[ooc; key points of the thread will be linked. Will try to cw each link as best I can. If you do decide read the whole thread, when you get to the part where it splits into three, choose the middle hallway to continue following Xion.]
[The environment that comes into view is... a rather plain one. It's a cafeteria, littered with tables and chairs of varying sizes. There's a full-service kitchen off to one side, complete with storage, and a walk-in oven and freezer alike. Aside from the walls, there's the tower's spine in the middle, complete with elevator this time.
It's also currently full of people.
The person you're looking for, of course, is Xion. She's a bit different, not wearing her Organization coat, instead a plain, undyed shirt and black pants, with a sword strapped to her waist, along with an odd mask. Not to mention her age - she's older than on Monsun and the islets, but younger than she is on Mu. As soon as you get close enough, her voice speaks, though it's obviously not the one you can see talking.]
The mission wasn't my idea. It was... Enoch's, I think. We'd gotten our hands on some of the collar fluid-
[Oh that's right. Everyone, even Xion, is wearing collars with varying colors of fluid inside, ranging from orange to violet, the latter of which being Xion's own shade]
-and... I don't really understand all of it, even now. But everything up here on the residential levels was made of film. The stuff that makes the glamour work. And if we used those tools on the fluid we got, we'd lose it, or it would get turned into film too, somehow. So we needed to go down to the admin levels, to get real tools.
[There's some eating, mingling... then the crowd coalesces into groups of around five to eight. And slowly move towards the elevator, whose doors are already open. And her group is the third (no cws) to go down. At first it's climbing down cables, then using their supernatural abilities when the the cables just... disappear, at one point (though the shaft continues).
It's at an odd sort of red light, quite a ways down the shaft, that things start getting hairy (cw: injury, broken bones/joints, dislocation, hanging, blood mention). And that's when "Xion" speaks up again.]
A couple of us were just testing it, at first. Trying to find a safe way down. Then the rest of us, we heard the screams and... we couldn't just leave them.
The red light nullified our powers. Or... the glamour of them, at least. And kept the psychoradiation out, for what it meant back then. So we... we just had to jump. It... some of us were just lucky, and others of us weren't. Asch, Ion's friend.... And even those of us who were okay all got hurt, somehow.
[As the memory follows her down, it's easy to see what she means. With two violent deaths, and injuries ranging from friction burns to dislocations to very nasty bone breaks. It's almost impossible to picture how they'll get out.
Except that Xion is the least injured of them, and she has an idea (cw: blood mention).]
I don't really know what I was doing then... just that I had to do something. I was probably the least hurt out of all of us. Especially Yu. [She'd been scared for him, and it shows in her voice.]
I wish I could thank Link for giving me the sword. And the mask.
[She's able to jump to one of the doors now visible on the elevator shaft, and using the sword, she's able to wedge the door open. Her magic comes back to her in the room on the other side, and with a lot of negotiation, she's able to help everyone still alive get into the room. Even Yu. (cw: injury mention, slight innuendo).]
... shut up.
[Clearly flustered. Though she'd be horrified if she knew and understood all the implications of that particular situation.
In any case, the group takes time to regroup, and recover how they can... relocating shoulders and rearranging broken bones. And shutting the door behind them, as odd effects that had manifested in the elevator shaft and kept manifesting here: Bulging, the shaft "breathing," blinding lights.]
Psychoradiation. It's actually not too bad like this, if you can believe it.
[It takes time, but eventually, they're ready to move on. For all the good it does them. They aren't even being incautious - Sheba had barely reached out to sense the possible minds of others, when they'd been detected by retrieval units. In response to their appearance, one of their group throws caution to the winds, firing a laser further into the hallway.
The observing Xion's voice is flat, cold, bitter.]
Jason.
[The mask that the observing Xion mentioned earlier? The memory Xion puts it on, and it soon becomes clear why she valued it so much. The retrieval units seem oblivious to her presence as she sprints across the room, and tosses them into the air with a spell. For all the good it does. They're well and truly caught by the aforementioned Jason now.
You know, this bit almost made it worth it. I'd spent so long hiding, just... just trying to get by, really. Trying to keep myself and my friends safe. I could have screwed things up. The things I said sometimes... if people had listened to me, we wouldn't have gotten the collar fluid. We wouldn't have learned so many things.
Learned Helplessness, that's what Jason called it. And I had it, and I hated him for it. So being able to do this... for a moment, it felt incredible.
[Behaving erratically, it would seem, knocks Jason off-balance. And so they're able to scatter, all of them running off in different directions in groups of two, with Yu following Xion. Jason, as it would happen, is not happy with this development. He pulls up a computer screen, taps something into it, and meanwhile, his shout reverberates around the area.
