ya gotta wanna be a battering ram

[headandhand]

WHO: The entire dang city.
WHAT: Dualis Days, a week-long summer celebration.
WHERE: Central Square Park and the rest of the city.
WHEN: June 17-23.
WARNINGS: Terrorist violence, likely some blood and injuries. Please warn in individual threads!

June 17; Central Square Park.

Every year for as far back as anyone can remember, the start of summer is heralded by the week-long festival known as Dualis Days. This celebration officially kicks off at midday in the middle of Central Square Park with a commencement speech by the current mayor. This year marks Marcelina Dubanowski's third term as mayor of Dualis; she is an average-sized, middle-aged human-presenting woman with blonde hair styled in a short bob and a plastic, toothy smile that never seems to turn entirely off.

"Welcome, one and all!" she begins, with the practiced cadence of someone who is quite comfortable with public speaking. She invites all citizens, new and old, to spend the next week indulging in festivities in all districts of the city and getting to know their neighbors a little better. This is a joyous time of celebration, and the crowd responds with enthusiastic applause as the mayor finishes her speech and introduces this year's parade marshall, Peshtigo Tengfei.

Tengfei blows a whistle six times to signal the start of the parade - and this is where the celebration goes sideways.

A loud explosion tears through the air, and it's followed by panicked screams and the sharp screech of microphone feedback. A bomb has gone off at the platform where the mayor was standing, collapsing the wood and tearing it to splinters and dust. Chaos erupts in the gathered crowd, and as the people shift in all directions to get clear of any possible additional bombs, a loud siren cuts through the cacophony, calling attention to the sudden crackle of video feed present on all television screens throughout the city, including those set up in the park to broadcast the mayor's speech for those standing far from the stage. The picture is plain, a black background and bold white block letters filling the screen:

WAKE UP
WAKE UP
DON'T BELIEVE THE LIES

The final image is an anatomical graphic of a human heart, displayed for about three seconds, and then the feed goes black again.

Confused murmurs sweep through the crowd as citizens resume tending to the injured and evacuating the area until official first responders arrive.

June 17-23; aftermath around the city.

Dualis Days continues as scheduled, though Mayor Dubanowski is unable to enjoy the festival, as she is spending the week in the hospital recovering from her injuries. A team of Iterations guard her door - no visitors allowed - but the news media frequently report updates on her condition. Nothing to worry about, folks! Return to your celebrations, and don't mind the increased visible presence of the Hand as Iterations are stationed every few blocks throughout the city. It's only for your protection, after all.

Comments

[cisskabob]

[June 17 | Central Square Park] {cw: violence, blood, etc}

It may have been years since Cissie's worn a mask and rushed head first into dangers while others ran away, but some instincts never leave you. Maybe especially when you've spent a few years kidnapped to various pocket dimensions full of strange dangers. A bomb, as jarring and unexpected and violently terrible as it is, is something that Cissie understands. It's more familiar to her than even some of the victims and creatures making up the panicking crowd around them.

(Now is definitely not the time to think about what that means in terms of her life experiences.)

It takes only seconds to confirm that she and Tim, who was watching the speech with her, have only superficial injuries. They'll both probably need some stitches and maybe some shrapnel pulled out of wounds, but they're standing and maybe their ears are ringing, but they’re in a lot better shape than most of the people around them. Before and without really thinking about it, Cissie’s following Tim into the crowd, heading toward the worst of the damage and the worst of the carnage and screaming.

There is a lot of carnage and a lot of wounded, and for the most part, she pushes and directs people who are able to walk or otherwise move to follow the crowds and get clear. Her first aid and triage skills are only so much good without any supplies, but she rips up clothing to fashion make-shift bandages and tourniquets. She has a passing thought about blood borne diseases and her own wounds, and tamps it down--shock, Cissie. This is shock--before checking another gushing headwound and wrapping most of a shirt around bloodsoaked and matted purple hair.

She’s efficient and fast and good at what she’s doing, but she feels detached, like she’s watching someone else go through the motions. It will come back to her later, but for now she’s grateful for the shock and her instincts. She can almost hear her mother’s voice telling her to stay calm in chaos, and isn’t that alarming?

There are calls for help all around her, and she turns to the next being, and the next, doing whatever she can.

[June 17 | Aftermath] {cw: probably trauma and blood?}

The quiet following the chaos of the explosion is jarring and Cissie can only sit on the grass in the park for a while, staring at the remains of the stage, waiting for Tim or Steph or someone else she knows. That’s what you do when you’re lost, isn’t it? Sit still and wait for someone to find you. Except that Cissie knows where she is, and she knows how to get back to the apartment/dorm she shares with Tim. She’s just. Going to stay here until someone makes her move.

