gone_byebye | (no subject)

Mid-January, 2008
RCMP/Ministry of Extraordinary Threats Emergency Hangar
Alert, Nunavut, CA

Even in times of the highest tension and most danger, people find ways to keep themselves busy, and neither the Ghostbusters nor the men and women of the world's northern watch bureaus were any great exception. "Ray? Ray! Ray, check it out." Venkman shook his friend's shoulder. "Egon's in a fight with one of the Inquanok guys."

Ray opened an eye and glanced sideways. Several of the Danish contingent and a couple of the Pohjola Project's Sami members were gathered in a semicircle centered on Egon and a broad-faced, dark-eyed man in Danish uniform. "Wow. Spengs is looking kinda..."

"Green," Winston finished for both of them. "That's freaky. What are they fighting about?"

"The worst thing they've ever eaten," said Venkman. "Eske's winning."

Ray and Winston exchanged glances. They both knew Egon's eating habits. "How?" Ray finally asked.

"That's not food," Egon suddenly said, loud enough to be heard over the snickering Greenlanders. "That's biological waste. You can't consider anything with that level of ammonia in it to qualify as edible."

"This from the man who admits to eating casu marzu," said his opponent with the serene smile of a man who knows he's won. "Hákarl is nothing-"

Winston shook his head. Ray gave up on the possibility of a nap and stood up. "Has anyone seen where Captain Korpan went?" he asked, and one of the Finns pointed. "Thank you."

He found the Canadian in the tiny office attached to the hangar, one hand pressing his headset against his ear and the other taking frantic notes. As Ray walked in Korpan lifted his eyes, winced, and held up a piece of paper that read:

Magnetic fields flaring
Deep ones report Russian helicopter near 82.7° N 114.4° W
Radio comms dorppinng like brick

A moment later Korpan scribbled one last line:

Dammit, I can spell. Marines on the way. Tell the others. We're going in.

Ray shuddered, nodded, and went in search of a better door.

[OOC: Assume everyone will be arriving from Milliways within five minutes of each other. Also, don't click on the food links above if you have a weak stomach.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

wellthrownstone.livejournal.com

Garion grunts an affirmative.

"I wouldn't say funny," he adds a moment later. "The last time it was like this somewhere, I almost died."

...he realizes only after it's out that he could have phrased it more encouragingly.

"I got better."

From:

gone_byebye

"Just as long as nobody turned you into a newt," mutters Venkman.

From:

wellthrownstone.livejournal.com

"That actually would have been preferable," he grumbles, mostly at himself.

Stealthy sometimes works.

Hitting things with large, sharp pieces of metal? Always works.

From:

gone_byebye

As Venkman draws breath to say something else, a ribbon of violet threads its way in amongst the red and orangey-white streamers of aurora overhead. One of the Finns- they're dressed in red and blue- looks up sharply, and her breath hisses between her teeth. "It's coming," she says.

Venkman sobers immediately. "Ray. You and Spengs got your toys all ready? Somebody's gotta figure out how to close these holes up."

"I'm more than prepared for this, Peter," says Egon dryly, and Ray nods in assent.

"Okay, good. We'll cover you, but that's your job in the brain trust. If you can't get everything in gear to patch this mess up, nobody's getting a visit from Santa Claus this year."

"Actually, Peter, I-"

The purple streak in the sky widens, and twists, and bulges; and then the aurorae begin peeling away to reveal the kind of vista that sucks at the eye and pulls it away from all other seeing. In that terrible lightless vista of unnamable color and unmatchable dimensions, specks shimmer and dazzle into brightness. And the air fills with a thin high whining buzz as the first wave of Mi-Go come soaring out of the territory of nightmare.

From:

k_in_black

The first wave minus one, actually, as one of the lead Mi-Go suddenly erupts in a ball of white-hot plasma.

K lowers the XT-17 and glances at the others.

"Systems check."

"...Looks like I'm good here."

From:

gone_byebye

"Works for me," says Venkman. "Hokay, people! We're good to go!"

"I'm sorry, Dr. Venkman, but that's my prerogative," says Korpan.

Venkman lifts one eyebrow.

"You heard the American, boys and girls," is all Korpan says before the fire erupts. And we do mean fire; you won't see much in the way of bullets here. Most of what the Canadians have prepared for the arriving invasion force is being launched from shotguns and rocket launchers, and it's leaving green smoke or worse behind as it streaks through the air. The Danes and the Finns are following suit, although there's a contingent of Finns that seems to be doing little beyond chanting aloud and frantically pacing out lines in the snow.

And the Marines, well... arcanely trained or no, unit weirdoes or no, these guys are United States Marine Corps. They're fighting back with everything they've got.

From:

k_in_black

The XT-17 whines as its supercapacitors hit maximum, and K fires a volley. Three spheres of plasma blast into the sky, and as they shriek toward the Mi-Go, their intense heat sets the green smoke on fire.

By the time the plasma spheres slam into three more of the Yuggothian horrors, the air around them is ablaze. The fire doesn't do much damage, but the clouds of smoke grow dark and thick, a vision of Hell erupting high above the frozen waste.

