[MINGLE] One-Man Show

[sixthiteration]

WHERE: Inari Shrine and elsewhere
WHEN: 25 January 2019 through ?
OPEN TO: All opted in characters
WARNINGS: Please warn in the subject line of your comment as needed, and remember to move anything turning adult to a new post.
IMPORTANT NOTES: Final reminders and informational links are here. Please label all top-levels clearly so that there is no confusion who they are open to and what they are for, and DON'T FORGET TO ADD YOUR TAG!
Have fun and ask questions here!

Comments

Closed to Group: Reeve, Rinoa, 7, Steph

[plate_builder]

[OOC: Please see below for divided sublevels.]

Closed to Group - Reeve's Vision - Discussion of Mass Death due to Architectural Failure, Blood

[plate_builder]

Reeve had been doing his best this morning. He'd actually managed a decent amount of sleep in the night, had gotten at a reasonable hour, even managed to start to join the others at the Southern Farm area in breakfast prep when it had happened. When he was suddenly here. In a strange place, but he doesn't have much time to process that. Only for a brief moment he's aware of other people there before it happens. Before...

It starts with lights coming up around the edges of the room. Eight lights, each one on a pillar that stood along the round walls of the room, and below them a spoke of warm golden carpets to match the lights. They led to the middle of eight different wedges, each themselves lighted, those of the green-blue light of mako. They and the golden lights of the room worked together to reveal a large model of a city. Of Midgar. And at the point of a large structure labeled ‘05’ was a door that had opened.

A door in which stood a man, Reeve Tuesti, his suit coat discarded and his tie loosened. His hands were shaking as he moved deeper into the room, moving until he came to the edge of the model, his hands bracing against the wall of it. His breath was was coming a bit hard, strained. Pupils dilated with strain, body trembling, none of the composure common to the man. No, if you knew the signs it would be clear that this was a panic attack. His eyes darted quickly toward a place further along the oversized model. Toward the section between the 07 and the 08 protrusions. The Sector Seven plate.

The man’s grip tenses on the wall before he moves to the section. As with everywhere else there is a mass of small buildings and structures throughout it, a replica of the city outside of the tower. A flawless one.

Except for one thing.

Light flared from a metal band at his wrist, set with marble-like stones, and as he struck his fist against the edge of the wedge in question the spell unleashed with a flash of light. The model trembled with the Quake spell, localized in a way that only a master could manage. With the blow cracks formed along the structure of the model, ragged and uneven. From there his fist hit the wedge again, and again, and again. Hitting until a large chunk of the model falls out. From there he tears at it, doesn’t notice the blood on his hands as he’s cut by the materials of the model. Eventually the whole wedge is in ruins and Reeve is left standing there, hands bleeding in fists at his sides.

Light flared up from the bangle at his wrist again, pale green light tingling over his fists to close wounds, but it didn’t take away the blood. Soon the man was sitting, back to the wall, looking at the damage he had done.

It faded out and he was left in what was little more than a spot of brightness, a light in between. And with him? Three other people, one familiar, and two not. He nodded a greeting to them and sighed as he crossed his arms over his chest.

"Well, that was a thing."

Closed to Group: Vanille, Reyes, Anne, Seifer

[firacrux]

[OOC: Post your top levels below guys! Link to our plotting comment for ease of find.]

vanille's (future) vision - cw: torture, loss of agency, monsters, etc

[tosavecocoon]

[ ooc: two vids for vanille, sorry it's long. second vid ends at 3:53. ]

Opening her eyes to something that reminds her of home - real home, not Cocoon - is as confusing as it is bittersweet. The memory that plays isn't much better. She understands better now what she had seen before. Only a snippet and only the most painful and confusing part. This makes more sense. It... isn't better, not really, but at least she knows now that everyone is okay. For now.

Assuming any of it is actually real.

Her hands lift to cover her mouth as she takes it all in, tears pricking her eyes as she watches both of them being tortured at the hands of this... being. Orphan? That has to be it.

"This is so confusing," she huffs as soon as it's over, though she has to smile a little bit at Lightning's proclamation at the end. They really do live to make the impossible possible, don't they?

Closed to Group: Hotdog, Rhodey, Nat, Kamala, Bruce

[oorah]

Kamala's (future) vision

[morphogenia]

The memory starts in the halls of a high school that has seen better days. The floors are covered in glass and rubble. It looks like it's been attacked recently. A large, older dark-skinned man with salt and pepper hair, mustache, and professionally dressed rushes into the crumbling office of the school nurse with a small dark-skinned woman in a hijab trailing behind him. “Beta, what have you done to yourself this time?!” He shouts before slamming the door behind them. The woman stops to cross her arms and glare down at the girl sitting in front of the nurse’s office, visibly fuming with anger: Kamala Khan in a blue-white hoodie with a golden lightning bolt and blue jeans.

Kamala doesn’t look up at the woman as she starts to yell at her. “Why weren’t you looking out for your brother? You know he always has his head in the clouds! How could you let this happen?” Kamala curls in on herself, clearly growing more agitated. She looks up at the woman and seems to realize something. “I’m waiting!” Her mother demands.

(At this point the resemblance is impossible to miss. They have the same big nose, eye brows, and skin tone. Her stance even matches Kamala when she’s demanding something happen.)

Kamala rises to her feet. She may be one of the shortest in the village, but she’s an inch or two above her mother here. She bows her head apologetically as she takes her mother’s hands into her own, expression meek as she regards her mother. “Ammi, I---” She struggles. It’s clear she is trying to confess something. She’s scared but determined to get out. “There’s a reason I couldn’t get to Aamir in time to stop what happened to him. I was—I was fighting with some looters and trying to save some kittens. Which is pretty much what I do every night now.” Her mother interjects here, eyes wide. “What are you saying?!” Kamala sobers up completely, gazing at her mother with conviction. This is her truth. “I have something to tell you. I’m telling you now because I might not ever have a chance to tell you again, and I don’t want--- I don’t want to die without telling my Ammi. I don’t want the last thing the angels write in my book to be a lie… I am Ms. Marvel.” Her mother drops her hands leaving Kamala looking absolutely panicked in the second it takes for her Ammi to reach out and touch her face. She smiles knowingly up at her daughter. “Oh, beta…” She moves forward to hug a stunned Kamala. “…I know.”

She pulls back leaving Kamala to anxiously grab at her curls. In sharp contrast from the moment before, she looks so young and unsure. “You… you know I’m Ms. Marvel?!” Her mother takes her hands this time, trying to console her frightened daughter. “I’ve known for several months now, Kamala-jaanu. I started to suspect something was different the night you asked for your swimsuit at 10 P.M. I know you, beta. I notice when something has changed. I started to pay closer attention. And I noticed that every time Ms. Marvel was in the news, you were sneaking back into the house at fajr time.” Kamala anxiously grabs at the ends of her curls again and whispers loudly. “You knew I was sneaking out?! But I was so quiet!” Her mother holds up her hands, again mirroring a mannerism of Kamala’s. “Shhh! No need to inform the school of your bad behavior!” Kamala can’t stop panicking. “Does Abu know?” Her mother frantically looks around. “No, he doesn’t, but he will if you keep causing such a fuss.”

Kamala grabs at her mother’s hands again, still upset. “Ammi—are you mad? Please don’t be mad. I know it seems super weird, but being Ms. Marvel--- it’s meant so much to me—” Her mother cuts her off. “I’m not mad.” Kamala finally calms. “Wait… what?” The older woman continues calmly, once again taking her daughter’s hands. “I said I’m not mad. You’re at a difficult age. Your father and I were worried you would get involved with drugs or with friends who were bad for you.” She takes her daughter’s face into her hands. “If the worst thing you do is sneak out to help suffering people--- then I thank God for having raised such a righteous child.” Kamala must look away, unable to handle the acceptance and such sincere praise. She quickly crumbles against her mother and holds onto her for dear life. “I’m proud of you, beta.” Her mother says as she returns Kamala’s embrace. “Th- thanks, Ammi.” The scene ends with their embrace amidst the rubble and broken glass at the high school.

Closed to Group: Det. Miller, Elektra N., Jessica J., Matt M.

[pampa]

[ before he can figure out what in god's honest hell is going on here, they're all watching a fucking video of his life play out. miller looks offended, while at the same time wondering: does my hair really look like that...? it's actually longer and rattier now after four months on a killer space station so, you're welcome. his only commentary is, ]

This was right before I stole it.

[ that's right he stole a mormon temple. WHAT. wanna go??? ]

[blacksky]

[Elektra gets a vision of the future instead of a show from the past. She doesn't look offended as she watches the scene unfold around her. Elektra goes pale in terror at what is destined to happen to her. All she can do is stare on in growing dread until the mention of the Black Sky. Elektra falls to her knees when she calls herself that. The anger will set in eventually. For the remainder of the vision and the time it takes for the next show to start? Elektra will be completely distraught.]

