beholding_archivist: (Watcher's Crown)
Jonathan 'Eyebags' Sims ([personal profile] beholding_archivist) wrote in [community profile] revivalproject2021-05-11 11:00 am

(Not) Everyone’s A Hero

WHO: Jon & YOU
WHERE: Billy's fantasy city
WHAT: Supervillain Time! - Includes a 'Beat Up Some Nasty Monsters' sort-of mingl-y option?
WHEN: May
WARNINGS: E Y E S - Also low amount of Zalgo text.

While not as imposing as some of the skyscrapers surrounding it, the building of the Magnus Institute is not one easy to ignore. It has the weight of age and knowledge to it, easily looking way older than the city itself and yet no one can truly say just how long the Institute has existed.

No one but Jonathan Sims, head of said Institute despite his little habit of referring to himself as The Archivist. And maybe he does fulfill that role. Maybe he doesn't. The Archives are about as off-limit as the research lab, the artifact storage and the man's very private library. Both sit way beneath the Institute and are places he won't even bring his mothcats into. He rather lets them roam the city while he busies himself down there, keeping their eyes on heroes, villains and pedestrians while their master contemplates his most recent acquisitions.

It's an odd collection: A tape recorder, a golden lighter with a spider web design and a framed artwork of an eye that he can't help but feel very much observed by. Despite wearing thick gloves, Jon feels reluctant to touch either of these items even though he desperately wants to.

Is that eye drawn out of hundreds if not thousands of smaller eyes?

Jon shudders slightly and pulls his hand back upon realizing he has been reaching for the drawing again, but he remains unable to shake off that growing sensation of wrongness. Of having forgotten something. Of buried knowledge pressing its way back forward, trying to make itself known again.

Hundreds tiny eyes focus on him and he can feel their gaze, feel them attempting to inflict their knowledge on him and he winces, remembering. "...no."

The Tower
The sky darkens. It's a gradual effect beginning above the Institute and spreading outward from there. But what blocks out the sun aren't clouds, it's pure darkness. And as the city is swallowed by it, the Institute's building shifts and warps, reshaping itself into a massive, dominating tower, swallowing structures and skyscrapers around it as magical reality gets challenged by eldritch magic.

These two powers colliding is hardly a competition. It's a struggle of each power attempting to swallow the other, magic crackling and clashing and illuminating the dark sky above.

Down below at the steps of what used to be the Institute, the Archivist staggers outside, grimacing against the throbbing pain in his head and struggling to close bright green glowing eyes. But he can't. He has to see.

He has to see everything.


The Eye [ Jon won't react to this option. But go wild beating things up or borrow them for other prompts. ]
The sky blinks open above the city and its massive pupil focuses on literally everyone.

Everyone already adept at sensing magic will notice a much darker flow within the magic present in the city. It pulses with a need. A mindless hunger. And it gets stronger the closer one gets to the dark, now looming tower. But that isn't the only thing increasing the closer one gets to the tower. Flying monsters the size of small cars and looking like giant eyeballs with further eyeballs sprouting from them roam the streets and places around the tower.

These Beholders will stare straight into a person's very being and draw out what they fear the most to drink in that terror. If threatened, they will fire beams of twisted reality from those smaller eyeballs connected to them.

Another type of monster lurking especially around the base of the tower is more human-shaped, and, in fact, they may have been humans at some point. They appear like slouched-over figures wearing dark robes and will lie unmoving on the ground unless they detect nearby movement. Which is when these Servitors will rise and reveal that underneath the hood of their robes is nothing but a single eyeball, a little larger than a human head would be. They don't pursue as actively as the Beholders, but they will grab and hold a person daring to come too close to the tower, seeking to extract what secrets and vulnerabilities the potential intruder might have.

And then there are the cameras. Large creatures that venture even farther than the Beholders and made entirely of eyeballs of different sizes. They? Will only watch. But they will do so relentlessly.


The Archivist
He isn't touching the ground. He simply has decided that he doesn't need to and so he doesn't touch the ground. Because reality is what he makes of it.

The chuckle escaping Jon's throat is discordant, his voice shifting with a variety of distortions. He hasn't decided what his voice should be just yet. But he will figure it out. But until he has made that decision, Jon will make a few others. Important decisions such as that certain buildings in his way simply shouldn't exist. That the terrified screams of those that have just lost their homes are really just shades of purple. That this rental car over there is better off flattened for no particular reason.

