EVENT #5: SOVEREIGN CITIZENS (VENERA)

[aionmods]

Sovereign Citizens

VENERA

In contrast the Aion's last visit, they now arrive in Venera on a completely average day... or so it seems. Unlike Godsblood, Venera has been given no warning as to what's about to befall it; the Kenoma are simply authorized to arrive and begin their bloody work without fanfare. Even their entourage of Achamite soldier don't stick out that much; in the time since the plague left, the city has refilled with occupying forces. Notably, the Hylician ones seem to be keeping out of the way, almost as if they've heard some things and would rather not be involved too closely in what's to come.

As opposed to the ghost town it was during the plague, Venera is now reasonably active, with most attending to their usual business. Shops are open, and its people are withdrawn but superficially friendly when meeting strangers. Initially, the targets of the Kenoma hit list will have no way of knowing what's coming for them, but after the first couple attacks word will begin to spread. Those that have recently been engaging in seditious behavior will become harder to find, leaving their usual homes and workplaces to stay elsewhere, and making other attempts to escape the Regent's attention.

Once those alerts have been raised, the Kenoma will have to engage in more detective work to find their targets, questioning other Venerans and seeking out fugitives in the homes of their family and friends. In the meantime, some of those who believe they are in danger may become desperately enough to seek out the Pleroma directly, imploring them for aid. Unfortunately, seeking out one sect may just as easily draw the attention of the other. Most uninvolved Venerans will be too terrified to intervene one way or another, reluctant to aid in the persecution of their neighbors but fearful of consequences. If your Aion travels openly, it will take some effort to pin them down long enough to hold a conversation.

SEEDS OF DESPAIR

Several days into the culling of Venera, the Aions will have witnessed the city gradually withdraw into itself. The streets become vacant as more and more people decide it isn't worth the risk to be seen outside, abandoning work and play alike to hide out in their homes, refusing to answer their doors to all except the most desperate pleading. Those that can't avoid their daily obligations are quiet and morose, trying their best to remain unseen and unremarked upon.

If your character has been observed as a Kenoma, either now or in their previous visits to the city, the citizens will look upon them as if they are the messengers of death. If you are seen as a Pleroma, they will resist your gaze, as if fearing your presence alone might leave them marked. In rarer cases, you will see those with stronger spirits, with glares of hatred or determination. They are powerless now, but seeds have been sewn, and whether they are the seeds of despair or of action are yet unclear.

By the time the Kenoma's hit list has been fully addressed, several have been killed and several more have been rushed from their homes to flee the city entirely. There have been holes left in the tapestry of the community they were once part of. One way or another, their absence will be felt keenly by those they left behind.

QUESTIONS

What is the best way for Aions to travel to Venera?
Estinien has plans to get an early start for the Pleroma by teleporting to the Lover's shrine and flying somewhere closer to set up a portal from the ocean caves near the Godsblood Lodestone to a spot of farmland closer to Venera. Paul will be setting up a portal directly from Achamoth to one of the Achamite outposts in Venera.

How much force can the Kenoma use while interrogating Venerans?
While they are generally not permitted to kill Venerans who haven't tried to physically fight them, they will be permitted to apply both physical and mental pressure upon those that refuse to provide them with information regarding the whereabouts of their targets. This duress should be proportional to the resistance the Veneran is offering. The Regent is not inviting them to terrorize Venera on a level to a level they cannot reasonably blaim themselves for.

Comments

[warmare]

[A jinba's hearing is more keen than a human's. She hears the man's mutterings... but she assigns to it only to frustration with his task. He must be one of the ones assigned to round up the rebels in Venera and make examples through their disappearance... and if he's fucked then perhaps the more noble-minded members of Pleroma she had accompanied here were succeeding.

But she isn't one of them. She had come here to hunt, not to help.

She was at least observant enough to note how the Venerans tended to act around the Achamites that had their boot heel on their city's neck. She isn't the most skilled actress, but she can manage this much, flinching away as if not wanting to invite a guard's ire or interest, quickly pulling the bundle of sticks off her back as if ready to be subject to some sort of inspection.]

No, I don't, sir- I don't have anything to say...

[Even as an act, the "sir" annoys her, but... the movement of the sticks masks the bow and arrows hidden inside them, and it hadn't been a lie, anyway. Hayame didn't have anything to say to him...

She had something to do to him.

She waits until he gets closer, one step, two... and then the sticks clatter as the rope binding them together "accidentally" comes loose. The illusion of a two-legged woman seems to scramble for them... before the glamor cracks and breaks the moment her concentration switches from hiding to attacking, leaving in its wake an enraged centaur with a bow leveled right at his chest. And unlike the last time they'd met... her weapon isn't a cracked, commandeered shortbow meant for humans with much less force to their draw than she was capable of.