Group: Billy Kaplan, Nida Nomura, Jason Todd

[demiurgency]

[Vision toplevels are closed to the group. Order for group visions: Billy, then Nida, then Jason.]

Billy's Video

[demiurgency]

**

"That's the plan?"

The scene fades in on a quiet street outside of a shop. The sign reads "Happy Noodle"--a restaurant. It's a rainy night, and two young men come through the door into the night air. One figure is new to Nida and Jason: Tall, bulky, broad-shouldered and muscular, with closely cropped blonde hair that falls over his forehead and eyes that almost glow blue. Teddy. The other is obviously Billy, though a Billy who's clearly been through a fight; his face is bruised, and there are some scabbing cuts on one cheek, a cut through the chest of the skintight outfit he's wearing that appears to be a uniform of some sort, all grey and starry black. Billy pulls up the hood of the red cloak he's wearing as he answers.

"Loki carries on trying to teach me enough so we can go head-on with Mother, and we work on a way of getting to Tommy that doesn't involve chasing a Lovecraft cosplay version of our old teammate across all realities," he says, shrugging. "Maybe that'll be easier. There's no spell-stopping adults not seeing the problem with Tommy being missing." His voice picks up as he goes on, determination coming into his tone, his shoulders almost visibly squaring. "If we can get Doctor Strange away from New York, we can ask him for advice. Hell, even if Prodigy doesn't feel it, he knows a lot about magic stuff. He's a clever guy."

With his back turned, Billy doesn't see the look that crosses Teddy's face, sorrow and guilt and pain. "Yeah. Yes, he is."

Billy doesn't seem to hear anything, either, smiling cautiously, slowly as he turns back to Teddy, the slow dawn of hope beginning to break across his face as he speaks. "Wow, this is crazy," he laughs. "I'm actually optimistic for once. There's all kinds of things we can do. I can handle this," he finishes, looking at Teddy and smiling. Teddy doesn't smile back.

"Good," he answers instead, voice soft. "That means you won't need me."

You can see the moment Billy's heart breaks. Not just breaks; you can see the moment it shatters into a million pieces. You can see the moment he breaks.

Teddy starts talking before he can fall apart. He talks for a long time, long moments of explanation that visibly cut into Billy, words as knives sawing through the bond they've clearly shared. He tells Billy that he'd been doing a lot of thinking. That Billy's reality-warping powers are incredible; that he shouldn't be afraid of his powers, but that he's been worried for a while now that maybe Billy could be influencing him. Not on purpose, he says earnestly; he knows Billy loves him and would never want to hurt him, but he can't trust his own feelings. Not here, not now. He isn't sure, and Billy deserves for him to be sure. Billy shouldn't be with someone who isn't sure.

He tells Billy that David suggested he take some time, get some space. David's a smart guy, Billy said so himself. Maybe it's a good idea. And Teddy thinks...Teddy knows that's what he needs. He needs some space. Time to figure it out. To figure himself out, to see if he really does love Billy, to be sure it's not just magic and proximity and this whole crazy situation. He'll call, when he's ready to talk. When he's figured himself out. Figured out how he feels. If he loves Billy after all.

He tells Billy that David kissed him.

He tells Billy that he needs to go.

There are tears running down Billy's cheeks. There have been tears running down Billy's cheeks. Teddy's crying, too. This is clearly hurting both of them. Teddy steps in, hugs Billy. Billy hugs back, like it's the last time he's ever going to see Teddy. Maybe it is. "Will you stay the night?" Billy asks, voice almost a whisper. "I can't," Teddy whispers back. "I might change my mind."

With that he steps back, and there's a knowing in Billy's eyes. That bleak, distant look he's had on his face a few times in the months he's been here. "Or maybe I'll change your mind?" he asks. His voice doesn't break until the end. Teddy just looks at him a long moment, eyes now a brilliant green. He looks at him, and then drops his head and walks away. Billy stands there watching, arms wrapped around himself like he's going to fall to pieces if he doesn't hold them together.

He stands there a long, long moment. He says nothing. What else is there to say?

**

Billy hasn't said anything since the video started, has made no sound but a choked gasp at the very beginning. Now that it's over, he still says nothing. Just stands there, arms wrapped around himself, tears streaming down his cheeks as he trembles silently. It hurts just as much as it did the first time.

Group: Kurt Wagner, Tim Drake, Cissie King-Jones, Sabriel

[praypal]

Sabriel's vision CW: death, blood

[bindsthedead]

The memory starts in a hall, dark except for the moonlight streaming through a shattered wall, revealing the dead and dying bodies of soldiers and schoolgirls, the dead silent, the dying trying to be so. Sabriel stands next to a man, or what might have once been a man, for there are blood-red flames burning where his eyes should be. A sword is plunged into his chest up to the hilt- presumably Sabriel's since her fingers are on the hilt, but there's no blood, and he shows no discomfort, despite the silvery sparks flying from where the metal enters and leaves his body- in fact, he seems triumphant, holding Sabriel's right forearm in a tight grip so she can't escape, or get her hand away from the sword.

He's slowly rotting as he speaks, looking more and more like a corpse, and his voice sounds like nothing human. Sabriel's trapped, but her left hand is behind her back, hidden from view- and the silver ring on one finger is slowly expanding as she looks up into the creatures eyes. There's no hint of surrender in her expression, and any fear is hidden behind an intent, almost murderous focus.

"What would you have, Abhorsen? Your lover crawls towards us- a pathetic sight- but I shall have the next kiss..."

He leans forward, breath stinking of rot, but Sabriel twists her head so his lips only slide across her cheek, and he laughs as the ring expands, the ruby on it gleaming in the moonlight.

"A sisterly kiss. A kiss for an uncle who has known you since birth- or slightly before- but it is not enough."

There's an echo of power in those words, and Sabriel's body twists like a puppet, and her head moves back to face him, her mouth wedged apart in imitation of a lover expecting a kiss. But her left arm is still free, and the ring has grown large enough to flip it over his head. She tries to get away, but he doesn't let go- and he seems more surprised than alarmed.

"What is this- some relic of-"

That's when the ring contricts, cutting through rotting flesh to reveal solid darkness within, pulsing as the ring constricts further.

"Impossible."

That's when he throws Sabriel down, and with a single horrible motion, pulls the sword out of his chest and thrust it into her stomach and into the floor, her armor offering little resistance against unnatural strength. She's screaming and the blood welling from her stomach looks black in the moonlight.

But the creature has turned its attention to another, ripping a long splinter from a pew and striking at another man as Sabriel starts to go limp, blood pooling around her even as her face remains twisted with pain.

The splinter breaks on the man's armored coat, but even as the creature reaches for another splinter, the ring slides further down, rotting flesh peeling away to reveal more shadow-stuff, and the creature thrashes, trying to throw the ring off, only to cast off more rotting flesh, quickly becoming nothing more than a pillar of darkness that collapses into itself, becoming a mound of writhing shadows, still bound by that ring, the ruby on it suddenly grown much larger, strange marks shining on the band- not english, and they look almost like runes.

Sabriel stirs then, her hands reaching for the bandolier of bells on her chest. She reaches first for the second largest pouch, only to find nothing there- then her hands settle on the smallest bell, and with great effort, she takes it out and rings it.

The sound is sweet and soft, yet the echoes seem to drown everything out- Sabriel closes her eyes, and the scene suddenly shifts.

There is fog, and black water, and little else besides a deep, all consuming chill. Sabriel's still lying down, but she's floating on the water, content to let the current carry her away, or perhaps too exhausted to do anything else.

"Everyone and everything has a time to die," she whispers, but then hands catch her, half a hundred glowing figures suddenly surrounding her. Each wears the same surcoat as her, deep blue embroidered with silver keys.

"This is not your time," they say, each one echoing the other, "Go back, go back."

"I can't." Sabriel is sobbing, "I'm dead! I haven't the strength..."

"You are the last Abhorsen. You cannot pass this way until there is another. You do have the strength within you. Live, Abhorsen, live..."

And Sabriel suddenly finds herself on her feet, stumbling forward towards Life, the shining figures falling back as she edges closer. The last one- a man with features very similar to hers- touches her hand right before the memory ends.

Closed to Group: John Druitt, Ezio Auditore, Lucy Stillman, Desmond Miles, Ashley Magnus

[moderndayassassin]

[Order for group visions: John Druitt, Ezio Auditore, Desmond Miles]

[borneinblood]

Druitt hasn't been out to the shrine before. He knows it exists, if only sort of by reputation, but up until today he wouldn't have had any real idea of what the place looked like. On the other hand, he barely has time enough to register that, much less the fact that he's not alone before a video begins to play out. One of softer times, gentler times, before he'd fallen quite so far from grace.

