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Arc II Final Log A: Therapy

Who: Everyone who goes to the Mediation Center
When: September 24
Where: Underneath Region 5
What: Rescues, bossfights, and decisions
Warnings: Manipulation, mindfuck, brainwashing, violence, and any trauma you might bring. Label your headers!

Running. Fighting. However you've spent the last few weeks, it's been a busy time. The overwhelming force brought to bear against the reclamation depot was successful in re-arming most combatants, and those targeting the network hub managed to safeguard your communications, disrupt the Savrii's, and download no small amount of data on the side. Soldiers and noncombatants alike have built defenses and helped each other stay safe against the killers that tried to intrude. A few individuals have even tried to sway the public.

Still, there are those who haven't been successful. And whether in death or in captivity, a select few of your number are no longer by your side.

Both before and after the disappearance of their friends, a subset of those fighting the Savrii have made it their mission to track down a certain lair. Streets were scoured. Mediation centers searched. Some turned their focus to interrogation, others to following traces left by those who disappeared. Analysis of the communication data turned up a secured relay in Region Five, and as the pieces start to come together, those who promised Mother aid will hear from her again. Two minds that she formed bonds with have filtered back to her awareness. Shadowed—changed—but... not so far. Under the ground.

As convenient as the sudden re-emergence is, you have little choice but to pursue it. And with the added vector, a way beneath can be turned up. Past Region Five's sewers, in a transfer point linked to the EN-line, lies a set of tunnels wide enough to hold a single car that end in a plain, unassuming door. A chokepoint? Kill zone? The assumption wouldn't be unreasonable, but no matter how long you prepare outside, no one will come. It's even unlocked.

The path to understanding is one everyone must choose to take.

explore

One goal of this trip will be met at its beginning. A few adjoining passages off the entrance lead to a control room with a unique console: one capable of shutting down the Artifixx device locking the Ingress Complex off. Once this is done, the team waiting aboveground can embark on their own mission. Those exploring the center will find their own uses for the room; a map of the complex can be turned up, and the console also offers control over the doors. No monitoring devices appear to be included, though. Apparently, those in charge saw no need.

Saw being the operative phrase. The entry passages give ways to halls and rooms, styled similarly to the temporary residences placed in Region 6. This complex is far more extensive, however—even if now, as then, you seem to be the only persons present.

A small infirmary with soft blankets and warm lights. A set of classrooms and meeting spaces, with circular tables designed to foster unity among a group. The library, full of books and datafiles about the Savrii's history, ready and waiting to educate those in need. There's even a small garden. It's all solid and real. All comforting and kind. A place of learning. Of rest. Just waiting to be filled.

And, perhaps, not recently abandoned. Those who search the rooms in depth will turn up recent indentations on the beds. A hair or two, from restless sleepers, or a residual scent. Your friends were here. They weren't alone. And if you search enough halls and passages, you can find the way down.

reflect

At the bottom of the complex lies a stair. At the bottom of the stair lies a passage, and it's around here that communications to the world above cut out completely. Shaped stone progresses to an unshaped cave, and while the stairs down were illuminated, this chamber glows only with a dim silver light—produced, it seems, by something on the ground. Water?

A pool.

Its light illuminates robed figures, standing in the space ahead. All wear the silver cloth that marks the intermediaries. All regard you silently, features muted and distorted in the dark. For once, at last, the intermediaries of Thisavrou have no words for you and yours. But as you step forward, as your weapons raise, the light from the pool flares up.

Reality mirrors, and then melts away.

The Protected:

While all parties present will be affected by the pool's reflections, those who took the link with Mother will be shielded to a degree. For you, perceptions blur and shadow, replacing the sight of those around you with a myriad of ghost-forms. Some turn on you. Some move away. Some wear the robes of the intermediaries, while others look more like those you know—as allies in this place, or enemies back home. While characters who fall within this group will have trouble discerning illusion from reality, it is clear to them illusions are in play. It will also be clear, however, that some attacks are very real. Are the attackers your friends, distorted and confused by simulations? Or your enemies, using them as cover to strike out? You're in the best position to sort one from the next, but it still won't be easy.

The Affected:

Those without safeguards will find the simulations much more solid and complete. Is there an enemy you failed to defeat? A friend you wronged, or lost, or were betrayed by? Or perhaps your focus truly is single-minded, your greatest enemy the intermediaries you came to stand against. Whoever you fear most; whatever you failed or want to confront, you'll find it here beside you, by the pool. This vision threatens your life, your friends, and your purpose. Fight, be killed, or run out into the darkness, but your nightmares—and your enemies—won't stand idle.

