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Caelan Stuart It's another day in the not-so-sleepy town of Lampport. As the sprawling network of tech companies-- startup and otherwise-- continues to busily transform the town's culture, economy and population late into the afternoon, the rest of the town's residents continue their every day lives. Many are getting off of work. Some are just getting /into/ work at what few industries still churn in the rusted out old furnace-belly of the midwestern town. And some...

Are going to pick up their kids from school.

Detective Caelan Stuart is doing just that, stuck in traffic, tapping his fingers against the steering wheel of his old hatchback. It's a late thing today because today... Is one of the three days in the week that Alice normally spends practicing out at the Lacrosse field. She doesn't need to be fetched till it's almost dinnertime. Caelan sighs, rubbing at the dark circles under his eyes. He hasn't been getting much sleep lately-- the case he's on has been keeping him up late. To say nothing of everything else going on in his life. He's so distracted that he can barely make out the words that crackle out of his police scanner and turn his blood to ice--

"--biohazard reported at Silver Springs--" Caelan's eyes sharpen, he turns up the volume, "--All available officers, report to the scene. Repeat, evacuation underway at Silver Springs Union Middle School due to reported biohazard. All available officers report to the scene and assist emergency personnel--"

"Alice," Caelan whispers, voice dead with terror. He flicks on his police siren, red and blue lights flashing out from hidden ports behind his car's grill. A klaxon cuts through the air like a knife, Caelan cuts into the shoulder and takes off at a breakneck pace, his heart hammering like a jackhammer against his ribs. "Please, don't let it be Alice--"

----------
A few minutes ago, Silver Springs Middle School
----------

Her heart pounds in her ears, blood rushing with every full breath. The ball is balanced snugly in her stick's net as she races toward the goal. Someone darts at her from the side, stick rushing to clatter against hers. With a quick pass, the ball sails towards her teammate, only to sail back again once she's clear of interception. The goalie is moving sluggishly, she can do this. She can /do/ this! It might just be practice, but it's still a rush whenever that opening presents itself. With a victorious shout, Alice snatches the ball out of the air and flings it towards the goal. The goalkeeper swings wide, the ball sails in...

And the goalkeeper keeps swinging, and swinging, momentum carrying her. Alice shouts as she's stumbled into, the two collapsing into a heap of tangled limbs and even more tangled equipment. "Owwww-owowow, Jenny, what the heck?" Alice winces and spits a tangle of blonde hair out of her face, "Watch where you're-- uh."

She looks up. The other girl... Behind her mask, her eyes are rolling back into her head. Her body goes limp, pinning the first girl as 'Jenny' goes into spasms. Alice shrieks as black ichor oozes out of Jenny's eye sockets, out her nose, out /everywhere./ The scent of rotting meat seeps into the air as she feels herself pulled clear by the referee but--

She's already running. Her heart is pounding, her mind is reeling. The circle of players who'd gathered to gawk at the collision goes up in a chorus of screams.

There's chaos on the pitch. It only spreads as the alarm goes out: Biohazard... Biohazard...!
Stanley Padgett     It HAD been a nice quiet evening in the Auditorium. With Crazy For You all done and on the books, the Theatre Club had just been chilling out the last few days, and there had been chatter that people were going to go and get burgs and stuff and then go be Wierd Kids elsewhere.

    Tbut then the evacuation alarm goes off. Stanley had been in the back, out of school uniform for once cause, well, he'd been moving flats and other dirty work, when the sudden alarm gets kids to panic and start rushing for the exits. But Stanley sighs. Biohazard. It's got to be. He watches and waits for the room to clear out, doing his level best to keep unseen and not draw attention... that he's about to go running for the source of the trouble.

    And deep in his heart, that little place that's awoke since he found out his 'destiny'.... there's horrible, terrible excitement.
Charlotte Newman     Charlotte doesn't have any after-school activities or clubs, but lately has been hanging around waiting for Stanley to get off so they can walk home together. It is in no way a romantic attachment but moreover because she hasn't been feeling particularly safe after a shadow with a knife tried to extract her kidneys and specifically seems to have a grudge against people in her demographic.

    For the moment, she's in one of the upper level hallways, tapping away on her phone while distractedly watching sports teams practice. Mostly her mind is rolling around possible culprits. Anyone worth investigating to bring an end to this nightmare.

    Glancing up in thought, she spies the lacrosse team. Though she can't tell who is who in their gear, it does remind her of a possible route. Maybe she should try running some names through Caelan's police database-- A pair of students collide and she winces when they collapse together. Glancing back down at her phone, she assumes that just...happens sometimes in rough sports.

