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15corpses2017-12-02 02:07 am
strangerpeople) wrote in 15corpses2017-12-02 02:07 am
WELCOME TO THE GAME.
[You have died. When you awaken, it's in your body back to the shape it was in before whatever it was that killed you - but not all is right. Nothing surrounds you but darkness as far as the eye can see. A girl's gentle voice speaks to you from seemingly nowhere. It is a voice you probably haven't heard before.]
It's all right...it'll be all right.
Please forgive me for this, but, you're in the True Game now. As you're now here, on this plane, I...took something from you. Something important. The thing dearest to you. It has to be taken, though, as it's your entry fee - it's one of your means of surviving this!
I promise, we don't mean to do anything terrible to you! But this Game is important, and you getting through it is, as well. You'll receive missions, and for the missions you complete, you'll be given points. The more points you earn, the closer you'll get to leaving this place. And then, when you do finally leave, perhaps you'll understand why you were brought here. You'll regain what you lost, and you'll know the truth.
So please...please survive! I have faith in you! You'll be all right!!
[Sure enough, as soon as she's done explaining and collects your fee, something important of yours is missing. It might be memories, an object, or even a person (that's not a Titled), but they are your collateral now. Your motivation for continuing your existence in this world. You black out, and when you wake again, you're back in the mall, in the bedroom you'd been assigned. You remember everything you'd forgotten while you were alive, although you might have re-forgotten it if that was your entry fee. At least everything here seems mostly the same.
However, there's a few new things to discover... your cell phone now lets you read the surface thoughts of everyone that's living, and imprint thoughts into their heads (except for Croix, The Chance. Maybe it's because she didn't have a power? Who knows.) You also have all the items and money you had when you were still alive, which will be useful, because you still get hungry and, we'll say you still need clothes, but that's actually debatable because you are invisible. Not to other dead people, no, but to the other people in the mall.
Yeah. That's a thing. This version of the mall is full of random people who are using the mall as a mall, and even working the registers - oddly enough, there's this one girl with pink hair who seems to work at all of the restaurants at different times. But no one can see you, except for the shopkeepers of food and clothing stores specifically. (Luckily, the Barcade counts as food.) The Titled can be seen going about their business as well, and you can follow them around and watch them, listen to their conversations. However, nothing you say or do can be perceived by them. Even using your powers goes unnoticed, no matter what you try to do with them. It's like you're in parallel worlds. So that's a little spooky.
Speaking of spooky things, there are also monsters in this version of the mall, though the living seem as able to perceive them as the Titled can perceive you, and even to you they are only barely visible unless you focus on seeing them clearly. But these monsters attack people - they attach to the mall-goers like parasites, however for now, they seem to be leaving the living Titled alone... they prefer to attack the dead Titled, and only the power you gained here seems to truly damage them. They also seem quite difficult to defeat on your own. If one of them happens to come for you, you'll need to find the others, fast. At least if you checked your phone, your first mission told you where to go!]
It's all right...it'll be all right.
Please forgive me for this, but, you're in the True Game now. As you're now here, on this plane, I...took something from you. Something important. The thing dearest to you. It has to be taken, though, as it's your entry fee - it's one of your means of surviving this!
I promise, we don't mean to do anything terrible to you! But this Game is important, and you getting through it is, as well. You'll receive missions, and for the missions you complete, you'll be given points. The more points you earn, the closer you'll get to leaving this place. And then, when you do finally leave, perhaps you'll understand why you were brought here. You'll regain what you lost, and you'll know the truth.
So please...please survive! I have faith in you! You'll be all right!!
[Sure enough, as soon as she's done explaining and collects your fee, something important of yours is missing. It might be memories, an object, or even a person (that's not a Titled), but they are your collateral now. Your motivation for continuing your existence in this world. You black out, and when you wake again, you're back in the mall, in the bedroom you'd been assigned. You remember everything you'd forgotten while you were alive, although you might have re-forgotten it if that was your entry fee. At least everything here seems mostly the same.