Unless terror is a reason, of course. For he finds himself at the receiving end of the most wonderful dread, both due to his own actions and the creatures he has inflicted upon what reality used to be.

But just as he sets his mind on a new target, Jon spots something else. A person. One of those- Heroes?

"I̻̎ s̙̝͆̽e̼͔ͨ͆ͥẽ̟̩̰ͥ́.̫͋͐"


The Wildcard
[[ Anything else and stuff goes here. ]]
wearingthestars: (surprise)

my hero!

[personal profile] wearingthestars 2021-05-20 09:06 pm (UTC)(link)
Billy feels frozen, as much as he tries to scream as his body to move, looking up in fright just in time to be nearly blinded by that bright light. He winces, though it does save him from getting an eyeful of...well- crushed eye, wiping it from his face and looking up in grateful awe at his rescuer.

"Holy shit," he murmurs, scooting back shakily.
in_extremis: (Default)

[personal profile] in_extremis 2021-05-22 07:23 am (UTC)(link)
More of them weren't supposed to appear like that, making Iron Man rise up to his full height as he backed protectively closer to the kid, one palm still turned toward him cautiously. The armor gave Iron Man an easy foot over Sims and would have made for a very short fight without this new backup he was working with. Not that the development changed Tony's plan much--it had a solid foundation: keep the kid safe. Any details, like where Iron Man got to deck the Archivist for menacing teenagers, were adaptable.

"Way ahead of you," Iron Man replied, shifting his protective arm to scoop around the innocent party with only the briefest, 'hang on', of warning before they were jetting straight up and out of the closing ranks of gross eyeball creatures, spattering them with the remains of their crushed comrade.
wearingthestars: (surprise)

[personal profile] wearingthestars 2021-05-23 11:37 pm (UTC)(link)
Billy flinches away from the new creatures, closer to Iron Man. There's hardly a moment to protest as he's scooped up, and he cries out in surprise as they take off, clinging tightly to the armored man.

"Oh- wow this is high," he murmurs, hiding his face a moment to try and quell that fear.
in_extremis: (Default)

[personal profile] in_extremis 2021-05-25 07:12 pm (UTC)(link)
Tony has no idea what to do with the clutch of dread suddenly squeezing around his heart, feeling horrifically exposed in a way that the armor was supposed to protect him from, and not from bullets or blasts. The flash of warning from the suit tracking his heart rate didn't help, making Tony squeeze his eyes shut as he tried to shunt that awareness away and quickly seize any of the programs that tracked his status so it would stop looking, sending them almost careening into the corner of a hard, brick building.

By Billy's ear, Iron Man made a sound of a distorted, rattling breath as he tried to course correct in shock, squeezing the kid tighter while he flipped his armored back toward the wall to take the impact where he couldn't redirect the momentum fast enough. They skimmed the wall, sending a shower of broken brick down onto the street below that Tony didn't look back at as he darted them away from those watchful eyes as quickly as he could carry them.

What happened to Jon's voice?

At the fringes of the encroaching darkness, Iron Man finally slowed and swooped down toward the ground, coming to a slightly stumbling landing as he came in faster than he should have to land on his feet with the kid kept upright. It left him pacing, carrying the motion through, no longer squeezing the kid but cradling his head carefully against his shoulder as Tony tried to breathe through the panic, reassuring himself that this one was okay.
wearingthestars: (Default)

[personal profile] wearingthestars 2021-05-30 12:34 am (UTC)(link)
"Woah- naah-" Billy peaked and regretted the action immediately, wincing a little as Iron Man squeezed a little too tight, and looking up at his fate plate in concern at that strange breathing.

"..." Breathing heavily, Billy needed a moment of his own, but it didn't take long before he shifted a little in Iron Man's arms, glancing towards the ground, and easing up on his own iron fast grip.

"...I think we're okay-"
in_extremis: (Default)

[personal profile] in_extremis 2021-05-30 12:53 am (UTC)(link)
Right, they were fine, Tony was wasting time and was holding the kid hostage at this point, making him abruptly disengage, reroute, then try to set him down as gently as possible. "There's more people in there, I have to..." Iron Man started to explain, like he wasn't the one that had been holding them up, twisting one hand in the air to fill in the obvious for them. With the other hand, he quickly brushed some of the thick goop that had managed to cling to the kid's hair in the journey with a flick to the ground and said, "Get yourself safe, sweetheart."