It's a six foot longbow with an arrow notched.

An arrow she fires at his heart.]

[epiprocta]

[ The fact that he'd already pinpointed Hayame as an undercover Pleroma Aion is probably the only thing that keeps him from being killed right then and there. Because regardless of how guarded he is, and how suspiciously he'd been treating that 'peddler,' there's no way Gen is immune to the shock of seeing that glamor fall away to reveal a very distinct figure that he certainly remembers seeing.

That centaur lady he'd run into the last time they were in Venera. Someone he vaguely remembers clashing with while driven by his Innocence-induced mania. Someone definitely strong. Someone who's aiming a fucking arrow right at him.

-- will it kill him in one shot if that arrow lands, he can't help wondering.

Then Gen snaps back to his senses, shaking off that shock as he tries to dodge off to the side. Admirably quick, but not quick enough.

The arrow catches his left forearm, narrowly avoiding bone but puncturing clean through flesh; the arrowhead rips through sinew and muscle, spraying blood across the pavement as it tears through the opposite side. The impact of that blow is almost enough to knock Gen off his feet; it feels like his arm's about to rip out of the socket of his shoulder, and there's the grit of dirt underfoot as Gen's boots skid back one, two paces in the fight to remain standing. Fuck.

It hurts, of course. Hurts like hell. Everything from his shoulder below is awash with a pain that burns, his fingertips quivering violently if he tries to move them the slightest. But even stronger than any acknowledgement of pain is anger, and Gen's eyes are alight with a rage that can rival Hayame's when he looks up. And before Hayame can fire off a second arrow, he gives a vicious snarl as he gives a wide swipe of his uninjured arm.

Perhaps Hayame's expecting a repeat performance of their last encounter -- a wipe of the dirt beneath her hoofs, pinpoint accurate and meant to spill her to the ground. But what she's met with is a little different, because Gen hasn't laid idle these past few weeks. His magic's stronger, more vicious, and his area of influence has expanded as well. So what Hayame is greeted with instead is an eruption of the ground before her; it not only pelts her with rocks and pavement fragments, but also kicks up a could of dirt to obstruct her field of vision. ]

[warmare]

[It's too soon to feel victorious, even though the scent of blood spikes in her senses. She can't help it, that initial rush when she sees, hears, smells the shot connect... but it's just his arm. She should have shot him from a hundred meters away and risked the weakening force over distance, he was just a human, wasn't he- ?

A magic human. One she had expected to have the same magical powers as the last time they'd clashed.

Which means she isn't prepared at all for the ground to crack and splinter so forcefully, to not just move out from under her but to attack her. Something that might be a bit back curse sounds out, a fine mist of crimson staining the dust from cuts and scratches as the fragments of cobblestone street leave behind wounds she can only rear up to try and avoid. One hand moves up to protect her eyes, front legs lashing out to make sure he doesn't take advantage of the moment and bring a close-range weapon to bear...

But the second her forehooves are back on the ground, she's charging in an attempt to leave the sphere of that magic's influence, firing off another arrow with a hiss- not the best aimed, but just in attempt to keep his eyes busy while she gets to more solid ground.]

[epiprocta]

[ It's mostly the shock that saves him. The hard rush of adrenaline blocks out the worst of the pain, reducing it to a harsh burn that ripples up through his shoulder, something that he can ignore in the moment. After all, he can't afford to split his attention right now. Not when there's the thunder of hooves against the pavement surging closer to him, accompanied by the creak of that bow being drawn again.

No matter how frantically he tries to throw himself out of Hayame's immediate line of fire, there's no way he can avoid an arrow speeding his way. This second shot misses him, but not by much -- the arrowhead grazes past his side, sending another bright flourish of blood to paint the pavement behind him as Gen stumbles back a step.

But it's not in his nature to simply take blows like this. Even as he reels back, feeling blood starting to seep down his hip, the look that he gives Hayame is bright with focused rage. And the moment that Hayame moves to take another step

The ground beneath her front hooves suddenly gives way. Like an invisible hand's gouged a several-foot-deep trench right below her, just wide and deep enough to catch her forelegs and completely unbalance her. And this one comes without any swipe of the arm; it's harder manipulating the earth like this, and Gen can feel the weight of exhaustion starting to bear down on his shoulders. But it's necessary.

