(no subject)

Who: Everyone
When: July 1 and onward. See this post for info.
Where: Kauto + Chioni + Ingress Complex
Warnings: Potential violence. Please label warn-worthy content in your subject headers.

There's a burst of light in the sky when the Ingress breaks, a final flare followed by a shuddering that only those in the facility can feel. A flurry of panicked activity in the complex follows, ushering new arrivals to where they need to go in a hurry, with little time to give them the needed information, much less answer questions. The lights remain on, but dimmer now, life functions still operating but little else. On Kauto and Chioni below, the sky fades into an early twilight, followed by night, and day does not come again.

nerds save the world

Before the end of the day, all TABs receive an emergency broadcast notification outlining the situation. The speaker, a lead Savriite Ingress technician, does not invite panic but nor does he mince words. The Ingress is broken; their best efforts have failed to restore it. The time has come to turn to anyone who can help: scientists, engineers, those who have worked with advanced technology on any world. Formal qualifications don't matter when it could be the end of everything.

"Help us. Before it is too late."

Those who come will have the run of the complex and full access to the Ingress, as well as whatever tools are available and as much coffee as they can drink. People are encouraged to work in groups and share ideas, and a small number of young and nervous technical assistants will be on hand.

the land below

As Thisavrou is denied light and warmth, the weather becomes brisk and descends into bitter cold. Chioni is evacuated due to the effects on the already-harsh weather cycles there, although a skeleton crew of scientists remain behind. On Kauto, the arboreal Region Three and pastoral Region Two suffer the most from the temperatures and the snow that eventually begins to fall. Many crops are frozen over, and refugee citizens are driven from their homes to the Regions One and Five, where stored energy will keep dwellings warm. Save for those who choose to leave the underwater facilities, Region Four remains largely unchanged, but there are unverified accounts of strange aquatic animal behavior near the surface.

Overcrowding, limited supplies and a pervasive fear presents the opportunity for both heroism and foul deeds. Many come together to share resources, supplies and fellowship in what could be the end of worlds, while others take what they can from the unwilling or exploit the desperate. Sentient evacuees are followed by fauna from Region Three and unsettled lands beyond, in search of warmth or food or merely confused by the change in habitat. Some are unthreatening herbivores, while tanglesnakes and clownbees are more troublesome. Others are poisonous hunters, while still others are small, but dangerous when faced as a pack.

Just when all seems lost, light returns to the sky. The Ingress begins to function once more.

the coming days

As the temperatures rise, many demand answers, but most turn to the rebuilding of their lives first. Damage has been done that isn't so easily fixed, and even in the least-affected areas, remnants of the crisis show in the lack of fresh food, in the increased signs of criminal activity. Those who can help others through their own efforts of by organizing assistance are needed, but those with impure intentions are more likely to go unnoticed.

Eavesdropping on the streets may reveal a desire for vengeance. "Those intruders from last week. They're responsible for this, aren't they? What's being done?" But don't listen too closely, or a suspicious eye may be turned on you. "Aren't you one of the refugees from the Midway Hub? You should return to where you came from! All the trouble began when your people showed up!"

Life goes on. But life does not go on unchanged.

[quick ooc note: the Region 4 search & retrieval mission/RNG fight will be posted in a separate log.]

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After fighting for it at the grocery store, Asriel's preparing hot chocolate as Frisk cleans the living room. It was cold outside, and cold demanded hot chocolate and forts - at least that's what they've decided.

Three cups of hot chocolate later, Asriel walks outside with two mugs after giving Frisk theirs. The sound of an angry, unfamiliar voice catches his attention as he steps outside and sees...

He has no idea who this is? He blinks at her, then turns his attention back to Chara.

"Chara, are you okay? I made some hot chocolate."

And then he looks back up at the alien citizen standing outside their house.

"Who are you?"

The promise of hot chocolate, ever a staple in the Dreemurr household - rather, the Dreemurr household and their disobedient, disreputable plus-one, currently brushing crumbs of soil from their shirt front and the worn fabric of their jeans at their kneecaps - lifts their chin for a moment, almost hopefully. Until their gaze flicks to one side, back to the interloper in question.

