Dedalus Diggle (misdirection) wrote in disorderic, @ 2018-02-15 18:09:00 |
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Entry tags: | !!! group: order of the phoenix, andromeda tonks, dedalus diggle, evelyn mulciber, orvil scabior, ted tonks |
WHO: The Great(?) Humberto, Dedalus Diggle, Andromeda & Ted Tonks, Evelyn Mulciber, and Orvil Scabior.
WHAT: THE GREATEST HUMBERTO SHOW ON EARTH.
WHEN: 15 February, evening!
WHERE: Some London theatre.
WARNINGS: Violence!
Everything in the old-timey theatre in the heart of London was going splendid for the Great Humberto. The first act of his show in front of a packed crowd had gone on without a hitch, and the thunderous applause he’d received only emboldened the illusionist more. It wasn’t all it appeared on the surface, however. Humberto was more than aware that his old nemesis turned ex-husband, Dedalus Diggle, would be in the audience and that’s precisely why he’d ‘hired’ a certain assistant for the evening. With a flourish of magical bats, Humberto strode out on stage to start the second act accompanied by a rolling ‘coffin’. Really, it was nothing special. One of those boxes that magicians and illusionists ‘cut people in half’ using. But Humberto seemed far too gleeful for it to simply be his favourite trick as he traversed the stage. “Ladies and gentleman! Allow me to introduce my favourite assistant, Justine Gillespie!” At the sight of his co-parent’s smiling, docile face poking out of the end of the box, Dedalus leapt to his feet, his worst fears having been confirmed. “Stop! Unhand her!” he shouted, rushing toward the centre aisle and dashing toward the stage. The audience, assuming this was all part of the act, applauded, slightly confused. “Deddy-Bear!” Humberto cackled gleefully with a sweep of his cape. “How nice and predictable of you to join us!” With a clap of his gloved-hands a dozen bats flew out of his robes causing some in the audience to cheer, and others scream. Dedalus rolled his eyes. “How unoriginal,” he grumbled. With a whip of his wand, the lights in the theatre went out, which only increased the chorus of screams. When the lights turned back on, a giant, tentacled creature—a perfect replica of L'Lluluamianianthian'ryl'ukm'ym (Lulu for short)—had taken over the stage, extending its suckered tendrils toward Humberto. Snorting in laughter at Dedalus’s claims of illusion theft again, Humberto grinned widely and took a step forward. But that was before the lights went out, and then suddenly there was a giant tentacle beast taking up most of the stage, tentacles lashing around the space he occupied. Beyond that, several Order members were dashing from the stands, wands raised. Humberto Pyrites didn’t even consider that the whole thing was an illusion before he panicked. “Nice Lulu, kind Lulu!” he squeaked, before pressing his wand to his arm and signaling his compatriots. He was surrounded! He needed assistance! Scabior liked a good show. Which this had promised to be, until the interlopers arrived. Seething, he jerked his wand towards a pile of props, then a bunch of rubber chickens were sailing through the air at his opponent. “No one here was promised a free show!” he called out. The opponent, namely Andromeda Tonks in the form of a blonde bobbed woman in her thirties with a snub nose, was not in the mood at all for showmanship. She'd had quite enough of that with the lacklustre Humberto and instead, very much wanted to get poor Justine out of the way before she became hurt in the crossfire. However, there was a poor excuse for a wizard dressed like what she believed they called a 'rock star' back in the eighties when she listened that sort of thing. (Nymphadora was never hearing about any of that business) I mean, rubber chickens? Were they not all a little too old to be making references to strangling poultry? Pulling up her shield, a bemused Andromeda watched them bounce off. She cast a wordless stickfast hex to try and keep the wretch in place, and sent cord to wrap around his legs for good measure. Scabior was quite a hot stepper, but not quite enough to avoid the sticking hex from the woman with the rather appalling nose, especially after being walloped in the face by the wayward poultry he had just banished at her. “Oi now, where’s your safe word?” he protested as he felt the rope tugging his legs together. “I ‘aven’t consented to this kind of thing!” “It’s a duel, they generally do not require prior notice,” Andromeda sniffed, unable to keep the exasperation from her tone. It wasn’t really; these were not so different from the childish jinxes she would have played as a young girl but whatever worked in a pinch. She sent a stunner for good