Nuages de Violet (a Shared Story exercise)

"Dammit," Melissa muttered. She examined the controls, but it seemed the pilots were right. They weren't going to be flying easy. Looking around, she said, "you guys think you can get us a graceful crash? Glide her down nice and easy?" Sympathetic to their plight, she added, "I know guiding a bird this big down is a pain, but that blast wasn't terrible. Plane's still in one piece. I think our bomber screwed up, thank God!"

She marched to the passengers and decided to announce the situation. "Okay, the blast mostly just screwed with this plane's systems. I think it might have been EM, check your electronics." Her own system's shielding had paid off, hadn't it? Or maybe she was wrong about the bomb. "Just brace for a tough landing, and we'll all make it out of this alive. I'll link up to USAF as soon as I can, and we'll be out of this mess real soon."

She suspected the bombing had been an assassination attempt — a terrorist would have blown it over a populated area. But who? She wasn't that valuable. Or maybe the intent was altogether different.

edited 3rd Dec '11 9:27:00 PM by KillerClowns

"We'll try our best, but we're going down faster than I'd expect..." the pilot said, getting back in his seat and trying to restart the systems.

"It's almost like this storm is malevolent or something - appeared out of nowhere, too." the co-pilot said, trying to pull the plane up.

"Actually, I might be able to help - but not from here." Mizuki said.

She walked carefully up the slanted floor to one of the front exits, and remembering to turn off the auto-inflating slide, opened the exit and jumped out of the plane.

One excessively sparkly transformation sequence later . . .

Mathmagical Girl Sigma Phi Phi (otherwise known as Mizuki) flew below the plane.

Let's see, if its rate of descent is around 25 m/s, and the shear modulus of aluminum is ... oh, just eyeball it already, she thought.

Lifting her right arm in the air, she said, "∀ { -5 < x < 5; -5 < y < 5; 29.5 < z < 30.5 } : [ ℚ ] | Δ ≡ 5 | λ ≡ 0.1 ; □ ⊢ Ω ∴ ℂ ∩ σ_φφ ⋈ ℝ" OOC: Hope this spell shows up correctly on everyone's computer.

Inside the plane, a thunk was heard as the bottom of the nose hit an invisible forcefield.

"That's odd..." the co-pilot said as the plane was pushed into a more level orientation, "Wait, I think we might be coming out of the storm."

As the clouds dissipated, Mizuki, still under the plane, could now see that they were flying in a remote, hilly region. At around the altitude of a discount skyscraper.

Holy crap, we are really close to the ground! Mizuki thought, panicking slightly, Ah, hill!

The plane scraped across a grassy hill, before rapidly sliding down and grounding out slightly tilted to the left, still nearly intact.

Mizuki (in normal attire) lie about 100 meters off to the right, motionless. Her cell phone, with a small box-like charm attached, was lying on the ground nearby.

OOC: I don't want it to seem like I'm running everything here, so I'll leave the rest of the setting, reactions, etc. open.

OOC: I suppose so, although the implication I was going for was just that she'd been knocked out by impacting a hill at high speed while concentrating.

edited 3rd Dec '11 10:48:06 PM by Sonzai

More magic. Different magic. It made Wilhelm shiver.

Well, whatever it was, he used a theme of a nocturne to disable its source*

That nocturne sure sounds strange on the harmonica, but until he figures out how to hide and carry a piano efficiently, this will have to do.

edited 3rd Dec '11 10:29:32 PM by SnowyFoxes

If he had to choose, Matt was more worried about the... scuttling... thing that walked around the cabin on its own than the fact that he had, well, just survived a plane crash.

He stood, keeping his hand on the top of the seat in front of him, clutching his violin case and cane in the other. And yet... he was calm. Somehow.

He just survived a damned plane crash.

Reality began to soak in. He stepped into the aisle, twisting his magicked ring with his thumb.

Looks like that Mizuki girl has some sort of magic. Normally I'd fill her with lead, but it seems more about working with the fabric of reality than tearing it apart. And of course, she saved our miserable asses. Still, I'll be keeping an eye on her.

And then there was Clockwork. As the rest of the dazed passengers stepped out into the light, Melissa went over to Wilhelm. "Hey. That little clockwork pet of yours is neat. Could come in handy." Recalling how they'd last met, she added, "oh, sorry I had to shut you up earlier — had to keep my cover. You some sort of musician? Something special about that last tune, though I can't quite put my finger on it."

Good night.

edited 3rd Dec '11 11:06:22 PM by KillerClowns

Damn, thought Tamara. Damn damn damn. This is definitely Jonathan's thing. A plane losing electronics and crash-landing in the middle of nowhere? Totally the kind of thing that would have happened if he was here. Of course, if he were here, its engines probably would have exploded as well, and it would've landed on a highway. Yeah.

