march mod plot log

Who: Everyone
When: March 3rd to March 31st
Where: Thisavrou + New Worlds
Warnings:

thisavrou monthly info ( the tmi )

⋆ All information is current as of day 62 ( there are 100 days in a cycle, which started on January 1st).

⋆ The storm around Thisavrou is rather quiet this month. Although there is still an upsurge in the number of Outpost techs called in, many of them have been put on standby until otherwise needed. Weather on Kauto is a moderate 70°F / 21°C during the day and 65°F / 18 °C at night, and Chioni’s has reached dangerous highs of 200°F / 93°C at peak hours.

⋆ Savrii Notices:

Region One grocery depots are offering sixty percent off of any item purchased between day 70 and 82.
Region Three’s residents are doing a pruning ( every sixty days or so ) and all excess is available to be taken; if you need it for mulch, lumber, etc. it’s free to anyone.

⋆ Mission notices have been posted to TABs for anyone interested in earning a little extra cash. Available missions are listed below:

Day 65 (March 6th) - The locals of Region One (R1) are looking for extra help with cleaning and are hiring pairs to run each machine. They’ll pay 50 sencs an hour or 300 sencs for a full day.
Day 68 ( March 10th) - A group of newcomers have taken shelter in Region Five as their home world is no longer habitable. All of their belongings have been brought through the Ingress and is stacked up outside the EN-Line in R1. Savrii are paying volunteers 70 sencs an hour to help transport everything to their new homes. This species returns kindness with kindness, and will offer any volunteer who goes the extra mile tips ranging from 100 to 200 sencs.
Day 75 (March 16th) - With temperatures on Chioni reaching record highs, some scientists and researchers have been stranded due to EN-Line shutdowns. Those in the Ingress Complex are offering 950 sencs to anyone who is willing to withstand the heat and rescue their fellow colleagues. Any equipment needed for the trip will be provided, but due to the greater increase of temperature, some suits may only cool a body inside for a total of four hours before needing replaced. Plan the trip wisely: most EN-Line access has been completely revoked and travel by foot (or vehicle) is necessary.
Day 87 (March 28th) - Scientific Study. Do you smoke? Are you addicted to any substance? A scientist researching methods to combat addictions, of all kinds, is looking for volunteers. He’ll ask a series of questions, take samples, record, study, analyze, and apply new procedures over the course of a day (nothing invasive without permission). Compensation is 800 sencs with complete cooperation.

ingress travel info

⋆ Signatures are the base reason for traveling through the Ingress (aside from general exploration and monetary gain) and are used to discover the correct world visitors on Thisavrou wish to return to. Every visit through a different Ingress brings the technicians a little closer to finding it. The two worlds open for access this month only have a slight impact on the signature of each person who travels.

⋆ Missions are jobs or specific tasks listed on the TAB once new worlds are open for exploration. Be sure to check if Clearance Levels are required to accept some of these missions.

⋆Clearance Levels are given to visitors for the length of time they have been on Thisavrou (or traveling on the Moira). Each CL offers access to certain things or incentives that others will not have.

deslora

⋆Upon entering the world of Deslora, everything seems to be connected by an intricate tunnel of tubes that lead to different and very explorable areas of this new place. Ingress travel will have been quick but somewhat nauseating for most, and returning to Thisavrou will result in the same feeling. However, it wears off quickly, and Deslora is opened as EC (exploration class). Aside from the bright colors of the “walls” and the excessive lights, there are also smells of familiarity—to some. Popcorn, pizza, cotton candy. They waft through the tunnels and get stronger the closer anyone comes to the first open area of Deslora, and depending on the route that is taken, some may have to crawl or walk right into it.

⋆Food, perhaps, might be one draw to Deslora, but it is not, so to speak, the main attraction. After piling through the tunnels, it’s like being inside a massive tent. There is no natural lighting, everything illuminated by bulbs or torches placed strategically across the path that leads to an equally smaller tent. Dangling above the doorway is a sign that reads Laugh Your Way to A Smile with reflectors and pieces of glass hanging from its bottom. Entering the tent will reveal a very small but intricately designed room full of twists and turns and mirrors. The strange thing about them comes with looking at your own reflection; passing by will do nothing. If you linger too long, you find your own physical body beginning to take the shape of what is reflected in the mirror. Sometimes, you are stretched thin and tall. Sometimes, you are short and round. And other times, you will find yourself suddenly wavy and curved from head to toe. These changes do not hurt the first few times they happen, but after the third look at your reflection, some alterations may cause pain in your limbs or torso. It increases each time you look at a mirror, and while the effects will fade after a few minutes, it’s best not to linger too long and find your way out through the otherside.