measure; she doubted a nap would improve the man’s disposition but one always had to have hope. Well, some people were just so literal-like. It was all rather tiresome, dealing with such know-it-alls. What was so wrong with adding a little variety to things? The stunner instead hit one of the rubber chickens that he had sent flying into the air just in time, then—struggling to keep his footing with the rope around his ankles—he hit a waiting clutch of chickens with an animation spell, then watched them run aggressively towards the woman with no small degree of satisfaction as he attempted to rid himself of the rope and gain his bearings. Let’s see how she liked raw poultry… As Andromeda responded with fire - literally - she decided that no one was ever going to have anything to say about her cooking skills again if she managed to cook plastic, animate chickens in the middle of a duel. She did have to duck hard - duck, honestly, why was this man ridiculous - to get out of the way of the fire and looked a little concerned about the building, but her primary concern had to be Justine. This time, she returned levicorpus with a disarm for good measure. Everything was happening far too quickly and she wasn’t used to it at all. Scabior was beginning to lament his “poor fine feathered friends” (and looking around for a knife set to hurl at the poultry assassin) when he found himself born suddenly upwards by his ankle and his wand jerked out of his hand. “Aye, fuck you!” he responded with some indelicacy, grabbing a stray chicken as it went sailing past him and chucking it back at the woman in a fit of rage. Andromeda made a made dash, allowing the chicken to hit her shoulder for all it did, and took Justine by the arm and checked her over. She seemed a little dazed, but hopefully this was just some odd side effect. After a brief moment, she heard her name being called from elsewhere and came face to face with a lovecraftian edition of her wife. When Evelyn received the unexpected call for help from a fellow Knight, she expected to arrive and find a battle raging, some kind of Order-led attack that needed every hand on deck, or a Death Eater location compromised and in need of better defenses. Instead, she found a magic show. That bloody illusionist. Again. The sight of the tentacle monster alarmed her (had they found her useful new hiding spot?) but this was Humberto's mess, and he could deal (or not) with that part of things. She took aim at one of the people rushing up to the stage instead of running out of the theatre; only a fool or an Order member would make such a choice, and Evelyn had no use for either of them. She aimed her wand at the stage lights above the woman's head and brought them crashing down around her. Ted narrowly escaped most of the lights, though they knocked her backwards, with the fun addition of shattered glass spraying up towards her face. With an impatient slash of her wand she transfigured a handful of the shards into very small, very angry bugs and sent them towards the Death Eater. She brushed the rest of the glass off her cheek, feeling a trickle of blood. “Oppugno,” she said next, hoping to knock the Death Eater back before she made it to the stage. Evelyn squirmed as bugs (too small to catch all of them) landed on her robes, and skin, and crawled under her mask. The fireball she aimed at the vigilante attracted most of the rest of the swarm, but the ones that remained bit or stung at her as she tried to find and eliminate each one. The fire caught Ted’s sleeve, burning it clean off, streaking a large burn mark down the length of her arm. The rest of it barreled across the stage and disappeared somewhere into the back. Ted hoped that nothing vital would burn down while she did this. Though if it was the monster – well, she could live with that. “Not a friend of bugs?” she asked, ducking a stray spell coming from her left, and cast something to slow the Death Eater down even further: conjuring up an army of spiders, about the size of her fist, and sending them towards her. Beneath the mask, a scowl crossed the woman's features. "Child's play," she declared. She engorged a few of the spiders and sent them back, but the problem of these swarms of bugs was still to be dealt with. “Child’s play can be a lot of fun,” Ted remarked, stunned one of the engorged spiders as the other turned on her. She didn’t have a problem with them, usually, but it was rather large and rather angry. “But if you want to be that way… Lamina!" Evelyn laughed. "That's more like it," she taunted encouragingly as the knives quite literally came out. Her Diversa met the knives mid-air, crumbling them into little shavings of metal that fell