[June 18-23 | Dualis Days After]

It’s strange, how the city picks up and resumes as if nothing unusual has just happened, when by all accounts, this is supposed to be a perfect utopia where stuff like bombings never happen. Cissie is not surprised to see more of a police force around and watching after the bombs, but she does her best to steer clear of them. Robot cops hit her alarm bells a little too loudly for her to want to risk testing their limits. Carrying on as per usual involves more pretending than she really feels up to, but a city wide carnival is absolutely the kind of thing she would normally be completely into, even if she hadn’t just arrived from a land of no electricity or reliable hot water.

Still, she makes an effort, browsing the craft vendors, trying new foods and even finding some familiar fair foods as well. She even tries some carnival games, although she only wins one stuffed animal in a tossing game, not because she can’t, but because she doesn’t want to draw attention to herself and also… Her heart’s just not in it.

[Wildcard Option]

Feel free to run into Cissie anywhere doing anything! I'm game!

[June 18-23 | Dualis Days After]

[sociallychallenged]

There's a cop that's not a robot, nor on duty that comes over and stands next to Cissie at one of the food booths. His jacket is unbuttoned and his face is tired, and he's not as revelrous as the rest of this quick recovering group.

It's one of those familiar booths, looking at a collection of flash-fried foods that he'd know from home isn't terribly adventurous. And he's in the mood for something familiar after a few days of missing particular people, the weight of thinking about this person in emergencies weighing on him.

He looks over to Cissie.

"Enjoying yourself?" He can't manage true levity to his voice, but there's a tired sort of hope there that some people are actually having a good time despite everything. Seems like most people are. Maybe a few are dragging it like anchors behind them as well.

[cisskabob]

Cissie has been staring at the menu for a little too long, spacing out a little at the comfortingly familiar fried foods listed in front of her. It's not that she doesn't notice the larger man near her, it's more that she's keeping to herself.

Still, when he speaks, she glances over at him to make sure he is talking to her. The tone and look on his face make her offer a small smile in return. It doesn't reach her eyes, and she doesn't even try to make it look sincerely happy. The way others seem to be carrying on as if nothing happened is strange and unsettling for her.

"I'm trying, anyway," she admits, giving a careless shrug. "Maybe it's because I'm pretty new here, but everyone else seems just fine with acting like all of that just... never happened. You?"

[sociallychallenged]

"So you're one of the new ones, huh? Right..." He says idly, placing his order for something rich and fatty and more unhealthy than what he should be getting, but his usual food monitor that informs him of his calorie intake so he can specifically not care about it isn't here.

"Yeah, I am too. I wish they'd taken at least one day for people to recover. Even if the mayor survived."

People were pretty scared. They could have used the breather, and the reassurance that the police were looking around. At least the flesh and blood ones. He shouldn't be so biased against these robot ones, he knows, especially after what he just went through back home. But they seem very hive-mindy somehow.

Maybe that's him reading too much into it. Probably.

[cisskabob]

Cissie nods in agreement, frowning slightly. It just isn't sitting right with her that everyone is carrying on like nothing happened, when someone was nearly killed and many innocent bystanders were hurt just hours before.

"That would have been nice," she agrees. "I mean, maybe it's a cultural thing? I've only been here a few days, so I have no idea, but where I'm from... that kind of thing might have shut the whole thing down, or at least meant a whole lot more security and screenings."

Aftermath

[helpdesk_hero]

Welcome to the aftermath of a traumatic event. David’s seen it many times, and been through it himself. A lot of people will need, and probably not seek, counseling after this. Him included. Doesn’t mean he didn’t intend to keep helping. Didn’t matter that he’d lost his coat or that there was other people’s blood on his body and a tiredness all around him. Seeing people alone, clearly lost in thought? That draws him. And the blonde young woman alone?

David moves to sit by here.

“You okay?” he asks, a soft ‘I’m just checking in’ tone in his voice. But there is also clear worry on his face. She doesn’t seem hurt herself. Physically.

[cisskabob]

Cissie isn't so dazed and distracted that she doesn't notice the young man approaching her, but she is tired enough to not want to move or stand up. She looks up at him and takes in his worried expression, and the blood he's wearing and the general air of exhaustion that she herself is feeling, and she offers a soft smile in return, nodding.

"I'm fine," she assures him. "I was helping with first aid. Are you okay? Do you need any stitches or bandages?"

[helpdesk_hero]

The problem with helpful people being helping is that sometimes two helpful people run into each other and they get exchanges like this. Be the offer tells him she really is okay and he smiles faintly at her.

“Not my blood. Doctors tend to get a bit messy when at the scene of an attack like this. Par for the course.”

