Dinner with Maloker ((group thread))

[slayers_desire]

Some may consider that all the 'Big Guns' that April has called together is overkill … but not really, not when it comes to the fact that many great minds are needed to find a way to prevent The Three (Discord, Disharmony and Cacophony) from their evil plans.

And the Big Guns are needed... when they have no idea where to start looking for The Three.

When other Keys (such as Dawn Summers) are being drained of their existence.

When the clock is still ticking on Lorne... and his battle with his disease.

Invitations were extended to Clark Kent/Superman; Harry Dresden; Sheriff Bigby Wolf; Edward Elric; Cipher Nine; and of course Spike, Angel, Buffy, Willow and Wes.

April is waiting in the planning room, for each person to arrive, going through some books as she does. For many... this will be a familiar encounter, as they had to come to fight together before. But there will be some new faces. And new ideas.

((forgot a posting order. Since multiple characters, Kat/Ael/ me))

Comments

[kalel_ofkrypton]

It always bothers Clark to hear that a friend of his had to kill anyone. He doesn't force his standards on anyone and he doesn't think less of them for it or anything, but he hates that other people find themselves in situations where it's necessary. "You did warn them," he says.

[slayers_desire]

The door opened to them. They entered another hallway, this one created from wood and vines. There are pictures of April again...

But they are all of her inner darkness. The infant crying in blood hunger, not understanding why. The child taking her first kill, crying out of fear. The young April staking her mother in the heart. The blood thirst that Clark had to deal with a few times.

And in every picture, there is almost invisible bat wings shrouding April. The whispers get darker and darker. With sudden cries of pain and anguish.

Atropos gets to another door. And waits.

[fmalchemist160]

Some of the tension in Cipher Nine's stance eases out at Clark's response. It was his reaction he was most concerned about.

By contrast, Ed's getting increasingly more tense as they proceed down this corridor. It's not the images that are bothering him, but the sounds of pain and anguish coming from the voices. As they reach the door, his tension definitely increases. He has only one real secret that he's still keeping, and he's still concerned that revealing it will mess up the Kent family's timeline. So when they get to the door, he remains silent for the time being.

[kalel_ofkrypton]

Clark has been considering his secret carefully, trying to decide what to say. There aren't a lot of things he's kept from his friends, and especially April. What secret of sufficient weight would help open the way?

There is, perhaps, one thing that he hasn't discussed with her. He's seen the future, and he knows that they're going to eventually have at least one more child. "If we end up having another son, I want to name him William." Not all secrets have to be bad, after all.

[slayers_desire]

When this door enters, they are now in the center of the cave. It looks like Ed and Harry won't have to worry about their secrets -- for now at least.

There is a swirling vortex of voices here. Each one is a rush of emotion in a tiny little bubbles. If they get touched by one of the bubbles, it will burst, and they will feel that emotion for a rush of several seconds. Anger. Sadness. Love. Despair.

In the middle of the vortex, sitting on a throne made out of vines, is Ember. Yes -- that Ember.

[fmalchemist160]

Ed tenses up even more when he spots Ember, narrowing his eyes at her. "What are you doing in April's mind?" he asks, voice tight.

[big_bad_sheriff]

Bigby frowns a bit. "Who's that supposed to be?"

[slayers_desire]

"She is only a representation of who you are looking for..." Atropos stated simply.

[fmalchemist160]

Ed eyes Atropos askance. "It's one of those 'you cannot comprehend my true form' things, isn't it."

[kalel_ofkrypton]

"I hate those," Harry complains. "It's always 'puny mortal' this and 'ultimate power' that."

Clark ignores him. "What do you want?" he asks Ember directly.

[slayers_desire]

"I want nothing." When Ember speaks, it is like every voice in April's mind is speaking at the same time. "I am what you seek. What is it you want?"

[nonvillainouscipher]

"You wanted to speak with April," Cipher Nine counters. "Why?"

"And what do you know about what's happening to the other keys?" Ed adds.

[big_bad_sheriff]

"Maybe we should hold off on the questions," Bigby says to the others. "Even if this is only a representation of her, we did jump down her throat the first time, and it got us nowhere." He turns back to Ember. "We're looking for a way to find Maloker."

[slayers_desire]

The sound of bat wings echo around them, once Maloker's name is spoke. Ember speaks softly, the voices whispering in echoes as she does. "The deepest cave. The darkest hole. The Old One still resides in the Deeper Well."