The Controlled:

There are those you came to rescue. There are others, who lived in this place before you came. The intermediaries do not fight, not with fists or weaponry, but they have followers still ready to risk their lives on their behalf. And they have captives who have been given no choice at all. Mixed in among the ghosts and nightmares are the Savrii loyalists and the player characters they have taken. Each has their own reasons, but they will attack you, and the harm they do is very, very real.

As is yours.

For all individuals, in all categories of effect, the light from the pool remains the one fixed focus. Silvery and warm, clear and vibrant: a glimmering center where all reflections coalesce. To break the illusion, its power needs to be blocked—through literal obstruction, or destruction at its source. Contact with the water holds great risk, and can bring you further into the simulations, but once the pool is dealt with, all effect will disappear.

choices

You stand in a natural cave of unshaped stone. Without the pool, the only lights are what you brought, but all of them at least show you the truth. The companions who came with you, and the ones you came to save. The handful or so of other bodies mixed into the fight—barely a dozen individuals in total. And at the back of the chamber, a group twice that in number, arrayed in robes and silver cloth.

The intermediaries do not repent.

With the focus broken, their powers are too weak to alter your minds here. Still, if you allow it, they will speak. They insist their actions were for the betterment of Thisavrou. They insist they saved it from the harm dealt out by you and yours. Converse as long as you would like to—or as long as your allies will wait.

But in the end, it comes to your decision.

[For more information, and to participate in the vote regarding the intermediaries' fate, check out the OOC post linked above. The setting transition will occur immediately after this log; you're welcome to thread smaller-scale aftermath things, but please avoid dating anything more than an hour or so forward.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[It dodges just as well as Frisk did. Strange, but not impossible. Any living creature would struggle to exist. Any living creature would FIGHT their very hardest, just to Continue on for another day.]

[A nice try, but they know the presence and whereabouts of the real Frisk. This copy won't arrest them. This recreation won't halt their attack. They are unrelenting. The knowledge gleaned from some sort of psychic involvement - ]

[That's your fault, isn't it?]

[Another swing, this one sharp and horizontal. Aiming to separate the head from the rest.]

Chara--!

[No time to ACT. Lurch backward again, feel the the razor-like snick of the tip of the blade against their throat. Too close, too close, and they have to think. In another place, in another time, they could dodge forever, but here they don't have the luxury to try again. No chance to learn the pattern, memorize and repeat, repeat, repeat. Nor can they hope to fight back, not against the pure might wielded against them. They're at the disadvantage, and they know it.]

[If only they knew what is is Chara sees. If only they knew...!]

Stop! I--I know you hate me, but I can't let you stay like this!

[The protests fall upon ears unhearing. They've seen this before. They've read this already. It's always the protests, the pleas. The flashes of faces they remember. But they know Frisk; they know where they are, and they know that this is nothing more than a falsehood. Perhaps a further test, intended to glean their loyalty.]

[Their loyalty hardly matters. What does matter is their ability to cut to the chase.]

[A duck low and a sweep of one foot aims to knock the legs clean out from beneath their opponent, to ground them.]

[Frisk sees the move, but their reactions aren't fast enough. Chara's foot hooks around their ankle and they hit the ground hard, the Pan skittering away across the ground with a clatter. Precious seconds are lost catching their breath, and Frisk rolls onto their back with a wide-eyed panic--]

[The Knife is raised cleanly above their head; it's clear from the ease of motion, the deft fluidity of the way they carry out this entire sequence, that they've done this many times before. Or they've been led to believe they have.]

[Muscle memory. It's a hell of a thing.]

[The Knife plunges --]
[down.]

[No chance to dodge. Too close, too sudden, the strike fills the box with no chance of escape, like a wash of pure energy or bones closing in on all sides--]

[Frisk's hands shoot up to intercept, grabbing for their wrist and holding it back with all the strength they can muster. Anything else, punches and kicks and any other beating they can weather, but if they don't stop this]

[there won't be any way to Continue.]

[A struggler. They're bent on making this FIGHT difficult for them. Most living creatures are struck with the unfortunate, inescapable will to survive. That is their curse.]

[And that will be their downfall.]

