DEPLOYMENT 15: Be the Other Walking Nuke

[walking_nuke]

[(Note: All tagbacks will be from walking_nukebird!)]
[ACTION - A (847 Goldberg Street, Early Morning, HOUSEMATES)]

[The first thing Balin notices as he starts to wake up is that he's in some kind of cubicle, swaddled in big, fuzzy blankets. He grumbles, thinking that yet again Mayfield has kidnapped him in his sleep in preparation for its latest twisted game.]

[... Until he realizes that his grumble sounds rather bird-like.]

[And his field of vision is ... considerably wider than normal.]

[He raises up, and cranes his head around to discover that ... he's covered in feathers. Black, iridescent feathers—]

AWK!

[Were he still in his human body, Balin might have lept out of bed and reached for his sidearm ... but he's no longer Balin Wilbur. He's now Utsuho Reiuji—and considering this is the man-eating town-burning youkai he'd fought with not long ago, he's taking this predicament far worse than he might have if he were swapped with someone else.]

[So instead, the hell raven that has been spending most of the past few weeks sleeping peacefully in that box, courtesy of Virginia, is now having a night fright. It squawks in distress, its wings flap haphazardly as it tries to escape the box, crashing into one thing or another. The real Utsuho has had a lot of practice shifting between her raven and humanoid youkai forms, so much so that it doesn't require much thought to trigger the switch. Balin's panicky thoughts of wondering what happened to his human body are enough to trigger the transformation—which, for someone who never wanted to be a Polymorphing Spy, is a highly uncomfortable and horrifying sensation.]

[By the end of it, "Utsuho" flops onto the bedroom floor chest-first. Coming to "her" senses after a few seconds, "Utsuho" pushes "herself" up, but "her" now much larger wings are all ruffled and splayed everywhere, and there's a lot of "her" shorter feathers floating about in the air.]

What—WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?!

[That yell is loud enough to be heard throughout the house, easily.]

[ACTION - B (Anywhere in Mayfield, Morning/Afternoon, OPEN TO ALL)]

[Utsuho spends a lot of her time flying around in the air, but today she apparently is preferring to walk around town. She seems a bit clumsy and cautious, though—Balin is having difficulty adjusting to a woman's bone structure and center of gravity. Especially since this particular woman isn't even human. Aaand also much taller than he is.]

[Sometimes you might see "Utsuho" looking down at "her" chest and muttering or even angrily talking out loud. Like "she's" arguing with someone.]

[ACTION - C (Downtown Mayfield, Afternoon, OPEN TO ALL)]

"Go on, you mangy mutt! Get out of here! Shoo! Shoo!"

Hey! I'm not a mutt! What's the big idea—

["Utsuho" just tried to enter a store and got pushed out by a drone armed with a broom. With one last shove, "she" stumbles out the door. As the drone slams the door shut, "Utsuho" turns around to look back at the store with "her" hands on "her" hips.]

—Dammit, every store is doing this to me!

[Ah, the joys of finding out Mayfield considers you a "pet."]

[ACTION - D (John Doe Park, Afternoon/Evening, OPEN TO ALL)]

["Utsuho" is currently trying to figure out how to fly. Flight is an ubiquitous ability among Gensokyo's denizens, even if they have no biological ability to do so—but Balin doesn't know that, and so he assumes the only way he can fly as Utsuho is through wing power alone. In fairness, wingspan is one of several things in which Utsuho's body is well-endowed.]

[Flying with wings is a learned skill, though, even for birds—and having never been a bird before, Balin is clumsily trying to imitate what he's seen the real Utsuho and other, normal birds do with their wings. Instead, "Utsuho" ends up flailing "her" wings much like a Killdeer faking a broken wing. Sometimes "she's" lucky with a jump and gets airborne for a few seconds, "her" wings fluttering spastically before "she" falls back down. And "she's" not too graceful about that, either.]

[ACTION - E (Makeout Point, Evening, OPEN TO ALL)]

[Well, if he's going to be stuck inside the hell raven's body for a while, there's one thing Balin can take advantage of for the time being.]

[Up at Makeout Point, "Utsuho" is armed with "her" control rod, and judging from the light show and miniature suns over there, "she's" practicing with "her" powers. Yet unlike her murderous rampage back in March, "she" seems to be taking to aim up at the sky, away from Mayfield. "She's" even trying to avoid setting any trees on fire.]

