(no subject)

[opening_act]

Who: Exael and the Unlucky Contestants
Where: The Game Tower
When: 86, Evening

[ Between one step and the next the walls (or streets, or open air) around you changes. The sight before you is a room inside the game tower, a new pressure at your neck. Reaching up or looking at the people around you reveals it to be a collar, titanium with a small green blinking light set in the center. ]

[ the screen flickers on, on your cellphone. It's a half-second, blink and you miss it— Exael, chewing on a nail, looking uncharacteristically nervous— then the moment's gone and she waves both hands and smiles for the camera. ]

"Ladies, gentlemen, honored guests! Units of all stripes and sizes! I come offering you a game and a few familiar words, rearranged for the occasion!"

Her carnival barker demeanor shifts for a moment as she lowers her head to say: ] "Glory to the highest, and on earth peace—" [ her head snaps up, her pigtails bouncing with it, and she's grinning again, all pomp and energy ] "even if we're not getting much down here! So let's kick up a ruckus, put on a show, and see how much good goodwill alone can manage! If you wish to save your fellows, now is the time speak!"

[ The rules appear on your phones. ]

[ Rules ] [ Rooms ] [ Results ] [ Endgame, Revivals & Winners ]

Comments

[worthathousand]

[ her eyes flick up and down Shrike's muscled body, obviously considering that statement ]

Your build and your scars say otherwise.

[softlyfalling]

Ah—

[ she blushes, a little ]

—maybe so, though I don't remember anything yet, but I don't feel like one.

[worthathousand]

[ a slight head tilt, and her expression turns considering ]

It's hard to feel like anything at all, here, with our memories held hostage.

But you are on a unit of warriors. It is an opportunity.

[softlyfalling]

[ a tiny, uncomfortable smile ]

Maybe. I want to live up to that, at least.

[worthathousand]

Our circumstances ask much of us.

—Not in the sense of the performances we are meant to put on, but in how we respond to them.

For my part, I am resolved not to let this place ever make me passive in the face of injustice.

[softlyfalling]

I wish I had such a valorous heart. They tell me there's worse to come, but... what can anyone do about it?

[worthathousand]

[ her lips thin—unhappy, but seemingly not at Shrike directly ]

I do not know. And it seems the gods themselves are more likely to be fellow prisoners than to answer our prayers.

But I do not plan to accept that the answer is therefore to do nothing.

[softlyfalling]

[ a thin smile ]

Well. Let me know if you figure out what we can do.