From:

gone_byebye

And it only gets worse; there are things with the Mi-go that look like they were extracted from under the sea and trained to attack anything on two legs. They dash forward on spidery legs, shrieking in ranges the human ear can only half hear, jaws snapping at anything that moves.

The sun isn't quite enough to keep the sky alight; that job falls to the aurorae. The orange-red ghostlight from above illumines a great, ropy-bodied black thing that moves like a winged viper, pouring out of one of the cracks in the air. That gets the Danes' attention, more than anything else so far. "Light! Light!" shouts one of them in English, as a second winged thing and then a third slithers through. "They can't stand up to light!"

"Light, huh?" says Venkman, grinning ferally and leveling his thrower at the horrors. "Everybody duck!"

From:

godlikewizard.livejournal.com

Trust a wizard to be just late enough to show up on time. This time, by air, flying in to come up just behind them. "Hey, hey! Nice wands you got there!" He's wearing his cloak, and the dragon-claw shoulderpads, the sword at his belt, a satchel over one shoulder...

...and a Star Fleet Uniform like the one Kirk was wearing, complete with the boots.

"Huh," he says. "THAT'S new. I'll need a second." He hovers there, like a man waiting for a bus, scratching his chin, then rummages in his satchel.

From:

wellthrownstone.livejournal.com

He looks sideways at Darshe.

"You know, that's a waste of energy," he points out.

You can take the Sendar out of Sendaria...

From:

gone_byebye

"Thanks!" says Venkman. "Winston! Level two! NOW!"

Level two, it seems, is the setting on the proton packs that makes Hollywood effects men cry and ask for permission to film the goings-on, because they have such a hard time getting fake Čerenkov radiation to look right.

Boy howdy, them hunting horrors scream real good right before they turn to dust.

From:

wellthrownstone.livejournal.com

Garion shakes his head, dismisses the issue since there's much more important things to concern himself with, and pulls out the Sword of the Rivan King.

Usually, he has to remind it not to flash, not to flame, not to scare anyone.

Today, he does just the opposite.

The sky lights blue and the massive blade is wreathed in blue flame as Garion connects with the Orb, the bane of demons, and points the sword at the horde.

"Burn."

From:

gone_byebye

The Mi-Go are linked on incomprehensible levels with the Beyond-One, Yog-Sothoth; the horrrors- for there are others- with Nyarlathotep; and the spider-things without name... well, who knows. Surely with something, though. The Orb's power unleashes the same blue flame on them as on all the rest of the monstrosities.

Off to the side, the Finns who were trampling circles in the snow finish their ritual. And just in time, too; when the backlash comes (and come it does, it always does), the echoing fire strikes something invisible and curls harmlessly upwards and backwards. "One-way shielding!" calls the shortest of the Finns. "It holds off the arcane, but not the physical, so be careful!"

None too soon, either, as a huge black oozing thing of eyes and tentacles that form and dissolve and re-form endlessly heaves itself through- and further away up the ice, where the Marines have taken up position, another gap in the sky opens.

From:

godlikewizard.livejournal.com

He finishes with his bag, and waves a wand around. "OK!" he says cheerfully, "we don't have any big tears yet!" He sticks the wand in his belt, then looks around.

He sees the oozing black thing.

And he smiiiiles.

The air shimmers around him as he begins to cast, still hovering. His hands move, making passes in the air, hands drawing signs in the air as he chants:

"BRAIN BRAIN DEAD... Calling upon the Earth's pledge. Come from the place of Avalon! Gejelan's exploding fire: burn everything! EXODUS!!"

And with that last word, he turns his hands upwards. Something red and hot starts to fall from the sky towards the shoggoth.

From:

gone_byebye

The shoggoth looks up, and its eyes widen. When you have as many eyes as your average shoggoth, this is kind of an impressive sight. So is what happens when all the parts of a shoggoth try to run at once, because inevitably, some of them are going to try and run in different directions from the rest.

Not that this does it any good, because WHAM! goes the fiery meteor into the blistering mess of protoplasmic pseudopods, and the next thing anyone knows, it's raining ick. Ick that happens to be on fire.

"AUGH!" cries Venkman, who performs a surprisingly good stop-drop-and-roll maneuver.

From:

godlikewizard.livejournal.com

Dark Schneider, despite catching some burning ick on him, is laughing. "Oh, that was PERFECT! These hideous creatures have no choice but to bow before Dark Schneider, Exploder Wizard and obvious creature of divine handsomeness!" Then he gets down to business, 'helping' by tossing lightning bolts at various things getting nearby with a cry of 'ZAKO-DAMERO!' with each bolt.

Hey, it's more firepower.

From:

gone_byebye

"Captain Korpan?" calls one of the Canadians, who's doing his best to get an LRAD system pointed directly at the center of the rift. "Find out what drugs that man is on and get me some, please?"

"ew ew ew ew ew ew ew," Venkman says as he comes up and starts trying to brush off what's left of the shoggoth slime. "RAY! You better-"

Something buzzing and tiny and not altogether there in this reality sweeps past his ear. It would have been closer if Winston hadn't zapped it. As soon as Venkman can speak again, he weakly offers, "-have those readings by now?"

