Everything is normal today during the early hours of the morning. There's really no hint, no way of knowing, no anything that could indicate that CERES -- and thus Cerealia -- is about to irrevocably change. There would be birds chirping, if there were birds, but since there aren't any, there's just the constant sounds of a city in motion, humming with technology even that early in the morning.
And then, regardless of where you are or what you're doing or how early it is, everyone's CereVices flicker on to show a perhaps-familiar, perhaps-unfamiliar face.
Bellona Recreare, the business owner of Cerealia and CEO of CERES, stares at everyone with a flat, cold look. She doesn't seem happy.
(When is she ever?)  It has come to my attention that there has been industrial espionage and corporate sabotage in CERES' personnel. Such a thing will not be tolerated.
Due to this, Mosley's employment with CERES has been terminated. Please now direct any public relations questions to 1-800-7322934844444.
Good day.
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PHASE I [ 6 00 ] Bright and early, not long after that sudden announcement by Bellona, you may decide to go back to sleep, or you may decide to get up and go about your day (or you may not have woken up at all).
Either way, it doesn't matter.
Because your apartment is broken.
The entire apartment. The door is locked shut (and that sucker is solid metal so it might be time to try a window), the HOLO(gm) is flickering wildly between settings, and the blender is out for your blood. Anything technological in any way (that is CERES-brand or has been tampered with by CERES) will be malfunctioning in a way that comes across as... oddly malicious.
Now's a bad time for the late sleepers to realize that the beds, too, have auto-control tech functionality. Hope you enjoy that electroshock wake up call, or the fact that the bed could fling you totally across the room.
PHASE II [ 1000 ] The rest of the city isn't faring so well either.
The trains are completely out of commission; even if the doors do open, it's probably not a good idea to get on. If you do, it looks like the doors will slam shut behind you, and the train will go hurtling forward at dangerous speeds with sudden stops. Many of the shops can't be accessed at all, automated doors refusing to open, and worst of all, every single last piece of tech in Cerealia now seems to have the sole goal of Making Your Life Hard.
The Pleasure District is flooded now that the spas are broken, but hey -- at least the perfume ensures that water smells good, and it's pretty warm. That's good, right? Maybe go for a nice swim.
The CERES police bots are out of control, chasing people down to arrest them for imagined crimes (What do you mean you aren't a closet voyeur?), and heaven forbid you're around any of the auto shops when everything goes totally wrong. The auto-drive feature in many of CERES's cars seem to be a little... finicky today. It doesn't seem like anywhere in the city is exempt from this. Good luck.
And towards the end of the second day of this insanity, the train, with whatever unfortunate passengers are on it, will derail. It crashes into part of the shopping district, leveling buildings and leaving the wrecked overturn husk of a train resting there uselessly.
Suddenly, things don't seem so harmless anymore.
PHASE III [ 1100 ] Of course... you're CERES-owned too.
Your code, rather, is made and owned by CERES, and it's inevitable with the craziness going on that it would soon affect everyone's code as well. So as the hour approaches noon, a few unlucky souls may start to notice that things are just Not Quite Right with them. Their powers may be on the fritz, functioning entirely wrong or not at all, or even stranger -- fire powers turning into water, ice into flame, electricity brings mud. Your clothing might suddenly change when your coding glitches, or it might be gone entirely. You may suddenly have an uncontrollable urge to start singing, or frolicking. You may suddenly be wildly in love with the first person (or robot or mirror) that you see, unable to stop it until the odd glitching wears off.
And then, just like that, you're back to normal, if a bit more tired than before. How troublesome.
There are also moments where what appears to be an ID number appears on the back of your neck in glowing light blue numbers. Each of these codes is a 7 digit number, with an E at the front of the number. It appears that the longer you've been in Cerealia, the lower the number is -- like a brand of some sort. You may not be able to see it yourself with it on the back of your neck like that, but everyone else sure can.
PHASE IV [ 1645 ] And, just like that, on the last day of this madness, the city goes dark. The lights cut out. The technology shuts off. Every last robot in Cerealia is completely and totally down, and can no longer be booted up. Even when the lights come back on in a few hours... the robots remain dead.