[But it doesn't look like "she" has a good handle on it, because there are stray fireballs every once in a while.]

Comments

[bantorain]

Captain Ambrosia. She's a friend of mine.

[walking_nukebird]

Guess you lucked out ...

Caesar and I haven't been so lucky.

[bantorain]

Oh come on. Aside from being a different sex, nothing seriously bad has happened to either of you.

[walking_nukebird]

Are you kidding? Virginia, I'm not the only one in here!

[... And as if to prove the point, the eye in "Utsuho's" chest is staring intently at "Ambrosia" now.]

[bantorain]

-Oh...-

I guess it finally healed... and I don't think shooting you in the chest is a good idea right now.

[walking_nukebird]

I already had to do that. It ... healed back up pretty fast. But—! I didn't shoot myself, just—the eye.

DRIVEBY TAG

[idkmybfforin]

[At the very end of that sentence, before Balin-as-Utsuho's mouth closed and words should have stopped, they continued unbidden. The voice that emerged was entirely different from what it was just previously; sounding almost mechanical and genderless.]

TRY AGAIN.

[Yeah, the dead god is making fun of you Balin.]

[walking_nukebird]

[FUCK COVERING "HER" MOUTH IN PANIC.]

[bantorain]

Oh I've had just about enough out of you, you overgrown sore.

[walking_nukebird]

["Utsuho" removes "her" hands from "her" mouth.]

You have no idea, Ginny. I sure as Hell didn't. Not until today. I ... I think it might be the main reason why Utsuho flipped out in the first place. Both where she's from and here.

[bantorain]

I'd shoot it out, but this body lacks any abilities I can use to heal the wound you'd get as a result.

[walking_nukebird]

I can do it again if I have to. And—well, even if I did wind up hurting myself in the process, her body can regenerate pretty fast.

But I'm not gonna bother unless it tries to drive me crazy again.

[bantorain]

Pretty sure it's going to, regardless.

[walking_nukebird]

Probably ...

["Utsuho" sighs and refolds "her" wings.]

I learned a lot from talking to it, though. It wanted to die—or remain dead I guess—and being swallowed by Utsuho revived it, sorta. It called me its prison.

[bantorain]

A prison? Then she must be used as a seal for it...

[walking_nukebird]

It was already dead, though, before Utsuho ate it. It wanted to remain dead. And it was trying to get me to kill myself so it could die "like it should have."

["Utsuho" looks contemplative, as if remembering something. "She" folds "her" arms under "her" chest as "her" wings flutter.]

I remember being told about why it was done before ... Back in August. Someone from Gensokyo—Remilia Scarlet, do you know her? She said it was part of a plan to create a nuclear power plant there, since eating it gave Utsuho nuclear powers.

[bantorain]

Living or dead, you can still seal it. This way, I guess, they could use that power on their terms... assuming Okuu didn't do anything stupid with it.

[walking_nukebird]

Which she did.

["Utsuho's" wings fluff up a little.]

The Yatagarasu told me it was giving Utsuho advice, and that she followed half of it. When I asked what it was, it started filling my head with—

... well, imagine you had an entire crowd shouting at you, telling you that everyone is "weaklings," that "all is ash" before and behind you, and urging you to burn and destroy everything.

I could barely hear myself think ...

[bantorain]

So just breaking its eye every time isn't gonna cut it. We have to find a way to get whatever that thing is out of her.

[walking_nukebird]

["Utsuho" nods.]

It's another bird. Like how Utsuho is a raven youkai that lives in Hell? The Yatagarasu was a divine crow, people told me. And it told me it's an aspect, an avatar. I guess of the sun, it'd explain all the pictures it kept putting in my head ... and all the fire and nuclear powers.

["She" fidgets again.]

It feels weird knowing you're kind of like two birds in one body ... you know?

[bantorain]

I can't really imagine it, personally.

[walking_nukebird]

[For a beat, "Utsuho" is quiet, then "she" looks up in realization.]

Oh! That's right, Caesar suggested something, when I talked to him. Do you think we could convince her to trade the Yatagarasu for something else? At the Post Office?

[bantorain]

... No, no, we... We can't ask that of her. You know how that place works. There's no way she'd come out on top.

[walking_nukebird]

And she'd probably not want to do it anyway ... Or any other way. Too hung up on not wanting to be weak ...

[bantorain]

... So what do we do?