Event Log: Dead Ringers

[hadrielmods]

Who: Everyone participating in the event!
What: The event log for the Dead Ringers event!
Where: All around the city
When: January 16th-January 25th
Warnings: Evil doubles, so we can assume manipulation, violence, murder, and maybe some nasty words

Everything seems normal on the morning of the 16th - actually, everything seems normal about the city for the entirety of this event. Nothing is strange, nothing is obviously wrong. Well, except that the population has mysteriously doubled, and the new residents each look exactly like one of the old residents. So weird! Definitely not ominous at all.

At least until your new double gets down to business. After all, their only goal is to ruin your life, and that can take any form. Smashing your favorite coffee cup? Telling your worst enemy they're right? Kissing someone else in front of your girlfriend? Brutally murdering you and then hiding your body in a closet so they can more effectively destroy your life? The possibilities are truly endless, and the only way to protect yourself is to kill your double first. They're not really open to negotiation, after all - but they sure might pretend to be in order to trick you.

So watch your back, and try to make sure that really is your best friend and not an evil clone masquerading as them. Boy, that would be awkward. If you can stick it out until January 25th, good for you! But if you didn't manage to and your double survives until the end - well, just as a final 'fuck you', there's a chance you'll come back to life and remember every awful thing your double did. Hey, at least that'll make it easier to fix, right?

► This log covers January 16th-January 25th.
► Feel free to make your own logs, as well
► Please tag headers of threads with content warnings where they apply
► Please put your character's name and open/closed in the subject line of your starters!
► If your evil clone happens to take you out, please let us know here, and remember that you will not revive until the event is over.

Comments

nick rivenna + her evil twin | open

[wreckoning]

(ooc: will match your preferred format! feel free to hit me up on ventose for further plotting, questions, etc.)

show your lines and shapes, wear your insides on the outside, show your enemy what you look like (city-wide; throughout the event)

It's difficult at first to tell that Nick's double isn't who she'd like you to believe she is, especially for those who only know her in passing, as the woman who pours drinks at Delight's bar, or maybe you remember some of her more abrasive network broadcasts, like the time she drunkenly claimed to hate every single person in Hadriel. She has that same caustic air about her, a simmering anger that rolls off her in near-palpable waves, a challenge in even the smallest glance that just dares you to try starting some shit with her. It would be easy to think you've just caught Nick on a particularly bad day - maybe at the bar, at an earlier time than Nick would normally be found, or ransacking one of the shops, or simply wandering the city streets, looking for a fight.

You might think this is simply woke-up-on-the-wrong-side-of-the-bed Nick - it happens to everyone, after all - but you would be dead wrong.

For one thing, Nick doesn't typically walk around town in Morphus, and that's what her double decides to do by the second day. The larger-than-life porcelain doll lumbers along at a slow gait, stalking for potential prey. Eventually, her activities escalate to something far more destructive - firing bolts of black energy from either hand, at people cross her path, buildings, whatever's nearby, laughing maniacally the entire time. Are you afraid of her? Good. You should be.

It takes some time, but Nick finally catches up to her double. If you're in the area - to help Nick fight her doppleganger, or maybe just caught in the crossfire while the two Nightbane do battle - you may hear Nick mutter angrily, something like "This bitch is toast," before she transforms herself into a mirror image of the giant doll in front of her, identical down to the fissure radiating across her porcelain forehead.

Are you watching closely? Do you know which one is the real Nick?

around the shops district. area. downtown? who knows

[unfollowing]

Emily's looking for accessories. She never needs an excuse (she does what she wants, thank you very much), but it's extra nice to have something to focus on now that Hannah and Beth have gotten possessed by Rage or something. Not cool. They've all talked it out, and they're not fighting about all that happened on the mountain. Something is wrong, so she's staying away.

It's afternoon and she's leaving her second shop empty-handed, but she's not disappointed. There are a lot more to go, and you never know what you'll find down here.

As she starts to cross the street, though, a familiar if creepy figure comes into view. Shit-- but wait. Nick is in control of herself when she turns into a lifesize doll. Last time Emily saw this, Nick actually managed to stop being a piece of human garbage and bothered to help her escape a monster.

Okay, Em. Breathe. Just keep walking. She's probably hunting monsters. It's cool. She's an asshole, but she's not a straight-up murderer.

...too bad that isn't the real Nick, but what would Emily know? She makes it her personal mission to avoid Nick at all costs.]

/vague hand gestures

[wreckoning]

Emily is correct - Nick herself is not a murderer. She came uncomfortably close to killing once, during Rage's revival, and after she was no longer under the goddess' influence, the knowledge of what she'd almost done was almost too much for Nick to live with.

Her double, however, has no such qualms about killing. She will gladly, gleefully kill anyone she can, simply because she can - because she is powerful, and because there is something she finds enjoyable about causing others to suffer. It's not as if it's permanent here anyway, right?

