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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no subject
[ None of it is even remotely familiar! Not to mention that it appears to primarily rely on AI technology, but Jaune is hardly an expert to comment on how that works either. ]
Pyrrha, we're not gonna learn any of this in less than a minute. [ He says calmly, but there's a slight tremble in his voice. There's a reason he brought her with him, put her through all the danger of climbing on a moving train. Their last resort... ] It has to be you.
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This, though? It's the sort of responsibility she was working towards, what she would have accepted someday. To go from still learning, to being struck down, to being responsible for all these lives...
Roughly, she swallows. It's not enough to choke down her fear.
Jaune, though. He's here, still believing her after how badly she let him down. Through every step of this uneven journey past her death, he's been there. If she lets something happen to him now -- staring up at him, her mouth closes on the protest she never voiced. Her mouth takes to a firm line, her decision needing no words. Slowly, Pyrrha looses her grip on his sleeve, standing on her own. ]
This is... nothing.
[ It's muttered for herself. She had fought a Maiden of the seasons and only been defeated when a reinforcement joined the battle. She had burned alive from the inside and is still standing.
Taking a step back, she anchors her feet to the car floor. Superficially, she still feels worn out, remembering the exact moment Cinder's attacks had cost her the ward of her own aura - but, forcing herself to look past that, there's her mother's voice, soft but clear, explaining the elegance of aura with such surpassing grace that Pyrrha herself could only hope to emulate, telling her that strength without hope and kindness was meaningless.
Pyrrha remembers, and Pyrrha begins to glow. Compared to his aura, it's dim, nearly cheap. A functioning scroll would be blinking red and telling her to move to a defensive strategy. Compared to yesterday's nothing, though, none of that matters.
Fists clenching, her muscles cord with the effort. The black shadows that mark her semblance seem to curl around her like flames. The train pushes and she feels like she's pushing back.
Beneath their feet, there'a a faint screeching. It's slowing down.
In a few seconds, she'll have it stopped entirely. ]
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[ To be honest, Jaune was expecting he would have to convince her harder that this is something only she can do, but right now, in this moment, this is the Pyrrha Nikos he knows. She never backs down from a challenge, whether it's four against one or worse. The person who inspires him, just as he's been trying so hard to be the same for her these past few days. ]
You're doing it, just keep it up!! C'mon...!
[ He keeps alternating between staring at her and having his face glued to the window. It's like they're sitting on a knife-edge between excitement that her powers are working, or disappointment that it was all for nothing as they're getting dangerously close to crashing anyway.
Eventually, the train stops in the last second, which is followed by another brief moment of silence as Jaune still has his back turned to her.
She did it. ]
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She doubts she'll be particularly useful twice in one day, but this is enough to make her happy. Into her hands, Pyrrha smiles. ]
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[ Pyrrha's effort to maintain balance doesn't count for much when Jaune, without warning, turns and leaps at her, embracing her in a hug as he laughs. His arms around her are tight, enough to slightly lift Pyrrha off her feet. Unfortunately, Jaune overestimates what little strength he has left and when he tries to spin them around, he falls backwards, smacking his head against the dashboard on their way down. ]
no subject
[ TOO LATE.
She could have predicted this turn of events. His head smacks loudly against the dashboard as they both fall. Pyrrha scrambles for purchase but her body is still slow to respond. His back hits the car floor and she ends up on top of him, like when they had been sparring. The main difference is in the energy around them: Pyrrha's burning brighter than she has in weeks, even with the sleep debt apparent in her eyes.
It almost seems like a normal moment between two perfectly normal kids. ]
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Are you... h-how do you feel?
[ Asks the guy who just suffered head trauma for a second time in the span of 15 minutes. ]
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She doesn't have words for any of that, though.
She simply says, ] - like myself.