However, there's a few new things to discover... your cell phone now lets you read the surface thoughts of everyone that's living, and imprint thoughts into their heads (except for Croix, The Chance. Maybe it's because she didn't have a power? Who knows.) You also have all the items and money you had when you were still alive, which will be useful, because you still get hungry and, we'll say you still need clothes, but that's actually debatable because you are invisible. Not to other dead people, no, but to the other people in the mall.
Yeah. That's a thing. This version of the mall is full of random people who are using the mall as a mall, and even working the registers - oddly enough, there's this one girl with pink hair who seems to work at all of the restaurants at different times. But no one can see you, except for the shopkeepers of food and clothing stores specifically. (Luckily, the Barcade counts as food.) The Titled can be seen going about their business as well, and you can follow them around and watch them, listen to their conversations. However, nothing you say or do can be perceived by them. Even using your powers goes unnoticed, no matter what you try to do with them. It's like you're in parallel worlds. So that's a little spooky.
Speaking of spooky things, there are also monsters in this version of the mall, though the living seem as able to perceive them as the Titled can perceive you, and even to you they are only barely visible unless you focus on seeing them clearly. But these monsters attack people - they attach to the mall-goers like parasites, however for now, they seem to be leaving the living Titled alone... they prefer to attack the dead Titled, and only the power you gained here seems to truly damage them. They also seem quite difficult to defeat on your own. If one of them happens to come for you, you'll need to find the others, fast. At least if you checked your phone, your first mission told you where to go!]
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[Dio accepts the questioning look. Their circumstances are sufficiently dire, and the surrounding social groups are so prone to codependency, that Dio doubts they will receive true retribution even if this guy is another Player they've never seen before. That possibility is another good reason to build up momentum for the greater fusion attack, a mechanical necessity he has never quite understood.
The office is not decaled, so this is clearly full of fodder to use for a battle. With telekinesis, Dio kicks a large monitor over as quickly as possible to strike the other man square against his forehead; it's an item that could easily be caused to spark with more electric force, once it is smashed open against the hard surface of a skull.]
1/2
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Wow! Not even a "who are you," huh? Are you as crazy as me?
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They've hit the jackpot. Right in front of them, there is someone powerful, someone who's captivity would grant them a great advantage.
Helena is not about to let that chance go to waste. Coco didn't die when being electrocuted and she said she's stronger in the world of the dead. So there is likely no way this man will get killed even by a direct hit. That means there's no reason not to risk it.
Helena unleashes a wave of electricity onto him. ]
VLR spoilers // asphyxiation cw for no good reason
[Dio is perhaps very slightly more likely than his partner to be prepared for weird sci-fi bullshit, but this actually works directly to his disadvantage. He readily accepts the possibility that he is literally floating in the void of space, and he wastes that vital first moment grasping at his throat. This wasn't how he had thought it would go, somehow, when they rejected him for being too late to complete the mission or having the wrong genes or God forbid daring to form a temporary attachment of any kind, tactical or not; the sensation of choking, that's par for the course, but the airlock as much as any other chamber should have been narrow, representing the limited horizons in a life of folly and sin. (If Dio gets to look back at this later and realize it's the other way around, that it was strange to gasp despite the lack of a need for oxygen, he still might not realize that the lungs can sometimes malfunction for entirely psychosomatic reasons.)
The second vital moment is when he sees that Helena has activated her lightning powers, a brave decision she must have made in the first moment, unlike him still too desperate to breathe, let alone think; so the least he can do is throw the guy, but he feels the power not working.
Third time's the charm. Dio sends the net skittering forward across that floorlike surface, to tangle around the man's feet while they're still electrified.]
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Gah, you are so serious!
[He swiftly raises his hand as the net follows - it contains a cellphone he's fiddling with, red and yellow like the TC camera prize. Behind him in the sky, a mirage that looks like the planet Venus appears as a blast of black energy fires at the offending mesh of wires, punching a huge hole in it that makes it fall to the ground.]
