[Oh, right. Everything obviously dangerous has been removed from them, so Yamato no longer has any of his knives (his fake thumb is still there, apparently no one knew what to do with that), and Ichinose has none of her weapons either.
Lux still as her pen and can draw the circle, but will find that she can't pour any power for the summoning.
Lalli holds out the pill, and the others make efforts to escape, but—everyone's vision goes black. When it returns, they'll see a very different scene before them.
Ichinose will find herself in the body of her younger self, when she was a child. She's with a few other children, who appear to be playing dolls with her. One of them holds out a doll, a hole in its chest.
"Hey, it looks like this one is broken. What should we do with it?"
Lux will find herself in a jail cell, her limbs cuffed, with chains attached to the floor to limit her movement. Surprisingly, she has her magic from home back... but she shouldn't be too relieved, because moments later, it begins to fade away from her.
Steps echo outside her cell. If she looks to the other side of the bars, she'll see her brother approaching.
Lalli will find himself in deep water. Once his eyes readjust to the sting, he'll see a familiar monster not far from him, its gaze piercing through him.
"Here you are again, little swimmer."
Yamato will find himself in a void, before three mirrors appear before him: each one reflects the above. Ichinose with the other children and the dolls, Lux in the cell, and Lalli in the water.
A voice echoes.
"Each of your friends is in trouble. And yet, you can't do anything for them, can you?"
In their new scenes, each of them seems to no longer be injured, and the knowledge of their CYOA lives is more faint now, allowing them to fully focus on their true selves.]
[ wow yamato has two whole eyes to watch all of his friends die! neat. which is to say his heart freezes as he sees the three of them, eyes flitting between each image in fear. he hears the voice, but he's choosing not to acknowledge it right now. his first reflex is to try and get to the mirrors, trying to do... something? anything? he'll keep trying to reach if he can't, but if he does, he'll bang on some of them, trying to see if he can't reach them from there? he's not trying to break them but he's not being super careful either, clearly distressed. ]
Ichinose-san! Lalli! Luxanna! Hey! [ he's trying to call them no matter if he's stuck running at mirrors or banging on them, snarling at no one: ] Let them go!
[First of all? OOC? What is playing with other kids?
But thank god she is still mentally an adult because, uh, what the fuck. She takes the doll from the other girl, sticking her fingers in the hole in a way that she might just break it even further depending on what it's made of. Surely, this isn't symbolic at all.]
... It doesn't matter what you do with this one. Just play with the ones that aren't broken.
[Oh.Cool! You get two pictures because look at that fucking thing.
Lalli wastes no time, he's immediately trying to swim to the surface so he can call for help. The sheer terror running through him is evident on his face.
His wrist did have 'water' written on it for a reason.]
[The child just tilts her head, looking at Ichinose oddly.
"That's how you've lived your life, huh? If it's broken, it's not worth playing with.
Just like how you're broken. You didn't even cry over your parents. Why would anyone want to bother with you? No one will ever understand you, and let's face it—why would you be worth the effort? You're better off discarded."
The girl leans forward. "Or have you finally learned what a heart is?"
Garen speaks.
"You call for strangers to help you? Are you unable to help yourself?"
Lux will find that though her magic is being drained, it isn't fully gone. She might, at the very least, have enough to break free.
Lalli struggles, and he might get the sense he's... using some sort of power? Nothing appears to happen, though, and he might not even be sure of what power he's unleashing.
He tries to swim to the surface, but before he can reach it, the creature wraps its tail around him, pulling him further under.
The voice again speaks, to Yamato.
"Shouldn't you worry more for yourself? Imagine if you're trapped here... if you can't be saved, either. Everyone would have to leave without you, move on.
Gabumon forgot about you once, didn't he? Given enough time, so will the others. Taichi, Takeru... your friends and family—why would they bother to hold onto you?"
After a pause, it speaks again.
"But in honour of your devotion to those you love, you will be given a chance. Pain may awaken them from their nightmares. Stab them, injure them, and you will set them free."
Yamato will... awaken? He seems to be in that gas chamber again, with Lalli, Lux, and Ichinose injured and unconscious. Oddly, he's now holding a knife in his hand.
Finally, a few more things happen:
During all this, Ichinose will feel a sharp pain in her non-dominant hand. Lux will momentarily feel her breath knocked out of her, as if something blunt slammed into her chest.
