ExMiscellanea

[DivineST]

Season Two
(July 2013 - October 2014)

Long silences.
Stuttered images.
The feeling of standing just on the precipice of a terrible sound and yet there being nothing.

This was how the story continued, with the tension of something drawing the media's attention: the White Rabbit. Perhaps he was just a man in a mask; perhaps an actor; maybe simply a madman. Whatever he was, he had a strange draw to him, the kind that terrified and thrilled at the same time, just enough of both to keep most rooted in place.

[DivineST]

It Starts with One
July opened with a series of searches.

Just prior to the season premiere, a strange man appeared to Merianda and a presumed eight-year-old girl Soren had affectionately called Magpie Maggie, both in Merianda's occult shop on Thayer Street. The man had worn a white rabbit mask stained red with rust or blood. The expressionless mask had conveyed no emotion, nor had his body language, even as he killed the pleading eight-year-old in front of Merianda, in spite of her interference.

Merianda and Soren were unable to save Maggie, and her form had given way to that of a woman in her early twenties, revealing what Soren had known all along - Magpie Maggie had been a Marauder. This painted questions of the masked man who had slain her - though Soren claimed he, too, was a Marauder, though of a more sinister sort.

The masked man became known as the White Rabbit, as he vanished for lengths of time, only to reappear someplace random in such a way that the media became involved. The first such reappearance came in the form of enthralled followers - a group of people who moved as though dazed, staring ahead of them as he stood in front. These dazed people then put on masks of their own, black to his white, and after a moment, he vanished again, and no one had any recollection of why they were there.

These Black Rabbits had become marked for death, however. Two had died before the season returned, and so Susan and Soren were searching for the White Rabbit to attempt to stop him before more innocents were lost.

[DivineST]

A Watcher Emerges
Also searching for something was Gary, who was scrambling through every avenue he had to try to find Pensa, the supposed Technocrat responsible for shooting Hayley at the beginning of the year. The fox-faced tech-support girl had simply vanished off the face of the earth, by all of his accounts, but he didn't relent in the search.

He soon came into contact with an online individual who he knew only as The Watcher. This Watcher sent him encrypted emails warning him that he was in the den of enemies, that he had been pegged by Technocrats, and of general danger, and Gary began to believe this Watcher to be Pensa reaching out. However, this Watcher seemed unafraid of working threats into their communications, threats to those closest to Gary, in order to provoke response or prompt silence.

When Gary finally found Pensa - with the help of Josette and Mother Providence - he quickly learned his assumption about the Watcher to be incorrect; the Watcher warned him to get down an instant before a sniper attempted to take out Pensa, and later wanted Pensa 'returned' when the chantry held her under surveillance while they attempted to sort out what to do with her.

After all, Pensa had shot Hayley, but had done so with claims of 'protecting' the young Euthanatos, intentionally not killing her but making the attempt seem sincere in order to appeal to the higher ups, who Pensa then fled from. Emmy Pensa was not what she seemed to be, presumably now a turncoat and unwilling accomplice to Technocratic operations. . . . And a highly-sophisticated android - to the point she did not know she was not human. This led to a great debate among the chantry, and a decision regarding her was postponed pending observation.

[DivineST]

Signs of Tampering
Amid points of Gary's search for Pensa, he came to somewhat rely upon the technical assistance of the Watcher.

One such instance arose when Maeve sought Gary's assistance finding someone who had taken her daughter Caera from school without Maeve's knowledge. The child was ransomed, in a fashion, but rather than cave to the demands, Maeve and Gary utilized their own resources - Maeve's connection to the local werewolf population and Gary's use of a bargain with the Watcher - to locate where the kidnapper(s) had taken young Caera.

The two had entered with a plan: Gary would get Caera safely away from the old farmhouse, while Maeve would hold off the man in a suit who had taken Caera and his two bodyguards. These bodyguards were unusual, however; Maeve recognized them as shapeshifters, but their alignment with the man in the suit was abnormal, made more so by their obedience to his commands.

Curiously, the man in the suit sought to learn about Deviants in the city's infrastructure. He somehow possessed awareness of the presence of some in police fields and the hospitals, but he wanted to know identities. Neither Maeve nor Gary relented, sticking to their plan. In a display of fighting finesse, Maeve took down one addled shapeshifter, but the man in the suit vanished and the other shapeshifter departed soon thereafter with minimal harm.

Her child had been recovered and the fallout of magical combat fell overhead, but Maeve made note of the apparent tampering of the shapeshifters in the man's employ, something her contacts had vaguely warned her about. She sought to investigate later, and little did she know how relevant that information would become. . . .