Still, he doesn't have any particular objection to it being shown either. Admittedly, it does still raise some question about just how old he is, but it's hardly the first time he's needed to explain that. And given some of the other things that the Observers could have decided to show instead, he's hardly about to complain; once it does finally fade he looks mostly unbothered by the display, blinking a moment before turning to take proper stock of who else happens to be present.

Closed to Group: Hawke, Aqua, Jake, Cougar

[championofsnark]

Hawke's Memory - Goes First

[championofsnark]

Hawke is always up early and running about, and today is no exception. She's dressed for trouble and warm for the outdoors, her bow and newly given quiver of arrows slung over her back. She has her daggers and she's on her way to scout out some possible other food options when suddenly the earth begins to change around her. She gets no time at all to react before she's tossed instantly into a memory she'd really like to never experience.

Two people are bickering, an angry blonde Templar and an angry elf mage, and Hawke is merely standing there looking increasingly annoyed at the life she's been met with. A handsome man comes from the side to join the battle, shouting about how the system failed them. Hawke's emotions are shown on her face, startled and concerned, and she's unusually somber and serious as she says what have you done.

The giant chantry nearby explodes and the look of shock and horror is on very face there, including Hawke's. She is given the choice to help the templars kill all the mages, or help protect them, and she picks the mages with very little hesitation. She allows the man, who speaks to her intimately and with emotion, to live despite pressure to end him. And the city devolves into chaos.

Hawke gasps once the video ends, back to herself, and she is unaware of the tears streaming down her face. "What. The. Fuck." She looks around to see who else is there and what bloody problem she's been drawn into this time.

Group: Loki Odinson, Thor Odinson, Jane Foster

[sundr]

The scene that unfolds around them is painfully familiar in the most literal sense, and Loki goes entirely still as he watches himself receive word of his mother’s death, his teeth clenched tightly enough to make his jaw ache as the video of himself plays out the carefully calm way he stands, the way he turns to hide the riptide of emotions playing across his features, before energy explodes from him in a wave that upturns the furniture in his cell.

What follows only worsens in dramatic degrees and, truly, Loki has only the dimmest recollection of the way he destroys anything and everything he can reach. Blind with rage, with grief, and it’s painted across every inch of his body as the chair he hurls shatters against the far wall in a burst of wood fragments, as decanters explode in a shower of wine and glass, as he tears at the books piled for his pleasure until nothing but parchment scrap remains. Everything his mother had insisted that he have, every kindness and comfort she tried to grant to him regardless of the crimes he’d committed, and Loki watches himself rip the world around him to shreds like some wild beast beyond reason as if it would somehow stave off the wetness Loki knows clings to his eyelashes. Until—

Until Loki watches himself slump against a filthy wall, sliding down it until he settles upon the floor like a shadow of the man he’d been only moments before, chest heaving in desperate breaths on the very edge of panic, and Loki turns away before he has to watch himself let go of the wretched, anguished scream torn from his throat as if it could possibly stop the way it rings in his ears even after the video cuts out.

[scrappiness]

There is no warning, no feeling of pressure or dread, no inkling at all that anything might shortly be amiss. There is only Jane striding toward the inn's front door after having dropped off her breakfast dishes, and in the next blink, Jane swaying to an abrupt halt someplace else entirely. The change is dizzying, disorienting, and it takes a tick before her brain finishes making the shift, her eyes wide as she takes in the fact that she's standing beside Thor and Loki both, all three of them back in Asgard.

No, not Asgard. A facsimile or a memory maybe, although vivid enough to feel like the real thing — Well, mostly. Only when it fades will it occur to her that the disconnect was owing to a lack of scent.

Her mouth is open to speak, only to find the words caught first in her throat and then swallowed roughly down, the Loki standing beside her separate from the Loki before her, caged and inconsolable. That much he deserved, she thinks, although it makes little enough difference to the instinctive way her stomach twists with the guilt of witnessing something so private and then the slow, sickly recognition of what caused it.

Her, she did. And all of the lectures to the contrary have never really changed that fundamental fact, even if she knows objectively they're right. She didn't choose it, wouldn't have wanted it, but it still happened.

Tears fill her eyes and then overspill when she startles at the scream, a little jump that sends her back half a lurching step with a soft thump of her bag against her back. She wants to look at Loki but can't, sliding an anxious gaze to Thor instead, brow deeply creased over wide, worried eyes.

"What is happening?"

Closed to Faraday and Vasquez

[onesyllable]

The scrubs at least work well for nightclothes, and Joshua is glad for that. The fireplace keeps the room less than frigid, but not warm enough. In that moment though, finding himself standing in the middle of a town, one that he knows well, and yet thought long behind them.

The scent of gunpowder is so thick, a low, sickly haze that had been second nature to his life and is now a scent that causes his gut to twist up. He thinks for a minute of the day that they had sent a message to Bogue by killing his men in Rose Creek. Then he sees himself and Chisolm hunkered down beside a wall. They're talking, and Joshua stares at himself, at a him that he's never been. Not that he remembers. A him that is bleeding, gripping his side to try and staunch the flow of blood, and he realizes what he's here for. This isn't anything he's ever lived through, and he's not going to live through it now.

Watching as Faraday, as he, races for Jack and pulls himself up onto the horse's back, the horse he had come all this way to win back. Chisolm covers him, firing rapidly, and he whips the horse hard, leaning down low over Jack's neck, spurring him on.

Above where he still stands Joshua hears a shout, a yell. Looking up and seeing glimpses of Billy and Goodnight from the church steeple. All around him there is shouting, gun shots, the smell of smoke from the building burning, burning over where the children were hidden. It all comes together for him in an instant. Even as he races across the plain, bullets flying all around him, watching as his body jerks from a bullet, and he knows. He's already dying. He was dying when he got on Jack's back, and he won't let everyone else die with him. For the first time in his life he's doing the right thing, and to save the men he had ridden into this town with, and who would ride out without him.

Except not all of them would.

Seeing the glint of sun on the Gatling gun as it was turned, reoriented, and then he isn't even aware he's screaming. Screaming as wood and dirt and bullets rain down around him, and he watches as Goodie and Billy die trying to protect him. Together, having come here with them and now never leaving.

The gun, that horrific, monstrous gun, stops. The silence is almost more deafening than the hundreds of bullets that had torn apart a church already destroyed by fire. Turning, feeling as if he's underwater as he watches himself fall from Jack, tumbling into the dry brush and red dirt as his horse, the horses of men dead in the field behind him, rush away. Even then he's pushing to his feet. Another bullet. Crumpling. Even from the distance it's as if he's right there, watching as he pulls out one last cigarette, tries to light it. A light offer. The mercy of a gun. Watching himself fall over, face first into dirt, and he knows. He knows in that moment exactly what is going to happen. Knowing what it is he would have done in that moment.

"I've always wanted to blow something up," he mutters, watching as they try and scurry away, but it's too late. Dirt and metal and body parts burst outwards, the Gatling gun gone. And so is he.

[quinientos]

Vasquez sleeps in two layers and a blanket. He's always freezing, even when pressed up against Faraday, but when he's suddenly in a different place, he's more grateful than ever for the warmth he's got around him, even though warmth is his last concern when he sees what's happening.

His stomach turns like when he's drank too much, seeing Faraday nearby. He knows exactly what happens, here, and he hates to have to watch it again. Is it better or worse that Faraday didn't see McCann shoot him? Better to not see who did it. Worse, because Vasquez still feels a vengeful pride in being the one to have killed that son of a bitch.

The trouble is, Vasquez had been in the church when all this happened. He'd heard the sound, he'd seen the blast, but not this. He's been falling in love with this man for a year and watching him die, first-hand, is one of the most awful things he could ever witness. His stomach twists viciously and he reaches for Faraday, needing to touch him, hold onto him, and remind himself that he's still alive, no matter what they're seeing.

Yet, isn't it a reminder? They're on borrowed time. Once they leave here, Vasquez lives.

Faraday won't.

"Querido," he pleads, needing to hear Faraday, his Faraday say something, and prove that he's still here, that he isn't like the one he's just witnessed. "Say something, tell me you're still here."

Closed Group: Sara Lance, Fern Mertens, Kate Kelly, Connor-60

[theyellowbird]

She opened her eyes to a place that was absolutely not the house she had claimed after arriving through the fountain, and it took all of her control not to roll her eyes. She barely had time to ask herself what now before the memory of her first actual death began to play. Not a flashback, but happening all around her. She knew what she was seeing right away, and her annoyance only grew. There were more painful memories in her past than this, but this had been a dark turning point for her.

She barely moved as she watched herself say goodbye to Laurel. That was the most painful part. Laurel. Her big sister, alive. Happy, but about to watch Sara fall to her death.

Thea emptied the arrows into her, Sara had only been confused by her appearance there. Then it was over. Had she already been dead when she fell off the roof? She couldn't remember hitting her head on the trashcan, but she could remember Laurel crying. She'd imagined what it had looked like, and it was all pretty much meeting her imagination.