He needs his hands open so he can lob his mace right at Hayame, aimed right at her bow arm. If that hit lands and breaks either her fingers or the bow, or simply knocks that weapon away, he'll take it. But even with the element of surprise on his side, that's not an easy target to hit. ]

[warmare]

[If there was a way to measure rage, perhaps they might find an answer to which of the two of them was the angrier, whose eyes were burning with a fiercer flame.

Having grown used to anticipating her opponent needing to move his arm to signal something dangerous incoming, though... the fire in Hayame's eyes is replaced by shock. Her equine gait meant that when her hooves hit the ground the fore were quite far from each other, and by misfortune of timing... only one foreleg lands on air and not earth. Only one plunges into the trench, the other extended out before it. Her body lurches into a drop arrested only by her lower chest slamming into the trench edge, but-

Something pops.

She doesn't scream, but she bites her own tongue so badly that blood fills her mouth, and a high-pitched noise of pain makes it past her grit teeth despite her best efforts. Her heavy body flounders, her back legs scrambling, her bow slamming into the street as she has to use her hands to try and lever herself out of the trench... and then the mace flies at her mid-struggle. Though she manages to save her bow arm by sheer chance because of her struggles to pull her body free, moving unexpectedly... it slams into her shoulder. There's no time to stop, she can't let him move the earth while she's vulnerable like this-

The mace goes hurtling back straight at his head as she finally manages to get her back legs into the trench, giving herself enough enough balance and strength to jump out of the trench-

And then nearly hit the street again, as the leg that had wrenched by her half-fall into the split earth momentarily refuses to support her weight, sending her back to her knees.]

[epiprocta]

[ It's a thrill of satisfaction that races down his spine when he sees the way Hayame falters gracelessly, sees that stupid look of shock on her face. Though he's no trained warrior, he knows well just from sparring and from street fights that nobody is immune to the element of surprise -- figures that even something as fundamentally strong and durable as a centaur would still be vulnerable to shock. The heavy thump of her weight crashing against that trench's edge, the scrape of hooves against the crumbling pavement, the huff of exertion as she tries to scramble out ... it all gets his heart racing as he prepares to destroy the dirt beneath her legs and sink her further into that hole.

-- then his mace comes flying at his head, end over end.

He almost dies right then and there. It's thrown with such force and speed that he just barely dodges out of the way in time, the heavy woosh of metal as it misses his skull making his ear ring. The spin of the weapon sends its jagged head clipping into his shoulder, its weight easily ripping through his clothes and gouging a chunk out of his flesh. Even that grazed blow is enough to throw him back, and Gen ends up stumbling heavily backwards as the mace thuds heavily into a sign somewhere behind him. ]

... not bad, bitch.

[ It feels like half his upper body is on fire by this point, between that damaged shoulder and his shot-through arm, and Gen's face is pale even as he flashes a wolfish smirk. Trying to play strong even as tremors run through his arm. And before Hayame can rise to her feet he gives a wide swipe of his arm, aiming to wipe the ground out from under her where she kneels. Too bad he's already expended a good deal of magic by this point and the earth isn't quite as quick to move at his command.

(And if Hayame is attentive to her surroundings -- maybe she'll hear the distant sound of multiple voices shouting. Heavy footsteps that slowly trudge closer, closer.) ]

[warmare]

[The cobblestones of the street, jagged where they are broken by her enemy's powers, cut and scrape at her bony knees. Her left shoulder bulges out unnaturally, higher than the right and spasming, popped out of place by the trench fall. Her two sets of lunges heave, heavy and straining through ignoring the pain... and her dark eyes find her opponent, a sick, half-victorious smirk twisting her lip and revealing glimpses of her teeth, far sharper than what should belong to a woman who looked part human and part horse.

This isn't the first time she's been called a bitch. It certainly won't be the last.]

Who's the bitch here?

[This time... the movement of the earth is slower. She can see the strain on his face. He has to move his arm to do it this time. She can use it to her advantage... she has to. The sound of the Achamite guards' approach is growing closer, a shout goes up... There's only one chance-]

Were you going to get help from your little friends? Let's make them work for it.

[The earth moves. She moves with it, letting it take her down... and slam her dislocated shoulder into the ground, using her heavy weight and the momentum to try and pop it back in. Did it work? Blood smears her lips from her badly bitten tongue, she cries out as she feels the bone move, tendons and ligaments snap back... and then she scrambles up faster than she may ever had in her life, throwing herself forward with a feral snarl...

And throwing herself into him, with enough force to carry the both of them over the railing behind him and into the waters of the canal below.]

