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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[Usagi looks almost sheepish at that, but it would hardly be the first time she's been reprimanded on timing. At least it wasn't Luna, a talking cat, this time. Besides, there's no better deflection from others suspecting her as a senshi if she....acts like herself.
At Naoto's urgency, Usagi reaches for her hand and leads the way. Or tries to. Hopefully she's going in the right direction.]
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The hand-holding is weird, though. Is this girl just really this forward?
...does she even know that she's a girl, too?] T-Tsukino-san?!
Do we really have to hold hands on the way there?
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[She is just naturally affectionate. And protective. But she tries to downplay that in her civilian form in comparison. She'd just wanted to be sure the other would stick close just in case. Though really, Naoto seems to handle herself well enough, given her summon thing earlier. She gives an almost sheepish look as she releases the other's hand, still gesturing for the other to follow.
Whether Usagi has registered the other as a girl yet or not is irrelevant. She's just as protective of anyone she meets. If anything it might remind her of what Rei said about Haruka.]
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The garden was up here... another street, and then we'll take a right. Do you know it?
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[But she is relieved. She never means for such actions to upset anyone. More, that she is a physical person and for practical purposes of sticking together, it seemed to make sense. But she won't reach again for the other's hand as they continue making their way to the gardens, following Naoto's directions.]
Here?
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Unless I've underestimated the severity of the glitches, however. We may be code, but are the plants, as well...? [Sorry, Usagi. She's thinking out loud.]
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[Usagi is nothing if not an optimist. And she doesn't seem to mind the other theorizing aloud. It's something she's used to, between Ami and the rest they have to deal with at times back home.]
I never really thought about if the plants were. But this just seems to be technology? Or, from what I can tell so far....
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[She tilts her head at the plants.] It stands to reason that they could create plant matter out of the same, as well. Frankly speaking, we need to be vigilant for any changes to anything here.
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[Hopefully. Probably.]
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[And certain evenings while things were happening in general that got a little chaotic, like carnivals and such. But Ami had well warned her about the potential dangers of the ViVid in general, and the plant life.]
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[And the cage.]
At the end, we got to ask a question, each of us. I think the others probably got better answers - I just wanted to be sure that the one who died, that they would be okay and come back. [She still isn't entirely sure how it works, something with the code. But either way. Reincarnation is hardly new to her, after her memories as Princess Serenity returned.]
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I presume, then, that the questions were asked in private, and you weren't privy to any of the others' conversations? Who answered them?
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[But now hardly seems the time to go poking around, if Usagi ever had any more inclination to go trudging through sewers ever again. What with the electronic doors, the cage, the robot dinosaurs and all that her particular group had encountered.]
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[For all that she has been here a while, Usagi has the benefir of Rei's presence and knowledge, of Hiros', she's still learning a lot about CERES and Cerealia herself as time goes on.]
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[Rei had been down there too. In some other area. So she definitely knows there is more out there.]
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How did you get out?
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[Usagi tries to explain, keeping an eye on the plants even as they walk and she sticks close to Naoto.]
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Still, even if our hosts here seem less than trustworthy, I can't imagine that this is their doing intentionally. Everything seems so chaotic...
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[It's taken time. But for once, Usagi agrees with the caution, with Naoto's uncertainty towards CERES. Which is saying something given she usually gives most anyone the benefit of the doubt, wanting to trust and befriend everyone.]
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[Which is probably hopeful and almost naive to a point. But give them time. If there is still chaos, she'll step up to try help herself if necessary too.]
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