He absolutely looks young for a doctor, he is only twenty.

“And I meant more psychologically.”

[cisskabob]

Cissie nods, and gestures at her own bloodstained clothing, returning his smile with a wry one of her own. “Field medic. I hear you.”

She sighs a bit and shoves her hair back out of her face. “I’m fine,” she says, and mostly believes it. Even if she knew him, she might not admit how she was actually feeling, but she appreciates the concern anyway. “You know. As much as can be expected. I’m Cissie, by the way. Cissie King-Jones.”

Aftermath

[ichoosefight]

"Here we are," Steph sighs with considerable relief as the stage comes into view. Chasing after goons in a strange city had seemed like a good idea at the time, but she maybe should have spent more of the morning getting her bearings and less stealing clothes that are already pockmarked and speckled with blood. Then again, she supposes, some things never change.

She's looking around for somebody to pass a couple of descriptions onto when she spots the girl on the bench and frowns.

"...Cissie?"

[cisskabob]

Cissie's head snaps up when she hears her name, and she lets out an audible sigh of relief when she sees Stephanie standing there, alive and seemingly mostly in one piece.

"Steph!" She frowns a little, looking the other girl over. "...Are you okay? Is--how much of that is your blood?"

Cissie's dealt with enough Gothamites to know that this particular breed will tend to everyone else's injuries before their own. She can't even throw stones there herself, considering the way she had reacted when the blast went off, but worrying about her friends and their injuries is just what she does.

[ichoosefight]

She grins to see a familiar face also alive and mostly in one piece. It's been a long, weird morning. Then she pulls at her shirt to get a good look at it.

"Um... almost all of it, I think. Guess I'd better do something about that, huh." She'd meant to sit with the medics for a while, but once she spotted someone on the roof all that went out the window.

"I'm good though! Nothing major. What about you? You seem a little..." 'In shock' doesn't seem very tactful to say. "...out of it."

[cisskabob]

Cissie can’t help but smile herself, relieved to see Steph and be recognized, and to hear she’s okay, for the most part. It’s hardly surprising to find out that she ran headfirst into potential danger to help others before taking care of her own injuries.

“Out of it? Probably. I’m fine, though,” she assures her, reaching for the first aid kit she’d acquired while helping with triage and first aid. “Just indulging in a few minutes of starting off into space and not thinking about the shit we just saw.” She gives Steph another little grin and holds up the kit. “But I have a first aid kit, and happen to be pretty amazing at sutures, so get over here.”

after | cw light description of anxiety

[scathefires]

A city-wide carnival is decidedly not the sort of thing Jason’s into - carnivals tend to mean clowns, and Jason’s had more than enough dealings with clowns back in Gotham. But sitting in his apartment makes him feel like the walls are closing in around him, and most places in the city he might be drawn to are closed for the week, so. A walk along the nearest midway to stretch his legs it is.

He doesn’t have much interest in the games or prizes, and he begins to regret his decision to be out among the crowds when his heart begins racing and waves of anxiety start to climb up the back of his throat. There are too many people for his sense of hypervigilance to manage, and the white-hot fire of anger shoots up his spine because he is frustrated with his own inability to handle something so goddamn mundane.

A nearby booth attendant calls out, challenging passers-by to test their luck and skill in the game of knocking over stacked bottles with a ball. The words pull Jason’s focus from his building panic attack, though he shakes his head no to the invitation - he’s not interested. The attendant issues the challenge to Jason again, more direct this time, a little mocking, and rather than simply walk away, Jason steps toward the booth, scowling. First one’s free, the attendant says, handling Jason a ball, c’mon, this is so easy a baby could do it.

Jason turns the ball over in his hand, the glances up at the stack of bottles, gauging the distance, aiming - then throws the ball with full force. Not only does he knock over the entire stack of bottles, but those directly impacted by the ball shatter, and the booth attendant yells in surprise and displeasure. Jason gives the now-irate attendant an exaggerated shrug as he steps back from the booth, mouth curved in a smirk that makes him feel more normal than he has since he woke up on the hill overlooking the city.

“Guess you better be careful what you ask for next time,” he says, and turns to leave.

He stops dead in his tracks, though, when he finds himself face to face with Cissie.

[cisskabob]

It's his voice that catches Cissie's attention. She doesn't even think before turning to look in the direction it's coming from. She knows, logically, that it can't be Jason's voice. She knows it. She watched him die, had to leave his body behind while they fled for safety. She's seen it over and over again in her dreams. But in this crowd, surrounded by all of these people and voices, that familiar mocking tone cuts through and she doesn't even have time to think logically before she's turning and looking for the source. She doesn't even have time to think about what she's expecting to see.