[ yamato wakes up with a gasp, which is maybe bad when he finds himself still in the gas chamber. his ears twitch again as he looks around at the others passed out and he looks down at the knife, the voice echoing in his head.
the first part-- worrying about himself-- it doesn't matter. if he is trapped, if he dies here... he doesn't want to, he's never wanted that, but if he can save someone else in the process, isn't it fine? maybe that voice is right and the others would move on eventually after his loss. maybe it wouldn't take long at all, even. ... but he knows that's not true, and his hand shakes around the knife as he tries to cling to the truth he knows and not remember-- a dark cave, his own feelings pulling him down into an abyss. there's only one of him in this world. there's things only he can do.
like, right now-- more important things. there's no point in sitting there crying.
he doesn't know if he can trust the voice, and so because of that and to make you all suffer one more round he'll first try to shake them awake, one at a time ]
Wake up. Wake up, this isn't real! You're not really there! Guys!
[ also maybe it doesn't have to be stabbing, and he'll punch lalli's arm when it's his turn to see if that works at all because drowning by evil zombie animal seems like the most pressing of the three ]
It's a critical hit, and she flinches, backing away from the child.]
I... I don't... How could I...?
[She's just a doll. She doesn't need a heart. It's pointless to even entertain the idea. She knows she's different than everyone else. That she will never, ever get to experience what they call the human heart. So, why...? Why did her own creation, a doll born from a doll, find a heart of her own? Why, when Ichinose could not?
She definitely spiraling for a moment, still clutching the doll — before the sharp pain in her hand registers. It's enough to snap her out of it, and she throws the doll to the ground and steps on it. Wow, symbolic.]
Shut up. [First, a whisper. And then—] Shut up, shut up, shut up!
[She doesn't want to hear it. She's not going to hear it. Can she leave this place? Because she's going to try to leave. Bye.]
[ of course she can escape. she's seen her magic used to break from these chains before, after all. but she feels her magic pulling away from her and lingers in that for a moment longer.
how could someone live with this drain for eleven years? she's always felt trapped by her kingdom, by her family, by her secrets, but it wasn't this, it wasn't this bad, she didn't know--
this is hell. ]
I can - I could! But I...
[ she wanted her brother to help her. but he's not going to, is he? the most he'll ever give her is to turn his eyes the other way.
lux concentrates all her light on where the chains are attached to the floor, bursting the restraints apart but keeping the shackles, then yanking the trailing chains forward with her as she lunges for the bars to yell at garen through them. ]
Whatever that strange magic feeling is, he's going to try pushing it outward as an attempt to chase off the monster that's wrapping around his leg right now. Using unknown powers to try and save himself? That's totally going to work!
It's hard to remember to hold his breath while fighting his worst fears though.]
[Ichinose can leave... in theory. She will exit only to a void, where she is completely alone. No matter how far she walks or run, there is nothing.
Everything is silent, except for the thudding of her—physical—heart.
Lux yells at Garen, who takes a step back, as if afraid of her.
"You're asking why? Look at yourself! You know what you are, and you'd ask why I won't help you?"
Lalli struggles, and struggles, but cannot free himself. The tail around him grows tighter, as if threatening to crush his bones, as it drags him deeper and deeper into the water...
I read the future, and after all of Yamato's attempts to wake them up fails and he stabs them—
They wake up. Yamato as well, as it turns out that even he wasn't awake all this time, either.
Ichinose will find that her hand is broken, as if a blunt force smashed on it. Likewise, Lux will find that her chest hurts, and breathing might be painful for a while... like a blunt force hit it. Like a powerful telekinetic blunt force, such as the kind coming off in waves from Lalli, before it fades.
Similarly, Ichinose, Lalli, and Yamato find random cuts on them—and all four will see the remnants of the light magic that cut them fade, the direction from which they came suggesting that Lux was the source. With that, though, her magic is gone again.
Lux, Lalli, and Ichinose are now sporting a new stab wound, although it doesn't quite seem like a knife wound. If they look at Yamato, they'll see him holding Lux's pen, now very bloody, rather than a knife.
Also, they are still feeling rather light-headed and, now, nauseous. They might even be coughing up blood. Poison bad, and it's getting worse.
