2023.05.29 Chula Vista is Crazy

2023.05.29 Chula Vista is Crazy
The Circle and Friends investigate a peculiar rash of vehicular manslaughter on Main Street in Chula Vista.
IC Date	May 26th, 2023
Players	Aleysa, Viktor, Phil, Miriel, Gwydion, Selene, Mandy
Location	Chula Vista
Spheres	Mage Sorcerer

The day's come, and the street is busy.

With all of their pre-emptive talking done? Each member of this escapade would be contacted by Selene the day of, aside their own earlier contacts. She sends an address on main street... A place near a carne asada place, literally called Asada Mexican. It's on Main Street, just off a busy intersection that sits just nestled inbetween two separate residental districts... At most, some minor business either base out of homes? Or like Asada Mexican.

Weirdly good fast food.

Out in the lot, Selene sits on the curb. Idly toying with one of her necklaces, her be-shaded eyes regarding it with a quiet intrigue. Distant... Maybe focused.

Shes the only one IN this part of the lot, so she'd probably be quite hard to miss.

Today? The objective is simple... Figure out what the fuck is driving these people crazy, and discern whether or not it goes any deeper than that.

Miriel is already there, having spent the day in the area, her medium blue SUV parked in the lot near Asada Mexican. She and her orange cat are near Selene, one clad in jeans and a peasant blouse, one dressed in a spiffy harness and leash.

On a good day, it's thirty minutes cross-town, another fifteen to the suburb. Phil is pushing forty minutes total, the familiar gray Acura pulling into a spot close to the street exit.

Is the radio on in the Acura? Doesn't matter cause Aleysa will start humming at some point during the ride. Either to the music or making her own. She's got a canvas bag tossed over her shoulder and stuck with some of her plainer jeans and t-shirt. "They didn't get the tacos, did they?"

Gwydion is driving a panel van that Phil will surely have a comment on (probably something about free candy) and he hops out when he pulls into a spot in the parking lot "Afternoon all."

       Mandy arrives with Selene, which might be unsuprising since she lives with the woman and probably doesn't know how to drive. She stands around nearby Selene in the parking lot, clad in athletic wear, and just curiously takes in the sights of the surrounding city.

Once everyone arrives? Selene turns a half-shine smile up towards them as she rises from that curb. In general? She seems to be in a good mood... But as she takes off her sunglasses, those traitorously expressive eyes hint of her concern.

"So... Afternoon first off." She says, looking sideways at Main Street.

"Alittle down the road is the area where most of this stuff has been happening. I mean, the walking infront of cars part..." She runs a hand through her hair dispassionately at that...

"MY suggestion is that we get Viktor access to the hardware to see what he can see, and the rest of us head down to the hot spot to see if WE can see anything. If anyone's got any modifications to that first step- totally let me know, because I do 'not' have an eyes-open perspective here."

Miriel notes, "I have my laptop and a hotspot if we need it to support," with a quiet expression. She reaches up to pet the cat on her shoulders, and says, "If you need another machine to help out, or whatever," toward Viktor. "I'm a competent user but not 'leet."

"Afternoon," Phil echoes, glancing around. "Duct tape's comin' loose," he says to Gwydion, pointing to the back of the van. Then he gives Mandy a quick once-over. "Another friend of ours?" he asks Selene. Well, of course she is, it's just one of his standard intro lines.

"Glad you're feeling better," Aleysa offers to Mandy when she sees the green-haired one about with Selene. and as for the plan, she blinks and looks at the group. "Are we all going in a big cluster? Or like, smaller groups to be less... obvious?"

       Mandy turns towards Phil to gaze back at the man when he addresses her. She stares for a moment, before rather coldly responding to him, "We're not friends. We haven't met." However, she looks at Selene as she decides to helpfully clarify, "She is my Mother." She looks at Aleysa and nods when the woman speaks to her. "I'm also glad. I don't think I like bleeding," she replies without clarification to the others.

Gwydion chuckles at Phil before looking to Selene "That sounds like a good enough plan to start for me." Then he nods to Aleysa "Fair point."

Viktor takes a second look at Mandy, the one person he hasn't met before. Then, as everyone else seems comfortable talking business around her, and apparently she's even in the family? He gives her a polite nod, leaving it at that since she doesn't seem to bleeding at the moment. He then takes a look around the area and checks local wireless signal strength on his phone, then then taps his laptop bag as he looks back to Selene. "Alright, what details do we have on the previous incidents? Dates, times, names, locations? Give me a starting point and I'll see what I can find in public records. And the not so public ones."

Selene nods, without even a shred of awkwardness.