When it was over she found that she wasn't in this unfamiliar area alone. There were three other people, and she had to assume they had all been able viewers of her death.

"Not a zombie. If anyones concerned." Her resurrection had been just as rough, but at least it didn't look like that was next on the viewing screen. Or so she hoped.

[313_248_317_60]

Of the three weeks, two hours, and seventeen minutes since Connor model #313 248 317-60 first dragged himself from the fountain, he's spent nearly all of it pursuing the same goal. Transport. Connor needs to return to CyberLife. To restore contact, to receive orders, to fulfill the purpose for which he was made.

This isn't what he had in mind.

His LED spins yellow as he tears free from the memory(?)—gaze flitting around to catalog the nearby shapes. A couple are half-familiar, faces glimpsed in passing through the village, but none explain his presence here. Where is this? Was that some kind of... interface? Humans shouldn't be capable of that kind of information transfer. But, humans who had taken three arrows to the gut should also be dead. He takes a half-step back, head turning to scan for an exit—

—when the strange faces and stranger surroundings are replaced with something much more personally significant. CyberLife Tower. The basement level. And a plan Connor had worked towards, but never seen come into play.

He watches the deviant Connor model freeze in its tracks. He watches himself emerge, with Anderson as a hostage. The video is external, showing a clear view of both Connors, and he tries fruitlessly to place the source. "Very moving, Connor." A drone? A security camera? "It's time to decide who you really are." CyberLife had full access to his memory. Why would they film an encounter like this from the outside. How would the data get here if they had?

Why doesn't he remember it?

The deviant's mouth is open to answer as the images dissolve. When reality asserts itself, Connor's lips are parted, LED flickering the briefest glimpse of red. It dulls almost immediately to a pulsing, unsteady yellow, and he swallows back the word (the name) he might have called.

"...That didn't happen."


[[ooc: The linked video is a compilation of outcomes—for this thread, only up through 1:19 will be shown!]]

GROUP: Jean-Luc Picard, Beverly Crusher, Pepper Potts, Tenel Ka.

[scovillescale]

beverly's future vision

[ethnobotany]

Opening her eyes to a new environment and with a group of people, some she wasn't familiar with at all and certainly wasn't around previously, should be more alarming than it is. Unfortunately, this isn't her first brush with being transported against her will and probably won't be her last. Fortunately, that does give her the experience and presence of mind to start looking around for clue as to where she is and how she can escape.

At least, until the image starts playing around her, blocking out everything else. The scene isn't anything she recognizes, though she does immediately recognize several of the faces around, Jean-Luc in particular. They're obviously at some formal event, though she can't immediately tell what. Then she sidles up to him, or an image of herself a few years older does, settling herself right up next to him.

"Sort of like losing a son and gaining an empath," she comments jokingly.

"You're being a big help," Jean-Luc comments dryly in return, making her laugh. The two of them talk as they always do, though as usual he is slightly less likely to be as free with his emotions than she is. Watching the video makes her smile outside of it, especially when she catches a glimpse of Deanna and Will off in the distance. Given Deanna's dress and some of the other clues, she figures this must be their wedding. It's really about time. They've been perfect for each other for so long.

But then someone else steps into view, making the holographic Jean-Luc put some obvious distance between himself and the holographic Beverly, making the real Beverly gasp in shock. Wesley, her son, is there. The sight of him and sound of his voice nearly make her heart stop, squeezing painfully as she watches him. This, if it really is the future, confirms so much for her. For the last three years, she has kept an ear out for any news of him, any sign that he came back, all while believing very firmly that he was fine, and still is. If this is real, it means he really is fine and not only that, but also that he returns to her. That's all she could ever have wished for.

Tears prick her eyes, even as she smiles at the holographic projections. This is the best thing she could ever have been given.

Closed to Group: Tony, Peggy, Liv

[nonstopnarcissist]

Tony's Train To Trauma! Ft. Thanos. CW canon typical violence, bizarre physics, evil grapes

[nonstopnarcissist]

Early morning detailwork isn't normally how Tony deals with his day- but the tea is steeping, Elton's curled up by the hearth as it roars and Tony's got a new list of projects in front of him, chasing chisel in one hand and hammer in the other-

He's there, then he isn't. Then he's thrown, mind and soul, into a suit that failed him, into dust and desperation and death. They fought. They fought harder than he thought possible, planned through the odds, gambled-

And lost.

Revisiting this is an exercise in looking over every moment he could've done something differently. Could've made a better call, could've built something different with the nanites- every teeth grit moment sweeping through him until he can't breathe, staggering somewhere unfamiliar with the taste of blood and dust lingering in his mouth, a twinge in his scar from where he'd been stabbed.

He tried. They tried- and fell short.

Dropping to his knees isn't so much a choice as an involuntary reaction, gripping the ground as he forces himself to breathe. It's over. It's done. He's here, now, wherever the fuck here is.

Closed to Group: Karen, Eddie/Venom/ Bobo

[fooloftheking]

With the winter cold, the hike back to the village where he lives gets longer and longer, so the night when everything in the village goes oddly, he is actually asleep in the butcher shop which brings with it one advantage. He's dressed. Of course he comes to, shaking off the sleep not because the temperature has suddenly dropped, but because he can hear his own voice. Loud, echoing in his ears, making him realize he's no longer in the butcher shop, or in the village that is becoming home.

He's back in Purgatory.

Laying on his back, the side of his face and head scorched, torn open, bleeding from the grenade blast that had knocked him down. It's only because of those wounds that he realizes when this is, why he can't remember it. Because for him, this has never happened. This is what happened after that video he'd seen previously when Willa had left him to die, and then been killed herself. Now it's his turn.

Eyes wild, panicked, the look of an animal cornered and fighting for their life. Except he's not. He's screaming, demanding that Wynonna do it, that she shoot him. Reaching up and taking hold of Peacemaker's barrel, the gun glowing, preparing to return another revenant to Hell. In that moment though, Hell is not in Bobo's card.

Even as he begs, demanded that she do it because swans mate for life, there is another voice, and the world goes sideways in a way that he could never have imagined. Standing there watching it all and a cold shudder goes through Bobo as Black Badge steps in, taking over. More than that, taking what they've wanted for so long. A revenant.

Cuffing him, hauling Bobo screaming and snarling into the back of a transport truck. Even the Bobo watching barely hears Wynonna's words, the way she's fighting against what they're doing. Arguing for the same reason that Bobo stands there, stunned, watching it all and knowing what's to come. His future is worse than he might have imagined. Dying, returned to Hell, that is one thing. Spending the rest of whatever existence he might have in horrific pain for every second of every day as the curse in his body tries to tear him apart for violating the curse.

The moment they take him out of the Ghost River Triangle, over that line, sanity will become overrated, and the pain he feels emotionally at being abandoned by the woman that he loves will be nothing compared to the power of a curse that has kept him alive for well over a century punishing him for leaving his prison.

Bobo watching as the vehicle passes the line. Dolls screaming, knowing what's coming. Bobo laughing, hysterical, his mind losing it's hold on sanity as he feels the line coming closer, feeling the pain that he caused so many revenants when he staked them out at the border.

His gaze meeting Wynonna's, so far away, another world, and yet her words so clear. Asking about the one person that meant the world to both of them, the woman that Bobo would have died for and that she had lost so many years ago because of him. And he nods, agreeing, telling her what she needs to hear. He kidnapped her, he fell in love with the woman he held prisoner, who hadn't loved him because of Stockholm Syndrome, but because she was using him as she had done until the last minutes before her death.

Once more Peacemaker glows, coming to life in the hands of the heir, and then there is peace. For a moment until Hell holds him once more, Bobo in the vision knew peace.

And Bobo watching saw the pit beneath him open up, flames rising up, lapping at the truck, lapping at Dolls and yet not burning him, and Bobo burned in the flames, burned by the very fires of Hell as they welcomed him back home once more.

[imareporter]

It had been Venom who suggested that he sleep in his coat, but he's also wrapped in one of his bed blankets. Blinking sleep from his eyes, he's instantly alert because Venom doesn't sleep. Venom prods him in every way he can and Eddie starts pulling the blanket off his shoulders, tucking it under his arm. His eyes are wide.

"...What the fuck was that?" Fire was burning and Bobo's face was gone. "What the hell was that? Was that you?"

Closed to: Altaïr, Connor, Shiro, and Zevran

[eaglesonofnone]

One moment he had been making his way to the town hall to look over the patrol schedule and see if he needed to add himself to any routes. The next, he found himself... vaguely ill, disoriented, and surrounded by--

Two of these, he knew. He was set slightly on edge, but he knew them all the same. Zevran was there, warmly dressed and looking ready. Takashi, however, was less dressed, his arms bare.