[ drop a bloody pen so it rolls to the ground between them all and cough up blood before actually puking, mostly! sorry about that. it's the trauma. also because unlike the others he had not really been trying to stop his breathing before this (not that it would change anything), so. anyway, once that's done and he's left panting and shaking: ]
We need... to get out of here. [ they're dying. he's-- like, aware of it? they're hurt, injured and dying of poison, but yamato's clinging to the possibility of getting out somehow anyway. he can't just give up. he's not thinking about how he just stabbed three people with a pen and how he's relieved it was just a pen. ] Damn it!
[ he does not want to give up but he's also out of ideas. they're stuck and they've wasted so much time with whatever hellish hallucination those were, and now...
deliriously, he thinks taichi and beau are going to kill him. ]
Ichinose stares at the ceiling with a blank look on her face after that emotional trauma. She is vibing. The vibes are bad? And she is also in a lot of fucking pain, so, uh. No heroic speech for now. That's Yamato's thing.
Instead, she shakily pushes herself into a sitting position — before she abruptly turns her head away to cough, hacking up blood. This is fine. Everything is fine.
Quietly:]
... Not way out, eh? Ahaha... It's been real, guys.
[The vibes are still bad. She is not going to be useful here.]
[Everything is ow and he just drowned in a dream or some shit and honestly dying to poison might just be the fitting end to this.
But no, he can't accept the sweet embrace of death yet. He has work to do still.
Lalli sits up and coughs, lungs burning from the poison in them. It's hard to focus but he manages to get the pill in his hand again, and he goes right to Lux and shoves it in her mouth. No fighting it, you get to live.]
[ lalli please do not just shove things into people's mouths?
especially because when she was telling him about the pill she meant for HIM TO TAKE IT, not HER!! so with one hand holding her new pen stab-wound, she just immediately grabs lalli with the other hand and yanks him down to force the pill into his mouth instead. wow a smooch?
then she jerks back very quickly, we are not fighting over this, nor extending it, nor discussing it, THANK YOU. she wipes her mouth. gross. het. disgusting.
... she flops down to lay on the floor. guess we're dying. except lalli. she doesn't even have anything to say about this she is just contemplating her horrible horrible life. ]
[It's 1:30am so you're going to have to accept my very matter of fact statements, such as: Lalli gets better! He'll find his strength returning as well, although not enough to focus on breaking down the door.
And then the rest of you die. Goodbye.
No, although you might've enjoyed that. They're rescued by their boss, since they were taking too long on this mission with no contact. She takes them to another car, where they have a healer. He's able to at least heal them of their poison, though as he exchanges his own HP to do so, he conks out before he can get to anything else. He'll be out for at least a day, probably.
That is to say, Yamato, Lux, and Ichinose have also been cured now, but after everything, they're also pretty weak. More so than Lalli, actually. Lux still can't focus enough to use her witch powers, and Ichinose still doesn't have her talismans.
However, the good news is that all of the captives have been freed (including the missing elderly ones), and the traffickers have been arrested. The boss will turn a blind eye if you happened to kill any back when you were busting in, even though you technically were supposed to just arrest them. It's fine, they deserve it.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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Lux still as her pen and can draw the circle, but will find that she can't pour any power for the summoning.
Lalli holds out the pill, and the others make efforts to escape, but—everyone's vision goes black. When it returns, they'll see a very different scene before them.
Ichinose will find herself in the body of her younger self, when she was a child. She's with a few other children, who appear to be playing dolls with her. One of them holds out a doll, a hole in its chest.
"Hey, it looks like this one is broken. What should we do with it?"
Lux will find herself in a jail cell, her limbs cuffed, with chains attached to the floor to limit her movement. Surprisingly, she has her magic from home back... but she shouldn't be too relieved, because moments later, it begins to fade away from her.
Steps echo outside her cell. If she looks to the other side of the bars, she'll see her brother approaching.
Lalli will find himself in deep water. Once his eyes readjust to the sting, he'll see a familiar monster not far from him, its gaze piercing through him.
"Here you are again, little swimmer."
Yamato will find himself in a void, before three mirrors appear before him: each one reflects the above. Ichinose with the other children and the dolls, Lux in the cell, and Lalli in the water.
A voice echoes.
"Each of your friends is in trouble. And yet, you can't do anything for them, can you?"
In their new scenes, each of them seems to no longer be injured, and the knowledge of their CYOA lives is more faint now, allowing them to fully focus on their true selves.]
no subject
Ichinose-san! Lalli! Luxanna! Hey! [ he's trying to call them no matter if he's stuck running at mirrors or banging on them, snarling at no one: ] Let them go!
no subject
But thank god she is still mentally an adult because, uh, what the fuck. She takes the doll from the other girl, sticking her fingers in the hole in a way that she might just break it even further depending on what it's made of. Surely, this isn't symbolic at all.]