"Yeah... Like she said. Mandy's one of us. I mean, not- but one of 'us.' That makes sense I hope? Because unless you wanna talk to us about it in private, I'm leaving it RIGHT at that." There's probably alot to it. leaving it at that is totally probably a GOOD thing.

"As far as details... That intersection-" She moves as she talks, stepping over closer to the outside of the parking lot... Drifting close to Miriel- before gesturing at the intersection in question. "-And one maybe a quarter to a half mile further down the road... Closer to the shore. Two places we've got, so I suppose we 'could' split into smaller groups to have a look. Names are..." She pulls out her cell phone, walking back to where she started as she taps through the screen...

"Edmund Justin, Sophia Blaze- 'totally' her real name, Victorio Moreno, and Jean Christe." She lowers the phone... "Those are the four that we know were... You know. Pancaked. As for times? There's not really any specifics other than they died on the scene. 'Morning.' 'Afternoon.' 'Evening.' You know how those words tend to go..." She drifts back inbetween Miriel and Mandy, letting out a short sigh.

"So, to answer Aleysa, I suppose we split up. So first off... Creeper van with Viktor. Then, search teams. Any thoughts?"

Miriel shakes her head and says, "Works for me. Would be nice if we had a little more data..." She stops, picks a spot to crouch, and begins typing on her laptop. "Just going to check the news, see what, if anything, was said about them. I can do the easy Internet people searches while the dude with the skills does the hard stuff?"

Phil nods to Selene, waving a hand in the air. Hooray for vagueness. "Depends which skills you got in mind, there's lots of options."

"If we find anybody to talk to... I'm approachable," Aleysa offers a bright smile. Not magically approachable, just one honestly genuine desire to listen that shines through.

Miriel huhs and looks up. "No pattern I can see, but there is supposedly a rise in mental health cases in the city, but it isn't more forthcoming about THAT data."

       "I'm Mandy," Mandy helpfully clarifies after Selene mentions her name. She begins to wander towards the restaurant as everyone goes over the details of the plan, sniffing at the air. "This place smells good," she notes aloud, before realizing she needs to clarify. "The building, not the city in general." Overhearing the discussion, she turns back towards the group to plainly add, "Oh. I also know how to talk to people."

Gwydion has nothing really to add in this stage, waiting to see how everyone does with the information gathering of the computer sort "I'll get my analysis spells and stuff going when we get there."

Viktor gives a polite wave to Mandy at her introduction. "Hi Mandy, I'm Viktor. And, uhhh, I guess it's time to get to work." He moves to the 'creeper van' to set up his workstation out of sight of the street, resenting the 'creeper' appellation slightly, but trying to not take it personally. After all, it's not his van. He cracks his knuckles, then cracks into some cracking code to crack into some servers that people do not like to leave cracks in the security for. He reaches for a Mountain Dew that isn't there on reflex as his pre-programmed subroutines probe for vulnerabilities and access to the database of clues they're looking for.

Selene nods at everything said... But as Mandy starts to wander away, she calls after her in Spanish... Like a mother, really.

"Mandy! Come back over here girl. Don't wander too far okay?"

Then she clears her throat, blinking a couple times, before she says... "Yeah that sounds good. My thoughts were that we split half and half in the two cars we brought... Gwydion, you can keep the van and whoever else other than Viktor up at this intersection. The rest of us, if you don't mind Phil, can cram into that car and head down to the second... Not much is gonna get done in the Asada parking lot right?" She looks at Miriel though, somewhat interestedly...

"...So we'll just look out for that, huh hon? 'Rise in mental health crises.' That vague nonsense is everywhere but... Idunno. Might be worth something." Her head cants... "Do you wanna stay with the van Miri? I was thinking about heading down to the second spot while they do what they do."

Miriel nods. "I think that works, yeah." She closes her laptop and puts it in the bag, then rises and heads toward the van, a look over one shoulder at Selene and a smile. "Okay," she says to Viktor, "How can I help?"

Phil glances around again and nods to Selene. "Works for me. I can fit two more,mpast thst, you'd need to ride in the trunk. But I figure we can save that for equipment."

Miriel nods. "I think that works, yeah." She closes her laptop and puts it in the bag, then rises and heads toward the van, a look over one shoulder at Selene and a smile. "Okay," she says to Viktor, "How can I help?"

Phil glances around again and nods to Selene. "Works for me. I can fit two more,mpast thst, you'd need to ride in the trunk. But I figure we can save that for equipment."