"I will not have rats wandering around!"
If you wanted to know what the glamour was, now, you're able to see. As you follow the Xion in this memory... she isn't really Xion anymore. Or at least she doesn't look like it. Her body is like a wifeframe mesh (similar to one in a computer program, for those who might recognize it) with a pale translucent skin covering it all. Except the collar, which is less a collar and part of the mesh. Inside the mesh is nothing but the collar fluid, except for a shining bright light, in the center. Everything else, clothes, supplies, everything, all seems to be made of a sort of film.
Xion and Yu keep running, with Jason himself in tow. Even with their head start, it doesn't take long to catch up, and when he does, they see that they're not the only ones whose true forms have been hidden (cw: body horror out the wazoo). They keep trying though, even when he tries to pin them down, literally.
They can't dodge forever, though. (cw: injury, impalement). Yu stops to try to help, but in the end only dooms himself. The film weapons, as it would happen, can warp as needed, with Xion's film sword sliding around Jason's leg rather than through it when she tries.
The silence from the observing Xion is almost palpable at this point.
Once they're both subdued in various ways, Jason decides to make use of the room they're in - a morgue, as it would happen. He straps them both down on examination tables. Then, out of some fit of mercy or capriciousness or both, he listens to Xion's pleas, giving Yu a swift end.
For her, meanwhile... (cw: moderate/heavy gore, torture of children, child death implication/mention, vivisection).
Jason takes his time, taking an absurd joy in the proceedings. Each moment the kind that burns itself sharply in your memory, but the words most of all...
"Of course you'll keep fighting. That's what all of you do, right? Little mice backed into corners bite and kick and claw... Even with their entrails dragging along behind them, even when they're certainly dead, rats and mice will fight.
That's why I like all of you so much."
Finally, the observing Xion speaks again.]
I know what I am, but I never thought about what it meant, not like... this... Stupid thing to even think about when... And what he said then, I... I didn't want this. I didn't want to remember this. I don't want to remember this. Why. WHY-
[And then, as the memory Xion's screaming dies, the world dissolves, pulling itself back into its source, the real Xion, who's standing behind, a good ways away. Her eyes are wide enough for white to be visible all the way around, hands locked tightly in front of her mouth, and she's very, very pale indeed. She doesn't even take notice of her surroundings, immediately. Certainly not anybody who was watching...]
JULY TOWERDIVE (cw: death, body horror, various kinds of injury, torture of children, etc.)
[The environment that comes into view is... a rather plain one. It's a cafeteria, littered with tables and chairs of varying sizes. There's a full-service kitchen off to one side, complete with storage, and a walk-in oven and freezer alike. Aside from the walls, there's the tower's spine in the middle, complete with elevator this time.
It's also currently full of people.
The person you're looking for, of course, is Xion. She's a bit different, not wearing her Organization coat, instead a plain, undyed shirt and black pants, with a sword strapped to her waist, along with an odd mask. Not to mention her age - she's older than on Monsun and the islets, but younger than she is on Mu. As soon as you get close enough, her voice speaks, though it's obviously not the one you can see talking.]
The mission wasn't my idea. It was... Enoch's, I think. We'd gotten our hands on some of the collar fluid-
[Oh that's right. Everyone, even Xion, is wearing collars with varying colors of fluid inside, ranging from orange to violet, the latter of which being Xion's own shade]
-and... I don't really understand all of it, even now. But everything up here on the residential levels was made of film. The stuff that makes the glamour work. And if we used those tools on the fluid we got, we'd lose it, or it would get turned into film too, somehow. So we needed to go down to the admin levels, to get real tools.
[There's some eating, mingling... then the crowd coalesces into groups of around five to eight. And slowly move towards the elevator, whose doors are already open. And her group is the third (no cws) to go down. At first it's climbing down cables, then using their supernatural abilities when the the cables just... disappear, at one point (though the shaft continues).
It's at an odd sort of red light, quite a ways down the shaft, that things start getting hairy (cw: injury, broken bones/joints, dislocation, hanging, blood mention). And that's when "Xion" speaks up again.]
A couple of us were just testing it, at first. Trying to find a safe way down. Then the rest of us, we heard the screams and... we couldn't just leave them.
The red light nullified our powers. Or... the glamour of them, at least. And kept the psychoradiation out, for what it meant back then. So we... we just had to jump. It... some of us were just lucky, and others of us weren't. Asch, Ion's friend.... And even those of us who were okay all got hurt, somehow.
[As the memory follows her down, it's easy to see what she means. With two violent deaths, and injuries ranging from friction burns to dislocations to very nasty bone breaks. It's almost impossible to picture how they'll get out.