[ PYRRHA GET OFF OF HIM ]
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[ Who needs Maidens to save lives when they can accomplish so much as a team. Jaune could have pushed Pyrrha off the train, make sure she landed somewhere safer than wherever the train was headed, but he's learned since the first semester that he can't do things on his own. Nobody should, really...
One thing is for sure, though, Pyrrha is definitely back to her old self, and Jaune can't hide his smile despite their weird position. ]
no subject
His own happiness is infectious. That and her own exhaustive effort fill her with a faint sense of lassitude. Standing up again, she's still wavering somewhat on her feet - but when she offers him a hand, her grip is sturdy.
Opening her mouth - ]
...
[ Closing it again! A faint flush appears high up on her cheeks and her gaze wanders, girlish shyness making her look more like the girl he knew in Remnant, before.
How is that after stopping a train, this is the more intimidating task? ]
Jaune —
[ If only Shia LaBeouf was here to scream at her. ]
When my aura comes back fully, would you consider... having dinner with me?
[ SCREAMING INTERNALLY, TBH. On the outside, she's cool as a cucumber. If he says no, makes his disinterest clear once and for all, that'll be the final nail in the coffin for her pursuit. Still, she remembers their time at the holiday party, the way his heart had sped up on the roof -- Maybe. Maybe something. ]
As in a real date.
[ ... she can throw herself out the window now, right? Her nerves ring in her ears and, somehow, this is still scarier than having to stop a train. ]
no subject
EarthRemnant.Little does she know that Jaune felt the same way, but being leader meant he could never put his own needs above hers, and what Pyrrha needs most right now is to regain her Aura it seems. What's important to her is important to him. ]
Real date, like... flowers? Dress fancy? Guitar? More than friends? If Ren and Nora were together-together kinda deal?
[ This is taking "clearly defined" on a whole new level. ]
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Well, I'm not sure how necessary a guitar would be...
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I'll learn a different instrument. Yes. I-- [ Jaune nods firmly before either of them can take this moment back now. ] I'd love that. Like that. ... No, love. I'm... I'd like, I'd like to stick with my original-- [ SWALLOWS. ] --phrasing. Of words. If I may. I'm not even concussed right now.
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Maybe you can leave the instruments behind when we go out.
[ There's a teasing inflection to her words, but the request itself... yeah, it's earnest. Please, no more musical numbers. ]
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He stands firmly in place, waiting for Pyrrha to approach him until he takes her hand. ]
Pyrrha... I won't give up on helping you find yourself again. I'll wait as long as it takes until your Aura is back, that's a promise.
[ And an Arc never goes back on his word. ]
no subject
He'll wait while she regroups, and Pyrrha knows she needs that time. Will need, has needed.
Right now, she's still flying high on her own accomplishments, remembering a little more who she was. The Invincible Girl, once. Pride and happiness and him: all these things spur her on, making her brave in a way that isn't borne of fatalism.
Not wanting to let go of that feeling, she tugs him in and kisses him.
(Just think of it as a preview of things to come.) ]
1/2
Once it has passed, their breaths intertwine as Jaune remains in close proximity. Even if his heart is racing, there's something comfortable about this. They could stay like this all night as far as he's concerned. ]
Pyrrha...
[ --and then!! ]
2/2
Hello, ʜᴜᴍᴀɴs. You have been selected for our two-for-one special. Compliance is mandatory. Compliance is mandatory. Compliance is mandatory.
Okay! Could've done without the creepy robot head, but--
[ And now the head explodes, followed by Jaune Arc's trademark girl scream. ]
--STOP!! Why did it do that?! G-Gahh!! Now I'm jittery all over!
[ That's not from the explosion, though. ]
no subject
And, yeah. Robot head. Effortlessly, she leans back to avoid the metal debris spraying every which way. In fact, she even catches a small shard of shrapnel before it can pierce Jaune's skull. ]
We should get everyone off this train before this becomes a repeating occurrence.
[ Although she's a little amazed its head survived Jaune's rampage and had the wherewithal to seek revenge days later. Shh. ]