⋆Located several tunnels down - or up, depending on the direction you go - from the Deslora’s ever-popular funhouse is another equally famous attraction. At the top of the steps, a worker waits to pair up individuals into groups of two before ushering them inside the first set of doors. The foyer is quiet, and after the doors behind you have been shut, two single doors ahead of you and your partner begin to illuminate. There is a sign between the doors: Pick A Path . Once through the chosen door, it will lock and the door will slowly fade away. It will quickly become evident that what is in this room is specifically targeted at one out of the two people inside. A happy memory, a beloved hobby, the person you love most - the scenario is always different, but the overall feel is the same. Whatever the room has transformed into, it’s what makes that person the happiest. If it’s a person, they can be spoken to and touched, if it’s an object, it can be used. As the interactions between both characters and the room increase, subtle changes will begin to occur. Slowly, the contents of the room begin to morph into something new. The combination of what one person loves the most and what the other hates the most. The only resolution to be had is to confront the issues and find something in the room to help. For one past patron, the room transformed into thousands of paintings that morphed into painted memories of their partner’s most painful memories. The only way out was a can of varnish tucked back into the corner of the room. Be creative, be careful. Find the way out together.

thisavrou (R6)

Every so often, new Regions are built to accommodate visitors who are looking to make Thisavrou their homes, a place to work, and many other acceptable reasons. The Savrii pride themselves on being open to explorers and travelers, allowing Thisavrou to be a mecca of trade, exploration, and for some - a place to live. During many meetings with Savrii intermediates over the course of 600 days, an agreement was made with an entrepreneur looking to find a safe place to build their business. The funder, John Hammond, spent millions of sencs on the proper permits and is funding the building, transportation, expansion and overall creation of Region Six. Over the next 30 days, Mr. Hammond will be following very specific building schematics and with this, will be hiring temporary workers to fill the positions required to do so. Job postings will go up and those that do well, might be offered permanent employment when Region Six is up and running. Hammond, along with his temporary work posts via the TABs, will release a missive explaining the following: a few days before the Region is open he will be hiring a large number of permanent employees in (research, science, ingress, cleaning, security, transportation, customer service) fields. He’ll also thank all Savrii, and anyone living on Thisavrou, for allowing him to bring him and his to live here.

⋆ Construction (different pay depending on skill level required) —

Enclosures: Large, electric and nonelectric enclosures meant to be home to creatures that require the added safety measures. 1,000 sencs per week. Crew lives on site until job is completed.

Arena: Stone seating surrounding an underwater area. 200 sencs per day. Crew can commute to and from work.

Hotels: Temporary living accommodations for guests. Crew are paid 50 sencs per hour and have to commute to and from work.

Crew Homes: Residences for future permanent employees to live in. 50 sencs per hour and have to commute to and from work.

Food Courts: Small huts for the production and selling of food. 40 sencs per hour and have to commute to and from work.

Mini EN-LIne: John Hammond wants to build a smaller version of the EN-Line within Region Six. Technicians and general laborers needed. 60 sencs per hour and have to commute to and from work.

⋆ Cleaning: 100 sencs per day; standard cleaning.

⋆ Transportation: Crates of amber stone and creatures will be coming through the Ingress and need to be taken to Region Six. Extreme care and caution is required. 400 sencs per day. Safety clause is signed before work commences.

⋆ Security: Guards to help in the transport of aforementioned crates. 450 sencs per day. Safety and loyalty clause signed before work begins.

⋆ Creature Care: Two permanent employees. The care of creatures. Resumes need to be submitted here listing credentials. Pay is 4,000 sencs per month and workers must live in Region Six. Safety, loyalty, and privacy clauses will be signed.

