(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]

Do you also feel that way? That your friendships have brought you pain here? You're grouping yourself in with him right now.

[ she doesn't sound judgmental— just... trying to make sure she's correctly connecting the dots here with his implication ]

[inspiteful]

I...

[ He's trying to figure out how to word this. When he speaks again, it's carefully neutral, like he's stripped out sentimentality to opt for what he considers to be the material facts. ]

I don't agree with the idea that because they can be...liabilities, we shouldn't try to make friends or form relationships with people here. People don't work like that. It'd just be difficult for us in a different kind of way.

But I do think there's nothing wrong with acknowledging how they can be used as a way to hurt us. Whether it's because they end up having to make decisions that put us on the chopping block, or because we have to make those decisions ourselves and watch the consequences. Denying it or acting as if it's a thought that shouldn't cross our minds is naive, I think.

So...yeah, I have felt that way before. It's hard not to.

[worthathousand]

You're trying so hard to sound neutral about all this. [ her tone gently insistent—indeed, his careful neutrality stands out almost more to her than his actual choice of words ]
...Perhaps I shouldn't be surprised, knowing what I do about how you burden yourself with leadership of your unit.

[ a sigh, and she leans back on her hands, expression thoughtful ]

It also seems like the horrors of this place may be weighing especially heavily on the girl who lashed out, if she was willing to doubt her own unitmates like that.

[inspiteful]

There isn't really a point in getting emotional about it. [ Especially since getting emotional about it was why there was an argument.

He does however pause when she mentions 'leadership', wondering how did he manage to somehow give her that impression. HSS and leadership, haha.......... ]

...She's been through a lot, both here and back home. She is -- someone who values her relationships deeply, and would do just about anything for them because they are her support. The way of thinking that they can hurt, so some people may wish to try and distance themselves as a way to cope, probably sounds bizarre and harmful to her.

...Mostly I wish she didn't do things in the heat of the moment.

hi I am still here just slow

[worthathousand]

[ there's the slightest wry twist to her lips when he says, "there isn't really a point in getting emotional about it," but she doesn't comment; just lets him finish ]

Is this... a pattern with her? It sounds like this must go deeper than this one argument alone.

[inspiteful]

...A while back, I found out during that -- free-for-all battle 'game', one of my close friends ended up watching her kill someone dear to him right in front of him. He told me he had just started to calm that person down and could have dissuaded them from getting into another fight...but Hiryuu stumbled in on them.

[ He bites his lower lip, and his expression hardens somewhat as he recounts the next part of what he learnt from Cobalt. ]

Apparently they had fought someone close to her earlier, so she assumed the worst and provoked another fight to protect her important person too. While my friend spent the whole time trying to get them both to stand down. So, you know. I wasn't exactly happy to hear that.

And there's also...have you ever heard about a trial that was held in this place?

[worthathousand]

[ her brows press inwards, expression thoughtful but solemn ]

...No, I don't know that I have.

[inspiteful]

Uhm, well...just a short while before Lilis and Baritones showed up, there was this...thing that happened. People were literally turning gray and fading away into 'nothing'. It's complicated but basically the audience was losing interest in us, and it turns out we can only keep existing as we are right now because they're watching us on this 'show'.

But none of us knew that at first, so...someone in Bad End summoned a demon looking for answers, though I don't know a lot of details about that. King and Hiryuu tried to do the same, but instead they prayed to 'Heaven' [He says this in such a way that is meant to distinguish it from the Heaven both of them would know].

They met with a being claiming they were a messenger from Heaven, and offered them a way to resolve the situation. No price attached. They were desperate so they took this extremely fishy sounding deal.

So everyone on my unit sort of had our heads filled with new information and ideas and a desire to make everyone follow their unit 'image', which resulted in the trial where the units had to prove to us that they had been playing by the rules, so to speak. It, uhm...there were executions.

[He will elaborate if Amaranth asks but for now, let's not get into the bloody details. ]

...The thing was, King and Hiryuu hadn't told anyone about what they were doing. They kind of naively thought that if things went wrong, if we weren't in the know then we wouldn't get involved. So for the rest of us this came out of nowhere and we only found out after the fact.

[worthathousand]

(( just linking from here too, don't mind me ))