You should have talked more with the Doorframe before coming! Don't you know you have to weaken me before you try to catch me!
[He starts running after that though.]
So let's make it a little harder for you to lock on to me, Helenachu!
[also some noise are now dropping out of the sky, as well as some "PhD Pepper" vending machines, headed their way. The planet mirage then changes to Mercury... what could be about to happen?]
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[ By the time 707 starts running, she's already trying to pursue and only very narrowly avoids running head-first into one of the vending machines. Helena had been prepared to fight a person, a person with weird powers even, Noise, too, but not falling vending machines.
Helena is grateful for her experience in fighting Noise now, because it gave her practice to target more than one object after one another with her lightning. She sends it out to hit the Noise closest to herself and Dio - she knows it won't erase them, but slowing them down by stunning them slightly gives them time to run further. She figures, at least. ]
--Dio!! It's-- It's ammunition!
[ Vending machines especially because they are heavy and conductory, but who's to say they can't toss Noise around as well? ]
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You don't touch her!
[He sees the world differently ever since the battles became a big part of life. The environment is divided into "us" and "them" and a variety of obstacles to himself or others. Dio starts tipping vending machines over onto the stunned noise - though he realizes, how Helena said, that not all of the noise should be wasted. The end result is that the immediately toppled fraction of the vending machines is formed into two rough lines (riddled with gaps, of course; it would take several minutes for rough telekinesis nudges to fashion the boxes into a single long think rectangular prism). In other words, Helena could run down a makeshift aisle straight towards 707.
And then Dio is strafing off onto the other side of one dividing line, running among the Noise personally. It's a routine, which means that the whimsical 707 will find a way to interrupt it but until that inevitable swing Dio is doing his best. A Noise that gets too close to Dio himself is kicked over to fly over the vending machines in an arc that will strike 707's upper body. If that Noise starts bothering Helena too much, it's kicked again onto the far side of the other dividing line.
Dio doesn't understand it. The Noise was one thing, allies to also strike against the two assailants. The vending machines are another, sufficiently sparsely distributed that the benefit to Dio far outweighs any risk that they'll fall right on top of either partner. And Kurama died from one oversized bullet; on a plane where psychs are weaker and physical bodies even more so, but still. How many rounds would it take for 707 to shoot them point blank, when he could easily stand sixty seconds or more of continuous lightning judging by his minutely miffed reaction to the first hit?] None of this makes any kind of sense!
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[707 is keeping an eye out behind him as he runs around, but as soon as Helena starts shooting her lightning out, he makes a sweeping gesture with his phone - Mercury's power will now be apparent as floating orbs of deep, dark water as black as the night appear suddenly in their path to surround Helena. Unless her reflexes are incredible, she'd get rebounded by her own bolts, and he'll give an overblown devilish laugh over his trap that is technically not him touching her. As if this isn't a fighting class exam, but instead a sadistic little kid with toys. The corehog that went flying spines first into him gets a reaction though,]
Huwaaaah~! [After juggling with being scratched by it, he uses his last orb to bounce it away enough for him to run again. It's an angry Noise now so it starts shooting its quills out randomly- they stick in the ground and seem to pulse. Helena and Dio have probably fought enough noise to recognize that it will explode when it stops pulsing. 707 is heading more towards Dio's side now.]
Hmhm~ Do you want to play cat and mouse in this maze of yours? Good idea!
[The planet changes to Mars now, and a line of black flames starts filling up the straight line of the aisle in front of him.]
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When it hits her, she finds her power is far gentler to its master than she ever expected. The shock runs through her and wrings a pained groan from her lips. Her legs shake and give in, she lands on her knees and--- she doesn't pass out. Helena takes a deep breath, opens her eyes again and to her own surprise she finds herself capable of getting right back up.
She knows she needs to get back to Dio's side - it's clear they can't possibly take this man on by splitting up for too long. But in front of her is fire and on the sides are quills and vending machines - it could truly not get more annoying.