    The school alarm goes off. Her blood turns to ice. In a rush, she shoves her phone into her bag and runs. But not for the emergency exit.

    Charlotte is going to Theater.
John Doe Assuming someone gives John a call or a text, he pulls his phone up. Well, shit. That was the expensive school on the good side of town...so it makes sense that it was a target for this person. With a sigh, he flips the phone back into his pocket and starts making his way toward the trouble.

Thankfully, he wasn't TOO far out, but he's going to take time to get there. He'll just need more time than those already there.
Caelan Stuart It doesn't take long for rumor to spread. It's like wildfire in a place like this. Players text their friends, who text their friends, who might know Jenny's siblings in High School or who have acquaintances up there themselves. When the rumor is 'someone just fucking /died/ on the lacrosse pitch', it's as if that rumor takes on a life of its own. Soon enough, something along those lines pops up on Stanley's and Charlotte's cellphones-- it's just how nature works in a school like this.

Alice... Has not had time to check her phone. No, she has had /time/ but her mind is swimming. She barely has enough wherewithal to glance at her screen to know that her father is desperately trying to get in contact with her. She punches out a hasty reply, but isn't even sure she hits send when suddenly /someone/ staggers out in front of her. She jumps back with a yelp as their eyes roll back into their heads, collapsing into a heap.

Alice is a brave girl. She's had to become one over the past couple of years, but this... She feels her heart pound, her head throb. Terror races through every ounce of her body. She knows she has to get somewhere safe, but there's something at the back of her head that is telling her to run. /Run./ It doesn't matter where to, just go. Go as fast as she can.

If she stops, she's a goner. And so she keeps running, in spite of the ache in her chest and the spasms of pain in her feet. Behind her, she hears dull, wet thuds of bodies falling onto the floor.

Unconscious. But she doesn't know that.

At the front of the school, emergency response teams are already gathering. Police pile out of cars, forming a perimeter for medical personnel to get to work. One car is unlike the others, rolling into the cordon and immediately screeching to a halt. Its rider launches himself from the driver's seat, and almost immediately runs into someone trying to stop him. Somehow, he recognizes the man's face from somewhere, knows the voice, but he can't stop. He throws the one in his way aside with the strength of a panicked father and presses in. Dully, as he breaks into a run, he can hear the other man following after...

...But will he be in time...?
Stanley Padgett     Charlotte's coming to him, coming to help, that's good, Stanley thinks, as she pulls up short at the entrance to the Auditorium, watching the evacuees continuing to scatter and move and... and then he spots someone familiar. "Alice?" But it's right about that point that one of the nearby students just simply... collapses, and Stanley can feel something COLD brush against his heart. Something awful just nearly happened to him, and he staggers, coughing.
    The first instinct is to summon Mercutio, but he can't, not in the school, not with people around, and certainly not... without some sort of disguise. "ALICE!" The boy's voice rings out, but.... is she going to recognize him without the garish Anime Hair?
John Doe At a nearby landmark, John sidesteps into the OTHER WORLD.

It's the best method of getting there as fast as he can because nothing would really get in his way, unlike people who could in the real world. He moves as fast as he can, this might be their only shot to actually ID the perp, if not stop them.

Eventually, he'll get to the school, a place where he can step out, but the first thing he does is tries to see what's on this side of the veil.
Charlotte Newman     Charlotte descends steps quickly, skipping a few whenever she feels like she can do that without spraining something. At the bottom she bolts left while most students are evacuating to the right, moving at a fast pace right for the auditorium. Stanley leans out, and she's about to call out to him when he lurches.

    Stanley calls out to Alice, but Charlotte beelines for him, helping him back to his feet. She shoots a look at where he's looking, spotting the girl herself. Similarly, she raises her voice, calling out, "Alice! Over here--!"

--

    The Reverse side of Silver Springs is, as ever, a fortress. Long recovered from the damage caused by Wonderland, its neon-lined walls loom in slabs of obsidian stone. Gaseous shadows pour out of it, difficult to discern against a dense fluorescent fog that swirls about the legs of everyone who walks or runs, stirring it up and making it even more difficult to see at a distance.

    The usual critters that occupy this location are absent, much like at Southcourt that day. But what does occupy the Reverse side of the school's grounds is infuriatingly familiar-- Murderous Shades. The same slim, gaunt figure that nearly excavated Charlotte's spine at Southcourt. Multitides of them lurk here, extruding arms when convenient to take stabs at passing Shadows.

    They have not yet taken notice of how suddenly Mysterio has appeared in their midst, though given John's temperament that is likely to change for the worse (for them).
Charlotte Newman     People dared to enter his domain. The neon hunting ground filled with delicate souls, ignorant and aimless. Not just people, but a cop. A cop who was among those that had robbed him of the most visceral victory he would have had to date. No mere gas and psyche to sink the knife into, but flesh and bone?

