EMPTY CHAIRS AT EMPTY TABLES

[onemind]

CHARACTERS: All
WHERE: Concordia - VEN DIAGRAMS HQ + BOUT IT OUT PARLOR + BEARINGS APARTMENT BLOCK
WHEN: Late Day :022 + Early Day :023
SUMMARY: The results of all your hard work - for better or worse. One win, one draw, one loss. Anakin Skywalker bites the big one.
WARNINGS: Violence, non-graphic character death.

IT’S BEEN A LONG DAY. Unfortunately, that’s not about to change any time soon. In the late hours of the evening, two things are happening: the final round of the Bout It Out expose between Kun-Kun and The Darkling is spooling up; meanwhile, the infiltration team at Ven Diagrams is working to retrieve information on H+H1 from the company’s security drive. Unfortunately, neither is going to reach the natural conclusion.

At the REGAL STREET GAMING PARLOR, emotions are running high. After a long day of simulation violence and the reveal of Kun-Kun’s new automaton fighting avatar, the crowd has been stoked to a few pitch. The music’s loud but the crowd is louder: cheering and booing, shouting for every landed or evaded strike. There’s an electric pulse of excitement in the air-- and then there’s a very literal one as an electromagnetic pulse rocks the Regal Street Parlor. The Bout It Out ring shorts and the entire parlor is pitched into total, window-less darkness. It doesn’t take more than a few seconds for the crowd’s excitement to melt into panic. Pushing, shoving, shouting - a piercing shriek as one of Kun-Kun’s representatives is stabbed. The nearby hosts (Lexa, Sam Alexander, and anyone in their faux attachment) should be able to help Kun-Kun and his reps to safety, but the crush of the crowd tangles up everyone else. When a rudimentary bomb goes off in the center of the parlor, it catches plenty of people in the crossfire.

There’s a white hot flash. A pulse of heat. A sizzle of agony. It’s a pain that guts, that persists long after the flash of the bomb and extends all the way to the infiltration team at Ven Diagrams. It’s like a limb badly severed. Anakin Skywalker is killed by the blast and every host knows it before they’re aware of anything else.

Unluckily for the infiltration team, they won’t have much time to recover. News of the bombing hits Extraspace in a matter of seconds, which triggers Ven Diagrams - paranoid from the recent attack on their own properties - to lock down their headquarters. All systems are tightened and security clamps down before the infiltration team can access the private servers. If you’re somewhere you’re not supposed to be, now’s the time to get the hell out of dodge.

Retreat, regroup. Upon returning to the Bearings apartment block, the hosts will find that two of their previously comatose friends have woken up: Hux and Aoba Seragaki will probably need to be briefed on the current situation.

     I. THE ROOM WHERE IT HAPPENS
In the Regal Street Gaming Parlor, a pulse flashes. Electronics sizzle. A fight reaching rhythm is shattered and darkness consumes the parlor in its entirety. There’s something like a collective inhale - and then the panic sets in. Screaming. Pushing. Elbows in the dark and a wave of bodies forcing their way toward wherever they think the exit is. Parlors like this one are supposed to be shielded from this kind of problem, but today that doesn’t matter. In just a few short moments of panic, a bomb - basic compared to the one that blew out the Ven Diagram warehouse only days ago - goes off.

There’s a buzz. An electrical hiss. In the wake of the explosion - in the wake of the agony of Anakin’s death -, the parlor’s fire systems go off flooding the upper and lower levels, the spectator balconies with flame retardant powder and coolant. The emergency lighting kicks on, throwing the carnage into stark fluorescent light. The probable intended victim has escaped, along with his entourage, but there are plenty of wounded - groans and weeping permeate the chemical stale air. In addition to Anakin, three people have been killed and two androids have been rendered into scrap by the explosion. Countless others could use help; maybe even a few other hosts have been wounded by the blast.

     II. MEANWHILE...
If you’re part of the infiltration team, you’ve officially overstayed your welcome. Security tightens to a chokehold; if you’re somewhere you shouldn’t be, it’s time to leave. An alarm blares through the development laboratories. The building is evacuated and then sealed throughout. The powerlifts cease operation. All networked systems go offline.

     III. FROM THE JAWS OF DEFEAT
Back at the parlor, the evacuation continues. The parlor is half-collapsed, there are injured to tend to and local authorities to deal with. In a matter of minutes, the the parlor is swarmed by public security and medical personnel. If you’re able bodied, you’re welcome to assist with rescue efforts - or try to find a lead on who could’ve been responsible for this. Some evidence, some sign - anything to make this worth it. During this time those with Kun Adetokunbo will have the chance to make their case.