harmlessly into the theatre seats beneath them. She traced out and aimed next for the traps in the stage floor, dropping each one open like a reverse game of Whack-a-mole until she could force her opponent to fall into one. It worked. Dancing away from two of the trapdoors Ted stumbled against the third, tripping inside and slamming hard into the ground. She had no patience for slapstick comedy right about now, and swore beautifully before managing a “Surgo!” She had surprise on her side when she came flying up, and managed a slash to the ankles of the Death Eater whose laugh felt oddly familiar. Who was this even? She’d twisted her anke as she fell, and although it was a quick thing to heal she didn’t have time. Impatiently she transfigured the shards of steel into bullets – or something approximating them – and send them towards the Death Eater at high speed. The slash hit Evelyn, leaving her mobility limited as she favoured a leg. The ever-present bugs were fascinated, but she still managed a shield charm to stop what looked like bullets coming her way. How mundane. How Muggle. It angered her, and the Angor curse she threw reflected that in its intensity. The suffocation curse hit Ted head on, and she staggered backwards gasping for breath. In her desperation she hit the Death Eater with the first thing she could think of, and found, a moment later herself with a mask in her hand. Across from her stood Evelyn Mulciber, the woman who had kidnapped her son-in-law. It was perfect, really. The syringes she sent towards her – it’d been effective against Bellatrix after all – were many and sharp. Ted came from the Dedalus Diggle school of conjuring weird shit and attacking with it. A syringe wasn’t quite as odd as she’d like, but it hurt. “Your days are numbered, Evelyn,” she said. “Just wait.” The syringes poked at something in Evelyn's memory (Someone else had faced this recently; Bellatrix, perhaps?) just before they poked through her skin. Well. That wouldn't do. Who knew what kind of filthy diseases such things might be carrying? The loss of her mask annoyed her, but at least now her opponent could see the disdain written across her features. "Yes, yes, the Death Eaters are all doomed. Everyone but the Dark Lord will die someday, but you'll not be around to see it." With a flourish, Evelyn set about a complicated (if ultimately interrupted) transfiguration; it would, at the least, knock her opponent out of this fight. Without checking on the idiot illusionist, she apparated away to tend to her own issues. His problems were of his own making. Ted, suddenly having eight octopus arms instead of two human ones, really wasn’t sure where to turn. She managed to hold onto her wand with the help of a couple of them but other than that– Yeah. This was no good. Her balance was shot with these new appendages and she stumbled and fell. She glanced over at the back of the stage, realising that Andromeda was, in fact, doing fairly well. “Andie?” she called. “A little help?” Andromeda did a double take from the other side, now with a rather pliant Justine in hand and her own duelist dealt with as well. "Good grief, what do you get yourself into!" She ran along in her thankfully sensible footwear, and with a brief grimace at the tentacles, she took hold of her wifes, erm, arm-positioned tentacle and side-alonged them out of there. Dedalus gasped in shock and horror when Humberto activated his Dark Mark, summoning his fellow villainry; it was one thing to suspect and shout about his ex-husband’s probably involvement in the Death Eaters, but another thing entirely to finally see it with his own eyes. He clambered onto the stage, feeling furious and betrayed all over again. “You’ve gone too far!” Dedalus shouted, angrier than many had likely seen him. That was his his friend and co-parent—Marjorie’s mother—that Humberto was menacing, and he deserved to pay for it. He sent a flurry of purple fireballs soaring at the other illusionist’s smug, stupid face. With a twirl Humberto spun away from the fireballs and shot back with a flock of doves surging from his wand. “Not far enough!” Humberto retorted before he reached under his robes for a clutch of cursed playing cards. They’d been very effective at that Quidditch match, after all! He chucked them through Lulu (a damnable illusion, he should have known! Shame on him!) at his ex-husband. And then he lifted a leg. “Have you seen my lovely orphan kicking boots?” Dedalus met the doves with a flick of his wand, exploding them into a shower of silver confetti. He conjured a shield to deflect the cards, causing them to hit the stage and also explode once they hit. The tiny illusionist frowned at his