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
Well, yes, but-- they have stunt doubles.
[ Which is only a thing that she knows because someone from her world was a stunt double. Could Riku do it? Probably. Or Sora, or Roxas, or any of countless other Keyblade wielders who have flown and jumped off of buildings and been hit by buildings and were totally fine, and fought giant monsters and vicious Heartless and survived. But Naminé is not any of those people and she has no cause to assume that Dipper is as durable as any of the fellows from her world, and also the idea of jumping off of a train is just as frightening when her life is endangered by not jumping off of said train as when it isn't. ]
Are you sure there isn't some better way to stop it? What if there are other people on board--?
no subject
I don't see anything in here that could work as a break, and I don't know how we'd get anyone else off - [ Just then, there's an unnerving lurch as the train speedily rounds a bend. Dipper feels the bottom drop out of his stomach as the train just manages to stay on the tracks.
Next time, he's not sure they'll be so lucky. ]
The only other thing we could try is detaching this car, but I don't know how we'd do that! We'd need tools, or - some kind of explosion.
[ So if Namine has a secret stash of dynamite, this would be the time to share. ]
no subject
An explosion--....
[ It's muttered under her breath. If only she were a more experienced magician - surely there'd be a spell for a proper explosion. Or if she had a Keyblade, maybe the cars could be unlocked from each other. But there's little time for regretting what she can't do, and she'll just have to make the most of it. She may not have a secret stash of dynamite, but there are plenty of other tricks up her sleeve. ]
[ Metaphorically. She doesn't actually have sleeves at the moment. ]
[ Without a word, she abruptly turns and begins to make her somewhat unsteady way toward the front of the car, expression grimly set. Sorry, Dipper, she's a girl on a mission. ]
no subject
Dipper jumps down off the seat, trailing after her. Figures she would have some kind of magic. Everyone around here seems to. You know, except for him. If she's going to blow things up, though, the least he can do is supervise. ]
Youuu...got a plan, here?
no subject
Maybe.
[ which, before she's even gotten to the door, she amends to an, ]
A few of them. But you might-- [ The door is meant to be automated and opened via button. Which... in this case is a problem for obvious reasons; there's an emergency handle that she reaches for instead. ] -- not -- [ She makes an attempt to use her meager weight to budge the door. It's not very effective.... But two teenagers are better than one? ] -- like the others.
no subject
Still, if she has an idea to detach the car, that's still better than trying to jump off the top of a speeding train, so...he throws his weight against the door to help her slooooooowly push it open. ]
Why not? What are the others?!
no subject
[ She needs a second; not used to exerting herself, forcing the door open takes up more of her mental faculties than it otherwise might. The noise is not a pleasant one, either, and she has to half-shout over it. ]
One of them is we go back and jump.
[ Which she is especially not looking forward to as a possibility, but more to the point -- the door finally opens enough for her to peer out of it. Looking down, she can see where the cars connect, although that does her little good; there's no noticeable way to disconnect them manually. ]
And the other... is that I try something I've never tried before, we go somewhere no human should ever go, and we just have to hope for the best.
[ Because sure, she could continue to keep her magic under wraps. She could let the both of them die to protect her own secrets - but she isn't that person and she hopes she never will be. Even if the effects are temporary, his life isn't hers to throw away. ]
[ So, you know, if he's got any objections to the explosion plan, he'd better voice them now. Body half out of the door, she raises a hand, fingers curled - they spread and Fire flares into life above her open palm. Fortunately she's seen fit to practice at least a few forms of magic before this incident, but that's about the closest thing she has to an explosion at the moment. Lifting that hand further, she takes aim at the connection between the cars, fully prepared to see if the metal will give with a little heat-related coercion. ]
no subject
He really likes their odds right now.
And before he can even think of what to say to that, she's moving out the door using fire magic on the connector, and he's not really sure what to say to that, either. He's not expecting the hitch to budge with a little heat, but if she can amp that up a little bit... ]
Uhh...what exactly do you mean by "going somewhere no human should ever go"? [ LOOK HE'S A LITTLE CONCERNED ABOUT THIS PART STILL ] Aaaand is there anything I can do to help?
[ Well, at least there's that. ]
no subject
... It's a long story.
[ Which is hardly a comforting answer, to be sure. Trying again yields the same results, and the third spell, though slightly larger, appears to be both her limit and almost as ineffective, although the metal is a bit scorched now. Such a shame; she has the potential for more but not the wherewithal to use it. Frowning deeply, she pulls herself fully back inside. ]
Let's just say that there are some paths that most people can't travel, and it's for good reason. Spending too much time there is dangerous for anyone with a heart. You'll... have to stick close, that's all. [ Which sounds a bit on edge for a sentence ending in 'that's all.' Exhaling, she shakes her head. Back to the more immediate matter, ] It won't budge. If you have any other ideas, now's the time. [ That counts as helping, right? ]