Helena gathers her energy and sends another bolt off towards 707's back, then she makes her way through the side aisles, also aiming to get back to Dio. ]
impalement cw
And yet you just can't get enough of us, eh? You stuff hundreds of us into this shitty little shoebox--
[Amidst the faint prickling of that electrical impact, Dio yells and pushes the other vending machines through the flames, creating fiery tanks headed towards 707; but he can't entirely block the line of fire altogether, and the thin tendrils that snake through are still very hot. In the underground he won't be left with singed trousers and third degree burns on his calves; but the pain in his legs is still enough to make Dio buckle his knees for a moment.]
Shit.
[He's going to just stand there breathing during the seconds it takes for Helena to run to his side - and accepting that they might as well form a single target when 707 is capable of multiple simultaneous powerful attacks, he throws an arm around her shoulders. Anyway, the time that passes in silence also helps him to assess the quills. When Dio resumes using telekinesis then, it's to send any nearby prowling wolves for a good skewering onto the quills; the follow-up is two corehogs thrown around 707 so that they might poke each other and cause an explosion near him.] You picked the wrong wolf to put on your board. [It's an allusion to Dio's own "set up the board with 1 wolf and 14 sheep" metaphor... a disparaging comparison to the wolf noise too, maybe? Dio has practiced fighting noise, but not using one-liners on them. He's doing what he can.]
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Ugh, where did you learn such a cursed technique!? Warm soda is seriously bad!
[His phone didn't even leave his hand. Saturn appears in the sky next. This appears to surround him in a dark barrier that completely repels the other vending machines, exploding quills, and even any more lightning Helena might try to throw.
With this new imperviousness to attack, he just puts his hands rather comically in his pocket and leans back, looking up into Saturn's rings.]
The wrong wolf? You mean a lone wolf or an outcast wolf? It's possible. There are lots of kinds of wolves. Weird wolves tossing their imagination into alien planes. If they're already so close, maybe a papa wolf or a brother wolf would understand right away! But do I want one that's already decided their fate.... nope! Fate is the ceiling that blocks out the view of space. Wolves are better when they howl at the moon... a-and anyway, there are still fates even I can't decide. God Seven's one and only bias! I'll remember him any time you're sending your regards and biting me.
[Luckily even this shield has a limit, so once it finally pops he has to cut off his completely nonsensical monologue and sashay back out of the line of fire. He's fiddling with his phone again but who knows what planet will be next.]
no subject
She blinks, stares, and almost misses the moment where 707 becomes vulnerable again. ]
Ugh--
[ Almost. But as soon as 707 starts moving again, Helena reopens her fire. This time she has more precise targets, namely 707's head and feet. One destined to be more unpleasant than any other hit, the other in the hope of knocking him down again. ]
Cut the crap.
[ If this is this guy's general personality, they at least have confirmed that talking first would probably not have brought them any useful answers either... ]
If you have to let incomprehensible imagery substitute for meaning in your speech, you might as well do us the favor and just! shut! up!
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[Dio is feeling a weird sense of kinship as he has to wait watching the next movement of the enemy and listen closely to his speech in case there's anything useful. He hasn't heard anyone but his brothers talk so much about wolves. At the same time, Dio is still fixed on antagonization, and Helena's shout breaks the spell.]
Yeah! [Completely enabled, Dio shares his partner's desire to beat the enemy down.] What she said! [The goal is to slam vending machines against 707, crushing him underneath them - between 707's evasive ability and the Queen's Knight unfriendly precision required for such a task, not every strike might hit, but at least the pounding noises are nice rhythmic punctuation to Dio's continued angry speaking.]
This isn't storytime, it's a GAME! With winners and losers and what we want are ANSWERS!
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[Thus far, 707 has yet to outright dodge any of Helena's lightning strikes, but this time he jumps out of the way - huge jump so it almost looks like he's really in space, with Venus shifting into the background.]