Cerealia's a lot harder to function in without those handy dandy robots running the place. It's also a lot more desolate, and rather quiet.
Slowly but surely, the rest of the technology will boot itself back up towards the end of the last day. But the robots remain broken, and cannot be fixed. In fact, opening them up will reveal that nothing's wrong with them at all... they just won't wake up.
As time ticks by, it doesn't look like Bellona will address anything on the network about the events and all people are left to do now is... learn how to function again. Without any help.
BONUS [ ???? ] If you were a stupid brave enough soul to log into ViViD during this time (or were unfortunately glitched there, which could happen), you will find that ViViD is in... safe mode. It's struggling to boot up, and even when you finally enter, you'll find yourself wandering through skeleton levels of half-completed scenery and incomplete quests. There are readings in the corner of each level that can be seen now, one about Energy Gain and one about Energy Loss, and just as the gain goes up the longer you are there, the loss, too, rises. At first, it's fascinating, and it isn't particularly dangerous... but then it becomes clear that you can't actually log out.
You can't exit Safe Mode at all.
Slowly, it feels as though you can breathe less and less, that the empty walls of the level are closing in on you... and there's nothing you can do. Unless you are or find a particularly genius hacker and they can access the source code and find the exit buried inside that code within the next few minutes... there's nothing to be done.
And then everything goes dark.
You'll wake up the next IC day, with those same energy readings marked on your wrist like some sort of bright blue digital tattoo. When you wake in the mornings, it will read at 100% and slowly go down during the course of the day until you sleep. It will fade after three IC days.
And from now on, ViViD always has those energy levels in the corner, even when it's fixed. They always seem to be recording you, every time you're in ViViD. Strange.
[ 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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[ with a malfunctioning apartment, it takes more than awhile for steven to go about his daily routine. he barely gets through it all before things start getting unbearable, and it's clear that he can't stay. what's unfortunate is that he lives on the fifth floor.
but there's only one way down from there, so he'll open the window and jump without hesitation, whistling for skarmory. the bird comes not more than a few seconds later, sweeping him up before he hits the ground to bring him down safely. if you look like you're waffling on jumping out of your window, he'll fly over to offer an outstretched hand and a smile. ]
Need a hand?
phase ii
[ these past couple of days have been inconviniencing at best, but now things are getting serious - and more importantly, dangerous. it isn't hard to hear the crash when the train derails, and while steven isn't on it, he'll rush to the scene immediately on metagross' back. something like this won't take his partner at its regular power - with a shine of bright light from the pin on his lapel reacting with the stone on its leg, it grows and changes form. ]
Lift that car with Psychic. We need to help anyone trapped inside!
[ while its regular form would have been able to momentarily levitate the car at best, mega metagross' increased power can bring it back to an upwards state and force the doors open. from there, steven will go in to see if anyone needs help - or if any bodies need recovering. ]
phase iii
[ but on a more lighthearted note, there will be a day that you might see steven around the colony, oddly enough, in a black beanie that covers his hair entirely. it definitely clashes with the suit that he's wearing, but if you look closer, you might be able to see some strands of hair that are noticibly not their usual dashing, silvery colour.
if you dare to snatch that hat from him, you'll find that his code has glitched to turn his hair the most putrid, bright lime green colour that you could possibly imagine. he can't hide in his apartment due to it glitching out for the day, which means that he can only hope that no one inquires about it. you might make him cry, and he certainly looks miserable enough already. ]
wildcard
[ literally anything else! ]
Phase II
Tell me if you find anyone who needs a bit of a field dress! I ain't a surgeon but I can fix a lot more than some people in a pinch! [ Well, 'fix' was a very loose term, considering, but if it would keep someone in good shape until they could reach a hospital? Duo was able and willing. Mostly. The darkly dressed braided boy is crawling carefully through the wreckage, seemingly accustomed to working his way through hairy situations and materials, occasionally snapping off loose wires and etcetera to use an tourniquets, as needed. ]
I knew this place had to go to shit at some point.. just not so soon..
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I think this has been brewing for some time now [ things have been malfunctioning for weeks now. compound that with that ViViD level and that post by the mystery person on the network, and you have a storm that was brewing right under their noses. ] But there's no use in lamenting over it. Right now, we need to react accordingly.