Except that Xion is the least injured of them, and she has an idea (cw: blood mention).]
I don't really know what I was doing then... just that I had to do something. I was probably the least hurt out of all of us. Especially Yu. [She'd been scared for him, and it shows in her voice.]
I wish I could thank Link for giving me the sword. And the mask.
[She's able to jump to one of the doors now visible on the elevator shaft, and using the sword, she's able to wedge the door open. Her magic comes back to her in the room on the other side, and with a lot of negotiation, she's able to help everyone still alive get into the room. Even Yu. (cw: injury mention, slight innuendo).]
... shut up.
[Clearly flustered. Though she'd be horrified if she knew and understood all the implications of that particular situation.
In any case, the group takes time to regroup, and recover how they can... relocating shoulders and rearranging broken bones. And shutting the door behind them, as odd effects that had manifested in the elevator shaft and kept manifesting here: Bulging, the shaft "breathing," blinding lights.]
Psychoradiation. It's actually not too bad like this, if you can believe it.
[It takes time, but eventually, they're ready to move on. For all the good it does them. They aren't even being incautious - Sheba had barely reached out to sense the possible minds of others, when they'd been detected by retrieval units. In response to their appearance, one of their group throws caution to the winds, firing a laser further into the hallway.
Which doesn't go unnoticed. (no cw)
The observing Xion's voice is flat, cold, bitter.]
Jason.
[The mask that the observing Xion mentioned earlier? The memory Xion puts it on, and it soon becomes clear why she valued it so much. The retrieval units seem oblivious to her presence as she sprints across the room, and tosses them into the air with a spell. For all the good it does. They're well and truly caught by the aforementioned Jason now.
Then, things get unexpected (cw: swearing, epicness).]
You know, this bit almost made it worth it. I'd spent so long hiding, just... just trying to get by, really. Trying to keep myself and my friends safe. I could have screwed things up. The things I said sometimes... if people had listened to me, we wouldn't have gotten the collar fluid. We wouldn't have learned so many things.
Learned Helplessness, that's what Jason called it. And I had it, and I hated him for it. So being able to do this... for a moment, it felt incredible.
[Behaving erratically, it would seem, knocks Jason off-balance. And so they're able to scatter, all of them running off in different directions in groups of two, with Yu following Xion. Jason, as it would happen, is not happy with this development. He pulls up a computer screen, taps something into it, and meanwhile, his shout reverberates around the area.
"I will not have rats wandering around!"
If you wanted to know what the glamour was, now, you're able to see. As you follow the Xion in this memory... she isn't really Xion anymore. Or at least she doesn't look like it. Her body is like a wifeframe mesh (similar to one in a computer program, for those who might recognize it) with a pale translucent skin covering it all. Except the collar, which is less a collar and part of the mesh. Inside the mesh is nothing but the collar fluid, except for a shining bright light, in the center. Everything else, clothes, supplies, everything, all seems to be made of a sort of film.
Xion and Yu keep running, with Jason himself in tow. Even with their head start, it doesn't take long to catch up, and when he does, they see that they're not the only ones whose true forms have been hidden (cw: body horror out the wazoo). They keep trying though, even when he tries to pin them down, literally.
They can't dodge forever, though. (cw: injury, impalement). Yu stops to try to help, but in the end only dooms himself. The film weapons, as it would happen, can warp as needed, with Xion's film sword sliding around Jason's leg rather than through it when she tries.
The silence from the observing Xion is almost palpable at this point.
Once they're both subdued in various ways, Jason decides to make use of the room they're in - a morgue, as it would happen. He straps them both down on examination tables. Then, out of some fit of mercy or capriciousness or both, he listens to Xion's pleas, giving Yu a swift end.
For her, meanwhile... (cw: moderate/heavy gore, torture of children, child death implication/mention, vivisection).
Jason takes his time, taking an absurd joy in the proceedings. Each moment the kind that burns itself sharply in your memory, but the words most of all...
"Of course you'll keep fighting. That's what all of you do, right? Little mice backed into corners bite and kick and claw... Even with their entrails dragging along behind them, even when they're certainly dead, rats and mice will fight.
That's why I like all of you so much."
Finally, the observing Xion speaks again.]
I know what I am, but I never thought about what it meant, not like... this... Stupid thing to even think about when... And what he said then, I... I didn't want this. I didn't want to remember this. I don't want to remember this. Why. WHY-
[And then, as the memory Xion's screaming dies, the world dissolves, pulling itself back into its source, the real Xion, who's standing behind, a good ways away. Her eyes are wide enough for white to be visible all the way around, hands locked tightly in front of her mouth, and she's very, very pale indeed. She doesn't even take notice of her surroundings, immediately. Certainly not anybody who was watching...]