Shut up with those words, and give answers... ok, I understand. Then I'll answer you in cat language-
[He blasts the vending machines away with bullets, but one still makes it through.] Meooooow!
[it pushes him back, but he still lands on his feet.]
Nya? [And another couple bullets at them. With some of the obstacles in their way destroyed, some wolf noise recover and lunge at them too.]
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[ Never growing out of your truly embarrassing teenage years is the true entry to villainhood apparently? Judging by Coco and this guy, it really may be true. And remembering the Helenists..... Huh? What was it they did again?
Helena almost lets herself get distracted by these tangents, but the wolf noise are coming closer and she's not about to let any of them damage Dio or herself further.
Her electricity bolts from wolf to wolf, keeping them at bay for the moment being. The bullets are harder to avoid, and one grazes her arm. ]
Ghh--!!
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They bring us to teach them trends, I guess...
[Helena had it right that everyone involved is a mess in some way or another; and they can't exclude themselves from that assessment when they're starting to show blood. Dio is breathing heavily. It's not that he has lungs to spare for the snarky remark; he's drawing attention away from his lack of oxygen to use for any other purpose. The focus of the battle has shifted from high-level crowd control to quite simply Not Wiping Out. As the man (they haven't even asked to name himself) has said, there's no path to pulling him out without another significant weakening effort. It's as good a time as any to target all their enemies even if some of the Noise have served as ammunition. Dio calls out a fusion with a catchphrase and everything because that's just what you have to do in this game.]
The reckoning is nigh!
[The knives rise up (did Dio bring them or summon them? Yes), twisted at an angle to cut open the throat. If electricity jumped between the conducive blades, you could draw an analogy to the disease spreading properties of dangerous needle sharing practices, but you could also not do that because not everything is a manifestation of the holy plague that will eventually claim humanity. It's for the best that this is a level two fusion that enables multiple successive telekinetic bursts, slicing the enemies open with jolting aftershocks.]
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Disperse, worldly illusions!
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Haha. I probably deserved that... Don't hate the world for this though. For now, all I can say is: if you wanted a reckoning, you came to the right place.
[707's feet leave the ground, but it's not a jump. At first it just looks like he's floating, until his wings appear - unlike Coco's skeletal black ones, these are white, feathered, and clearly angelic.]
So, can I listen to your prayers one more time?
[Before this fight really continues.]
own icon for own thoughts and also VLR spoilers A THIRD TIME. IT'S A LOT
Why?
[He's getting into it with a variety of contrasting hand gestures.]
It's not like I expect you "capitalists" to agree with the teachings of Free the Soul. But you control spacetime and you don't kidnap me until I already complete my mission? That's just stupid! Did you think you were gonna slow down whatever the Myrmidons do afterwards? You gotta already know there's so much more where this came from! [His volume increases.] Don't tell me you only needed someone who would protect her, either! Fifteen isn't a goddamn even number!
[Years of training have left Dio for all intents and purposes entirely disinclined to tears. You either must have heard many of Dio's more simply crabby rants in your time, or often heard someone else take a similar twisted trajectory, to detect the veering from anger into the territory of anguish.]
Your whole game keeps screaming at me, [Coco's perky falsetto] "Do stuff you enjoy!" [Seven's teasing baritone] "Change your fate, owoo!" [Resetting.] But then you take it away! The only destiny I ever had!
[And then the phone rockets away from 707.]
How would you like it if I did that to you?
[Dio is standing there holding his arm up high with the phone in his hand, like a rock that he is going to smash on the ground in the most dramatic manner possible. He's trembling underneath the tough stance, partially because this is an easily called bluff, and also because his powers don't actually protect him from the pain of catching fast-moving objects with no mitt of any kind.]
no subject
But before she can wallow in these feelings too much there's Dio, in front of her, yelling his heart out. And her own emotions take the backseat. She's looking at him now, not at 707. Since the day she died she understands so much more about Dio. It hasn't stopped unsettling her a single day since, but there has always been something pleasant about the pieces falling into place. In the world of the living, Dio was a mystery. And a murderous disappointment.