[DivineST]

The White Rabbit
The White Rabbit made three more distinct appearances during efforts to pursue and destroy him.

The first occurred at Rhode Island Hospital. It had been during the day, but the location was surprisingly, startlingly vacated and visually decayed, to the surprise of Megan and Gary, who had unwittingly stumbled into the White Rabbit's bubble of madness during routine tasks at the hospital. The two mages fell under the sway of the Rabbit's reality, apparently an imitation of horror movie tropes wherein the White Rabbit was the unavoidable slasher villain.

Little could be done but to explore the Rabbit's trail and the decay he left behind, but strange images of Black Rabbits marked his presence and lined the halls as they wandered. Gary and Megan separated, the former to investigate the Black Rabbits and the latter to get eyes on the White Rabbit himself to better avoid him, and he suddenly emerged from almost thin air to assault Megan - only to be thrown off-balance by Megan's unexpected Awakening. The hospital and its staff seemed oblivious to the events themselves. . . . which only worsened the impression something foul was afoot.

The White Rabbit's second appearance was more nuanced, perhaps. A traveling fortune teller from New Orleans had set up in the bandstand of Roger Williams Park three weeks prior to Halloween, where she read cards and offered small favors to those who visited her. One mage in particular, Robin, grew quite attached to Lucrezia when the fortune teller somehow cured the shy Virtual Adept of her perpetual stutter.

Therefore, it came as no surprise when Robin exploded in hysterics over the sudden death of the fortune teller. By reports, Lucrezia had met a man of few words and a genial smile and read his fortune. . . . And he had slain her quietly, efficiently, but with a calling card that had marked another victim associated with the White Rabbit's 'alter ego'.

And then the Rabbit once more faded from the city, it seemed, for all the luck anyone had finding him. Attempts were made, certainly, but it was as if the White Rabbit never truly existed beyond the strange videos and rumored appearances.

This absence continued for some time, until it was suddenly broken by the Rabbit storming the Chantry of Thirteen Faiths itself. Singlehandedly, he tore through the wards of the building and sought to assault the Council and handful of other mages who were preoccupied within the auditorium. Susan, with deft skill, held off the swordsman, but still there were injuries and. . . . casualties? Sort of casualties to be had. The blonde herself was slain by the Marauder, even though she rose again soon thereafter and teleported the others to safety.

As for the Marauder himself, Soren somehow dragged the man to the Shadowlands, and when he himself returned a week later to the realm of the living, he stated there would be no further issues with the White Rabbit. Mention of the Maelstom may be made in association, but while speculation may occur, there are still moments where it feels as though the White Rabbit had truly only been a figment of the city's unified imagination.

[DivineST]

Dual Assaults
The White Rabbit's assault on the Chantry of Thirteen Faiths transpired on the same evening as a planned infiltration of Butler Hospital. Maeve's investigation into the tampered shifters - and previously unrelated investigations into the kidnapping of a young dragon, on Galen's behalf - had led her to Butler Hospital as the 'ground zero' of Technocratic operations in regard to this tampering with supernaturals.

Maeve had assembled a team and a plan: Cassie was to infiltrate from the front of the building, with Doctor Harley as her immediate backup; while Maeve, John, and Miyu entered through the back; and an Umbral team consisting of Galen the dragon, Andrew, Kieran, and Sascha were to circumvent the area's security through an otherworldly approach.

That plan seemed to hold, even when Maeve's wolf-shifter partner, Cian, was discovered as a new acquisition by the Suits. However, the Umbral party suffered a casualty in the form of Kieran when they discovered one of the altered shifters guarding the building's entrance across the Gauntlet. Kieran did his best, but he fell and Galen unveiled his natural form and eliminated the werewolf.

Cassie and Wyatt found themselves captured in the Realm, locked in a lab while the Suits had let them have the pretense of having gotten passed them. Maeve's group discovers a prison walk of chambers holding confined supernatural entities, most of them shifters. One cell held what appeared to be the young dragon Galen had been searching for, in a human guise, but the entity had no magic. While the willworkers were horrified by the implications, Galen went on a rampage. The building began to come down around them, and it ultimately fell when Wyatt, refusing to be recaptured by the Technocracy, concocted a bomb.

Even worse, the team of Misfits at the Lamplighters' Estate who were waiting for word of a need for backup from the Butler Hospital group was unable to lend intended aid. During their wait, they were collectively assaulted by a quartet of Nephandi, an assault that left Micah, Fred, and Chloe severely wounded and traumatized; and a Hermetic's whereabouts were unknown as she disappeared during the conflict.