The alien draws herself up, haughtily, scowling at him.

"I remember you," she says, high and throaty in her disdain. "You're one of those that went to the asteroid! You brought that - that stuff through the Ingress and infected our home!"

Chara's brow darkens, knitting as the lines of their shoulders tense, fingertips sinking into the dirt.

"If you were to take my advice," says the child, quietly, addressing the ground beneath their hands, "I would suggest that you stop talking posthaste."

Ah. So that's what this was about. The comment stings, catches him off guard for a moment as Asriel wasn't expecting for someone to walk up to their house and start harassing them. Though maybe he shouldn't be surprised. Those kinds of comments have been following all of them for a while now. Was she harassing Chara too?

It was their fault for everything, according to them. No matter what happened on Thisavrou, it was always their fault it seems.

"Well, if you already knew that, you probably don't want to stay here. Get too close and I'll infect you too, you know!"

His voice is a little too childishly cheerful. It won't stay that way if this person won't leave his house and family alone.

Edited 2017-07-07 06:54 (UTC)

They have to suck in one cheek, biting down hard on the wall of it as they straighten their shoulders, lift their chin. Their smile wavers, pinching at the edges, straining. They caused this, didn't they? A change in him, forever rushing outward, sliding into the world in which they must all walk.

Look at what you've done.

On the contrary, the woman in question looks as though she is attempting to mimic a blowfish.

"How dare you - it's people like you that nearly froze us all to death earlier!"

"A pity it didn't succeed," Chara chimes in, entirely too innocently. They stand, dusting at their shirt, picking at the threads. The intruder is not spared a glance. "I was thinking of acquiring a planet-wide body count. What do you think, Asriel?"

The woman looks flustered. Maybe he should feel bad - earlier he did. They're just scared at what's happening to their planet...

But after almost constant blaming and being told how much better it'd be if he weren't here, it was getting old fast.

He didn't need the people here to tell him he shouldn't be here. He already knows that.

He falters for a moment, but it doesn't take him long to slip into nearly cold, careless expression. Playing a bad guy is what he's good at. Or at least... playing a cheesy bad guy is what he's good at.

"Clearly that's what we were planning! To destroy this planet and plunge it into an eternity of darkness, in which there's no hope and no escape!"

Perhaps this should be worrisome, the ease with which the pair of them slip into those personas. Chara's smile stretches wider, wider still, rosying their cheeks even beyond their natural pink flush. The woman looks very much like she would like to bristle in outrage, but her posture betrays her; rocking back on her heels, shifting her weight, no longer regarding either one of them with any sort of direct eye contact, telegraphing her apparent unease like an unpracticed boxer.

"Why, there's only one ingredient missing!"

Chara blinks, slowly, their lashes flicking upward to reveal eyes that have gone black, like cherries dipped in ink, glossy and wide.

"Your SOUL."

That certainly speeds her on her way. She departs hastily, without even bothering to stammer an excuse, walking faster and faster with plenty of nervous glances over her shoulder. They hold her gaze the entire time.

* You won.

Asriel watches her scurry off, holding his expression until she's out of sight. He bites down on his lower lip, trying to muffle the snort of laughter that wants to come out.

He should feel bad. He should try to be more sympathetic. Maybe a small part of him does, but...

It's not like they asked for this either.

"Looks like she got away with her soul this time."

There's a small, amused smile on his face as he glances at Chara. He holds out one of the mugs of hot chocolate to them.

"Here."

He laughs too. It's as innocent as pulling a creepy face, or a mistake with cups of butter. It's as though there was never a problem, or an interruption at all. Children being silly and stupid and harmless.

They accept the proffered mug, hands closing around the ceramic. It warms the pads of their fingers immediately, though the liquid within is still scalding. Too hot to drink just yet.

"Thank you." Overly formal, like the edges of their smile, but they've not yet learned the art of filing away the stiffness that holds their spine rigid, even with him.