       Mandy returns an awkward wave to Viktor as he introduces himself. "Okay Viktor," she responds to him, before wandering back over to Selene before she gets too far away. Who knows what sort of trouble she'd get into unattended? After getting back to Selene's side, she looks between the woman and Phil after the latter comments, considering for a moment before saying, "I can ride in the trunk if I need to. I think I should fit."

Gwydion nods in agreement with Selene "I'll handle overwatch here and move folks if we need to physically go anywhere."

Viktor smiles softly as his little daemons go to work. (The mundane computer kind, nothing to see here!) He gives a satisfied thumbs up within less than a minute. "Ok, I'm in. Honestly, they should be doing better than this. This vulnerability should have been patched out ages ago... In computer years, anyway. Alright give me a few to pull up what we want and sort through it."

Selene nods, "Alright. So we've got our plan... You guys all be careful, okay? Just incase. I know you've got the pointy thing with you but... Seriously. Not on my watch, alright?" starting to move off to Phil's car. She waves goodbye to Miriel- in the way that someone simultaneously reaches and waves at the SAME TIME when they clearly don't WANT to go. Movie stuff. But invariably, she does turn as she says...

"Yeah she can get in the trunk. I think she'll be fine. It's only a little ways down the road and I'd honestly rather drive then walk." And if the door's unlocked... She'll get right in. "We'll just be looking for anyone... Or anything suspicious. I'd love to catch someone in the middle of the mania- but I know that's unlikely. The psychometric impressions might be invaluable..."

Viktor might just be making some progress... Fast fuckin' hacker fingers as he's got, the absence of Mountain Dew is simply no object to his ability.

He's in.

Hacker team alpha is already wildly successful. Go figure.

"So people watching. That's not that hard, just looking for anybody that might be... distressed," Aleysa nods as she takes her seat and starts to look out the window at anybody going.

Viktor grins like a cat with a canary between his fangs as the digital bounty opens before him. Several windows of video recordings pop up on his screen, and his eyes flick between them as they scan forward through timecodes. His fingers dance over the keyboard as he hunches over the screen, rolling each file forward and back while he searches for any anomalies. Then he frowns, tilting his head a few degrees to the side. "Wait a second, that's not right. There's something else..." He's talking to himself now, unaware of anyone else near him.

Phil peers for a long moment, then shrugs and wordlessly pops the trunk. It's an ordinary trunk. Of a car. With a little light that turns on once it's unlocked. Is Mandy actually going to clamber inside, or will she notice that the cwr also has a perfectly serviceable back seat? Either way, he's already walking around to the other side, preparing to get the show back on the road.

       Mandy looks at Selene as the woman agrees that she should ride in the trunk. She doesn't seem initially bothered as she begins heading towards the rear of the car as Phil opens it. Although once she gets close and takes count of how many people are riding in the car, she looks at the available rear passenger seat. She nears the open trunk, and looks then to Selene as she stands next to it, double checking whether she actually should get in. After all, it wasn't necessary... Or had Selene realized that and wanted her in the trunk anyways?

As everyone starts getting into the vehicles, Selene looks back at Mandy...

Then she says in Spanish. "Just get in the back seat sweetheart. There's space. If there's space, always take the back seat." With that, she shakes her head and gestures to the road.

"Next intersection down that way. Just find a place to park and we'll get out and see what's what..."

After that she closes her door and settles in.

Viktor CONTINUES to hack supreme... But he notices something about what he found. INSIDE that metadata IS that something else that he was looking for- but it might take a moment to pick it apart... Those daemons are juicy- but whoever tried to cover up whatever it is?

Also VERY juicy... And they might've had Dew to boot. But not, it would seem, juicier than Viktor.

Just... Alittle... More...

Miriel is watching Viktor with an impressed air, smiling. She doesn't interrupt, because the guy's working here, damnit, but she is focusing, somehow missing the whole back-seat conversation.

Gwydion grins as he looks at Viktor work "The van has air conditioning, and a chair. Even more than one chair if we want to get out of the sun."

Viktor leans back from the laptop with a clap of his hands. Then he looks up and around for the first time in quite a bit with a triumphant grin on his face. "Got 'em! Check this out. You can see all of these incidents where the footage shows the person going into the street, then the... well, grisly aftermath. You have to do specific queries to go to the point of impact which is weird enough, but look, they're being impacted by... nothing. Except, if you clean up the image, and remove the fuzzy false background laid over it... You have this."

He replays the corrected videos showing the first victim being hit by a large red semi truck with a chrome front, no trailer, and pumping smoke from its stacks like it was rolling coal. Then the second victim, with the same truck. And the third, and the fourth. "Someone went to a lot of effort to hide this truck."