The last, clad in a coat over the thin clothes everyone arrived in - that was the one he did not know. Looking between all of them, his mind immediately began searching for some sort of connective thread. The one between the three of them was obvious, but this last young man - he was the obstacle to his understanding. But just as he was about to reach to remove his robe and offer it to Shiro, to ask this young man who he was, the world... changed.

Altaïr's Vision

[eaglesonofnone]

"Speak reasonably and reasonable men will listen."

Sunlight streamed from the sky, vibrant and warm, making the yellow scrub grasses glow, casting tree trunks barely as thick as a man's leg in dark shadow. He looked up at stone that reached toward the sky, a curtain wall between him and the place that, for all his life, he had called home. The portcullis was open, the gate caught at its highest position, allowing foot traffic in and out. Or it would if there was even a single person walking through but them.

He could hear her footsteps beside him, the two of them careful with their path. The boulders they passed had been in those positions for longer than either of them had been alive, ancient and well-embedded into the earth. "Some will," he said, "but not Abbas. I should have expelled him thirty years ago when he tried to steal the Apple."

His voice was threaded with old anger, the knowing pain of betrayal, but he looked down suddenly: a hand was at his elbow, its owner close to his side, looking up at him from such clear, blue eyes that they rivaled the sky for beauty. Sight enough to make his steps pause.

"But you earned the respect of the other Assassins because you let him stay."

She was so painfully patient, her voice soft though not without the same pain he carried. He lifted his hand to her cheek beneath her hood, four fingers brushing her skin with the utmost gentleness. "How do you know this?" he asked in honest bewilderment. "You were not there."

And she smiled, eyes heavy with that sadness but a kernel of truth beneath it all. "I married a masterful storyteller."

The world went dim for just a moment as he closed his eyes and leaned down to touch his forehead to hers, but then they were walking again, side by side into the bailey. Above stretched the towers of Masyaf Citadel, a sight so heartrendingly familiar that he stopped to look at them, gaze tracing downward over ancient stone, tattered flags with their unifying symbol, and, at the last, indolent and half-ill men in robes that were badly maintained, marked and stained with substances best not identified, some few looking at the two of them with a bored sort of sneer before they went back to their occupation of doing as little as possible.

"Look at this place," he muttered, disdain in his voice. "Masyaf is a shadow of its former self."

She sighed. "We have been away for a long time."

Though quiet, he had to answer, "But not in hiding! The Mongol threat demanded our attention and we rode to meet it. What man here can say the same?" An unfair question, he knew, even as he asked it. And when she answered, she did not even deign to answer - and he didn't blame her. The question was unfair.

What she did say hurt more.

"Where is our eldest son? Does Darim know his brother is dead?"

He had to breathe before he could answer, her quiet tone, the ache in it, putting tightness in his throat. His voice went low. "I sent him a message four days ago. With luck it has reached him already."

Silence stretched as they walked, ever upward, around the training yard, along the wall, nearer to the Citadel's entrance. The shadows cast by the angle of the sun were stark, sharp, and it seemed that the very quality of the sun had changed. Before, its light had seemed warm. Here, it took on a cast of white, making all feel cold despite its brightness. She walked before him and he looked at her, the way she held her back so straight, her shoulders so firm. No matter the weight of her dress, her scarf, her cape - she stood like the warrior she was. The sight of her made him draw himself up to stand properly.

"Abbas..." He sighed, giving his head a slight shake. "I almost pity him. He wears his grudge like a cloak."

She turned to face him, holding out her hand - and though the moment was fleeting, he took it and squeezed it before letting go. "His wound is deep. It will help him to hear the truth," she said, and he ... he gave a soft sound of doubt but, as ever, he stayed at her side.

The Citadel's entrance opened directly into a library, bookshelves standing between columns, resting against walls. Each one was nearly filled, and here and there, some few men seemed interested. Others glanced at him and then looked away, prompting another headshake. The staircase at the center of the room seemed inevitable, and he walked toward it, step by step. "As I walk these streets, I sense a great fear in the people, not love."

Her hand was at his arm again, and his gaze fell to it, taking comfort there as they climbed. "Abbas has dismantled this place," she told him, "and robbed it of all joy."

Again, his gaze cast about the Citadel. He was answered with chill silence. Again, his throat tightened, but he spoke to her once more, looking into her eyes as he took both of her hands in his. "We may be walking to our doom, Maria."

"We may." She squeezed his hands. "But we walk together."

At the head of the stairs, he leaned down and pressed a soft, lingering kiss against her lips, let his forehead rest to hers. And then they stepped out into the sun once more, in Masyaf's tiered garden. Past the trickling water that surrounded a square of tile, past arches and columns. Down staircases of grey stone, past flowers that had once bloomed but now stood as skeletons in pots of dry earth.

His gaze flicked from one side to another, as if seeking something, but still they descended until they were face to face with the one they had come to see. He stood shorter than Altaïr, his hair thick and black, his beard streaked with white. At his side stood a younger man, shaved bald but with a short bit of hair around his mouth. It was this man who stepped forward, one hand on the hilt of his sword, the other clutching something mostly in shadow. And it was the elder of the two who stopped him, four-fingered hand at his chest. "Let them speak," he announced, as if before a grand gathering instead of this sickly display.

"We seek the truth about our son's death," Altaïr bit in answer. "Why was Sef killed?"

"I will return your question with another." He flicked his hand at the man beside him. He swung his arm, threw what it was he held--

A burlap sack, trailing a stream of red. It landed heavily, and from its mouth rolled a head. Long-haired. Long-bearded. Cheekbones sharp, eyes sunken. Malnourished, mistreated. A sound of distress began in Altaïr's throat but was swiftly silenced.

"Why," the man asked, "were you skulking about in our dungeons? Why would you free a man convicted of murder? The murder of your son, no less. We found him in your quarters, Altaïr: Malik Al-Sayf, ensconced in your bed like a treasured friend rather than a criminal. What sort of treason were you planning?"

His stance wavered, fixed upon the man across from him. His gaze did not move, but his stance became more firm as he said, again, "Why was Sef killed, Abbas."

"Is it the truth you want," came the answer, half-taunting as he motioned toward the head now laying on the ground between them, "or an excuse for revenge?"

Beside him was a flicker of white as Maria stepped forward. "If the truth gives us an excuse, we will act on it."

Abbas pulled himself upright, hands spreading to either side as if he were a man innocent. "Surrender the Apple, Altaïr, and I will tell you why your son was put to death."

"Ah. The truth is out already." Altaïr glanced to the gathering behind Abbas, small as it was, and lifted his hand to indicate the man standing before them. "Abbas wants the Apple for himself. Not to open your minds, but to control them!"

An accusing finger jabbed toward him. "You have held that artifact for thirty years, Altaïr, reveling in its power and hoarding its secrets. It has corrupted you."

For a moment, he was quiet, focusing on him, then letting his gaze drop as he made a choice. He lifted the Apple into open view, a silvery sphere with strange, geometric markings encircling it. "Very well, Abbas," he said, voice holding a thread of confidence. "Take it."

Maria stepped up to his side, disbelief plain on her face. "What?"

But already, Abbas had motioned to the man at his side, the man who had callously thrown Malik's head onto the ground. He sheathed his sword as he approached, murmuring in a low, graveled tone, a triumphant smirk on his face, "Before I executed your son, I told him you ordered it yourself. He died believing you had betrayed him."

It was subtle, how his grasp on the Apple changed. His hand was no longer relaxed, no longer holding it but gripping it as golden light erupted from the markings in beams and the man gave a strangled cry, his shortblade drawn, approaching his neck in a slow, inexorable path that was obviously not of his own doing.

"Altaïr!" Maria was at his side, taking his arm, but he looked past her, watching the blade get closer by the second.

But then she was all he could see as she shook him, demanding, "Altaïr! No!"

The golden light began to fade.

The man's shortblade bit into flesh, but not his own. Maria made a sound of shock and pain and fell forward into his arms. And his own hidden blade made its familiar sound of metal on metal, extending out and through the man's neck before retreating into its sheath.

The man fell.

Altaïr lowered Maria onto the ground, laying her beside Malik's head, her final words a bare breath: "Strength, Altaïr."

"Maria--"

And then Abbas was shouting. "He is possessed! Kill him! Take the Apple! Now!"

For a moment, he faltered. His gaze went wildly from Maria to Malik, to what remained of them--

And then, choking on his own breath, he ran.

Closed to Group: Alec, Alucard, Phryne, Wanda

[fishingfortrouble]

[fishingfortrouble]

It's only luck that sees Phryne actually out and about when she's snatched away to somewhere she's sure she's never seen before. But she only barely has time to thank her lucky stars that she actually is wearing something appropriate to the weather, much less that she's not alone before a scene starts playing out. A memory, or vision, she's not entirely able to say.