    His initial target incited the panic he wanted. His target fled. Strategic stabs in the pursuit steer the girl in just the way he wants. He doesn't care about them. The injured will recover, but he could always just finish the job later. He figured that out after the first time.

    Another stab. Another shadow recoils. Another real human staggers and collapses. The way they respond is so fascinating-- but he can't really afford to think about it today. No. Today, he must send a message.

    As Alice retreats, a figure quite suddenly gets in her way. Obstructs her. Grabs on to her. Someone calls out her name and he lets out a wordless curse, shooting a look over his shoulder-- A handsome young man with perfect teeth and perfect blonde hair that curls just right. A perfect physique; he was probably on the baseball team last year.

    Dragging the no-doubt struggling girl in his arms into a side room, he growls, "They'll never find you."
John Doe John pauses, realizing that they're not paying him any attention. He's got the drop on them, but this is going to severely restrict his own ability to try and follow any perp. Cracking his neck, he sighs. Well, he'll have to let Charlotte and Stanley handle it. He's one of the best ones suited to handle these guys.

"Come forth, IRON MASK!" he shouts, as the persona appears behind him. Chains hanging off of his body. His mask, glowing in fluorescent white stares at the weird shadows in front of him.

John releases Iron Masks's power, creating the field around himself. Chains move out to restrict the movements of all of the creepy little shadows before more chains aim to try and wrap up as many of them as they can.

"Alright, friends, we're going to have a talk about NOT stabbing things."
Caelan Stuart There are few things that can cut through terror. The sight and sound of people you love is probably at the very top of that list. 'Alice!' She hears one call. 'Alice!' Another. Her eyes swim this way and that, desperately seeking the sound. There! "Charlotte!" She shouts, "Stanley, I--"

A pair of strong, forceful arms grab hold of her a split second after a veritable wall of meat bars her way. The boy is several years older. with the physique of a football player. Even as she kicks and screams and bites at his grasp, there's no way for her to fight that kind of strength.

But the sound of one's daughter struggling is one of the few things that can push a man to nearly superhuman levels of physicality. Someone almost smashes through a door as he barrels down the hallway. His gaze is as piercing as it is wroth and terrified. "Alice!" Caelan shouts, lunging after his daughter, surging down the hall as the moments tick by. It's as if time stands still, his feet and blood race to see which will kill first, but in the end neither can quite make it.

He can't take the shot. He doesn't recognize the boy, but his body is blocking hers, and taking a shot now means hitting his girl. Hitting the one and only good thing this world has left in his life. He can't take the shot, so he tries to cross the distance...

But, even driven by raw instinct, adrenaline at full burn, there's just too much space to cross.

She cries out one more time, shrieking 'Daddy--' before...

One foot falls after another. Caelan's eyes widen in horror as his little girl is dragged away. The closet. He can still get there. Something slices at his consciousness, nearly makes him double over, but he does not fall. He can't. Not till he throws open that door, not till he finds her--

Nowhere. The room is empty.

Caelan stands there, stock still, less a man and more a walking corpse-- or perhaps a suspension bridge wound tight enough to snap. Behind him, back the way he came, someone else follows. The other man isn't anywhere near as wide-eyed panicked as Caelan had been-- but then, it's hard to match that kind of terror. "Damnit man, I know, I get it, but we haven't got the call--"

It's an African American man with neatly cropped hair and a slim build. He wears policeman's blue, a brassy badge shining over his breast. Above that, a name tag: 'Daryl Paine.'

This is that guy. The one that Alice told them about. But Caelan doesn't respond. He remains where he stood, silent as death.
Stanley Padgett     He had to do it. Someone can yell at him later, someone can call him out for abusing his powers, for being reckless, for being wrong to do things this way, but...

    Stanley reaches into himself, and there's a shimmer around him. First, a Dia to restore himself to full motion... then, Stanley grabs a hold of Mercutio's proverbial hand, and moves like the wind to try and intercept the kid who's got Alice...

    But it's too late, and Stanley is too late, and there's just an empty room, and two adults, two cops, looking like hey're going to haul off on each other.

    And it doesn't look like anyone noticed that Stanley was just /there/ at Caelan's side, trying to rush into the room. "'scuse me, pardon, I... I gotta get in there, man, I gotta... She's..."
Charlotte Newman     It's a closet. Just a closet. The 5x5 foot space that the janitor stores his mops and brooms and that one dustcatcher that's like four feet across. Once inside it, the boy wrenches out his phone and hits something. Reality tears open, neon colors framing a black void, glitching through the edges of reality. With a frustrated sound, he hurls himself into the other side, victim and all.