Her painted-on mouth doesn't curve up into a wicked smile when she spots Emily, because her mouth can't do much in this form except open to shriek, but she's smiling on the inside all the same as she raises a hand and shoots a bolt of dark energy right at the ground beneath Emily's feet.

[unfollowing]

Emily just barely sees the dark energy bolt in time to leap out of the way. She lands hard on her side but scrambles up to her feet quickly, adrenaline on high in an instant.

"Jesus shit! What the fuck is your problem!?"

She'd be wittier if she weren't well aware of the damage Nick can do when she transforms. Best not to provoke her but goddamn what the fuck.

[wreckoning]

Nick's twin laughs, a malicious, distorted sound, echoing inside the hollowness of her porcelain body. This is too good; she thinks this is Nick, and that's absolutely perfect. These two hate each other anyway, and making it all worse for Nick is icing on the cake.

"My problem? I thought we already had this established, Princess." The larger-than-life doll lumbers a couple steps toward Emily. "My problem is you - specifically, your continued existence."

[unfollowing]

It's not exactly hard to make Emily hate Nick more, given the content of their prior interactions. Granted, Nick did save her life during that fog bullshit, but that's pretty easy to forget when you think back to the shit from before, and who would Emily be if she didn't hold a grudge?

"Yeah, well tough shit. Kill me and I'll just come right back to be a pain in your ass all over again."

Tough words from a girl who's much smaller than the doll-form of a homicidal double. (She really needs to start carrying ready-made attack and defense glyphs on her. Then she can at least put her magic where her mouth is.)

[wreckoning]

The doll laughs again. This girl really has no idea what she's up against. She thinks she and Nick have had scuffles in the past, but she has no clue what kind of damage Nick is capable of inflicting.

She's about to find out.

"Kill you? Great idea. Don't mind if I do."

The doll raises her hands in front of her, and a cloud of dark energy appears in the space between her hands. It starts out as a small thing, maybe the size of a softball, and as she moves her hands slowly apart, the churning cloud grows, widening and intensifying. When it's as wide as the doll's shoulders, she turns her palms toward Emily and hurls the cloud in her direction with a brisk shove.

haha wolfie isn't even here rn my bad on planning for him to run off!

[unfollowing]

Seeing this doll thing attack some other creature is scary. Seeing this doll thing attack her is terrifying.

Emily screams and does the first thing that comes to mind, which is to all but throw herself flat on the ground so the cloud flies over her. It doesn't touch her, but she's half convinced it has anyway, because she's seen what these powers can do. She cranes her neck to check -- okay, no burns or anything like that.

The creepy doll-voice echoes in her head still, and now that she's on the ground, it's so much harder to get up. Where can she go? Nick could probably break through any door or wall or anything in her quest to kill her.

"Fuck you," Emily hisses as she forces herself to get up. She's on her hands and knees, then a crouch, breathing the strength back into her legs. "Racist bitch. Fucking murderer."

Maybe she can get Nick to monologue long enough for her to figure out where to run. It's the best she's got right now.

shops

[unknowable]

Adam is out scavenging. He spends a decent amount of time out and about in the city, and that hasn't changed much even with all this going on - his double is dead. He has things to do, roommates to feed. So he's out making himself busy, backpack full of supplies, nearly ready to head home.

It's when he heads out of the shop that he nearly runs into her. The initial sight is somewhat frightening - but then he realizes it's familiar. He's seen this before. It's Nick - or it's probably Nick. Adam is too cautious, too suspicious to jump to any conclusions. He met his own double, after all. He knows what's going on.

So he steps back, aware she might be dangerous, but he can't sneak away. There's no way she hasn't seen him. He acts polite instead.

"Nick?"

uh. around.

[skelebro]

He don't recognize her at first. Hadriel has plunged in chaos, he's pretty sure, and what parts of the city haven't been completely ravaged are on their way to it. But good thing that GPS system was totally worth it, right?

If he weren't so keyed up and on edge and ready to bolt at the first sign of something ready to kill him, he might've gotten a blast of hot black energy straight to the face. As it is, he's got enough in him to make sure it MISSes, but it's a near thing.

"What the hell."

[greywaren]

[It's only by coincidence that Ronan happens across Nick, though he's pleased enough to see her lumbering around the way she does. He's already dealt with the real Ronan a few days ago, and seeing her- when he could swear that he saw another Nick a few hours ago- is something of a relief.

Not everyone was as lucky as him, to kill their twin in the first couple of days. Ronan is nothing if he's not a helper, so he moves out onto the street, the corner of his mouth twitching up a little as he raises a hand in some vague sort of greeting.

Above them, Chainsaw- or, a different version of her- screeches, before perching on the nearby rooftop.]

You're looking different today.