PHASE I [ 10 00 ] The “cleansing" doesn't begin too strangely. No, instead it starts with some minor inconveniences. After Mosley's broadcast, anything running on electricity seems to be… mildly on the fritz. Characters will find their home appliances suddenly rebelling just enough to be troublesome. Anything that uses electricity within the bounds of the colony will start suffering from some small malfunctions. (Do we have any cyborgs in the crowd tonight?) Toasters burning your breakfast and shooting the crispy things at you. Televisions suddenly exploding in a haze of smoke before working perfectly fine a moment later. Hair dryers suddenly running a little too hot and whoops, your hair's on fire… Well, this is all still just a small issue. Probably. Here's hoping the fire extinguisher doesn't run on electricity too?
PHASE II [ 1200 ] It's only glitches for a day or so, but by noon the next day, things get a little weird. We interrupt your regularly scheduled routine to bring you this important message: Welcome to ViViD. … Wait, what? Yeah, sorry about that. Whether you wanted to or not, you've found yourself in the virtual simulator… except it doesn't seem very… virtual anymore, no. The monsters look a bit meaner, and they seem to be after you in particular. You might suddenly be glitched into a dead end, or a level that actually doesn't seem to be beatable at all, with people you've never seen before as your party members. Endless mazes! Boss battles with a wooden sword! Dungeons with no walkthroughs! When you finally make it to the end, you might even find a giant wall blocking your way, or a moat where there was once a path. Now that's troublesome.
And make sure you don't get hurt by any of those monsters. Not like it matters, it's just HP, right? Wrong. Rather, it'll actually hurt quite a bit, just as if you were injured in real life.
If you're lucky, you'll find yourself glitched back out maybe half an hour later -- your wounds still fresh from the experience and still bleeding. Just don't die. You don't want to see what will happen if you die.
PHASE III [ 1800 ] It's the day after, and you've survived your unfortunate ViViD runs (though there's no promise that you won't end up there yet again). But for now, you've finished your work day without too many electrical object malfunctions, and you're on your way home. Normally the transit system is so very reliable. From district to district, the metro is your only way of travel and today? Today it's stopping with an ugly screech. Hopefully you don't need to be anywhere because it's safe to say that you're not getting off this ride any time soon. The lights aren't only flickering anymore, they're completely out. The darkness settles in uncomfortably as you're only left with the other people who were making the same trip. A second later, things start to get weird. Cold breath down your neck. The scratch of something sharp and angry against the outside of the cabin. Seconds pass in silence, the presence of something outside growing more and more frightening. If you hold your breath and stay very still, you might make it out just fine. That is until a forceful SLAM sounds behind you and there's something against your window. At least you know what's been making all that noise.
Of course, should you pry open the doors, there's nobody there, but… you couldn't have been imagining that, right?
Looks like the entire city's blacked out… and without the hum of technology and warmth of the advanced lighting system, some ghosts have come out to play. But they can only be seen from the corner of your eye, a glimpse, a breath, a nondescript whisper on the air and then they're gone. Who knows what they want from you…? Either way, they're not saying, staying just out of reach and mostly out of sight… but always there, watching and waiting.
PHASE IV [ 0000 ] Here you are, finally: day 4. You made your way through the dark, avoided the things that go bump in the night and found your apartment. Your pants are gone, your door is locked, and you've managed to stumble right into your bed/nest/cocoon/what-have-you. Your unbearably long day is finally, finally about to come to a close but then something glitches, worse than before. Suddenly you're not all cozy in your bed, but rather suspended in an unidentifiable space. In this darkness, there is screaming and only screaming. You try to move your limbs, use your voice -- and there is nothing. Rather, you can only look on as the space shifts and you see two figures appearing in the darkness, glowing in the same digital blue that lights up the rest of the colony. As you get closer, the screaming grows louder -- a woman's screams, you can hear now. It sounds garbled, like broken pieces of sound bytes. She's being strangled, you can see now. The other figure strangling her is a robot, metallic and ruthless. He turns to see you and his eyes glow with the same blue shine. As the woman -- LILITH, for those who have seen her or heard her voice may recognize -- finally begins to lose her strength to scream, the robot's mouth slowly spreads into a smile as he maintains eye contact, cold and yet somehow pleased.