It’s a long, protracted clean up and triage; it’s absolutely possible that some of the infiltration team members might make it to the site of the explosion to assist or care for their friends. 

     IV. WE TEND OUR WOUNDED, WE COUNT OUR DEAD
In the early hours of the morning on Day 023, the hosts limp back to Bearings. Maybe it should be achingly quiet, but it’s not - there’s a murmur of activity in the mental air as Hux and Aoba muddle out of their way from out of their comas. From here, it’s up to to the hosts to recover, to discuss how they want to proceed, and come up with a way to recover from this setback - and from Anakin’s death.

---

((OOC NOTES: Here it is, your wrapup log for the event! You may have noticed that the Hosts didn’t succeed at the Ven Diagrams infiltration. We thought this was a better way than asking everyone to handwave a huge amount of plot or simply having the NPCs get the evidence. Don’t worry though - there will be other mysteries to unravel soon. Very soon, in fact.

There will be an NPC top-level for the escape with Kun-Kun, but otherwise you’re free to make your own top levels! If you have any questions please feel free to ask them in the event OOC post.

Thanks everyone!))

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( CODE BY WHAMBAM )

Comments

iv

[headinjuries]

[ It was easier to keep going in the heat of the moment, because Sam's used to running on pure adrenaline and pushing everything else out of the way to process later. Doing always came more easily to him than thinking.

Which means that after they've managed some brief, tense negotiations with Kun-Kun and company to talk further later, and after they've extracted everyone from what's left of the Regal Street Gaming Parlor, once they're back at the Bearings and out of things to do, Sam's at something of a loss.

It's still weird, the pain still lingering from Anakin's death. Sam never even talked to him, but the feeling of hurt, of something missing, is as clear as day. Somehow it hurts more than when he found the Watcher dead in his citadel - the death of someone he'd never properly met is sharper than the death of one of the first people who believed in him and one of the only people he could honestly, with no hesitation, call his friend.

That's uncomfortable as hell, if he's blunt about it. (And Sam usually is.) This hivemind stuff? Still a long way from being a thing he's used to.

And busy as he is with turning things over in his head - the discomfort, and the tragedy of what just happened, and the memory of another explosion and another tragedy that he can't help but compare it to - he hasn't really been doing much of anything else. He's claimed one end of a couch in the common room and is curled up with his knees pulled in to his chest, leaning against the armrest and looking tired as hell. He hasn't bothered to change, and he hasn't actually paid much attention to whether the blood on the leg of his pants is his or not.

He hasn't been adding much to the conversations, mental or spoken aloud. The longer the discussion continues, the farther down his head drops against the side of the couch.

He knows this is important stuff, but he's tired, okay? ]

[circumspector]

[ She's been in the same spot enough times since she came here - and it's a pang, she's lost one of her own brood this way. She carries the guilt of Parker still, and selfish, too, some part of her glad that it's not another part of her brood with so few of them left now.

But it's exhausting still, and she catches sight of him as she goes past. He looks as she feels. The palid colour the world seems to turn after so much, whites too bright and blacks ever encroaching. She pauses, looking over him carefully, a hesitation before she continues to go and goes to find the blanket that she'd started keeping in the common room for her own same problem of falling asleep on the couch. It's soft, something she'd picked up in the markets ( needlessly pretty, embroidered with flowers and local animals ) and she comes and gently drapes it across his shoulders. It's familiar so much as the few times she's taken care of others. Nice to give it back when people do it for her so often.

It's only then she really notices how young he is. It means nothing - Pandoran children, assuming they survive their parents devouring them in infancy, get guns as soon as they can control their own fingers and aim safely. It means everything - she couldn't have been much younger than him when she'd been over exposed the wretch of violence. There's nothing to be done about it, it's just what it is. Twists something, and she'll kill as much as she'll care. ]

Did you want anything else? [ She get him some water, some food too. ]

[headinjuries]

[ His eyes are almost closed when he feels the weight of the blanket, light though it is, and he looks up at her, blinking.

Then down to the blanket again. It's...nice. Possibly a little too nice for the occasion, considering he hasn't changed or showered and there's dust and blood on his clothes. ]

Is that okay? I mean, I'm kinda...I don't want to get it all gross.