It's a surprise, at first, to see Jack and herself standing in front of a jail cell, discussing the possibility of letting the occupant of said cell out in return for a favor. To anyone else, it might even sound relatively harmless - getting out word to a third party (by the name of Dubois, apparently) that they have a line on someone who can sell "that painting". To Phryne it's anything but and she can't help but pale a little at the realization. The version of herself in the vision however, simply continues on bold and brusque, laying out a time and place for the meeting; the cell's occupant grumbles a bit but faced with the treat of indefinite imprisonment otherwise (which may or may not have been genuinely meant on Jack's part) he agrees readily enough.

The vision pauses briefly there, and Phryne hopes that's the end of it. It's not, and it starts up again bare moments later, not the jail cell, but a fairly upscale sort of cafe. Their "sacrificial goat" sits at one table, looking nervous and somewhat out of place; Phryne and Jack at a table opposite. A tense moment or three follows, Phryne clearly on edge as she turns a old photo over and over in her hands. Nor is the tension in the air helped by the arrival of their food (Phryne, at least, appears to have no appetite, and Jack isn't faring much better, though this may be on account of his having been served escargot), and while Jack attempts to break the tension with a bit of banter it goes absolutely nowhere.

(His attempt to calm Phryne down when the sound of a champagne cork popping nearly startles her out her wits fares a little better, but it's still abundantly clear that she's just about ready to vibrate out of her skin from nerves alone.)

A moment later, Dubois himself shows up and this time, with the advantage afforded from an outside vantage point Phryne can see the way the ensuing chaos unfolds. Jack's desperate attempt to pull her eyes away from Dubois by pulling her into a kiss. The brief nod and raised eyebrow Jack gives to his fellow officer; the latter slowly rising to block off the exit... and then Bert and Cec are surging to their feet and crossing to Dubois. A rumble of conversation ("Long time no see. This is from Thommo and Ronnie.") and then a punch from Bert, Dubois knocked out of his chair; Phryne rising to her feet with a gasp of "Bert, no!", Jack right behind her as the patrons do likewise in a panic. Or at the sight of Dubois and Jack both drawing guns. Even from outsider's standpoint it's hard to tell for certain until Jack's bellow of "Police! Out of the way!" clears the field a bit, but by then it's too late. Dubois already has Phryne at gunpoint.

"My Phryne," he whispers, and even now the sound of his voice sends shivers down her spine. "It has been too long, no?"

Phryne can't bring herself to watch the rest, turning away as Dubois makes to pull her away, though she can still here her struggles. Hears the sound of Jack dropping his gun to the floor at Dubois' insistence, and her desperate, panicked voice as she wrests the gun away from Dubois but - as the man surmises - is completely unable to bring herself to shoot him, tears in her eyes and hands shaking as she lowers it from his head to his heart. ("I'm not afraid of you," she says, pulling back the hammer.) She pauses, though and in that pause, Dubois turns away... and rounds the corner straight into a knife held by another woman - by the gasp that escapes her, she absolutely hadn't intended to kill Dubois, staring is shock and horror as he sinks to the floor in his final moments.

And then, as suddenly as it had begun, the vision is over, leaving Phryne decidedly shaken as she blinks her way back from... whatever has just happen.

Closed to group: Finnick, Kat, Blaine, Iron Bull

[fishermansweater]

Finnick; cw for mentions of rape, murder, blood, and abuse of power

[fishermansweater]

He usually gets up early here, because he has a long way to go in the mornings if he wants to make it along the whole line of his fish traps and back to the village in time to drop off fish to the Inn before lunch. Today, that turns out to be a good thing, because it means he's already dressed in something warm, pack on his back and spear in his hand when he's suddenly blinked somewhere new. It's happened to him before, here, but last time, he'd been with his wife. This time ...

This time, it's into District Thirteen.

And he's not alone; he's with Iron Bull, the big guy who looks like someone took their Capitol surgery too far but says he's a whole different species, and a girl and man he's seen around but not formally met. And they're in District Thirteen. Or a simulation of District Thirteen? How would he know?

An image he'd last seen in that video that appeared on his watch. It's the ruins of the Justice Building and in the foreground is a tumbled marble column, the apparent focus of the scene, spotlit from behind. After a few moments, Finnick's heart jolts as he sees himself walk into the scene, a length of rope clutched in his hand, and sit on the pillar. He's wearing the same nondescript gray outfit he'd seen in the vid, and he looks terrible, pale like he hasn't been out in the sun much, and he's thinner than he should be, too.

"You don't have to do this."

It's Haymitch Abernathy's voice, and though his double doesn't look, Finnick does, and sees Haymitch and Plutarch Heavensbee off to one side.

"Yes, I do. If it will help her."

It has to be Annie he's talking about. His heart pounds as he watches himself scrunch the rope up in his hand. "I'm ready."

"Okay, Finnick," a female voice says, one he doesn't recognize. "We're recording on the red light."

Finnick watches himself take a deep breath, glance down, then look back up, straight out to what must be a camera.

"President Snow used to … sell me … my body, that is," he begins, and Finnick knows where this is going, because he's seen part of it before.

"I wasn’t the only one. If a victor is considered desirable, the president gives them as a reward or allows people to buy them for an exorbitant amount of money. If you refuse, he kills someone you love. So you do it."

He shifts, barely perceptibly, then starts speaking again.

"I wasn’t the only one, but I was the most popular," he says. "And perhaps the most defenceless, because the people I loved were so defenceless. To make themselves feel better, my patrons would make presents of money or jewellery, but I found a much more valuable form of payment. Secrets. And this is where you’re going to want to stay tuned, President Snow, because so very many of them were about you. But let’s begin with some of the others."

And he does. Finnick's always been a good speaker, and he watches himself start to recount the stories he's collected over years of seducing the most wealthy and important people in the Capitol out of the only thing he could hope to use against them. The first one is a tale of depravity, seductions and betrayal and deceit, the next of corruption and criminality committed for no other reason than that the man behind it would never be punished. The next is a path to power that had been paved with the destruction of competitors, and after that of blackmail and extortion for pure profit. Finnick had started talking with a voice detached, carefully blank, but as he goes on, the lurid nature of his tales is reflected by a dark animation in his voice.

Finnick moves smoothly from one story to the next, intertwining them so that it's difficult to tell where one ends and another begins, at least for a little while, but it's clear when he's reached the last one.

"And now, on to our good President Coriolanus Snow. Such a young man when he rose to power. Such a clever one to keep it. How, you must ask yourself, did he do it?" Finnick pauses for effect, voice sardonic when he continues. "One word. That’s all you really need to know. Poison."

And he tells the most dangerous part of the story: Snow. Snow, and how he rose to power through the deaths of those who threatened him. How he drank from posioned cups and ate poisoned food himself so nobody would suspect, how he masked his crimes under unforeseen natural circumstances, illnesses, aneurysms, bad shellfish, anything but the truth: they were too close to the President's power. How he has a list of his enemies, and nobody knows who's on it, or who will be next to be struck down.

How his perfumed roses cover the stench of blood from the sores in his mouth from drinking so much poison.

"The perfect weapon for a snake."

There's a long, long silence before Finnick stands up from the pillar and says "Cut".

OTA - The Trip Home

[ombranera]

Scouting

This is, more or less, the same as he'd done during the fifth blight. Kept an eye out for dangers in front of the group and reported back- or dispatched them as needed. Considering how it is these foxes enjoy hunting in packs and their tactics? Zevran does what he can to navigate around them, avoiding direct confrontation where he can. There are too many that have no weapons to make it a worthwhile endeavor- no matter how much another fur might help those of their number with no coat for warmth or how much another fight might warm is blood from the shocked stillness of his reminder-

It is better to not.

He is quiet, calm, and curt if spoken to, only doubling back to report movement or recommend a change of course. He has a job, here, and he will see it done.


Keeping Watch

When night falls and camp is made, meals partaken and headcounts finished, Zevran takes to a vantage. Not so far from Camp as to be out of sight (most seem tense about the idea after vanishing so abruptly) but not so close as to be useless. Legs tucked under him, ears pricked, eyes shining in the evening light much like a cat's, he minds the perimeter. Keeps watch for predators slinking in through the grass, for signs of any that might disturb their number. He'll trade out to find his own place to sleep- eventually. For now as he is trained, as he is armed? It feels right for him to put in the work.

He can always rest later.

Scouting

[lastofthekellys]

Kate isn't armed, although she at least is dressed warmly. Not as warmly as she'd liked, for she'd only meant to walk from her (and Benedict's) house to the Inn to start her chores, but still. Boots for her feet, coat, a scarf she's tied around her head to keep it warm. She's also warm from fury at their captors, which is better, much better, than being cold from the grief her shared memory has stirred up. Besides, if there is one thing she knows to do, it is survive.

So she approaches Mr Arainai on one of the times he doubles back to the group, picking her sure-footed away across the landscape towards him. She knows wildernesses, too.