⋆ Art Design: One person is to be commissioned to create a logo for Region Six. 2,000 sencs for the finished piece. Contact John Hammond. To Note: All management positions in the fields above are paid double the sencs, but they come with double the responsibility.

OOC: For questions please go here. Don’t forget to respond to the Activity Check.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

They don't cry out. Rinzler logs the fact with a grim flicker of respect, scans checking on the fallen user's signature even as he turns his focus toward the next. He doesn't turn, but folds backwards, right hand planting as his left grips the very edge of the staff's haft to swing the length in a quick circuit. The arc zigzags from high to low: not impossible to dodge, but certainly difficult. All the more so for a user already struggling to keep their feet.

He doesn't lag. He doesn't hesitate. The fight is committed now, only one route to carry to its end. And if one quiet loop is already calculating what it might cost, the prone form on the ground offers all the more incentive to act now. Chara won't hesitate either, and he won't allow his actions to grant either of them the opening they need.

Rinzler pushes off, rolling his body sideways through the air to land upright, staff back in both hands and descending fast. If the still-active Chara evaded his first blow, they'll find another curving down to meet them.

For a ghost of a second, the purple-backlit sky flares in the posterior of their mind, snapping back to a time when they were locked against an equally vicious and uncompromising opponent. Yellow tile, the light streaming through the windows igniting the pillars in a wash of gold, limning the fringes of their hair, the pale contours of his skull.

Muscle memory jerks into alignment. Their motions are far from the polished elegance of Rinzler's; brutally efficient, often fierce to the point of self-destruction. Their other self still lies prone.

They throw themself to the side in a flailing roll, barely evading the blow as it arcs down in a vertical slash. And they keep rolling.

Aiming, it would seem, for their incapacitated twin.

Rinzler hadn't allowed it when this one was prone. He isn't about to permit the finishing blow now. As soon as he's grounded, the program lunges to intercept, wrists twisting sharply to decouple the paired batons that form his staff.

The resulting weapons might not share the former's reach, but they permit a certain flexibility. One stays close, poised to react against another throw. The second stunstick strikes downward and out, a slashing crackle of electric charge aimed right along his target's vector.

They anticipate resistance. They anticipate the joined edges of the staff meeting their striking blow in a v-shape. They don't anticipate the underhanded sweep that they're not quite fast enough in evading. It clips them on their side, eliciting a short, sharp hiss of breath. The point of contact stings in a hot, bright tingle, and their free hand goes to their side.

"We're not getting out of here," they rasp, shuffling warily back, the Knife partially raised, "until one of us is dead."

It's not an expectation.

It's a fact.

Noise rises: not an error, not a glitch. Just a seething scrape, a flat refusal. Wrong. They're getting out of here, because they came here with him. Because they're an asset, because he'd thought they could have been an ally. Because user or program, ally or threat, Rinzler refuses to let anyone he fought for end up dead.

They don't cry out, but breath stutters, a hand drops. Damage, weakness, hit, as visible in its own way as the cracks of light that trace their way across a program's shell. Rinzler launches forward in a twist of limbs, frame uncurling as he drops to add his weight behind the leading weapon's arc. The blow is forceful and solid, a bright crackle of red-orange that lays an urgent claim to both attention and response. Less obvious? The second stunstick, jabbing inward toward their core.

One hit. One strike. One solid blow, and he'll prove both of them wrong.

He's fast. Entirely too fast. But pointlessly elegant, and perhaps that will be that which they can exploit. They're not above FIGHTING dirty, when the need arises. They do nothing but.

Perhaps they did learn best from Sans.

They're not Frisk. They'll never be Frisk. But employing an uncharacteristic strategy has its own advantages. Changing the Game. Shifting the goal posts.

A brief, savage grin tears across their features, flickering and ragged.

"I've got better to do."

And they tear off, away from him, in a dead sprint. Each step sends a fresh, juddering burst of agony rippling up from leg to abdomen, but their teeth grit, and they play through the pain.

It's what they're best at.

Another miss. Another avoidance. They step back out of reach and Rinzler stills, flagging the shift that crawls across their features. It's jagged and uneven, a smile that reads of instability much more than joy. Calculations flicker in the background, frame fluid as he readies: for a new attack, a new tactic. Some power, maybe, that he hadn't known to account for.