[The locking of the wrists holding the Knife back make it difficult, but they hardly hesitate. One hand releases the blade while the other plunges into their pockets.]

[(Rinzler taught them to make shivs, before it all happened.)]
[(He showed them how to take rudimentary materials and bind them together into something far easier to use and far less likely to fail at a time of great need.)]
[(They suppose they should be grateful for that.)]

[A rusted spike is not the most sanitary of weapons, but it does not need to be sanitary.]

[They just need to aim it for their enemy's ribs.]

[It's not the first time they've felt this.]

[Undyne's spears always came in sharp and fast, piercing energy that was always unforgiving.]

[Asgore, too, has pinned them beneath his trident with his head bowed in horrible grief.]

[And over, and over, and over, Floweys vines that lanced out and struck true, ripping through their flesh like it was little more than paper.]

[And Sans, as well, with a twist of blue and a bed of blunt bones waiting to receive them for an uncomfortable rest.]

[This is the first time, though, that it did not kill them right away.]

[It feels like their breath leaves them in a rush, but their only reaction to the pain is a widening of their eyes and gritting of their teeth. When Chara pulls back to strike again Frisk twists to try and throw Chara off of them, and at the same time reaches with one hand to catch their wrist before they can get another strike in.]

[They can hear something wheezing. Their chest is so tight.]

[Can't stop. They can't. Can't QUIT.]

Edited 2017-10-01 06:23 (UTC)

[If Alfor hadn't come, he wouldn't be here. Not because he didn't trust the king, but... but Allura couldn't lose her father again. He wouldn't be the one to say he'd done nothing to stop it. Just in case. He's let so many people down at this point already.]

[But he is here.]

[He's here and searching through the building, the rooms and the various sundry. Whatever happened on the way down is over. It's done. He has to forge on and see if there's anything here left to save. Anyone here left to save. Up until the sound of a scuffle attracts his attention.]

[Startles him into following it.]

[It's Chara.]

[It's Frisk.]

[Look after Frisk, won't you?]

[He's moved before he thinks about it. Metal hand, hidden by the armor, lashes out. Reaching for the weapon. While the other, just flesh and blood and bone, tries to separate them.]

Chara, what are you doing!? Get off them!

[The blade goes in. Good. That will slow it down while the Knife does the rest. The creature is nothing if not resilient. Words blur in their ears, an angry cry that bleeds into nothing, nothing, nothing at all. A hand pressing at them, attempting to pull them free. It's too many hands. It's too much, all at once.]

[They wrench, attempting to torque the Knife to ward off the intruder anew. The high-pitched whistling wheeze of someone with a lung that is undoubtedly punctured, possibly collapsed, indicates that the former is injured to the point where they should no longer be a problem.]

[On, then, to the next.]

[The flash of a familiar face and a stripe of white hair, the scar across the bridge of the nose - those characteristics are familiar, each and every one of them, but this would not be the first time. It never has been.]

[And so those efforts will be met with resistance, for every step of the way.]

[It's so hard to breathe. They can feel the sticky wet drip down their side, feel their chest grow tight and painful, like the knife hadn't ever left. But they have to ignore it , have to keep moving, have to try because there's someone there and they can't let this happen, they have to stop it it's their fault their fault their fault--]

[Frisk lunges forward again, both arms going around Chara's to keep the Knife away from Shiro. They try to speak, reason with Chara, calm them down out of whatever delirium has hold of them...but all that comes out is a gurgling cough, sick and wet. They're shaking, unsteady, and their vision starts to blur slightly at the edges.]

[It's fine, this is fine. He keeps his grip on their weapon -- metal fingers tight, inhumanly tight. Thoughts of somewhere else, of a world riddled in poison and insects, flit through his head as he holds on.]

[He won't hurt them. He can't.]

[But the sound of Frisk struggling makes that start to seem like a difficult promise to keep.]

Frisk, get back. Move!

[Maybe if there's space between the two of them, he can... do something. Put his hand on Chara's head and keep them separated until someone else can pick them up. Or, barring that, maybe he can pick one up under each arm.]

Chara, you've got to stop.

[None of it matters. None of what any of them have to say, lies dribbled into ears that register none of it, that have trained themselves to register none of it, will count for anything unless they can see them dead. If they cannot apply themself, if they cannot function adequately, they will have the only two people left in this world who matter taken away again.]

[Taken away, where they could never protect them.]