[epiprocta]

[ That taunt in return only earns a vicious smirk, teeth bared as he tries to play strong. Really, it's too bad they're on opposite sides -- Hayame's hot. But war is war, and so Gen grits his teeth even at the stomach-turning sound of bones cracking and cartilate snapping back into place. Mind racing as he tries to figure out the next move to make ... until Hayame's comment distracts him.

It's only for a split second. Only because his very human ears hadn't caught that muffled sound of approaching footsteps, and he reflexively seeks out that rhythmic drumbeat of heavy boots at Hayame's words. And while it's only the briefest moment that Gen looks aside, just long enough to pinpoint that noise before he looks back in Hayame's direction -- even that is too much.

Hayame is upon him with the deafening thunder of hooves. ]

-- shit.

[ That breathless (and perhaps surprisingly juvenile) comment is all he can manage before Hayame's entire weight barrels into him, ripping the air from his lungs and plunging him into the chill of the canal. Just the impact of his back breaking through the water is enough to flatten his lungs; the added pressure of Hayame's bulk exerting a tremendous pressure upon completely purges the air from him in a flurry of bubbles as he's dragged underwater.

Somewhere overhead he vaguely hears the shouts of those guards drawing nearer, but in this moment, animal instincts trump rational thought. And all he can think is that this isn't how he wants to die. Is Hayame surprised to be answered with the frantic claw of nails against her skin as Gen tries to free himself? Having completely lost his advantage of control of the earth while afloat in the water like this, all Gen can do is struggle frantically to free himself -- even if that means blindly trying to claw at her eyes. Whatever it will take to dislodge that weight that sinks him deeper, deeper into the water, regardless of the way their blood renders the water dark and cloudy from their frantic movements. ]

[warmare]

[For some reason, most people she has encountered in this place did not seem to think that a jinba would be a decent swimmer. But she is willing to play that to her advantage in this moment... and use him to break the surface. Once they plunge beneath, before the buoy of two sets of massive lungs filled with air, he'll have to deal with the thrash of her hooves, the motion powerful enough to do damage even slowed by the water resistance.

He saves himself from most of it by clawing at her, keeping himself close even after she releases ... and though Hayame despises such actions, the primitive, feral actions of a beast... or only slightly better, an Armless that does not have the ability to use the tools of civilized...

Bubbles escape as she snarls in the depth of the canal, bares those sharp teeth again... And sinks them deep into his shoulder where it curves into neck, blood filling her mouth with hot iron as she savages at the flesh and muscle she can fit in her mouth.]

[epiprocta]

[ His field of vision is awash with blurry smears of color, his ears full of the sound of rushing water. His lungs feel tight, he can't move his body quite right, and the pressure of being trapped underwater with such an overwhelming physical presence has his pulse thrumming against his ribcage. The desire to pull away and get himself to the surface trumps all else, and Gen makes an attempt to kick away from Hayame --

only to feel the puncture of teeth rending into his shoulder.

His voice catches in his throat, muffled by the water, but his guttural scream still emerges as a flurry of bubbles. Clouds of blood begin to bloom from that injury, churned by his halting movements when he fights to free himself. And though Gen's struggles are frantic at first, he does manage to think past that brilliant shockwave of pain just long enough to focus -- and grab at Hayame's arm where his mace at struck, jamming his thumb right against the spongy center of the welling bruise there, where tendons and ligaments had been stretched to their limits.

Overhead, the sounds of commotion are growing -- multiple voices shout from above the water's surface, no doubt struggling to make out what's going on in the canal. Then there's the sound of something sharp plunging into the water. Arrows, Hayame might realize when one grazes her flank; even with the water slowing it down, it still grazes her haunch, with more arrows cutting through the water around her lower half. ]

[warmare]

[She gets what she wanted, even if it came with a price. She gets his hands away from her face and her eyes, even if she gives him access to her shoulder in the process and allows him to apply pressure there that half pops her jaw open... before she digs back in reflexively, jerking her head to the side to rip...

And then an arrow grazes her flank, another embeds in the fleshy part of her rump... and though the force is slowed by the water, it's enough to hurt... and enough to pull her teeth from her enemy's flesh, releasing curls of color into the water... that despite their differences, both seem to be red.

But she cannot stay here. As much as Hayame hates to flee from a battle... she is outnumbered, and she cannot die in disgrace like this, shot down by weak humans in the water.

With a last push, gaining traction in the thrash when her back hoof connects to the wall of the canal, she shoves the Kenoma away from her and then pushes off herself, kicking her way disgracefully towards escape, breaching the surface a distance away with a ragged gasp... and forcing herself onward until she can clear the range of arrows and drag herself out of the water looking like a drowned horse rat with only a half moment to pant and rest before she has to flee back to the outskirts of the city to regroup.]