Phil's little team had just made their way down to the second intersection... And upon getting there, had parked in a nice safe little parking lot in which there was a large trailerless semi, but NOT red. There's a good deal of cars in the lot, but it doesn't seem like anything is amiss... Except for the person on the corner of the street, near the signal post. Kneeled down with their head in their hands, they weep and cry... Babbling some desperate nothings to themselves that, even on a closer listen, might not make any REAL sense.

Up at Asada Mexican near the first intersection? Viktor had just cracked a big fat secret. A cherry red semi truck was shown in each of the pieces of footage... The thing that caused the bodies to strangely crumple, which was edited out by mundane means. With that revelation and the strange sight ahead of the other group? It's time to figure things out again!!!

...Also cell phones are used to keep in touch at the moment. Totally a thing that was discussed.

Miriel settles inside the van at long last and closes the door, because that's totally a thing she should have done already, joining Gwydion and Viktor. She fishes in her bag and comes out with two small bottles. "I got grape and tropical," she tells Viktor, holding out a pair of bottles of 5-Hour-Energy. "Your pick." Once the hacker gets his, she offers the remaining one to Gwydion, to which the cat says, "You know, Miri, you're gonna get a headache if you don't..."

"Hush," she says to the orange cat. "I've got chocolate covered coffee beans and some Pocket Coffee if I need it. We're good." She offers an apologetic look to the others, then asks Gwydion, "You want me to handle the phone briefing, or you?"

With phones set up and working, Phil looks around for a spot with enough of an open area to pull out a deck of cards and start playing solitaire. Well, that's roughly what it looks like, at least.

"Guys... I think we found our person," Aleysa points to the figure weeping on the street corner, even as she's unbuckling her own seatbelt. "I can go and try to talk to them..."

Gwydion frowns as he watches the recordings of the same truck "So its there over and over. We need to find it but how is the question. And...here's a thought, do you have a vector analaysis? Is it not just the same truck but the same collision? Like its caught in some sort of loop..."

Gwydion does take the offered energy drink when it comes around to him. Viktor takes the offered tropical energy drink and looks over the frozen video frames as he ponders Gwydion's question. "That'd be weird since the locations are different, but since none of this is normal..."

       Mandy exits the car and begins looking around, probably for suspicious people. As Phil is setting up an apparent game of solitare or something, her attention ends up on him.

Selene too, gets out of the car... And as she watches everyone go about their own thing? She too finds her eyes momentarily resting on Phil. She spots the same person that Aleysa does and nods to the witch. "You can go ahead... I think that more than one person on someone like that might do more bad than good." She looks the woman in the eye for a moment.

"Just be mindful not to get caught in it if it's some kinda' trance thing, alright? Or like... Don't get stabbed. Looks like they might be alittle stabby." She gives one last cautious look at the person amid their caterwauling, and moves towards mandy and Phil. "...Solitaire." She simply says, "Good thing there's no wind today."

Back up in the parking lot of Asada, Gwydion tries something... Something that tells him, for certain, that this is SOME kind of pattern. There's no time that lines up here... But every time, the victim is run down in the exact middle of the street, and that truck peals off to the right. There is, quite visibly, someone driving it. Not a hazy specter, not anything inherently peculiar looking, but... What an obscenely pattern oriented serial killer.

"Just keep an eye on me? If I start acting odd well..." Aleysa gives a little shrug. If she looks like she's about to jump in traffic herself she's hoping one of them will stop her. But as it is, she grabs her bag and slowly walks over to the person in clear distress, crouching down to take a seat a few feet away, not encroaching too much but also clearly //there// before she offers a soft smile and even softer words, like might be a frightened animal. "Hey... having a rough day?"

Gwydion takes the footage and splits up each sequence onto its own section of monitor so he could watch all the incidents in synch "This is looking more and more like a Mage that's turned serial killer, hard to be sure without digging into the victim profiles to look for commonalities though."

With the others on point, and Mandy watching him, Phil starts adding in some spoken commentary. Not that it'll help. "Okay, that clears with those, need to leave one for later though, in case they're stacked. Don't want to burn a wild this early. --Anyway, this should keep the local ham radio club from listening in and thinking /we're/ the ones who need to be hauled in for questioning."

Viktor leans back in his chair, shooting back the 5-hour energy while he watches Gwydion work with the videos and look for clues in them. He even manages to suppress the instinctive urge to slap other people's hands away from his laptop. "A serial killer mage? That sounds really really bad."