"I daresay that was not..." A swallow, as they marshal their thoughts, their uncertainty laid unnervingly bare in the contraction of their throat, the slight hunch of their shoulders. "It must not have been necessary."

Asriel hasn't drank from his yet - he learned his lesson a few minute ago about being too eager and his tongue still stings a little.

"Frisk is getting ready to make a fort. Hot chocolate's pretty much a requirement for that kind of thing. Plus I had to fight off a couple of other people for the last box."

His grin stays, but he's not joking. He did almost have to go to war for that last box.

"I like making it though."

It makes him feel useful, it keeps him busy. It... makes him feel a little like how things used to be, even though he keeps reminding himself that they can't be like that anymore.

He likes making it. Looking at him, one might never imagine that he's endured half of what he has, even if the lingering, pinkish patch above his eye still shows cleanly where the acidic cling of a spider's well-aimed strike hit him. Another scar they left upon him, another rotten smear across the kindest creature they'd ever had the misfortune to meet, this one of the far more visible variant.

How very indicative of a wider trend neither of them, or should, ignore. They indicate the scar with a faint inclination of their chin. Their smile - wavers.

"Will it heal any further, or...?"

Or will they have left their mark on him, forever?

They may very well deserve to see the reminder every time they look upon him, but Asriel does not.

"Hm? Oh..."

He sees Chara looking at the scar, and he reaches up and touches the patch of fur-less skin. It still feels weird, it still makes him feel a little self-conscious whenever he looks at himself in a mirror. Even without a mirror, it's not like he hasn't heard the occasional odd comment about his eye here and there.

"I don't know. No fur's grown back so far so..."

As uncertain as he may be, he quickly tries to shrug it off.

"Well, I can see out of my eye again. Sooo, that's still good. Right?"

Nevermind that he got his eye fixed through Clu. The fact that he got it fixed at all was the most important thing.

No. Not for some time. Perhaps with some application of magic or advanced healing technology, but as it stands? No.

That's your fault, isn't it?

Force a small, thin smile, a dip of the head. Placid, polite, acquiescing.

"Of course." He is content to see the silver lining here, so why can't you, Chara? Why can't you be happier for him? Why couldn't you have kept him safer from your own capabilities? Why could you not have restrained yourself instead of dragging him through the Ingress to explore worlds anew?

You know exactly why.

"I presume the medical facilities here were accommodating."

"They're okay. .... They do what they need to do, I guess."

Not that Asriel went for his eye, that was all Clu. Still, considering how both Chara and Rinzler got upset the last time Asriel mentioned Clu... maybe it was best he didn't bring him up again.

They've got this weird idea that Clu is doing something weird to him. He's not sure why, something about seeing it on his disk-

Error.

-but it was probably a mistake of some kind.

"I'm still not going to forgive them for turning me green."

Which the clinic staff and the decontamination staff weren't really the same thing, but as far as Asriel is concerned...

"Nor should you." The prim twist to their voice may make it difficult to discern if they are speaking in an ironic sense or a sincere one, though it does not matter much, they should think, in the long run. It matters very little what they think in regards to Asriel. That much has been made patently clear.

So they will stay in their lane, from here on out.

They should be holding themself back from dispensing a comment that could be construed as something light, something almost bordering on a joke -

They should.

But when have they ever done as they should?

"I confess they must have been rather envious."

"Why would they be-"

Asriel's eyes light up in realization, and the corners of his lips turn upwards.

"Oh! Hehe. I guess so."

He laughs a little, before looking back at the house and then back to Chara again.

"Are you cold? I think Frisk is almost done with the fort if you want to-"

And then Asriel finally notices what Chara's been hovering over this whole time.

"Ah... are they gone?"

They turn from the crumbled remnants, briskly, as if such a sight is not disturbing on some visceral level - as if it is not living (ha ha) proof of their curse, their tendency to corrupt and kill everything in their vicinity. Doubtless he would know such is their proclivity.

Or he is exceptional at pretending that he does not.

"I kept some of the seeds." Dismissive, and calm. It is of no matter; flowers wither and die all the time. All things die. "They will have to be replanted."

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