Atropos on the other hand, seems amused by both Cipher Nine and Ed. "You realize, that you are just asking an extension of April herself those questions. We do not know why Ember wanted to see her. Nor what is happening to the other keys."

[fmalchemist160]

Ed just glowers at Atropos for a moment. "Ember isn't exactly the kind of person I'd picture as an extension of April," he tells her under his breath. "I assumed Ember was a manifestation of Maloker, not April. She was introduced to us as his emissary."

[big_bad_sheriff]

"It's the subconscious, kid. Weird stuff is to be expected," Bigby says. His tail swishes unhappily at the answer they get from Ember. "What's the Deeper Well?"

[slayers_desire]

"She is struggling to find a better representation for the Voices. A female one at that." Atropos just shrugged.

"The Deeper Well is where they imprisoned all the Old Ones."

"If you truly want to see a clearer answer, touch a Voice. You will have to endure its emotions. But you will get a flash of insight."

[nonvillainouscipher]

Cipher Nine eyes Ember suspiciously for no more than a split second before stretching a hand out to one of the Voices, the hesitation due mostly to instinctual paranoia that's kind of hard for him to switch off. Ed takes a little bit longer before doing the same, still a little leery about the whole Ember thing.

[thepizzalord]

"This seems like a bad idea," Harry mutters. He's going to wait and see if they all need to do it, before he goes touching things.

[slayers_desire]

They all won't have to invoke a voice.

When Cipher Nine touches his voice... his paranoia is increased significantly, since that was the emotion of the voice he has chosen. He gets a flash... Maloker stretching his wings, in the darkness of the Deeper Well. Ember is there, reporting on her failure to bring the Key to him. And he growls in anger, striking her in response. There is blood all around him. There is a symbol of two lions with a shield, each holding spears in the blood. There is a rooster in the hilt of the shield.

When Edward touches his voice... he invokes the emotion of anger. He gets a flash of a little boy, being bullied for being small and not that athletically-inclined. The boy is a Demon. He seems to have a secret at his house... a trapdoor that leads into darkness. There is a whispered hum from Ed's shadowed guardian, and the boy seems to hear a similar hum. The tunnels twist and turn, until they come to a door that the boy can not open. But he sits there, with the whispered hum comforting him, until he falls asleep.

[nonvillainouscipher]

If it weren't for how difficult it is to see where a Chiss's eyes are pointed at any given time, the others might start to get a bit concerned at how much Cipher Nine's eyes are darting around their surroundings, checking every corner, every shadowed nook. They will notice that he immediately tries to get his back to a wall on pure reflex. He has to take a moment to gather himself before he feels ready enough to speak about what he's seen. When he does, he describes it in as flat and uninflected a tone as any of them have ever likely heard him speak in.

Ed has a much harder time controlling his emotional reaction. He's always had temper issues, and the anger from the Voice isn't doing anything to help it. He lets out a growl and stalks away from the rest of the group to growl, "I fucking hate bullies!" The hum from his Oscuridad guardian helps calm him down after a bit of time to seethe, though, at which point he's able to pass on what he's seen.

[kalel_ofkrypton]

Clark frowns as he considers the clues. "We might need to know more." He takes a turn as well, to see what else might be gained through the Voices.

[slayers_desire]

Clark gets an overwhelming primal emotion. He is channeled into the African outback, where he sees a young female Aboriginal hunter going after prey for her family. What she doesn't know... is that she too is also prey.

Ember, still injured from being struck by Maloker, hunts down the little girl. And knocks her unconscious. She then takes the unconscious body into the caves... where the blood will be used to sooth her master.

He also sees three running cheetahs, each trying to race each other, trying to beat each other. They are racing towards a peaceful lake, that always seems to be out of their reach. The ground is breaking up underneath them. And other animals that they pass fade into nothingness.

[nonvillainouscipher]

After Cipher Nine finishes distancing himself from the spike in paranoia from his own Voice encounter, he watches Clark reach out for his own turn with the Voices with a mild concerned frown on his face, knowing how intense the emotional surge will be.

[kalel_ofkrypton]

Both the vision and the feelings that come with it come as a surprise to Clark, and for a long few moments, it's difficult to separate himself from the hunter-and-hunted. "I can't tell if what I saw is happening now or not," he says, after relaying the vision to the others.