Taps into something instinctual. That fatalistic knowing that all things have in the back of their mind that says 'tick tock.' It looks like... Only one SIDE of this pattern is identical. Somehow, she can tell that the truck only shows up... Pretty much when it wants to. Perhaps... These people don't just wait for the right time and walk. Perhaps they just walk. Repeatedly. Over and over again. Maybe every day- maybe certain intervals. Like they're 'waiting' for that truck to hit them. Like it's inevitable.'

       Mandy watches Phil with a clear look of not having much idea what he's doing. She looks at him and nods as if she did anyways. "Okay," she says plainly, before turning to see what Aleysa is up to. She watches the interaction between her and the distressed woman, actually keeping an eye on her as requested. If something goes wrong, she definitely will know what to do. Right?

Miriel listens, watching the footage from the other side of Viktor, popping chocolate-covered-coffee-beans and crunching them thoughtlessly. Someone's going to be *humming* at this rate. Fortuno, the orange cat, yawns and points to a sector of the screen. "There..." She nods in agreement, then looks between the other two. "There is... there's a pattern, but it's not something most could figure out, I think. There's. Um, the truck shows up when it wants to, I think. It hits on something in the back of the brain, that part of you that worries about dying? Or expects to die? That's when it shows up. I... don't know if I can be any more clear than that. It's only identical here; wherever this thing comes from, it's not the same conditions over and over."

...This sounds alot like a movie, Miriel thinks. Maybe a movie she's seen before.

No, this sounds EXACTLY like Final Destination. That's what Gwydion thinks. No, what Gwydion 'knows'.

Aleysa, upon approaching the person, earns a perhaps surprisingly calm look from the woman as her head leaves her hands... How couldn't she? Aleysa's like some kind of sunshine on a dark day... But that dark day is still there as they talk. "I... I saw this fuckin'... This tape. This TAPE." The woman says, "It taught me things. Stuff. Like... Like it's all just inevitable, you know? Like... Like Death. There's no accidents. No coincidences. No mishaps. No... N-no ESCAPES. It's just... It's fucking inevitable, isn't it? It's gonna catch us all in the end so! So... So just..." They don't finish the thought. Instead, they just bury their face back in their hands and lean defeatedly against the post.

"I... Don't know what the... What the fuck I'm 'doing.'" The woman finally admits.

Selene looks at the conversation for a moment, and then back to the others. "...Slick stuff with the Solitaire." She says plainly, before turning to press her back to the wall. Her eyes are peeled, but nothing in particular catches her attention... She takes her phone up, holding it up to her ears.

"Anything important, you three? Or is this a nothing burger of crazy?"

"That's one of the sad and beautiful things about life... it's not forever. There's a time and a season for everything," Aleysa nods as the woman speaks, before offering her own agreement though the witch does seem to be firmly sticking to the glass half full despite the dark subject. "But that's why we need to enjoy the here and now, right? Make the most of the time we have and those we have with us? Enjoy the little things, like watching a good movie with good friends? Save the scary tapes for when they belong, like halloween?"

Gwydion frowns as he considers the clues "It sounds like a horror movie fan decided to toss 'Final Destination' and 'The Ring' in a blender with a sprinkling of Oblivion cult propaganda." Then he starts as something goes click in the sorting of clues "Its like someone's trying to make Gorehounds." a beat of a pause and then he offers explanation "Its a sort of convoluted dark magic memetic hazard. Changing people via spiritual infection into monsters that are like the slashers from monster movies. Michael Myers, Leatherface, stuff like that."

"This is going to sound insane..." Miriel exhales. "With the victims -- It's like this is inevitable to them, they're led to believe this is going to happen and they can't avoid it so they may as well face it... does that make any sense at all?" She pauses. "Wait. The other part is this. The truck shows up when IT wants to. It's... it's like it's called by the feeling of inevitability. Or like it's Death, and it really *is* inevitable. And yeah, exactly like that," she tells Gwydion and the phone simultaneously.

Phil peers over at the phone. "Yes, that's very informative, G-man. Now how do we shut it the hell down? Do we need to blow up the truck while it's gassing up?"

Viktor frowns as the conversation veers into darker and darker waters. "From what you said, the problem comes more from this memetic virus infecting people's minds, right? Maybe we can come up with some sort of cure or vaccine for that part of this whole thing?"

       Mandy, meanwhile, just continues to keep an eye on Aleysa, as requested. Remaining near the others, she stands quietly until she decides to inquire to Phil and Selene the question that's been burning at her for the past minute or so. "...What should I do if she starts acting weird?"

Miriel hrms and looks to the screen again, her eyes narrowing to try and suss out details from the paused video. "Memetic infections." That sounds like magic she can't work, to her. "Now, I'm going to admit that this is a long shot but... you know how there's that level of sound that only people below a certain age can hear? What if there's some kind of secret... visual, or sound, or something... mastered into the movie discs, and all these people watched the same thing, like that movie the Ring that Gwydion mentioned, and then... if there is, then that could be used to develop some kind of... antithesis to it? some kind of anti-sound?"