[A hand across their head, arms around their middle. People latching onto them, attempting to get them to stop, to stop! They do not stop. They Continue.]

[FIGHT to try and work their arms free, just to Continue.]

[They shake their head, try to say something again, but even trying to shout just makes a faint wheeze.]

Cuh...hhhhan't...

[Their strength is waning. They can feel it, faster than the bullet in their gut had been. They cough, trying to hold on but their weight just leans onto Chara more and more, and they struggle]

[to]

[remain]

[They fall.]

[This is one those moments where he almost wishes someone else were here. Someone who could make this decision. But there isn't. And there's no time to deliberate. The weight of it slams into his shoulders.]

[Chara isn't injured.]

[Frisk is losing it.]

[Look after Frisk, won't you?]

[Shiro turns from Chara. Turns to Frisk, trusting armor made of alien origin against their weapon. He keeps his metal arm out, in warding, to guard, while his real hand scoops Frisk to his chest. They need to get out of here. Back up the stairs. Back to the medical ward.]

[I'm sorry.]

Hang on. Hold on, buddy.

[No. No!]

[If they allow them to escape, if they allow this - then they fail. They fail. Frisk suffers for it. Asriel suffers for it. They'll cry. And it will - and they can't - ]

[A ragged, keening noise rips out from the back of the child's throat as they throw themself bodily forward, attempting to slash at Shiro as he retreats. Hamstring him, injure him, slow him down, anything. Anything that will mean their disloyalty won't be tested. Anything to prove that they're doing what was asked of them.]

[Anything.]

[They can still hear, still see. White and black gathers them up with a pleading voice, and something beyond cries out--]

Chhhara...!

[They're crying. They're hurt. Frisk has to help them, has to SAVE them, they can't leave them behind again, that's their friend, their family, their Partner--!]

[Frisk squirms in Shiro's hold, trying to get loose and reach back for Chara, desperate to do whatever they can, even if it's just to tell them it's okay.]

Chara!

[It's okay if you don't forgive me.]

Frisk -- It's okay! Hold still, you're --

[He cuts off, sucking in a breath as something hot cuts across his side. The black of the armor ripped like cloth. One of Chara's wild swings finding a low mark over his hip. For a stride, he stumbles, but holds onto them. Onto Frisk despite their struggle.]

[He'd promised. He'd promised them both--]

I'll come back for them! [It's all he can think to say, in the heat of the moment. But it's as good a promise as he can make, trying desperately to keep Frisk out of harm's way. Shield them with his own frame. He can take it. They might not be able to.]

[They catch him, briefly. Briefly, but not enough. He's faster. Their muscles are too overtaxed, too wiry, too stretched to their absolute limit.]

[The sound of voices, like klaxons. The high-pitched noise of a child crying out in pain and distress.]

[It rips into something nestled in their chest, in the crimson glow of their SOUL.]

[Burns.]
[Burns.]

[They fall back with a muted cry.]

[They're not strong enough. Not strong enough to break free, not strong enough to save them, not strong enough to do anything. The pain of their failure burns more than the whistling gap in their chest, more than the drops of their blood splattering against the ground.]

[What good are they? What good are they?]

[Their whole body trembles, and hot tears drip down Shiro's armor.]

[Back up the stairs. Arms around them like a cage. The only protection he can offer. He promised. He promised both of them. And he tries to ignore how this feels like a betrayal.]

[Taking the stars two at a time. There was a medical wing. There were bandages. Maybe it's going to be enough.]

I'll go back, Frisk. I'll get them. It's going to be okay.

[Repeated like a mantra. Breathing harder, but still moving.]

[He promised.]

[The world blurs. Boots on stone steps, the light warms and grows brighter as he drags them back up, back away from the only hope they had, the only possible redemption they could have taken. They feel weak, but they promised, they made a promise--]

[ITEM. They need to heal.]

[Shakily, they try to paw their way into their own pocket. They have two vials. Another chance.]

[Up they go. Both of them. The cut across his hip burns, more and more with each step. With his arms locked around Frisk like they're some kind of national treasure. This is his duty. This is his promise. If he gets them out, he can go back for Chara... and... figure this out.]

[Right?]

[There's something salvageable here. There has to be.]

Almost there, Frisk. Little further...

[Frisk lets out another of those horrible, whistly wheezes, and they paw with urgency at Shiro's arm. They need to get him to slow down, to stop just a moment--]

Duh...dhhhisk, needa...