"Almost, Peter," Ray answers; he's doing his best not to get shot or clawed or bitten or AUGH GOD PARASITE SPIDER THINGed, which leads to an interesting spectacle of the lightsaber in one hand and switching off between three different scientific meters in the other. "Almost!"

"Venkman," Egon calls, "we have a problem."

"Oh, you just noticed NOW??"

Edited Date: 2008-01-31 06:57 pm (UTC)

From:

k_in_black

K manages to wing the parasite with an MiB-trained swipe of his hand, sending it tumbling through the air away from the others. Then with a perfectly fluid motion, he lets the XT-17 fall against the strap over his shoulder, slips on the Ray-Bans, and out comes the neuralyzer. His back to the Ghostbusters, K smiles--not a nice smile at all--and points.

*FWOOMP!*

..And now there's a VERY confused parasite spider thing hovering in the air, its little, savagely toothed maw hanging open as fetid, loathsome slime drips away to melt the ground beneath it.

K takes a moment to enjoy himself.

Then fast-draws a Noisy Cricket from a Suit pocket and blasts that evil little sonuvabitch into 23,488 quivering, squamous bits.

From:

gone_byebye

"A different problem, Peter! - nice shot," Egon adds. "We missed a rift spot."

"Not good, Egon! Not good at all!" Peter and Winston both fire at a Mi-Go that's trying to lunge across the barrier for a physical blow. "Where?"

"Under the ice! It's forming in the direction that Kirk and Tsybenko went."

"There's good news, though," Ray calls. "I think I've worked out how to close the rifts here."

"Fantastic!" Venkman says. "How?"

"With the proton packs."

"Lemme guess. We cross the streams," says Winston.

"Not quite. I just need to make a few alterations to each of the packs for redistribution of the warping effect provided by the Anakin modifications-"

"Go back to the 'a few alterations' part!" Venkman again.

"Yeah, I'm going to have to get in there and pull out a few circuits-"

"NOW??" Venkman shouts. "Are you insane?"

"Have you got a better idea?"

From:

k_in_black

K swings round, and another round of plasma from the XT-17 catches a lagging Mi-Go right in the fruiting body. K takes a moment to let the gun power up again, and that's when he turns to eye Ray.

"...You sure about that, Chief?"

K's not used to agreeing with Venkman. It's a novel sensation.

From:

gone_byebye

"K, the rifts are widening and we haven't even had so much as a sign that any actual summonings've been cast yet," Ray says. "The power massing on the other side is composed entirely of would-be armies of invasion, primarily greater servitor and lesser independent races. If we don't slam these things shut somehow then we're going to be overrun faster than a bucket of honey in the path of an army ant colony."

He steps forward and lowers his voice so only K and Venkman can hear.

"Dark Schneider there is capable of closing the rifts, even major ones, but he'd need three human sacrifices per rift to do it. All I'm asking for is one proton pack at a time. The others'll be in operation while I'm doing my work."

The first of the Children of Yig makes an appearance, hissing the sibilant syllables of a temperature-raising spell that can't quite take effect before one of the Danes cuts the snakeman down like a Christmas goose.

"I'm serious, guys."

From:

godlikewizard.livejournal.com

The wand that Dark Schneider hung on his belt starts to glow, then make a keening noise. "....oh, shit!" He pulls it out of his belt, throws it into one of the Children of Yig's head, who has just a moment to blink with its remaining eye before the wand explodes.

"That's the biggest dimensional tear I've seen, even with the ones I caused!"

That smile is back.

"Oh, the challenge..."

From:

k_in_black

The Men in Black don't have any problem with collateral damage.

"If the man could get it done, then I'd say get on with it. But if you want to give the packs a go, well..."

K ponders. Then unclips the Series 4 Deatomizer and hands it to Venkman. "Here you go, Doc. Thing has a kick, but nothing like a thrower. Pulls to the left a little, so watch for that. Otherwise, just aim and blast the shit out of everything you see coming at us."

Then to Ray: "Give Venkman's a try first. If it works, I'll give you the cover you need to finish the rest."

Edited Date: 2008-02-01 04:36 am (UTC)

From:

gone_byebye

"Ooooh," says Peter. "Papa like. Ray, get busy, okay?"

Ray grins, produces a screwdriver from somewhere in the furs he's wearing, and snatches the pack up as Venkman shrugs it off.

From:

k_in_black

The next wave is heading straight for them, and it's a big one. K has just enough time to recharge the XT-17, so he's taking it.

He sets the business end of the gun down on the top of his shoe and punches a complex code into the command keypad on a back panel. There's a hiss as a tray--looking a lot like the kind on a dvd player--slides out to reveal a metallic disc so bright it's hard to look at. His eyes safely behind his shades, K holds a slim boxy object right above the tray, and a moment later the disc flies up into the box and is replaced a moment later by another disc that shimmers with promise of mayhem to come.

K pockets the box...somewhere...and taps the command panel. By the time the tray is back in the gun, the XT-17 is back up on K's shoulder.

And not a moment too soon. Here they come.