Gwydion nods at his fellow members of team nerd "We need something of the link from this end, ideally a copy of the tape? Its like needing a sample of the disease to make a vaccine. Or if we had detailed scans of someone from before and after infection. I mean...we could maybe derive something from Someone infected but still alive but it would be harder."

You paged Phil with 'It would be either difficulty 5 or 6, depending on what level of mind shield you're using. It'd be mind and corr, unless I'm mistaken and corr isn't required for line of sight.'

Viktor looks over at Gwydion as he considers methods to get a sample. Then his face twists sourly as a second thought occurs to him. "Wait a second, who even uses tapes anymore? What is this the dark ages?"

Up at Asada Mexican... Things are calm. Revelations are being had. Things are being unveiled! But, as they sit in that van... They hear from the road the sound of a semi truck SCREAMING down main street. Great black clouds of billious smoke greedily gnash their teeth at the sky, as that cherry red pickup comes into the sight of the group at the SECOND intersection. Fast... Irresponsibly fast.

As soon as it peaks over the dip? That woman starts nattering madly. Screaming as she, ignorant of Aleysa's words, does EVERYTHING she can to try to get away.

But she's held fast. Everyone's initiative in the matter saw to it that she DIDN'T get out into that street... But as a result? There's the blaring of a deep semi horn and the deafening hiss of tires as something going FAR too fast for its size is tipped, precariously, onto its edge. It tips and, in the blink of an eye? It SLAMS into a 'luckily' condemned building. The whole damn thing collapses on top of it, as the tires continue to burn away at the asphalt beneath.

The woman is crying.

She's not struggling. Apparently, Phil's frantic mind shield actually affected her somehow.

Up at Asada?

Yeah they hear what just happened with their ears, let alone the phone. There's screaming, car alarms... It's about to get dicey if they don't hurry.

       The scene is chaotic, but as Mandy watches a big red semi start to move towards its would-be victim, Mandy knows what to do. Possibly mostly because Phil shouts it out. She sprints over to Aleysa and the distraught woman and grabs onto the latter, pulling her away from the street whether she wants to go or not. The lack of struggle definitely helps, however, but Mandy doesn't let go regardless.

Those cards are pretty badly creased, now; Phil will have to replace them later. The perils of being in a rush. Still, better them than the bystander. Stuffing them in his pocket, he starts walking over toward the crash site; not too fast, trying to look like just a gawker who hPpened to be in the vicinity.

To the window! To the... no, to the window goes Miriel as soon as they hear the sound of a crash, and she calls out to the phone, "Shit, what just happened?" The crucial question.

It takes Aleysa a little more time to get to her feet, but when Mandy is grabbing the woman, Aleysa does her best to 'help' even if that ends up being just a second set of hands nudging the crying woman away from traffic. "She'd been watching a tape that just made her think of how inescapable death was and then..." She waves to that as she tries to yell out an explanation to Phil and Selene. At least what little explanation she knows. Any Final Destination or the Ring similarities? Utterly lost on her.

The aftermath is, in fact, chaotic. Selene stands with the phone in her hands, looking at the place that truck crashed with the look of a deer in headlights... Which, frankly, any one of them could have been. She holds the phone back up to her ear as she explains. sounding exasperated and shakey...

"...The cherry red's here. In a building. Swerved off the victim. You might wanna get down here asap."

As Phil walks closer to that wreckage... He hears something from under the rubble.

Muffled... But audible enough. It's the voice of a man from inside... Rambling. Monologuing. Nothing and nothing.

"Ok. Ok, what if, for example, the last in line were to make the utilitarian choice. Kill themselves. Well, wow, that's pretty much gonna ruin any plan deaths put in motion. And even better, I think that's gonna save, five skipped lives. Any takers?" Phil hears it very clearly. It's... Nonsense, almost. Even in the context. It's like he's just reciting a line from a movie. Repeatedly.

Which he is.

It makes a connection... Four people have died. This was the fifth, whatever that means.

Team nerd's relocation is swift and seemple. They make their way down the street from Asada, managing to have moved early enough to avoid any serious traffic mishaps due to the accident... But that traffic IS gonna start building up sooner or later.

There's sirens in the distance...

The woman in Aleysa and Mandy's grip tearfully says, "I... My friend... My friend Jimmy gave me the fucking tape. He told me... Told me it was hardcore shit. He told me it'd be new and... Holy SHIT. What the fuck happened?! Are they okay?" She just noticed the crash, it'd seem. REALLY noticed.