"Be careful," she says once he's close enough, her eyes red-rimmed but her gaze steady. "The forest here can play tricks, turn you 'round. On purpose."

Closed to group: Sam and Gaius

[ad_dicendum]

Gaius had been awake since dawn, as was his habit, so he was at least dressed when he was suddenly transported. He's heard of this happening before, but it's never happened to him until now. One moment, he is finishing up his usual morning prayers, the next he is ... not, and he doesn't know where he is. He only has time to recognize that he's with someone else, the young woman called Sam, before he finds himself once again seemingly in Rome.

It's not the first time that's happened, but it is the first time he's been transported somewhere first. Before, he'd been walking through the village when the world changed around him. Here, it's like he's been brought here just to see Rome again. He recognizes the room; it's his home in Rome, the house he'd grown up in, the house his brother had lived in until his death. It's the atrium, a wide, high room with an opening in the ceiling and below it, a small pool in the floor.

Footsteps sound from one side, and a man comes in, wearing in a toga and the purple-edged tunic of the equestrian class. He's a few years younger now that Gaius is, but a family resemblance is clear in the jaw, in the proud carriage of the head and shoulders. It's Tiberius, his brother, as clear as he had been the last time Gaius saw him alive.

And he knows what this is. This is a dream that he's had before.

"Gaius!" he calls, across the room, then steps closer. "Gaius, why do you wait?" he asks, holding his hands out in supplication.

"You cannot escape. One life and one death is appointed for us both, to spend the one and meet the other in the service of the people."

His prophecy spoken, Tiberius fades from view, and the atrium is once again empty, before it disappears and the scene changes.

[thegreatexperiment]

Sam had been awake. She'd been in her room, actually, standing on top of a chair, reaching up with her pencil to work on her dragon. It was all very Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni. If Mikey had been doing the chapel in a bra and scrub bottoms.

She had no real frame of reference for teleportation, aside from sci-fi and fantasy, but if she'd been of a mind to analyze it, she would have found the whole thing disappointingly anticlimatic. There was no in-between world. No sparkles. No sound effects. Just a kind of wipe, like a movie switching scenes.

And then she was in some kind of sandals and swords epic?

She looked around and caught sight of a vaguely familiar face. Gaius? She was pretty sure that was his name.

He didn't look happy.

But who the fuck could blame him?

"What the hell is happening?" she asked, walking over to him. But all of a sudden, there was a second guy. And...she had no idea what he was talking about. Her eyes flitted back and forth between him and Gaius. "Uh...what?"

Closed thread: Connor-53 and Connor-60 (cw: violence, injury, terrible robots)

[313_248_317_60]

A fox.

Vulpes vulpes? Vulpes rueppellii? He'd only caught a glimpse of the creature, but its shape and coloration didn't match any species data stored on file. Not to mention its size. Another mutated freak, then—like the 'cat' at Stark's forge.

Not that the classification mattered. Not as much as the shout of warning that had gone up from one of the humans as it drew near. Not as much as the sharp, mocking, bark that had emerged from the animal itself. Or the sensation of falling it triggered. Half-familiar faces were replaced by a blur of trees, a flash of movement—

—and water, rock-filled and icy, as Connor lands in a frigid stream.

Teleportation is an impossibility. That hadn't stopped it from happening twice in the last day, disrupting every theory he'd half-formed about his theft in the process. The android's LED blinks sharp and quick, mouth pressed to a thin line as he drags himself to shore. It's an arduous process, made worse by water-logged clothing and plant-slicked rocks. By the time he finally trudges up onto the snowy bank, he's working to repress a shiver.

Colder temperatures. A scattered maze of rocks and trees. The unfamiliar waterway. The terrain around him is still mountainous, but... is this even the same range? Connor stills, listening hard for the group he'd traveled with. For any signs of nearby life.

"...Shit."

No one, and nothing.

Terrible Robot #1 incoming

[youcantkillme]

They'd already been attacked once before, and the group is alert, tracking sounds for the slightest sign of danger. For his part, Connor tunes his audio receptors to maximum sensitivity, filtering out the sounds of his companions.

... It didn't help much. He hears falling branches and whispering leaves, and the sound of his own coat rustling frequently finds new ways to interfere. Connor frowns, focusing more intently.

There. Connor stops in his tracks, opening his mouth. As he does the canine whine swells to a bark--

Falling. Motion. A complete loss of control over his surroungs. Connor throws out his hands, but for an instant his gyroscopes can't even tell him which way is up or down. He braces himself, but in the end it's useless: he hits a snowdrift spectacularly enough that bits of white fluff go flying. For a moment he just lies there, reorienting himself.

...

"Shit," he mumbles, pushing himself to his feet.

---

His companions are gone, the surrounding trees are unfamiliar, and he has no way of knowing where on the island he is now. The first teleportation brought him all the way to the Shrine in a single bound; would this one be just as catastrophic?

Connor's lips tightened, and after a careful study of the sun's incident angle and his internal clock, he picks a direction and starts walking.

Like he did the foxes, Connor hears the RK800 before he sees him. It's impossible to be perfectly silent when every footstep is announced by crackling leaves, and Connor turns, scanning the trees. A black peacoat, navy slacks, a very, very familiar face--

--ice seeps through his thirium lines, and his pump regulator skips a beat. Connor forces the sensations as far back as he can, slipping behind a tree already half-shielding him. He found the other RK800. It doesn't look like he's been noticed. What now?

Kurt Wagner - OTA

[praypal]

Outside the Temple, Shortly After Visions End

It feels a little like waking from a series of extremely vivid dreams, or that weird feeling after you walk out of a movie theatre into the blaring sun. He doesn't know what to expect outside those walls, and the mountaintop view is breathtaking- and he's sure the cold would be too, were he not dressed warmly on top of being covered in fur.

He thinks he can hear other people, and while he doesn't go far from the teenagers he was brought here with, keeping them if not in his line of sight, at least keeping track of where they are- or trying to, he does break off from them to investigate the sounds.


It's a long way down

What he wouldn't give to have his powers back. He'd even settle for his wall-crawling, to allow him better footing, especially in areas where the decline toward the base of the mountain is steep- especially when his foot finds a loose rock, and even the extra balance afforded by his tail sends him skidding down it for a good 20-30 feet.

He doesn't get up right away. The fall puts him far enough ahead of the people he's with that it gives him a few seconds alone to compose himself- and to fight the feeling of being utterly useless.

It's a Long Way Down

[cisskabob]

Cissie isn't far behind Kurt when he falls. One minute, he's there in front, leading the way, and the next, he's gone, out of sight. She rushes forward to where he was, stopping just before the edge drops away, leaning forward anxiously.

"Mr. Wagner?" she calls down, her tone full of concern. (She always defaults to calling adults by their last name until told otherwise.) "Are you okay?!"

Closed thread; Desmond and Lucy

[retributes]

Her only intention after being an audience again to seeing her death play out had been to get the hell out and away. To get back to the warm comfort of her house, the privacy away from the three extra pairs of eyes that’d been so privileged to see how her life had ended. Lucy had no idea where anyone was or what they were planning, she’d bolted soon after she’d walked away from the group and the shrine. She couldn’t have cared less, all she wanted to do was to put as much distance between her and Desmond as possible. For as long as she could and for how hard she could push herself, Lucy ran. All she had was the path before her. Her steps in the snow would show where she walked and where she’d stumbled, where she’d fallen to her hands and knees to dry heave. And then her steps were picking up, stretched out in her strides. On and off she’d stop to catch her breath, to fight the stitch in her side that clearly showed she wasn’t cut out for being pushed this hard yet with the wound still healing, a month and a half later.

How long had she been running? An hour? Two? All Lucy cared about was being alone at this point. Not talking to anyone, not having to explain anything, especially not to Ezio.

What did it mean? Why did they have to keep going through that? Here she thought things could get past it, that maybe here the two of them could put it behind them and actually live something of a normal life. They could be happy. They could forgive one another. There was no need to choose sides—freedom was achievable. They had freedom from the ties that would’ve otherwise kept them rooted.

Whatever was left of daylight was beginning to slip away. The temperatures would soon drop. She was alone as she had no idea how long it would take to get back to the village, or if it even existed now. Setting up camp would be a good idea, and yet her legs kept going, she kept running. Her lungs were protesting, she could feel the sweat between her shoulder blades, at the hollow of her throat. She was certainly dressed for the weather, her peacoat underneath a bulkier winter jacket, thick boots, but to be out running in said layers, she was risking possibly catching a cold.