Here, Dio makes sense. When he complains, when he drags her to mealtimes, when he fails to use chopsticks, when he kills Noise, when he catches cats - he always makes sense. There's missing puzzle pieces, of course, but they fall into place sooner or later. And this feeling of understanding each other has become something Helena cherishes. They're not the same kind of person by any means, but they have a tangible connection. Something that feels real, something that is based on their values not their socially dictated aesthetics.
Which is why the finale of the speech hits her harder than it presumably hits its intended target.
So she decides quickly. Helena ducks past Dio's arm quickly so that she is in front of him. Her body is far too small to effectively shield a person as large as Dio's current body, but she has electricity and the will to buy as much time as needed. The phones are important. Every moment Dio has with it, whatever he does with it, that's the most chance they have at giving their existences meaning again. ]
Do it!!
[ Whatever he is planning to do, that is. ]
no subject
[So this is why Helena thinks that love and justice aren't a contradiction in terms. Precisely due to her faith in him, their shared convictions, she hasn't asked him to protect her instead of do what they think is important. Dio is holding the phone at the apex of this exhilarating realization, the thrill of feeling instead of embodying someone else's faith, when light glints off the screen, and he finally processes some of those pixels. ...atur... He knows the image of the planets very well, their large mirages. This must be related to Seven summoning the bullets underneath - and for that reason, destruction suddenly seems risky to Dio, all too familiar with detonator fail-safes. He's heard conversations about the type of net connection offered in the cafe for refugees. Maybe taking away Seven's method of conversing or clashing with other people is how they'll ensnare him. Dio pounds down the power button and, during those precious seconds where light flashes around them, watches the screen go dark.
He just turns around and runs at full tilt, legs healed somewhat by the fusion (and phone itself tucked roughly into his pocket after a series of rough motions that rattle his ribcage into coughs a little). Every vending machine he passes by, is sent flying towards that single point where Helena was trying to keep Seven stunned.]
1/3
Falling out of the atmosphere! Mayday, mayday!
no subject
Oh Bodacious. That wasn't even my final phone...
[There's a third identical one he's holding up.
He lets it drop to the ground.]
no subject
Anyway, to answer your question... that already happened. I was in a game like this three years ago. In the end, I became an angel, like you're seeing now.
I gained the power to go to other timelines and realities... I could watch over the people there. But things weren't the way I wanted them. I knew I would have to keep control of things if they were ever going to, and that meant I had to work with the others on the higher plane. They're a lot like the bosses I had in the intelligence agency I worked for, so of course, they have me oversee this hellhole of a game while they hunt down the threat. Aliens can take care of more aliens while the angel who actually knows our enemy hunts them down. It makes sense. I'm a bad person, but I still won't let the Noise do as they want to your worlds. [He punctuates that with a shrug, and then flaps his wings, ascending even higher as a blinding light radiates from him, until it's all the two of them can see.]
So now you've met me, even if you didn't ask! The angel Luciel has 707 faces. If you want to see the one that's been chained to this world just like you, then fine! But, oh, don't blame me if it's not what you're expecting~
[When the light fades, they'll find that the space field with the vending machines has been filled out as though the "invisibility" is gone and the metal is now truly there beneath their feet, gravity pulling them down unlike the winged creature before them. And it is a creature, but the way it appears to both of them is slightly different. Dio will see the massive monster in shades of red and gold, while Helena will see black and white. As if there are actually two of him filling in for each other. His new form, Simia Cantus, is basically a huge monkey, with long arms and legs and a prehensile tail - many of these features are graffiti-like, the way they'd be used to seeing on Noise. He's flown up to a huge setup of computers, where he has hands rapidly moving on one keyboard, stencillish nimble toes on another, and the abstract tail pecking away at a third one. Lines of code race across the many screens.]
Hallelujah, may the god of hacking rip apart the code of your souls.
[Immediately, their bodies feel much weaker than before
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