It's almost funny when the user steps back. Sneers. And plays to the talent all users are best at.

Users leave.

He still tenses. A twitch, a reflexive flicker of coiled limbs as impulse loops through active processing: hunt, chase, bring them down. He doesn't fail, he doesn't lose, he always defeats his targets. But he hadn't lost. Capture had been secondary, damage entirely beside the point. And if Rinzler does not abandon his allies, there has never, ever been a case where they can't leave him behind.

Better to do. It might be an excuse. Certainly, in their condition, it's not the wisest choice that they could make. But Rinzler doesn't argue. Rinzler waits and Rinzler watches, as the user drags themself away.

He doesn't actually follow, which rather puts a damper on the plans. They'd expected at least a cursory effort to give chase. For reasons utterly beyond them, they -

Their bolt staggers and halts as they double over, breathing ragged. Breathing - no. No.

A choking, strangled sound is the only prelude before their hand cups to their mouth, at the red frothing there. And then, as their lungs hitch in a series of paroxysmal coughs, a spurt of crimson-stained yellow that flutters out from between their fingertips and wisps wetly to the ground.

A piece of a flower. A familiar bitterness in the back of their throat.

It's not clear to them when they end up on their hands and knees, teeth stained with flecks of a redness so red it may as well be black, but despite the hazy cast their vision has assumed, just past the stupid, stupid idiot who would not simply move and allow them to finish it quickly, there's a gathering or something undeniably golden spilling out from their double's mouth.

Buttercups.

Fistful upon fistful of buttercups.

This is punishment.

It has to be.

They could have made it faster. If he'd listened to them - if they'd been better.

That was a joke.

Things for them are never easy.

One user prone and damaged. One user leaving him behind. When he had entered with a single copy, intending to protect them and stay by their side, it really is impressive that he could fail in so many ways.

And he still can't calculate the error. Rinzler's stare lowers from the departing shape, coiled fluidity of combat drawing back in to a slightly brittle hunch. Weapons dim, one hand reaching to re-clip a baton at his side. The inactive Chara can't leave until they wake, which makes it his task to get them out in the meanwhile. He reaches down, scans checking periphery in case—

When a soft, stuttering choke registers in audio.

Twice.

In front. Behind. One user curling inward, a silent spasm of agony. One, falling to the ground. Rinzler doesn't know the meaning of the yellow parts emerging from their mouths, but the blood is familiar, the meaning obvious. They're dying.

No. No, no, no, he won't let them—he said already; he came and fought and won. But there's nothing to fight now, no way to intervene, and Rinzler's mask jerks from one user to the next as the faults worsen. He reaches for his TAB, interface flashing up like a beacon, but if the device still works, the signal doesn't. He can't call for help. He can't fix this.

(He never can.)

Lights flicker, red/blue/red and Rinzler's fingers curl around the first limp form, scooping up the Chara he'd shut down. The other is just paces off, and he closes the gap, lagging just a moment before he replaces the second baton and crouches down, reaching out in an attempt to do the same. He can get them out. Find a repair function.

He can try.

It's the worst possible way to go.

White bullets to the SOUL, blue spears fired through a borrowed body, a line of femurs skewering them to the spot, the searing burn of a line of lasers getting too close, the blackening of skin as a ball of flame hits its mark. All forms of death are, in their own way, painful, difficult, unnerving - at first. You learn to adapt. You have to. When the counter reaches the hundreds, you learn to be grateful for how death has a propensity to be quick, in the Underground.

Out of the many hundreds of deaths, the innumerable injuries, the pain and suffering Frisk endured, they can at least be grateful they never had to suffer the worst of it. Sweating and bleeding into clean sheets, the buttercup sores puncturing their skin, eating into the skin of their esophagus, the fevered slip-passage of time, the worried looming and pacing and fretting and Asriel's whispers, his peaking fear, his concern, his naive trust.

The deaths Frisk lived through, lived through, were quick. That was their sole saving grace.

Poison is not.