When she sees Jason, standing there in front of her alive and wearing that smirk--at least for a moment--Cissie freezes. She has a plate of fried dough in her hands, hot and steaming and covered in butter, powdered sugar and cinnamon. It's the kind of greasy, sugary, unhealthy fair food that her mother would never have allowed her to have growing up, which is a large part of why she bought it.

The plate and the food on it topple out of her hand to the ground, instantly forgotten.

If she looks like she's just seen a ghost, it's because she has. "...Jason?"

[scathefires]

The smirk drops off his face immediately, and despite the noise of the crowd around them, for a few seconds, the only sound Jason can hear is the thumping of his own heart - impossibly alive again for the second time, aching for the people he thought were lost. There's no way the universe is kind enough to send Jason and Cissie to the same place three times in a row, but here they both are, shocked to see each other. She must be the Cissie who knows him, or she wouldn't recognize him, wouldn't be so visibly surprised to see him walking around with breath in his lungs and a beating heart.

"Cissie," he says, and takes a cautious step toward her, then another, watching her closely to make sure this advance is a welcome one. "Are you OK?"

aftermath

[aguidingkey]

They haven't had the chance to reunite yet, but the second Aqua lays eyes on Cissie, recognition shines clearly. So much has happened in such a short period of time. For Aqua, she was brought to this new world straight from the last, without any time to even think about going home. And now she's here, fighting for everyone's lives just like in the last world. Everything is so similar and yet so different. It's a lot to handle and Aqua has only found a handful of familiar faces, though even a handful is more than she had when she arrived on the other world.

Aqua isn't going to make Cissie move from her spot on the grass. Instead, Aqua settles down to join Cissie, sitting close enough by that they can have a decent conversation.

"That wasn't the greatest welcoming party we've had," she says softly. "Are you going to be okay?"

[cisskabob]

Cissie doesn't notice Aqua approaching her, mostly because she's exhausted and her staring off into the distance had led to some high quality spacing out. She does notice peripherally that someone is sitting next to her, and she pulls herself together enough to look over.

She recognizes her friend instantly, and her face registers her surprise and joy and worry all at once. Is she hurt? Is she the same Aqua, or one from another world or timeline? Still, she can't help the smile that follows the surprise.

"Aqua. It's really you? You're here?"

[aguidingkey]

That response definitely confirms for Aqua that this Cissie is really her friend. She nods, smiling softly. At least Aqua isn't hurt, for all that she's worn out from the crisis.

"I'm really here. And so are you. Are you doing okay?"

Or as okay as everyone can be after a crisis like that. At least this also should confirm for Cissie that this Aqua is the one she knows very well.

Aftermath

[mrsarcastic003]

It takes some time after the disaster, but Tim and Cissie eventually find each other again. He's done all he can in the immediate aftermath, and he's tired, while his headache has been creeping back in around the edges. It's past time to take a break when he finds Cissie sitting on the grass out of the chaos.

He sighs a little in relief and goes to her, taking a seat on the grass as well, close enough that they can touch shoulders.

"Are you okay?"

[cisskabob]

Some of the tension begins to drain away when Cissie spots Tim, and when he sits next to her, she leans into his side and lets out a sigh of her own.

"Yeah," she says, not bothering to keep her voice from giving away how tired she is. "I mean. I'm not hurt--not really. You?"

[mrsarcastic003]

He shakes his head. "Not really," he agrees. They'd both sustained a few injuries in the initial blast, but they hadn't been too serious to keep them from jumping in to help, so he's not worried about them now either. He gives Cissie a look over--she's exhausted. He rests his head against hers. "I'm all right."

Dualis Days After

[silentnarration]

Squall in at the next game over, having stubborned his way through winning his own stuffed animal at a rigged shooting game. He's holding a crocodile plush and is looking at it like it's diseased.

"... why is it sad?" He's looking at Cissie then at her own stuffed animal. "Do you want it?"

[cisskabob]

Cissie blinks in surprise at being addressed, glancing at the (indeed) sad looking crocodile, and at her own colorful unicorn, and then at the person holding said crocodile. She answers before really considering whether he’ll realize she’s teasing. “Maybe he’s sad because you’re offering to give him away, just when he’s found his new home.”

[silentnarration]

Wait, what? Squall seems taken aback by that answer. Mostly he just feels silly for even experiencing a brief moment of thinking she could be right. Over a stuffed animal. He's blaming having just had surgery. It's the only excuse he has.

"... I don't really care for it." But he is taking a closer look at the crocodile. Mm, nope. Still not appealing to him. "And I don't have any friends to give it to." He is so not making it weird by handing this over to Nida or Seifer.