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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She opens her eyes again. ]
No. [ It's sadly said, and Pyrrha shifts to stand next to him, their shoulders touching. ] Not yet, it seems.
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[ It's said a little playfully, nudging her shoulder with his. He really wishes he could help her with that, or just help her out of that self-destructive mindset somehow.
He would have to learn how to do it himself, first. ]
I haven't had a chance to tell you, but... there was a period when mine wasn't recovering as fast either. Here, I mean.
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Pyrrha looks at him, saying nothing, but making it clear he has her full attention. ]
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[ Jaune frowns, realizing that everyone aside from Yang in that group has disappeared by now anyway. ]
--w-well, long story short, I wound up in hospital for several weeks. J-Just small burns! Nothing big! But... yeah. It took longer to heal than it's supposed to.
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Jaune...
[ Pyrrha reaches for his arm. ]
Why didn't you tell me?
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[ And compared to the time he died in Cerealia (which also remains unsaid for now), it really wasn't the worst thing that happened to him. ]
I... I don't even know why I'm even telling you now. Heh. I guess I didn't want you to feel like there's, I dunno, something wrong with you. I think Aura could be connected to how we feel about ourselves... kinda like how Grimm respond to negative feelings or something. [ Jaune rolls his eyes at how ridiculous he sounds. ] Augh, I dunno, I'm not a professor!
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Jaune, no matter what's going on with me, I never want you to feel like you can't talk to me about what's happening in your life.
[ She'll get to the rest of what he said in a second. ]
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[ Pyrrha is mostly successful in her attempt at comfort, but also unknowingly casts a spell of guilt over him. He didn't tell her about that incident because it was in the past, and so will the story of his death be the longer he avoids bringing it up. Such a hypocrite. ]
Th-thanks, Pyrrha. I guess I should know that by now...
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[ She eases up, both hands reclaiming the hanging strap. ]
We all need little reminders from time to time.
[ It's casually said, warm without being weighty. It could have led to A Moment, but there's a faint, trembling undercurrent in the vibration of the monorail, distracting her. He may not feel it until it grows more urgent but Pyrrha's always been sensitive to metal. Glancing down, she frowns at the floor, the scrutiny drawing her gaze left, right, and left again. ]
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Actually, Pyrrha, there's something else I--
[ Then, just as suddenly he made up his mind, the monorail comes to a violent stop, with just about anyone who wasn't holding on losing their balance. In Jaune's case, he bumps heads with Pyrrha as he falls into her arms.
And then, before anyone can even process what just happened, the train starts speeding backwards really fast, and then stopping AGAIN. Something is wrong... ]
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As it is, she holds him steady without much consideration, turning her head to look out the window. Although Pyrrha can't see the bottom of the train, she can see faint sparks jumping off the tracks.
The monorail's quivers grow more pronounced, lights flickering.
And Pyrrha? In the wake of this danger, she's recognisable - the same deadly calm she had employed in all contentious scenarios, even after everything had fallen apart. ]
... we need to stop this train.
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[ Nothing like snarky humour to even out Pyrrha's stone cold equilibrium. Jaune rubs his forehead, which is actually unbruised for the record, as he tries to peek outside the windows. ]
Do you think the train could be on the fritz, too?
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[ It's not long for a train, only about seven or eight cars. While he's looking out the window, Pyrrha searches for an indicator of which way they should go - which way is the control car? Eventually, she sees, in very small text above the door, press the yellow bar in case of emergency.
Guess what pressing it does, though.
It actually makes the train go even faster. Surprise! ]
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Okay, that... yeah, because of course.
[ Not that he blames Pyrrha at all. It was the obvious thing to do, something he would have done as well had he thought of it sooner. ]
We could just wait until it stops again? As long as the track is on a loop, everyone on board should still be safe until then.
[ Should be, but they won't. Coming up on a large bend in the tracks, everyone will clearly see that a portion of it has been destroyed in the faraway distance, and the monorail has about three minutes until it reaches what will literally be a dead end unless they all do something. ]
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Seeing the gap in the tracks, she pulls herself back in. The quiet calm from a moment ago has been somewhat stricken from her expression, traces of panic visible for anyone who knows how to look.
Slowly, Pyrrha shakes her head. ]
That's not going to work.
[ I just got here — already, fear is untethering her thoughts, making her uncertain and drawing prickles from skin. ]
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[ It's bizarre when Jaune appears more collected than Pyrrha in a situation like this, but that's only because he's used to being terrified on a daily basis. For him, there's no greater motivator than fear, because absence of it means he doesn't understand the gravity of their situation. ]
We could jump out, but... all these people on board. [ Of course, leaving them behind is not an option. Jaune and Pyrrha are the ones who lead some of them all the way here in the first place. ]
Everyone, please stay calm and hold on! We'll handle this!
[ will they?? ]
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If there was ever time for group strategy? It's now.
Looking up at him, it's clear she's waiting for his plan. ]
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I need you to come with me to the control car. It's our best shot at stopping this thing.
[ And then, reassuringly, as if he's trying to convince himself just as much as her, Jaune rests a hand on Pyrrha's shoulder. ] We can do this.
[ They're the only ones who can, in fact. ]
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Let's go.
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O-Okay, I'm pretty sure this train has something against us now.
[ Jaune kicks the door in frustration, but remains still in focus for the most part. He looks around the room for any alternatives, left, right... up. Then at the windows, one of which Pyrrha managed to open just before.
This just got a lot harder for someone with motion sickness. ...Which is mysteriously absent for now? Later Jaune will wonder if he was experiencing a positive side-effect of weird glitching shenanigans, or he was just simply too task-focused to stop and vomit. ]
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[ She sees where his gaze goes and knows what he's thinking: they'll have to mount the top of the train and make their way to the driving car from above. They'll have the environment to contend with, though - as an option, it's not optimal.
The doors, though. They're metal. This entire monorail is manipulable metal.
Pyrrha rests her hand flat on the door, feeling the rattle of impurities and the hum of vibrations too quick and slight for human hearing—but when she tries to pull it open, straining for her semblance, nothing happens.
Mortified by both the failure and the wasted seconds, she busies herself opening the window so he can crawl out. ]
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[ Failure is another thing Jaune is all too familiar with, and Pyrrha has been getting a taste of it ever since she came back. It can be a snowball effect if one dwells on it too long. ]
I heard the doors are made of a type of stone.
[ A white lie, and not even a good one. He just doesn't want her feeling one second of what it's like to be as useless as him. Jaune swallows, then crawls his way through the window. Surprisingly, he doesn't seem to have too much trouble finding his way to the top, he knows that should he slip, he can readjust himself with the rocket boots Hiro made for him. ]
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They're about two minutes away from the wreckage now, and careening closer to disaster with every second.
Pyrrha points to an in-congruent car at the tail of the train, where she thinks she can see a complicated switchboard of controls. If they are going to stop this train, that has to be the spot. She opens her mouth to tell him such, but the roar of the train drowns her out, making Pyrrha's voice inaudible to even her own ears. No talking until they get back in, apparently.]
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Well. They made it this far, but, "complicated switchboard of controls" turns out to be just that. For some reason he had just imagined there would be a big red stop button and that's all they had to do, but... ]
This is it. [ We won't have time. ]
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She feels like she did on - on that night, at the base of the tower, except now her hand is clutching his sleeve. ]
... does - any of this look familiar to you?
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