It moves slowly, an inexorable creep that shuts down organs, liquefies you with painstaking inevitability, has you leaking bodily fluids from every orifice. And the taste - ha ha, the taste is indescribable!

Another series of coughs sprays a wet fan of yellow petals soaked in crimson in roughly the same moment they end up on their side. A silhouette cast in yellow green carefully laid beside them, and - Asriel. He shouldn't be seeing this. He shouldn't be living through this, not again. Not when the plan already failed, they failed, in every sense of the word.

One hand gropes to bat it away, weakly. Vision adjusts for the cold variations: not white fur. Skin. Sweating, sore-pocked skin.

A low noise rasps in the back of their throat as they jerk on the spot, as though they've the strength to strangle their double into submission here and now.

In another life (not his first, but certainly his longest), Rinzler tracked one of his prey all the way into the Outlands. He found the ISO curled in a cave, circuits cracked and frame twisted from the contaminated power it had drunk. Almost impressive, in a loathsome way, what perfect agony could be inflicted by a virus wiped out cycles before he was even made. And (almost) right, (almost) fitting, that what was left of the Grid's greatest plague should suffer the experience.

Bringing out its true nature, Rinzler's admin would have said.

Chara is not an ISO. Chara is a user, is a threat, but somehow the same old files surface as he carefully lifts the second body from the ground. Quick paces take them to the cliff's edge, the shimmering wide wings of a solar sailer in dock not far beneath. Transport. Flight. This will take them to the exit. It's everything he needed.

Everything, that is, except a way to fight them out of this.

Rinzler makes his way to the transport. Sets the users down, lays in the course, turns back in moments to assess. Renders are split, frames twitching, the conscious iteration thrashing a feeble, voiceless threat against the next. The decay is fast. Too fast, too complete, and for all that he put them down less than a micro ago, Chara looks like they might shatter with a touch. Dissolve, if not to voxels, then to pulpy, broken patches of raw meat. Rinzler's killed enough users to know how poorly they hold together.

He can't fix this. He doesn't know who could. Even if they make it out of this place, even if he can find one of the users with talents in repair... they're dying much too quickly, and still so very, very slow. He doesn't know what to do.

...

...

Lie.

...

He'd taken responsibility. He'd interfered, he'd flagged them to protect. He'd offlined one, and maybe that was for the better. Whatever the deterioration, at least that Chara isn't so aware of it. He could try to do the same again, but with this one's form so far corrupted, he isn't sure how much to modulate the force. And cycling one pain after the next in some glitched test expecting an improvement? No.

To his enemies or allies, there's only one kind of mercy Rinzler ever learned to show.

The low rattling intensifies, circuits shivering for one more beat before they stabilize a solid red. It's a match to the ring of color he draws from behind, disk heavy and inactive as he crouches down above the writhing form. No knife, but still a blade. Rinzler doesn't light the weapon, though. He doesn't move (to harm) (to help). Not without confirmation. Chara isn't his target. They're a user, and this has to be their choice.

That's all that he can offer.

The world tides in and out in sporadic, fluxing intervals. Being lifted, being placed. Something else landing beside them, a pale sliver of sweat-streaked skin, too-flushed cheeks, the blisters beginning to boil out across skin in a reddening, ever-widening inflorescence. Every laugh simply generates a cold hitch in their lungs, in their throat, a wet clot of blood spat wetly across their disgusting shirt front, the bitter sting of petals clinging to their swollen tongue, the bleeding roof of their mouth.

How utterly disgusting! Just like them!

At some point, the pair of them ended up - here. Wherever here is. There's a shadow that shifts in and out of their vision, tunneling to a point and then out again, a glowing arc of red. Red as poppies. Red as determination. Red as the spilling wetness dribbling down their chin in sickening blood trails. The pair of them, and their double is still deathly still (ha ha) as it lies there limply. For a moment, they have to question - how can they be so sure that that one is the false twin, the copy, the echo? They're just as much a pointless recolor, aren't they? Conceptually last, a hidden sprite filed away among many, spr_truechara_0.png, only barely, briefly visible if you take the wrong options, the wrong paths! Shouldn't this be a two-in-one deal? One of them will fade, and the other will remain, and it won't matter which, because neither one of them are anything more than a hopeless construct, a manifestation of - of numbers, of lines of code that don't matter, in the long run, not here.