Tamara pulled herself out of her seat and sprinted down the aisle, toward the first-class rooms. Maybe, if she was lucky, she could there befo-

He wasn't there.

Damn it.

So, he was out in the forest, probably with the few guards he had left, Tamara had no way of tracking him, and she was torn between doing what tracking she could and helping the people in the wreckage.

Yay.

Noah looked at the disaster of the plane crash with disdain. "Well, this is a bloody inconvenience! And I had a good feeling about London..." At least no one died, he thought, He was just starting to like some of them. He made his way over to Melissa, and with a smirk on his face, said "So much for your secret... Oh well, since yours is out of the bag, I think I should let mine slip, just to be fair... you see, I can't die." Noah had said this loud enough for anyone within appropriate distance to hear. That should turn a few heads.

Matt opted out of using his cane like a normal person and effortlessly made his way over any rubble he felt in his path, exiting with unusual grace.

"Er... I'm a... magic musician. Yes."

Wilhelm lets the trilobite sit on his shoulder and puts his stuff together so he can follow the blind guy out of the plane. He's creeping him out. Blind people usually aren't that nimble. Unless they're like Damian, and—

Fuck, that's creepy. He sets the trilobite on the ground again and lets it wander, but it never goes more than five feet away from him.

"Uh-huh," Melissa said, clearly not believing Noah's wild claims. The Angels wouldn't be that stupid. Then, to Wilhelm, "...magic musician, huh?" Typical procedure is to gun him down. But typical procedure goes out the window in a Sigma. "I'll believe it when I see it. Now, gimme a minute..."

She held her left palm up and began tapping a small pad on her left wrist. A hologram of primitive vector graphics emerged, and she began fiddling with the thing. "No satellite uplink? At all? Can't be. Uh, maybe there's some interference." She sighed. "Is it ever easy? Of course not."

"Feel free to explain exactly why you're here," Noah said to Melissa, "I like knowing what's going on, and I doubt you just like dressing as an air stewardess on weekends."

Melissa said to Noah, "my superiors said there would be trouble on this flight, and I was supposed to stop it." Should she give him the full story? No, not yet. "We suspected a terrorist attack might take place — an attempted hijacking or some such." Glumly, she added, "and it looks like I dropped the ball. I could just kick myself!"

She might have been more alert if she'd really been expecting a terrorist attack — in truth, she'd been too busy looking for exotic threats to Earth's security to notice the classic ones. She groaned, and continued, "but like I said, if we all get out of this all alive, the idiots responsible for this will be getting a free demonstration of a MQ-9, and without the satisfaction of having killed a bunch of 'infidels' or whatever they call us."

Matt shuddered. He felt it again. He wanted to flee from the ugly little thing, and yet he didn't. He just froze and quietly moved away, towards Melissa, without even having to use his cane.

There was one problem Noah noticed in Melissa's persistence that this crash was brought on by a terrorist attack, which he felt free to point out to her. "We seem to be missing a culprit. Isn't that weird? Most likely, we crashed because of a natural disaster like the lightning storm that was going on up there. Sure, maybe someone on board is responsible, but it was likely inadvertent, and maybe they haven't yet realised what they've done. Either way, I don't think you screwed this one up. You seem half-way competent enough for that not to be the case."

Melissa sighed and said, "thanks. You might be right. But you know what they say — when all you've got is a hammer, the world needs a whole lot of nails." With a slight grin, she added, "y'know, could just be part of me would rather have made a mistake — something I could have prevented — then been made powerless by an act of god. Know the feelin'?"

She then turned to Matt and added, "what's wrong?" She glanced down at the clockwork creature, and then said to Matt, "I don't think that little fella bites. He's kinda cute." She turned to Wilhelm. "Anything we should know about the little guy? Looks harmless, but I'd hate to try and pet it and lose a finger."

"I don't think I put pincers on it." Wilhelm picks it up and turns it over. Its legs flail wildly in protest. "Nope, no pincers. I didn't check what runes were on the metal, so I have no idea what it does. Other than wander around, of course. Nothing serious, I hope."

Noah nodded his head, and said "Yeah, I get that feeling. I would much rather know that there was a chance for something bad to be prevented, rather than for it to be hopeless from the start. I don't like being made powerless. Of course, my friend Jason didn't take much comfort in that when his girlfriend was killed... he still blames me for her death... and rightfully so." Noah sighed, then gave a half-hearted smile. "Sorry, that got a little dark. On topic, this crash has left me pretty annoyed, especially if we're in the middle of nowhere. How am I supposed to find someone, if I'm looking around the middle of nowhere?"