"Have you heard from Jimmy since he gave you the tape?" Aleysa asks, even as she reaches up to pat the tearful woman's hear in that aged old 'there-there' gesture. "We have friends, one was a medic. They'll be checking them out real soon."

       Mandy continues holding onto the woman, making certain that she doesn't go anywhere. At the question, she looks over towards the sight of the crash, and calmly answers, "Someone just crashed into that building. It doesn't look like they're okay."

Gwydion was already pulling out as soon as his team members gave consent, not breaking any cosmic laws in the transit but maybe some traffic ones.

Phil is clearing away some of the rubble as best he can, wrapping part of his sleeve around his hand to avoid getting scraped up too badly. "Don't worry, pal, we'll have you outta there in a minute." Now what happens to the guy afterward, on the other hand...

Viktor grabs onto the desk to keep from getting tossed around too much, leaning over to watch out the windshield as they close in on the site of the 'accident'.

When team Nerd arrives? Well... It's the scene of a hell of an accident alright. Smoke is still rising from the stacks of that semi-exposed through the collapsed rubble that Phil digs through... Selene stands at the street corner with her phone in hand, and Aleysa and mandy are pretty close to a woman that LOOKS like she'd been crying pretty damn heavily. The victim, probably. Who says to Aleysa...

"Well... Yeah. I mean, I brought the fucking tape back to him because he asked. Said his 'source' didn't appreciate it being thrown around willy nilly or whatever... I... I don't know where it went. Or if other people Have it... Oh my fucking 'god' am I fucked forever? Did I watch some fucking CIA brain programming shit?!" And she's starting to panic.

Selene finds her way over to the van when they arrive, sltill holding up her phone as she speaks. "So... Emergency response is on their way. What's our play here? Buzz off? Or make Gwydion play fed? Because we've got a victim... And the driver's stuck under rubble."

Speaking of...

As phil digs? Ir doesn't take long before the face in that window becomes clearer...

That's... Just fucking Ian Mckinley. The guy FROM Final Destination. But closer inspection shows that that face is some kind of patchwork... Thin seams along the edges indicate that it's fake- and yet the body work? Is utterly flawless. Not only flawless- but unscathed.

And pointing a revolver at the window, or more accurately, at Phil.

"Heeeeeey bud... Time's not up yet. Is yours?"

He 'can't' get out of there. And the only way he can bust out, with the way that thing is bent? Is through Phil.

"Looks like it might be. Thoughts? We take all wrong answers here."

"Look, you're okay. You didn't go towards the truck, you fought. Things are getting better, we'll help you," Aleysa continues to try to soothe the woman. "I can check on your friend Jimmy too, if you want. You've had a rough day enough already. I would just need to know where we can find him..."

       Mandy meanwhile is still holding the woman back from the street... even though that seems unnecessary at this point. Maybe. She looks at Aleysa for a few moments before asking her, "...Can I let her go now, or should I move her more?"

Meanwhile, Phil is /not at all/ chilling out. Narrowing his eyes at the man in the truck cab, he abruptly hauls back and slams a kick into the flat of the window, sending hairline fractures along it in all directions. One more of those and it may well simply disintegrate.

Gwydion charges out of the van, barely after it rolls to a halt and starts running towards Phil and the wrecked truck, waving he yells "Stop!" at the gun toting driver.

ALOT happens in that moment after Phil kicks the window... Gwydion's voice, powerful and authoritative, pierces through the din of approaching sirens and horrified onlookers... Who have, by now, turned more curious than afraid. Miriel's POWERFUL fuzzy dice are even put into play! And all of these effects... They work. Both Gwydion and Miriel FEEL the magick turn active in them for that moment, and they FEEL it latch onto the gun- and Phil respectively.

The moment that Phil kicks that window? The sound of a gunshot rings out... .44 caliber. SERIOUS shit. It shatters the glass window, right infront of Phil...

And goes wide, ricocheting off the rubble.

The driver shakes madly... "FUCK did you do with Wendy?! Wendy was supposed to be here you fucker! You 'FUCKER'! Now it's YOUR problem! Death's on YOUR heads now!" ...It's all vaguely movielike. But Phil can see what it really is, in spite of just thoughtless.

Fearful. There's still no way out but through Phil- and if he manages to lose that gun... He'll have to rely on his poor more-than-mortal strength!

But that struggle is still ongoing.

Selene looks towards the truck at the sound of the gunshot, and starts to move quickly... She's aiming to get across the street to get line of sight on the situation- but can't do much else than that.