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[ Duo is used to warzones and warzone-like places. The draw to them is almost magnetic, even if he could easily ignore it and move along and help himself instead of worrying about others and what they're suffering with. Instead, here he is, crawling around through rubble, leaving that carefully left backpack behind until he comes across another Cerealia citizen in the rubble. Carefully he checks for a pulse of some kind, and when he finds it -
He scrambles back to where he can see Steven, and shouts at the top of his lungs - ]
Hey! We've got another one here!
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Metagross, I'm counting on you.
[ he speaks to the pokémon calmly as he usually does, but with urgency. it will understand and obey, floating to duo's side to lift the larger pieces of rubble away with its telekinesis, then gently lifting the body so that duo can carry them easier. ]
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phase iii
... Bad hair day?
[ She had to. ]
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That would be putting it mildly.
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[ So please don't look so miserable? ]
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[ no. he is going to wallow in his misery like a spoiled brat, because that's what he is deep down. not everyone is as nice as she is. ]
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More particularly, he thinks he's seeing strands of lime green hair underneath Steven's beanie and no one can do beanies like Shinjiro can, so he's probably not trying for some fashionista award. ...thankfully Minato's hair chooses an appropriate time to glitch and turn black, so if nothing else they can talk about that instead.]
...Ah, nice hat. It's been rough lately, hasn't it?
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he tugs his hat a little further down. ]
If you want to put it simply, yes.
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You're telling me. [He stifles a yawn; sleeping has been hard when he still can't forgive his bed's unexpected betrayal.] Seems Mosley was really the only one keeping the city from breaking down, and nothing's safe any more...can CERES even fix things this time?
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I wouldn't put my faith in them so quickly. [ he sighs. ] Everything about recent events comes with a sense of foreboding. As far as I'm concerned, we can only rely on each other.
1/2
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ii
But first she needs to catch up to him.]
Steven!
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Vietnam. [ he can do away with honorifics for now. thankfully they aren't far away - he's able to quickly vault himself over some debris in his way to meet up with her, and mega metagross ins't far behind. ] You aren't injured, are you?
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She's glad he's coming to her, so she goes to meet him half way. Also pleased that his friends are fine as we, though they seem to be working as his back up to save other people.]
I am fine. [She even turns her hands to let him see.] What of yourself?
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Also fine, thankfully. We only arrived to see the aftermath.
[ he looks over to the wreckage, his brow furrowing. ]
It's terrible...
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Phase I
But hey, if Steven and a giant bird-creature were going to give her an easier option to trying to fit her bed through the window, all the better, right?]
Yes, please. Thank you.
[Meanwhile behind them, her toaster is jetting toast at the wall, while the bed is bucking up and down. It doesn't seem to be bothering her, at least?]
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Don't mention it. It's the least we can do.
[ he'll take her hand carefully when she's offered it to him, helping her onto skarmory's back. the bird's steel armour is cool and hard to the touch, but not uncomfortable. when she's on safely, he'll properly mount skarmory before turning his head to her. ]
We'll descend now. Hold on, all right?
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What should I hold on to? May I hold on to you? [Because the steel armor doesn't offer very many handholds despite the fact that it isn't uncomfortable to sit on. (In fact Veronica may be running her hands along it, marveling at the texture.)]
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Of course. Whatever you're comfortable with.
[ it won't be that long of a trip anyway, but he doesn't mind having someone holding onto him as he steers skarmory - he's had plenty of passengers in the past. once he feels her grip around his midsection, he'll angle skarmory and begin their descent. ]
I hope that nothing in your apartment managed to hurt you.
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III
[Considering the state of the colony as a whole, B seems to be the main contender. Time to check that out.]
[Sans expends just a bit of energy so he can fall into step next to Steven and greets him with a wave.]
'Sup, Steve?
Nice hat.
[He says in earnest.]
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he looks down to his side to meet his eyes with his wave, but only sighs and tries to pull the hat down a little lower. ]
I'd rather you not bring attention to it.
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[That doesn't stop him from eyeing the hat again, this time with a curious hint in his eye. Maybe he can get away with just a little more proding can be done before he respects Steven's wishes.]
Why not? I think it looks good on ya.
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