In the next second, you have been returned to your body, echoes of screaming your only lullaby. Sleep doesn't seem as likely anymore, does it?
BONUS [ whyo'clock ] If at all possible, the darkness just got darker. How, you might ask? Well, it seems like someone just put a bag over your head! That's a little inconvenient, but it looks like you're suffering from an old school kidnapping at some point through these couple of days, complete with your assailants pushing you around asking, “Where the hell is the money?!" As they shove you into their shady kidnapper van, you can hear a certain song playing which is… a bit too on the nose for this situation. As the wheels of the vehicle stop and you're pushed out, the bag comes off and you're facing down your friendly neighborhood debt collector. He's slow to get his words out but they are very menacing indeed, something about threatening your family and sleeping with the alien fishes in the park. When you protest, insisting that you don't owe them any money, they pull out a CereVice and show your bank account, which does indeed seem to be approximately 50 million credits in debt.
They'll do this even if you're not in debt at all, and, in fact, it is impossible for you to be in debt, as CERES doesn't loan money to you people. Looks like the glitching did a number on your bank account though, and the numbers don't lie.
Looks like you're out of luck, friend. Why not have a friendly chat with the other half a dozen people who have been bagged and kidnapped as well? There's even a small table with snacks as you wait. Wait for what, they haven't exactly said yet. Maybe you should just leave through the window.
PENALTY [ xxxx ] Should you be unlucky enough to die in ViViD while it is glitching and injuries are being sustained, you will find yourself in a penalty game. Even more than usual penalty games, this one is increasingly unnerving. There is nothing but a dark room, a single light hovering over two masks on a table. One might recognize them as the masks of comedy and tragedy. In front of the player, red words slowly illuminate the room. Pick one. Well, that's an easy penalty game, isn't it?
Yet as you reach for one, the masks will suddenly turn into the faces of the two most important people to you. Their voices whisper, growing distressed as time goes on, “Pick me, pick me, pick me." The red words turn into a countdown if you take too long -- your hand forcibly moved to pick one mask or the other if the timer runs out. Yet once you put on the mask, you will see the person who was not picked, suddenly and brutally murdered right before your eyes by a shadowy figure, wearing the mask you chose.
With that, you will return to the colony, good as new. Though on occasion, you may see the person whose mask was not picked in the corner of your eye, dressed in black and wearing the very same mask of tragedy.
[ Remember to apply proper warnings on threads with sensitive or inappropriate material and do let a mod know if your thread careens off into maiming or canoodling so we can lock the log. ] |
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OPEN
[While Sayo understands how nice the rewards can be from playing in it, he never really find participating in ViViD satisfying for his blade. Against fake foes and feeling no pain in return, it doesn't tickle his desire for revenge like a real battlefield do. If he's invited to go, Sayo won't decline the offer. But he won't go there without a strong enough purpose and feeling.
That is, until he finds himself glitched into ViViD in the middle of the day. Startled, his hand reaches for his sword and draws it out. He looks around and frowns. A wide, open plain. Monsters and other unusual beasts are prowling about, large and numerous. It didn't take Sayo very long to recognise his disadvantages. He's just one tantou and there's not enough obstacles and hiding places for him to use.
Not like it should be anything to be worried about. No one get hurt in ViViD, if he recalls it correctly.
So once he get into a battle and a monster land a successful hit on him. the pain startled him.]
You--?
[He feels pain. That is blood, real blood bleeding out from his (thankfully) shallow wound. It's real, it's real. It's like a real battle again. That part of him, the bloodstained side that continues to seek revenge, urges him to fight. And logically, he knows it's foolish to go ahead by himself.
No matter how frustrated he feels, or how on edge he was from being kept from the battlefield.
Sayo moves ahead, his blade out and thirsty for blood. Whether these monsters became as real as his wounds, the pain he felt is more than enough to earn his ire.]
Now, how can I get my revenge...?!