Now was as good a time as any to stop. Considerable distance had been put between her and the shrine, though Lucy felt it wouldn’t be enough. She staggered off to the side, grasped the rough bark of a tree trunk, gasping for breath as she moved behind it to lean against it. She couldn’t quite remember a time in her life where she’d run so hard, covered so much ground. Her right cheek stung sharply, ached, made it difficult to fully open her eye without wanting to wince. Reaching up she gingerly felt over it, looking at her fingers and seeing blood. Vaguely she did remember the slap of a sharp edged branch catching at the side of her face while she’d been running, thinking nothing of it, too focused on the fact that if she kept going going going then she could outrun the problem.

Lucy had known the risks in joining the Templars, in agreeing and willingly abandoning the Brotherhood the same as it had abandoned her. They were fighting a war between factions; death would soon find her no matter what, only she hadn’t expected to be ratted out by fucking Juno of all things. And how could she have known? Because she and the others were Precursors? Bullshit. Lucy truly believed that good could’ve come from her joining their ranks, aiding them in their cause. Bill Miles had always only ever been using them, grooming them for the fight. It was all he’d cared about. He didn’t care about her, about Clay, not even his own son. Look where it’d gotten them—

Doubling over, her hand to her right side, she needed to focus on catching her breath; she needed to keep moving, before it became too dark that she wouldn’t be able to follow the path. These woods weren’t familiar to her. She wasn’t like Connor, she wouldn’t be able to move as easily through them. Yet in spite of what needed to be done, Lucy stayed where she was, taking that extra moment more to rest, muscles in her legs trembling from simply being upright and carrying her weight as opposed to sitting and being stretched out, not overworked.

[moderndayassassin]

Desmond honestly did not expect her to have run at all, let alone this far. He thought he could catch up to her easier once he left Ashley, and he was getting more concerned with every distance he had to catch up on. He wasn't even fully aware about the skills he was using to follow her path; she hadn't tried to hide it, and he understood why. Her emotions blinded her to being pragmatic. He might have left her alone, if she had run right toward the bigger group, but she was separating herself instead. It wasn't safe. Who knew what the hell was out here? Fuck. He should have sent Ashley instead. Fuck fuck fuck.

It was very easy for him to follow her though, and since he was fast and determined, and not blindly running out of emotion, it didn't take long before he was gaining on her. Jesus, what was she thinking? It was getting dark and they were farther away than they should be. He felt guilty, of course, by the time he saw her up ahead, he felt that same punch in his stomach of guilt and grief and also anger too. There was no small amount of anger left in him. For all the ground they tried to cover, for all the time they tried to find ground together, there was this hanging over all of it. They might not ever be able to fix it.

He was slightly out of breath when he finally managed to catch up, his own constant work out and jogging keeping him in shape just out of boredom and lack of plans, and he was sweating under his coat. Goddamnit they were going to have to set up camp. "For fuck's sake, Lucy," he said, approaching her. "Couldn't you have run in the other direction?" It was stupid to gripe about that, stupid to act like they could just talk about shit and not face the fact that she saw him kill her and they were right back where they started.

closed; Jess and Kamala.

[underachievement]

If getting down the mountain were a competition, their ragtag team wouldn't rank, even for an honorable mention. Jess alleviates what burden she can from Elektra, their troupe leader, and otherwise contributes by staying out of everyone's way as she dries out. They make it back, each of them in one piece and all of them worse for the journey, start to finish.

Jess beelines for the house she shares with Frank and Kamala, where she don't know if she'll be welcome much longer. If she's the first one there, she rush through a bath and a glass of basement wine before she's confronted. If not, it's going to be a long line for bathwater at the Inn and she'll spend every minute glowering about how she deserves to be drenched in filth. She can only forget about all the goddamn animals until she's in the door and they all rush her legs, nearly knocking her back. She doesn't have time for this!!!! and other groans and curses as she gets them fed as fast as she can. Because surely they didn't just like miss her or something.

[morphogenia]

It's safe to say the team with experienced hunters and Avengers made it back first. Matt's drama alone would have stalled them a great deal even if every member were strong otherwise. Frank and Kamala have already straightened out the house, cared for the animals, and put something in their stomachs in relative silence. At this point Frank is gone or at least isn't anywhere Kamala can hear him. She's only focused on washing away everything that happened as if such a thing is possible.

She emerges to find Jessica after she's bathed and dressed, pretty evident by the way her damp curls cling to her face. For a second it's like nothing ever happened. It's just a normal day where Jessica is grappling with how much a small army of furry creatures have grown to love her. Kamala would think it's hilarious and help while her hair dried.

It's not a normal day. Jessica sent Frank to die like they were playing some messed up version of chess. She's still very furious about that. "Seriously?!" Kamala demands. She knows Frank must have tipped her off by now. The man is predictable at this point. She has to know she's the last person she wants to see. Why be here? Are they just going to keep acting like everything is okay forever?! Because she's not going back to that. She absolutely refuses to.

Kamala doesn't elaborate further. She stomps up to her, ignoring the way the animals are scurrying away from her fury. She makes a fist and takes a swing at Jessica's face. It fixes absolutely nothing, but it does give her anger a much needed outlet.

( closed ) for elektra post the journey home [cw:drugs]

[oorah]

Frank's OP team gets back much earlier than most without even really trying (sorry) which gives him time to think and get his affairs in order. He and Kamala reorder their house in relative silence before he starts getting ready to go. He's not sure what's going to happen when he walks out that door, but he knows she can't be around him right now. She needs time and he needs to give it to her. After doting on all his animals, he plucks Bruno up with the intention of taking him wherever he ends up. Right now, he's not sure where he's going and much less sure when he's coming back. His last message to Kamala is a tap to his smartwatch to indicate he's reachable when she's ready and then there's a sign she's never seen him use before, mostly because he hasn't ever: Love you.

He leaves before she can respond, pack shouldered and croc-dog held against his chest as the other dogs whine for him, but he's not taking them with. They should stay in the house with Kamala where it's warm and safe. He knows she would never let harm befall them. He doesn't get far before remembering that Elektra needed to talk with him and so he goes to her porch to wait. It's not as cold as it's been, enough that straddling zero degrees feels downright balmy and even Bruno doesn't seem too salty about waiting outside.

When she returns, presumably after sending Matt to the Inn to clean up his act, Frank will be sat there on her stoop with a sleeping croc-dog on his lap and a joint held between his teeth, barely started. His backpack with the stupid flame patch is sitting next to him, indicating that he intends to stick around for a minute.

"I see you've shed some dead weight." Ha-ha.

[blacksky]

Frank turning up on her doorstep is really the least surprising part of all this. Things were nasty on his end too. As much as Matthew's unresolved feelings about her death hurt considering she's the one who dies, gets enslaved, and then dies again, at least he isn't an actual child. His anger falls off her. It's different with children or so she would think.

Elektra forces an unpleasant smile as she heads up the steps to join him. She's starving, gross, and generally cold. Really it's not new to her save for the part where she kept people alive. Her education at the Wall was pretty thorough. "And you've been banished by your little princess. Looks like we're all having a fantastic time." She quickly falls into a seat next to him (moving the backpack up a step to accommodate) and holds out her hand expectedly. Maybe she should apologize for throwing that in his face, but honestly? She's too burned out on her own pain to care about how much of a bitch she's being.

( closed ) for reyes on the journey home.

[oorah]

He'd briefly broken apart from his group, but he isn't worried about it. Somehow, his assigned team was probably the most capable one here, made up of horror survivor experts Frank and Kamala and three whole Avengers. Besides, Kamala is pissed at him and has every right to be so being on his own right now honestly feels like breathing again. He starts the long hike down the mountain and keeps a lookout for anyone who might need assistance — some kind of crisis would be a great distraction right now. God, Desmond was right, he really is bored here.

Just then, he sees someone knelt down and quickens his pace to see what's up. Reyes is probably just tying his shoe or looking at something on the ground, but here's Frank to overbearingly dad him anyway. (Sorry, he's had a rough... life.) "You okay?" he asks softly, his voice like gravel dragged through broken glass, but his expression spells genuine concern.

[vidal]

Once Frank comes closer, it looks like Reyes was scavenging a fallen branch off the ground, planting his boot on the intersection and snapping it off with a hard yank. Giving himself some kind of weapon, crude as it is. At least he is wearing boots, at least, so he's better-off than some in the haphazard group. (Once he has the branch beneath his hands, though, he frowns down at it. A blunt weapon is caveman-like, absolutely ridiculous compared to the blasters and warp grenades he remembers.)

"Managing," Reyes answers, because it's the closest thing to the truth. 'Okay' is relative here. Then, wryly: "Is it that obvious that I'm not an outdoorsman?"

He isn't accustomed to this kind of concern from a stranger, really; he comes from a world where thieves are more likely to stab each other in the back. So he straightens, leans his weight on the branch like a walking stick, and casts a gaze over the other man. Sizes him up. Craggy beard, hard-worn face, fairly memorable -- Reyes thinks he's seen him around the village, what with his own tendency towards wary people-watching, but even small as the place is, there's still so many people left to meet.