, both of his hands crackling with electricity. His control over the foxes also breaks and they begin to hop away to burrow into their dens.

James was still running, keeping Lilith safe and while there's temptation to look over his shoulder to make sure that this is what's exactly happening, he rushes towards the incoming, knocking several of the plastic figures with a tightly balled fist, lighting up their toy bodies while another group of midget gnomes tore up the earth in an attempt to bring him down. This was unlike slugging it out with an actual person you're on size. In the onslaught, he felt the sting of rocks and twigs being psychically hurled at him, pelting him all over. He could even feel several of them as they tried to climb him. Reaching out for one of the climbers, he sends a shocking jolt through its body before beaming a platoon of those things with the crackling, melting body of their friend, watching them go down like dominoes.

In this panicked chaos and in the hopes to defend themselves so that they can escape, several of the last to fall push for their own attack, sending forth a frenzy of rocks to strike at him, Byron swipes at the air to bat those stones away. He even knocks one of the last few ranged soldiers down in a electrifying sizzle before he feels a much closer and personal attack, one of those things that had crawled up on him and was trying to take a stab at his neck. Tearing it off from his person, the small form engulfed in electricity, he hurls it to the side, smashing it on the ground. This actually wipes out the army of plastic men, but in the confusion of being struck from all sides, one good blow to the throat knocks the wind out of him, forcing him to stumble back. It's actually the fall that knocks him unconscious and the hurled stone. He's not even sure what hit him.

James is going to just ignore the fact that his friends are basically hurling lightning around because that is more shit than he's willing to deal with. At least for now. He keeps dragging Lilith forward, only glancing back once as... "Ah, shit!", James shouts as he sees Byron fall. He glances at the Lilith in his arms, and sighs. "Goddamit she'll kill me if I just leave him behind won't she? And also, friends. Fuck." With some effort, he turns the Lilith-train in Byron's direction. "Byron. Come on. Get up. You're the princess-saver around here, we need you!", he mutters, nudging Byron with his foot with increasing worry. "Come on buddy. Up and at 'em. You gotta be the first thing she sees when she wakes up, not me, because then she'll imprint on me and no one wants that." Apparently James tends to ramble when he's upset. And also may be confusing swans with ducks. Nudge, nudge. His bedside manner leaves something to be desired, but maybe all that nudging will rouse him from his current knocked out state enough that he can limp out of here with them all.

When the dust clears, there are a whole lot of broken toys lying on the forest floor, and James seems to have managed to return Byron to consciousness by way of his boot. Ruiz continues to back away slowly, panting with the effort of having sustained the electrical field in his body for as long as he did. Blood trickles from his nose and his ears, and he swipes it away with the backs of his knuckles before pivoting and prowling in closer to the others. "I can take over, get Lilith back to the car if you need," he tells Byron. The cop's clearly capable of bearing her weight, sturdy fellow that he is. Could've skipped the donuts in the break room today, yesterday, and all of this month, but hey.

Byron's only out for a short amount of time, but his head was killing him. After being pelted by rocks and feeling the needle-like grip of toy soldiers digging their hands into him and then the finishing blow, he could still feel impact that truck against his throat, it was his head that was killing him most of all. He'd hit a stone on the way down and hit temple was now bleeding. When his eyes finally open, his body feeling the gentle nudge of James' foot, it was hard not to close his eyes again. But there were voices all around them, James and Ruiz.

However, it's the soft sobs of Lilith that actually gets him to move and drag himself up into a seated position at the very least. His hand at his head, he stares down at his own blood on his fingers. "How long was I..." He's about to ask, before the reality of where they were quickly began to return to him. "Shit.." He quickly rises to stand, but is unsteady on his feet with the swift motion. That unsteadiness carries over when he takes his first two steps in James' direction, "Is she awake?" Placing a hand on her shoulder, it's his turn to try and shake someone out of their current mental state, or in his case, unconscious state. "Lilith. Lilith." The second time around, his voice grows louder.

They were quartet of people standing around in the forest after some child's war just ended. He might not be in any state to carry her on his own, though he'll try. And when someone more capable takes up the mantle instead, he'll reluctantly allow it, but won't be too far behind.

"Yeah.", James replies back to Byron, while awkwardly patting Lilith's head as she comes to and begins to weep while clinging to him. "... there, there. Look, I brought your boy back to life with my magic shoes. Come back to the car? It's all gonna be ok.", he lies, then glances back to Ruiz. "Help Byron. I'm not trusting we're ok until we get the fuck outta here, man.", he says, and starts gently trying to drag Lilith over to the car now that she's not entirely dead weight.

Ruiz doesn't ask a second time. He simply crouches down to slide his arms under Lilith gently; shoulders and knees. "I've got her," he tells James, firmly but not unkindly. He gives the man a moment to stop dragging her along, then hoists her up with ease, and nods toward his truck. It's not that he's impervious to her tears, but more that he's dealt with his share of crying women, and is good at compartmentalization. "Thorne, let's go." And he's off.

Lilith stops crying the very second she hears Byron's voice and feels his touch on her, not really cognizant of how or who's supporting her, sucking in a little choked gasp of relief when it sinks in that he's not dead on the ground and she's not dead either somewhere in her addled mind. Reality as it's baseline supposed to be is still somewhat unclear for her after being out of it for so many days in a row, her senses are somewhat shot. But the important thing is that she's seeming pretty okay considering and just needs to be put back together physically and mentally to get totally okay. Blood and fatigue and disorientation are her major hurdles now that she's safe with company and back where she's supposed to be.

The arm with the higher burn marking reaches to try and touch against Byron's sleeve of the hand reaching to touch her before she's shifted for quick and solid transport to the vehicle waiting to take them all back to the loft, courtesy of Ruiz's stalwart hands carrying her before they're set to the steering wheel.

And when they're in the truck and she's cradled against Byron, she's Lilith enough somewhere in there to tell James she'd like a soul snack from his beard. Which is weird, but whatever, he gets it.