[Maybe you come across a small boy fighting against these monsters. Or maybe he suddenly struck the monster you're fighting with surprising speed and strength. Sayo is among the strongest of the tantou, when it comes to sheer power.]
Die!
► PHASE III: And Then Things Went Dark
[After getting out of ViViD, Sayo quickly chose to return home. His hand is on his sheathed sword, holding it tight as he sits on a chair in the train. He only got a few glimpses from other people, but they probably thought he's holding a toy sword.
Until the train screeches to a stop, almost piercing to his ears, and it all went dark. And not only that, he heard...something. Scratches against something. He tenses and refrains from drawing his sword when he felt a cold chill against his neck.
Fighting in the darkness is his strong point. But there's too many unknown and strange variables for him to feel comfortable in this darkness.]
What... What happened? Is this normal?
► BONUS: Kidnapped & Bad Memories
[Compared to what happened before this, Sayo's more... worried, fearful and an unfamiliar emotion within him. He's in a debt? And these strange people kidnapped him for it. He doesn't even remember spending that much money. Is it a mistake? Can it be fixed?
What if they can't?
Earlier, he yelled at the debt collectors, protesting and threatening to cut them down. But his words seem to fell on deaf ears, before he was told to stand here and wait.
He's standing there, making no move anywhere, even to the snack table. He can't feel hungry when he's thinking about this entire situation.]
...Are we going to be sold off?
[If there's a debt, or they need money desperately, people would sell off valuable things for money. Sayo knows that far too well.
He doesn't want to be sold off again. And this kidnapping... it might as well be considered as "stolen again" in his mind.]
phase ii!
Likewise, he knows how intense Sayo is when it comes to fighting. That much doesn't really give him pause. The irritation is pretty understandable, too... He's pretty irritated, himself. Vivid's all right and all, but not when it leaps out of nowhere like a hobgoblin and demands you to play!
He flicks his blade to the side, neatly clearing it of gunk.]
Out for blood today, huh?
Re: phase ii!
He glances over at Kashuu and nods, walking around the fallen enemy's body towards him.]
I want revenge right now.
[It's been a while since he utter that word and earnestly want it. Not as an explanation to other people, but a desire to seek out revenge for himself. It's the easiest way for Sayo to use to describe how he feels right now. Easy and familiar.]
For all of this. [This stupid ViViD situation.] And hurting me.
[Which is always a good reason for him to retaliate for. Plus, it's like... almost the straw that breaks the camel's back.]
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But that's a little surprising to hear, if only because it seems like it's been so long since he's last heard it at all. The frequency of their battles has certainly dropped into near-nothingness since their arrival in Tellus, too... It's not too bad, all things considered, but it's strange to go about daily life without the actual main purpose present. Huh.]
Don't burn yourself out too fast! You can't stop to take rests in here, y'know.
[He learned that the hard way, good lord. But with a little sigh, he'll lean down, checking for the injuries.]
You already get the one that hurt you?
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I'll try to be careful.
[Pacing himself is pretty important. Especially when he doesn't have his troops or in a squad to share the burden with. Sayo got some injuries, but they're nothing too serious. At least, they're not bad enough for him to push himself and Awakens. Yet.]
Yes, I killed them. [Even if they're rather tough.]
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bonus
[Well, looks like a familiar face is coming to and being given the whole explanation about the debt now, though he doesn't look very happy about it. That's impossible! He and Sousei are super, super careful with their budget even with all the added mouths to feed now. There's no way that they could've gone through the money that fast! Tenka looks about ready to throw a punch when he sees a familiar head of blue hair and--
Pauses. Whoa, aniki instincts with this one are strong.]
Sayo-kun? That you?
Re: bonus
[When he heard a familiar voice, Sayo blinked and got startled out of his thoughts (I don't want to be sold again). It didn't take him very long before he quickly looks around and see Tenka's head. He quickly make his way over, going around the people standing in his way until he reaches Tenka.]
Tenka-san... What's going to happen? I...
[Tenka have been here for a while, right? Maybe he have an idea. Anything to reassure his fears.]