opponent’s choice in footwear. “Those are atrocious! Haven’t the orphans been through enough?” Dedalus snapped, then with an elaborate swishing of his wand, he conjured what appeared to be a large albino peacock. It flew harmlessly at Humberto right up until the point it was soaring directly over his head, upon which it exploded into a bushel of sharp daggers, which then dropped on the Death Eater. “I’ll ruin orphan’s behinds like you’re ruining my shows!” Humberto hollered as his cards exploded on stage, gouging and smearing the fine, gorgeous wood. When Dedalus’s retort was only a peacock, Humberto let himself have a hearty chuckle again. “Hanging out with Lucius MalfOWWWWW!” The dagger shower had struck true, several were poking into his shoulder and one in his leg. That was when the (low tier) Death Eater and illusionist’s face contorted with a mixture of pain and anger. “It’s time to taste the sadness, Deddy-Bear!” A flourish of his wand had two duplicate copies of himself stepping out of each side to form a trio. All three Humbertos raised their wands in unison, and snapped off blasting curses. “Ugh, the last thing anyone needs is more of you!” Dedalus snapped, ducking as one of the blasting curses nearly missed his head, shattering a prop mirror behind him instead and causing razor-sharp reflective shards to embed themselves in his skin instead. Another blasting curse hit just to the left of him, throwing up a shower of splinters. “I’m surprised it took you this long to slip up!” he shouted, aiming his wand downward and turning the stage beneath the three Humbertos into ice. The three Humbertos laughed, “One of me is too much for you to handle, let alone three!” They fired another trio of Lamina curses at the tiny wizard, and then made to take a step forward only to slip — well, only one of them slipped, because the other two were illusions. The right most Humberto stumbled, and then wiped out, landing painfully on his tailbone. Dedalus couldn’t help but to cackle at Humberto’s misfortune. Unfortunately, his schadenfreude did not last long, as he cast his shield a second too late, allowing one of the Death Eater’s knives to bury itself in his arm, and another in his thigh. He bit back a cry of pain, too stubborn to give his ex-husband the satisfaction. “Ha! Three’s nothing,” he giggled. With a flourish of his wand, one tiny Diggle became ten. The duplicates grinned maniacally, then one of them conjured a flock of vampire bats to fly at and bite the prone illusionist. “Bat’s all folks!” the tiny wizard punned. “Even with ten you’re still shorter than I am as one!” Humberto yelled right back as he got to his feet. His two clones had disappeared, and so he was left as only himself. The bats swarmed all over him, miniature fangs puncturing his skin and drawing blood before he warded them all away with a flash from his wand that sent them scattering. Everywhere. The rafters, the audience (who shrieked and started fleeing if they hadn’t already), and even back at his opponent. The Death Eater had been expected his ex-husband, however. “I have a special trick just for you, Deddy-Bear.” He reached into his robes a pulled out a muggle pistol. No wizard knew how to block a bullet, or had the reaction time, that he was certain. He aimed at the one of the two Diggles near the center of the group, and pulled the trigger. A flag shot out of the barrell with the word BANG! written on it. Humberto frowned. “What? What is this?!” The pistol had stopped the Dedaluses dead in their tracks. They winced as he pulled the trigger. When nothing happened, all but the centre Diggle disappeared. He opened his eyes. “The fuck?” he asked, confused at first, then amused. He let out a relieved giggle. “Doesn’t look like you’re going to get to bang me tonight.” Dedalus taunted, then immediately sent a decidedly mundane blasting curse directly at his opponent. “I don’t want to bang you!” Humberto screamed, reaching back to throw the useless muggle contraption at his ex-husband, vigilante Dedalus Diggle. But that was when the blasting curse struck him in the stomach and send him skyrocket backwards. His body smacked through the curtain with tremendous speed, and he disappeared. “In your dreams, Herbie!” Dedalus called after him. He blew the defeated illusionist a kiss before turning to find the others. Bleeding but triumphant, it seemed as good a time as any to make their exit before any more Death Eaters took to the stage. A few seconds later the curtain, still wavering, fell from it’s rungs along with ropes, weights, backdrops, and sandbags in a resounding clang signaling the proper end of the Great Humberto’s show as only it could: a dismal failure. |