... It doesn't matter what you do with this one. Just play with the ones that aren't broken.
[Funny. Anyway— Priorities.]
Hey, where are we?
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but she knows better than to appeal to garen for help. so instead she's ignoring him for now and shouting over the rattling of chains: ]
Lalli! Yamato! Ichinose?!
... Anyone?
[ anyone ELSE? ]
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Lalli wastes no time, he's immediately trying to swim to the surface so he can call for help. The sheer terror running through him is evident on his face.
His wrist did have 'water' written on it for a reason.]
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"That's how you've lived your life, huh? If it's broken, it's not worth playing with.
Just like how you're broken. You didn't even cry over your parents. Why would anyone want to bother with you? No one will ever understand you, and let's face it—why would you be worth the effort? You're better off discarded."
The girl leans forward. "Or have you finally learned what a heart is?"
Garen speaks.
"You call for strangers to help you? Are you unable to help yourself?"
Lux will find that though her magic is being drained, it isn't fully gone. She might, at the very least, have enough to break free.
Lalli struggles, and he might get the sense he's... using some sort of power? Nothing appears to happen, though, and he might not even be sure of what power he's unleashing.
He tries to swim to the surface, but before he can reach it, the creature wraps its tail around him, pulling him further under.
The voice again speaks, to Yamato.
"Shouldn't you worry more for yourself? Imagine if you're trapped here... if you can't be saved, either. Everyone would have to leave without you, move on.
Gabumon forgot about you once, didn't he? Given enough time, so will the others. Taichi, Takeru... your friends and family—why would they bother to hold onto you?"
After a pause, it speaks again.
"But in honour of your devotion to those you love, you will be given a chance. Pain may awaken them from their nightmares. Stab them, injure them, and you will set them free."
Yamato will... awaken? He seems to be in that gas chamber again, with Lalli, Lux, and Ichinose injured and unconscious. Oddly, he's now holding a knife in his hand.
Finally, a few more things happen:
During all this, Ichinose will feel a sharp pain in her non-dominant hand. Lux will momentarily feel her breath knocked out of her, as if something blunt slammed into her chest.
Anyway.]
no subject
the first part-- worrying about himself-- it doesn't matter. if he is trapped, if he dies here... he doesn't want to, he's never wanted that, but if he can save someone else in the process, isn't it fine? maybe that voice is right and the others would move on eventually after his loss. maybe it wouldn't take long at all, even. ... but he knows that's not true, and his hand shakes around the knife as he tries to cling to the truth he knows and not remember-- a dark cave, his own feelings pulling him down into an abyss. there's only one of him in this world. there's things only he can do.
like, right now-- more important things. there's no point in sitting there crying.
he doesn't know if he can trust the voice, and so because of that and to make you all suffer one more round he'll first try to shake them awake, one at a time ]
Wake up. Wake up, this isn't real! You're not really there! Guys!
[ also maybe it doesn't have to be stabbing, and he'll punch lalli's arm when it's his turn to see if that works at all because drowning by evil zombie animal seems like the most pressing of the three ]
no subject
Well.
This is happening!
It's a critical hit, and she flinches, backing away from the child.]
I... I don't... How could I...?
[She's just a doll. She doesn't need a heart. It's pointless to even entertain the idea. She knows she's different than everyone else. That she will never, ever get to experience what they call the human heart. So, why...? Why did her own creation, a doll born from a doll, find a heart of her own? Why, when Ichinose could not?
She definitely spiraling for a moment, still clutching the doll — before the sharp pain in her hand registers. It's enough to snap her out of it, and she throws the doll to the ground and steps on it. Wow, symbolic.]
Shut up. [First, a whisper. And then—] Shut up, shut up, shut up!
[She doesn't want to hear it. She's not going to hear it. Can she leave this place? Because she's going to try to leave. Bye.]
no subject
how could someone live with this drain for eleven years? she's always felt trapped by her kingdom, by her family, by her secrets, but it wasn't this, it wasn't this bad, she didn't know--
this is hell. ]
I can - I could! But I...