The prior intended victim winces at the sound of the gunshot, and backs away... Closer to Aleysa. Behind, Aleysa, as a matter of fact. All the better to not get shot with, my dear. She doesn't talk, realizing that shit just got... MORE serious.

So much happens in so little time, and yet feels like an eternity.

That gunshot rings out, and the action springs into play almost immediately. Mages casting invisible and not so invisible spells infront of the onlookers- who have since begun to disperse after the sound of the gunshot came from the cab. There's a second shot... As the man who looks EXACTLY like some fucking horror movie character crawls out of the cab. Like lightning, Gwydion Phil and Mandy are on the bastard with a perhaps surprising degree of alacrity and ability on the green haired woman's part... She holds that psychopath down like a 9 to 5, and the other two after seeing those claws?

Well.

Ian is now a dead horse. Beheaded with a graceully deadly arc of the sword, and bludgeoned first by Phil's club... Then Mandy's judo throw just for the fuck of it.

He's very dead. Very, very dead. Pulverised beyond recognition. Damn near emulsified.

The three on the outside can 'feel' the moment that pressure fades... The woman that Aleysa and the others were helping? ABSOLUTELY not watching the fight. And even still... Thos sirens?

Are juuuuuuuust starting to get close enough to be a problem.

...And there's an emulsified body next to that truck now.

Miriel scoops up her dice and moves to check on the well-being of the combatants. Well, aside from the one on the ground. "You all okay? Because we wanna blow this joint from the sound of those sirens approaching."

Viktor glances around the corner to make sure nobody else was injured, grimacing at the sight of the body. Then he nods at Aleysa and dashes back to the truck and his computer. "Right, on it!"

Gwydion had charged over into the mix of the fight, joining the effort to try and disarm and subdue the driver of the truck. Wondering what happened to change his features, not sure if he was right about the fomori transformation. But then there's claws growing out of its fingers and going for Mandy who's grappling it or Phil who's trying to take its gun. That means its sword time and in rush of motion pops the baddie like a dandelion. The sword goes right back away and Gwydion calls out "Get the body in the truck and torch it. Everyone else back in the van and car and we'll get the hell out of here. Bring the lady for post incident counseling if you think it'll help."

Phil doesn't wait for answers, and is already thinking along Gwydion's lines. "Anyone not fireproof," he calls out, "get to your ride /right fuckin' now/." Having tossed the worn-out deck of cards in Ian's face at some point during the fray, he searches his pockets for something appropriate to the task.

Miriel gets going toward the van, hurrying Mandy along as well if she isn't following on her own.

Aleysa isn't really giving her hold up on Distressed Woman. She's bringing her along to Phil's car. "We'll need to find her friend. He has the tape. Or gave her the tape."

       Mandy rushed in, grappled a man, saw him grow monsterous claws in response, and then saw his head fly off right in front of her face. Her reaction was, of course, to judo throw the headless corpse. Because what else do you do. She stares down at the dead body for a moment, eyes widened and a bit covered in blood, especially her face. She looks up at Phil for a moment before saying, "...I don't think I'm fireproof." She looks ambiguously in shock, but begins walking hastily towards Phil's car. Upon spotting Selene, she comments to her, "I... think I had fun."

Before long, Phil comes up with a spare deck of cards. Always carry spares if you're able. No jokes about anyone riding in the trunk this time, either; he just glances at the truck, working out where most of the gas should be, and then is already backing away himself as he starts pulling cards out in groups of two and three.

Viktor disappears into the van and the sound of high speed keyboard pounding rattles out of the small space. After what doesn't really seem like enough time, a fist with a thumbs up pops out the window. "Footage is clean!"

As everyone begins to move to their vehicles... Phil is left to do whatever he intends to do with that body. As Mandy approaches her? Selene looks at her with just a slight smile as she moves off to the escape vehicle.

"Really?" She asks, "That's... I mean, good. That you had fun. I noticed you being all energized and that." THen to the others!

"Absolutely we need to get her to her friend. These tapes... If they're at risk of getting back into circulation, we need to make that NOT happen." She opens the door to the car, standing there a moment as...

Screech.

The now not so distant tires of emergency vehicles. It's time to go.

The distressed woman, it seems, doesn't really have the presence of mind to fight going with the group for what it's worth. Just gets in the car, and waits.

Meanwhile, Viktor? has turned every single one of them into a ghost.

"Great! Then let's get OUT of here before la policia come and blame us!" She briefly looks at Miriel... Checking, perhaps unconsciously, JUST to make sure the woman is okay before getting into WHATEVER VEHICLE HAS SPACE.