Moving is too much of a struggle, in this state. Don't struggle. Lie still, and maybe it won't hurt as much. Lie still, and maybe the pins and needles in your belly will stop trying to claw their way out.

Lie still, and get what's coming for you.

The silhouette looming above, the gleam of scarlet, and a stillness. An air of expectation that, for the moment, seems utterly superfluous. What is he waiting for, exactly? Dramatic tension? Another croaking rasp of laughter in the back of their throat, one crimson eye slitted open to peer darkly at whatever passes for a sky here, the purplish light that ignites everything's edge with a brilliant vespertine cast - or maybe that's just the delirium talking! Never can know with Chara!

"What - " they hiss, and have to break off in a hoarse snarl of a cough before they can continue, "whatever it is you were planning to do?"

Their smile locks into a cold rictus, skull-like.

"Do it."

He'd planned to protect his allies' ally. He'd planned to get the users help. He'd planned to scout out the new system, search for threats alongside a combatant he half-knew and more-than-half respected.

Plans factor very little into the outcomes he's found here. And if the low rumble of corruption rises just a little, it's no answer. He doesn't have one.

All he can offer is what he's made to do.

The black mask dips. Acknowledgement. Regret, perhaps, but no apology (what use would it be now?). Rinzler's identity disk lights with a low hum, white edge brightening to a blinding flare before it plunges down through core and shell.

The world does not stop for one child in pain. The world does not bother to acknowledge the cry of someone calling for help. Nobody came. Nobody ever comes. That's simply the rule of their existence, and the existence of all others like them.

The miss the precise moment in which it happens, body jerking in a spasmodic, rocking series of convulsions the longer they cough, flurries of golden petals spraying from parted lips, crusted with scabs that flake away, leaving beads of blood spattering the floor in their wake. There is no immediate shift. The world does not stop for one child in pain. The world never stops.

There are two, and then there is one.

It is as if the echo was never transposed into flesh and blood, leaving not even a blackened smear of its existence the instant he damages it beyond repair.

Their organs disentangle themselves slowly, taking their sweet time in reaching a restorative equilibrium that was courteously bestowed upon the borrowed body the Ingress granted them.

A final spurt of red and yellow across the back of one wrist, and the tips of their fingers rake across transport floor.

"Congratulations," they rasp. For all the slow, intimate process of their body knitting itself slowly back together, the smile never fades. "Took you long enough."

Rinzler doesn't let his hand shake. Not on the descent. Still, there's a lag, a glitch, a voiceless, screaming mismatch wrecking through his code as he pulls the weapon back. (User.) (Fightfor.) It's not the first time, and he knows this error, knows exactly what it means. Knows all the reasons why it shouldn't matter in the least.

Tron is dead, and Rinzler is (broken) (failed) different now. Tron is dead, and it's not the first time Rinzler's killed a user, not the first time red blood has sizzled on his circuits, burned off the edges of his disk. Still, he can't flush the press of nausea, and his empty hand finds the ground, lights flickering unevenly as he tries to force it back. (Not the first time he's killed a user, but it is, just maybe—)

'Congratulations.' Rinzler's mask jerks up, sound stuttering with a raw breath of static as he maps the user he'd killed, on the spot where he'd killed it. The sick feeling intensifies (they couldn't have survived), then stalls, confused, as he looks for the second shape slumped on the deck and comes up null. They moved, but they couldn't have. He killed them, but they're fine. Except they aren't, they're missing, one form and frame where there should have been two.

A test. A trick? He doesn't understand. They seem to, though, and Rinzler's frame draws back inward, a tight and angry coil of a crouch. For a long moment, he only stares at Chara. When he does reach for his communicator, there's only one word left to say.

Why?

For all his blank-slate lack of external expression, his perpetual distance, his seeming desire for objectivity, it's clear the cold execution of a child simply was never in his proverbial wheelhouse. Lucky for him, then, that the thing was nothing of the sort. A copy of a demon masquerading as a knife-wielding child, at best.

Why?