[ she wanted her brother to help her. but he's not going to, is he? the most he'll ever give her is to turn his eyes the other way.
lux concentrates all her light on where the chains are attached to the floor, bursting the restraints apart but keeping the shackles, then yanking the trailing chains forward with her as she lunges for the bars to yell at garen through them. ]
Why won't you help me?!
no subject
Whatever that strange magic feeling is, he's going to try pushing it outward as an attempt to chase off the monster that's wrapping around his leg right now. Using unknown powers to try and save himself? That's totally going to work!
It's hard to remember to hold his breath while fighting his worst fears though.]
no subject
Everything is silent, except for the thudding of her—physical—heart.
Lux yells at Garen, who takes a step back, as if afraid of her.
"You're asking why? Look at yourself! You know what you are, and you'd ask why I won't help you?"
Lalli struggles, and struggles, but cannot free himself. The tail around him grows tighter, as if threatening to crush his bones, as it drags him deeper and deeper into the water...
I read the future, and after all of Yamato's attempts to wake them up fails and he stabs them—
They wake up. Yamato as well, as it turns out that even he wasn't awake all this time, either.
Ichinose will find that her hand is broken, as if a blunt force smashed on it. Likewise, Lux will find that her chest hurts, and breathing might be painful for a while... like a blunt force hit it. Like a powerful telekinetic blunt force, such as the kind coming off in waves from Lalli, before it fades.
Similarly, Ichinose, Lalli, and Yamato find random cuts on them—and all four will see the remnants of the light magic that cut them fade, the direction from which they came suggesting that Lux was the source. With that, though, her magic is gone again.
Lux, Lalli, and Ichinose are now sporting a new stab wound, although it doesn't quite seem like a knife wound. If they look at Yamato, they'll see him holding Lux's pen, now very bloody, rather than a knife.
Also, they are still feeling rather light-headed and, now, nauseous. They might even be coughing up blood. Poison bad, and it's getting worse.
What are they going to do now?]
no subject
We need... to get out of here. [ they're dying. he's-- like, aware of it? they're hurt, injured and dying of poison, but yamato's clinging to the possibility of getting out somehow anyway. he can't just give up. he's not thinking about how he just stabbed three people with a pen and how he's relieved it was just a pen. ] Damn it!
[ he does not want to give up but he's also out of ideas. they're stuck and they've wasted so much time with whatever hellish hallucination those were, and now...
deliriously, he thinks taichi and beau are going to kill him. ]
no subject
Ichinose stares at the ceiling with a blank look on her face after that emotional trauma. She is vibing. The vibes are bad? And she is also in a lot of fucking pain, so, uh. No heroic speech for now. That's Yamato's thing.
Instead, she shakily pushes herself into a sitting position — before she abruptly turns her head away to cough, hacking up blood. This is fine. Everything is fine.
Quietly:]
... Not way out, eh? Ahaha... It's been real, guys.
[The vibes are still bad. She is not going to be useful here.]
no subject
But no, he can't accept the sweet embrace of death yet. He has work to do still.
Lalli sits up and coughs, lungs burning from the poison in them. It's hard to focus but he manages to get the pill in his hand again, and he goes right to Lux and shoves it in her mouth. No fighting it, you get to live.]
no subject
especially because when she was telling him about the pill she meant for HIM TO TAKE IT, not HER!! so with one hand holding her new pen stab-wound, she just immediately grabs lalli with the other hand and yanks him down to force the pill into his mouth instead. wow a smooch?
then she jerks back very quickly, we are not fighting over this, nor extending it, nor discussing it, THANK YOU. she wipes her mouth. gross. het. disgusting.
... she flops down to lay on the floor. guess we're dying. except lalli. she doesn't even have anything to say about this she is just contemplating her horrible horrible life. ]
no subject
And then the rest of you die. Goodbye.
No, although you might've enjoyed that. They're rescued by their boss, since they were taking too long on this mission with no contact. She takes them to another car, where they have a healer. He's able to at least heal them of their poison, though as he exchanges his own HP to do so, he conks out before he can get to anything else. He'll be out for at least a day, probably.
That is to say, Yamato, Lux, and Ichinose have also been cured now, but after everything, they're also pretty weak. More so than Lalli, actually. Lux still can't focus enough to use her witch powers, and Ichinose still doesn't have her talismans.
However, the good news is that all of the captives have been freed (including the missing elderly ones), and the traffickers have been arrested. The boss will turn a blind eye if you happened to kill any back when you were busting in, even though you technically were supposed to just arrest them. It's fine, they deserve it.
Time passes as they drive back to HQ... but not much this time.]