Melissa shook her head and said to Wilhelm, "alright. Keep the thing away from that fellow over there, though. He doesn't seem too fond of it. Oh, and uh, I hope I don't have to shoot it, but if it Old Yeller here proves to be rabid..." she examined the creature, and added, "well, I hope it don't come to that."

Then to Noah, she said, "and, what's all this 'bout looking for someone? You just mean civilization in general? Or you got someone specific you want to have a chat with?"

Fix'd.

edited 4th Dec '11 10:30:47 AM by KillerClowns

"I'm looking for a very important man," Noah explained. "Where I'm from, the guy's an important political figure... hell, he's heir to the throne. He had a dispute with his father a few weeks back... and then he just up an disappeared. He's definitely planning something, but I have absolutely no leads to go on, and have just been hoping for an extreme stroke of luck to come along... that is, until my plane crashed. So much for luck, huh?"

Matt never actually introduced himself, but he's also a semi-famous actor who has been in a few film versions of the plays he's been in. I'll let it go.

He knew what it was- instinctual. Crawling things like that probably preyed on his ancestors. But he couldn't stop it. Even though he couldn't see it; if anything, his disability intensified it.

Matt thanked Melissa. He held his violin case over his shoulder and stepped off a bit to see if he could make sense of where he was. Grassy. Temperate. Hilly. Reminiscent of the British isles, in fact.

The box-like charm began glowing with an otherworldly energy as it detached from Mizuki's phone, and grew to it's normal size - about a 30 cm / 1 foot cube. That looks approximately like this.◊

It hovered slightly above the ground, and flashed a few different colors, breaking any spells on Mizuki.

"Oh, ah ... what happened?" Mizuki said, getting up on the grass, surprisingly with only a few scratches. The box hovered near her. "Oh, you're up? Let me see..." she said, picking up her phone. It read 'No Connection'.

"Hmmm... strange. I wonder if something's blocking the signals." she said. Then, reading some text on the phone, "Interesting. I'll keep an eye out for it."

She looked over to the plane where people were evacuating slowly, guided by the stewardesses and pilots. "Let's see what's happening over there, at least it doesn't look too bad from here." she said.

She closed the phone, and put it in her pocket, as she walked towards the plane, with the box hovering slightly off to her left side.

edited 4th Dec '11 2:19:57 PM by Sonzai

Spotting Mizuki, Melissa walked over. "Huh. Never thought I'd be saying this to a mage, but... thanks." Then she examined her charm. "Huh, interesting. Let's see... naw, can't be, no glass, just empty space. Plus, color's wrong, pattern's symmetrical..." She tore her gaze from the charm and said, "sorry, ma'am. Just wonderin' about that little doodad of yours. Looks kinda like something I've seen before." She offered her hand and said, "I overheard your name earlier, Mizuki, was it? I'm sure you already got mine from that little announcement of mine, but in case you didn't, Captain Melissa Kowalski of the Untied States Air Force. So, I ain't one to mince words." Her tone surprisingly friendly considering her word choice, Melissa asked, "what the hell are you?"

edited 4th Dec '11 3:23:20 PM by KillerClowns

That magic.

Wilhelm doesn't like it.

He takes out the harmonica again and starts improvising, just to ward off that uncomfortable feeling, and the trilobite tapdances on his shoulder.

"I suppose that's a valid question." Mizuki said to Melissa, "I don't usually go blabbing it around, but under the circumstances... I'm a magical girl - er, mathmagical girl, technically. That still sounds so silly. Anyways, this little guy here," Mizuki said, motioning towards the hovering box, "Is a fractal lifeform from another dimension, I call him Mandel. He helps me learn to use my powers and that kind of stuff. Have you seen someone like him before?"

"And don't thank me too much. I was on this flight because I thought something like this might happen - sorry about not preventing the crash." Mizuki said, then, noticing Wilhelm's playing and trilobite, "Do you know what's up with that guy?"

Melissa said, "sounds kinda strange to me — where I come from, magic and math ain't exactly on speaking terms. Your, uh, thingy looks kinda like a Triple-P — er, that is, a sort of portal device — 'cept your thing's bigger, and doesn't have that stained-glass look the Precursors love." A shame. A chance to study working Precursor technology would have made the folks back home dance with joy. Anything that scared the Eyes and Teeth had to be worth looking into.

"And that fellow over there with the clockwork? Uh... I dunno. You'd have to talk to him. That little bug thingy seems to be his pet, and evidently he's some sort of mage as well, something about music. But otherwise?" She shrugged. "I just shoot things."