Thrillingly, there's only one real answer with which they can supply him, palms pressed against the transporter's floor for support as they drag themself roughly upright, one arm hooked around their abdomen as the last painful paroxysms begin to fade.

"The purpose of the room, I imagine." Their voice is entirely too faint. They hiss out a short, sharp breath and try again. "A test."

It seems that he passed.

Congratulations.

He passed. They passed. Someone did, and as Chara pulls themself upright, the strange lightness in the air begins to fade. No violet-tinged sky, no solar sailer, no beam of light ahead to mark an ending. Only a room, nondescript and empty, with a door at the far end. The same one they'd come through.

Rinzler considers it, disk still humming in one hand. The prickling wetness on his hands is fading, but the ghost-sensation lingers, no dullness at all to the memories on file. It was real.

Your assessment?

It's not an effort at blame, as ambiguous as the words are. No, Rinzler's anger isn't nearly focused enough for that. His glower is fixed on the exit, only a curious twitch of the mask settling Chara's way. It was a test. Different in form, but no less rigorous than Clu's. And pass or fail, it's clear enough what he did to complete his part.

What about them?

Whatever simulated nightmare this place saw fit to inflict upon the pair of them, it seems the final course of action was all that was needed to sever ties where they stood. The backdrop of the transporter, the sky's purplish tint, the subtle gradation of colors indicating a termination of light - it all dissolves into nothing.

It leaves a simple emptiness, suspended and perpetually unremarkable.

Their assessment?

Since when has that mattered?

The question elicits a sharp, bitter burst of mirth, a bark of broken laughter that clips itself short midway through.

"It seems I'll live. Unfortunately."

Not the question. Or not an answer that should match. The qualifier draws a longer stare, but Rinzler doesn't ask. Serious or joking, he doubts he'd get a clear response.

Instead, he straightens, crouch to his usual bent hunch. The disk still fills his left hand, but his right flits across the keyboard interface, projecting one last line before he lets the display close.

Deleting local admins.

His helmet tips toward the door. The exit. Toward the users who'd run this place, promising an attraction, a treat, a fantastic suprise! Rinzler's noise has steadied, no skip or stall to offer an inflection, but that tilt lasts a beat longer than it should. Invitation.

Do they want to help?

Deleting local admins.

They could hazard a guess as to what that means. Likely nothing one would typically regard as pleasant, but he takes no further clear action against them. No further attempts to impede their own efforts to ensure that the scrap would have ended as swiftly and efficiently as possible.

Deleting local admins.

Do they want to help?

Certainly.

Anything to drag their mind away from what he just witnessed, was the indirect cause of. Anything to assure that this will be forgotten, speedily and cleanly, and never mentioned again.

They sway slightly on the spot in the wake of the press of their palms to the floor, sweat-slicked but no longer trembling and weakened from the persistent cling of sickness to their skin.

It comes easily to them, the smile. It is as if it never left.

"Why not?"

Swaying, but not stumbling. Sweat-slicked, but not weak. Rinzler watches, and Rinzler rates them operational enough. Combat is Chara's function, after all. Whichever set of memories they hold; whatever damage this frame took, they have more reason for this fight than him.

And it's not as if keeping them from battle had done anything at all.

They're skilled enough. They're willing. That's all that matters, all anyone here needs to discuss. And if there's a part of him that doubts things could be that simple, if he half-expects a retaliatory blade, it doesn't stop Rinzler from turning first. He makes for the door and through it, leaving the passage open in his wake.

Alive. Regrettably. Unfortunately. This seems to be a common trait, with them; surviving, despite every odd stacked against them, despite every indication that they should not, as if the entirety of general existence has simply decided on some grandiose, multiversal level that they must Continue to endure. The Game never Ends, and they will never learn to QUIT.

Out to spite, out of some hideous sense of cosmic irony, out of some manner of hellish recrimination; who can say?

It hardly matters. In the long run, or in the short.

They advance through the door.

They do what they do, sickeningly, best of all.

♥ Continue * Reset

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

march mod plot log

thisavrou monthly info ( the tmi )

ingress travel info

deslora

thisavrou (R6)

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cw reference to poison/suicide

(but nobody came)

cw...continues

1/3 (and sorry for the wait!)

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no problem!

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