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[And he immediately crouches down to Sayo's height as the boy comes over to him. A quick look over can have him tell easily that the other is scared and so he does what he always does. He grins even wider and ruffles his hair affectionately.]
I'll tell you what's gonna happen, Sayo-kun!
Ten-nii's gonna get both of us outta here and then I'm gonna bring us back home, okay? Right back to your brothers and Chuutarou and Soramaru.
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ii
It's a flash of blue fighting a large monster that catches his attention and Mutsu turns on his heel, making a beeline straight towards them. He would recognize this little blue murder machine from any distance. As one of the monster's claws tries to swipe at Sayo, Mutsu fires his gun right at it, causing it to pull it back, shriek, and turn in his direction. Now might be a good chance for Sayo to get in a particularly well aimed attack. )
Re: ii
It howls in pain. Sayo pulls his sword back and jumps away. The monster tries to cover its neck injuries as it falls down to their... knees? Are those even knees? In any case, it's now in a more vulnerable position, perfect as a target.]
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Has Sayo caught on? )
Hey, Sayo-kun! Doing okay?
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bonus!
Potentially, however, they'll likely reconsider when realizing no one would pay that high an amount for a single person.
[that's... semi-comforting, right?]
Re: bonus!
Normally, that would be it. But Sayo isn't a person, he's a weapon. He knows weapons can go for a decent price, depending on their quality and their smith. Of course, that depends if these people care or knows about the famous smith schools...
Sayo turn his gaze towards the man who spoke.]
...But I'm a sword, not a person.
[Selling humans is looked down upon, right? At least outside of the more criminal parts of society. But no one would blink at eye at selling a blade.]
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...You're a sword?
[the tone of voice holds no small amount of curiosity to it. is this some sort of delusion brought on by the kidnapping or some sort of a title or... does the kid really claim to be an actual sword??]
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bonus!
[He answers the question firmly as he walks over to the other tantou. It hadn't taken him long to see him and had taken him even less time to figure out that he really shouldn't be alone right now - so here he is, ready and willing to stand by his comrade if anyone actually tries to make good on their threats for debt collection.]
If they try it, we'll make them regret it. We didn't do anything wrong.
Re: bonus!
...Right. It's...impossible to have that much debt.
[He's still learning what are the expected price range for most things, the numbers... just seems too much for his spending.
Calm down... calm down...]
iii
No, this isn't normal at all.
[A pause.]
Stay close.
[Because after that ViVid hell, she doesn't want anyone else getting hurt.]
Re: iii
However, he pauses when her other words caught up to him.]
"Stay close"?
[He's wary. He doesn't know this person, whether they are trustworthy or not. And in this (literally) dark situation, it's harder for him to have faith in others.]
Why should I stay close to you?
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[She's not going to have other people get hurt on account of this place, whether he's going to be contrary about it or not.]
We should probably start moving, though.
[Get out of here...all that jazz.]
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bonus!
[ the tone of voice sayo uses when he asks is like an icy cold hand that clenches around soramaru's heart. ...it's sad. it's really, really sad, and soramaru answers instantly before he can even asses the situation fully. ]
I won't let that happen, alright?
Re: bonus!
Sayo looks over at where he heard the voice coming from, staring at Soramaru. A promise to keep them from being sold? Can he trust in those words?]
...Really?
[He wants someone to have faith in, but his brothers or Master aren't here. Can he trust other people here, in the same situation as himself?]
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[ he does his best to give a small, reassuring smile -- the kind that his own brother would try to give him, in this situation. ]
I promise.
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bonus........
What she's worried about though, is that Sayo is here too. He might be old, but he's still seemingly young. And strangely calm. But his question is...bleak.]
No, we are definitely not going to be sold off. We will all make sure of it. Are you alright, Sayo?
Re: bonus........
I'm... okay, Vietnam-san.
[He wouldn't get sold off. He wouldn't get sold off. He wouldn't get sold off. He doesn't want to get sold off again--]
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Are you sure? Well, either way, stick by me, or if we get separated, someone you know. Together we can find a way out.
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