    When the door opens again, the tear is gone. Perhaps the faintest glimpse of glitchy boxes for a quarter second or so. The faint speckle of blood on the cheap white tile floor from where she valiantly hit him in the nose during the struggle. But no boy and no girl.

    Charlotte goes stock still upon seeing the empty space. Her eyes shoot up at the ceiling, where no panels or covers have been disturbed. Not that even that in-shape kid could climb that fast with unwilling cargo. A quarter second later her eyes shoot to Stanley trying to get in. Her eyes shoot the other way, towards Paine. There's no use talking to Stuart, who already knows about the Reverse and is inconsolable. She steps distinctly to the other side of the hallway, to the windows.

    "I saw one of the Lacrosse players collapse," she says slightly louder than her usual speaking tone, "I don't know who that is, but you're a cop, right?" She gestures to Paine, "That's when this chaos started going down, I can show you." Her eyes dart back to Stanley and widen slightly. A clear 'get on with it' kind of silent urging before she returns her attention to Officer Paine.

--

    In the Reversal, assorted Shades snap upright when John calls out his Persona, whirling about to face him. Some actually just rotate their heads in his direction and start moving backwards towards him, as if direction to them is mostly meaningless.

    His set of abilities is rather well-suited to fouling ambushers and assassins, as those who try to take advantage of blind angles enter his circle of influence and promptly get Chain'd. As the commotion builds, more start dumping out of the fortress that is Silver Springs.

    The commotion builds with more shadowy killers getting caught in John's web right up until, from deep within the fortress of Silver Spring's, a girl's scream rings out. It cuts in, as if she were thrown in mid-scream. It's a sound that snaps the attention of every single knife-wielding spook, even those tangled in the chains of the Main in the Iron Mask. Those with a free hand to do so all raise it, waving their scalpels almost as one might wave a lighter or cellphone at a rock concert.

--

    Inside the knee-deep fluorescent fog of the Reversal, the boy throws the girl he'd stolen away off of him. The portal closes behind him as he reaches up, rubbing blood from his nose with the back of his sleeve, "Feisty little runt."

    A dissonance starts creeping into his voice as he straightens his posture. His appearance starts warping into the Cognitive version of himself; the school uniform disappearing, replaced with an expensive, fancy old suit and top hat. He plucks a pair of gold-rimmed pinc-nez from his newly formed breast pocket, balancing them atop his nose, "You're in my world now."
John Doe John just watches this shit show, grinning as he turns the tide on the murder shadows. Even as more come, he doesn't care. He's got more than enough chains for them all. He's more than enough a prison for these jokers. However, when they turn to act like they're in a concert, John frowns.

"With me, Iron Mask!" he bellows and punches the ground at the same time as his persona. The ground in the reversal shakes, and spikes of chains erupt in the zone that surrounds him. They aim to piece, to stab, to strangle, to do whatever they need to do to make a line.

"HEY YOU, INSIDE THE FREAKSHOW. My name is Mystique, and I'm coming to steal your life."
Caelan Stuart It might look like there's an actual honest to god Cop Fight about to break out in the middle of Silver Springs high school, but there's not. It's not just that Caelan appears to have gone catatonic, it's that Daryl suddenly has a very good reason to pay attention to something else right now. Charlotte tells the truth (??), and Daryl's eyes glance briefly between a man apparently incosolate with rage and terror and maybe a little bit of madness. A man who he should PROBABLY be writing up and arresting right now, but...

Goddamnit, what kind of person does that to a friend who just lost a wife, who might have just lost his only child?

Daryl shakes his head and nods after Charlotte, "Alright. Show me. Caelan, for God's sakes, please get back outside. Let us handle this. We'll find her, I promise. Just... You're too invested. Alright? Just take a bit to calm down and we'll look together."

Caelan might have nodded. It could have been the shadows. Either way, Daryl shakes his head and follows after Charlotte.

And it's only after he's gone that Caelan suddenly explodes into motion. He snatches a hand out to grab Stanley by the lapels with one hand while his other fishes his phone out of his pocket. A howling gateway opens at a few fingerstrokes and he leaps in, armful of Persona user and all.

In all of that, he makes not even the slightest vocalization.

And yet, when he enters that cognitive realm, it's absolutely obvious exactly what he's here for. From far too close for comfort, Jack The Ripper would feel a reverberation in the very *fabric* of the Reversed World.

A shockwave of pure, unmatched wrath shakes the air.

Something dangerous is coming.