[circumspector]

[ She finishes tucking it around him. Making sure it doesn't cover his face to get in his way when he needs to get out of it. Looks up to his face and she shrugs it off and a shake of her head - she doesn't mind at all. ]

If it does, I can take it to one of the cleaners. So don't worry about it, okay?

[headinjuries]

Okay.

[ It is, admittedly, pretty easy to stop worrying about that. There's plenty else to burn all his bad feelings on, even if he hadn't hit that point where worrying about anything feels like more energy than he's still got left in him.

Wait, he's forgetting something - ]

Thanks.

[circumspector]

[ She smiles, letting the blanket settle finally after her fussing. ] You're welcome.

[ About to leave then, straightens up - not that she's shockingly tall, granted. But lingers just one moment more. ]

I'm Angel. If you need anything, just call out for me, I'll be there.

wedgies him

[unfavoured]

[ There is a constant attempt deep in Parker to push everyone away. Practice makes perfect and she wants to achieve how to put up walls around her mind as fast as possible because as far as she's concerned, everyone else can stop trying to link or talk to her in her mind. It's gross. It feels-- suffocating. Much more than the extremely uncomfortable lingering death of some guy she did not even know and cares not to know or remember. That shared feeling, she tries to push it away. It is not hers, this sensation of loss. It's something inside her and she wants none of it.

This hivemind stuff? Not something she is going to willing accept, ever.

Which is why it's really annoying trying to focus in the common room. She only got there to grab water, but it's hard to focus with so much noise. It makes her feel nauseous, like a bad hangover. Worse still, when she stands not too far off Sam. Like there's something in him that speaks louder than all others. A pull, and she has felt it before, with one person - and it only serves to make her more annoyed.

She barely spares him a glance, only to do a double take. He's-- the youngest looking kid she has seen around. Most of the people around here are adults, some older than others, but this kid? He looks like he's barely able to grow any chest hair.

This is wrong. She stares at him, from a safe distance. ]

You're getting blood all over the couch.

[ She means, you should get that checked. ]

(ಠ ∩ಠ)

[headinjuries]

[ He feels it before he sees her - that tug on something in his mind, that weird feeling like a missing puzzle piece just got put into place, that sense of rightness even as his brain is saying that there's no rational reason to feel that way. It's the same sense he gets from Bucky and Sam. He knows what that means.

But there's also the feeling like she's trying to push back, and...he gets that. It's weird. All of this is still weird.

And when he looks up to respond, seeing her only drives the point home. Her posture's as closed off as the impression he gets of her mind, and she's standing far enough back to send the message loud and clear: just because their symbiotes are close doesn't mean she wants to be.

It takes a moment for him to realize he's staring, and he snaps out of it and glances down to the blood on the leg of his pants. ]

Oh.

[ He rolls back the hem far enough to take a look at the gash he hadn't noticed on his shin. And then says, a little sheepishly - ]

I didn't realize it was mine.

[unfavoured]

[ She could tell him in a million ways how that rightness was completely wrong, how that rightness was not normal or natural, how he, and everyone else, should think about rejecting a feeling that does not even come from their own selves. But she isn't going to, because she knows all too well people don't listen until substantial proof is shown to them. She was part of the rebellion for so long, that these things are just second nature to her - to find the two sides of the coin. And right now, they only have one.

She isn't going to listen to one very biased side, is she now? (No, because she is stubborn, she is stuck in her ways).

So, she is going to keep pushing it all away. It's not weird if you would ask her. It's just plain wrong and invasive. She has no idea since when did "hive mentality" start to be associated with something positive for anything else other than insects. ]

You'd still get blood on it if it wasn't. [ She says it flatly, eyes lowered to him like if bored or tired. Looks both, to be fair. A beat goes by and she slowly moves her face down to make sure he knows she's looking at the slowly growing stain he's leaving. ] Might not be the smartest to leave DNA lying around. Just in case.

[headinjuries]

[ DNA. And here he'd been thinking this was about keeping the place clean - but it's a good point, to be fair.

He slides off the end of the couch to seat himself on the floor; it's way easier to clean off a floor than upholstery. (He knows way more about cleaning up gross messes than he'd like to.) He's still making more of a mess, but that comes next. Someone left the first aid kit on the coffee table, so he reaches over and catches the corner so he can drag it into better reach. ]

I guess a place like this would totally go Big Brother on us, huh.

[ And people thought the twenty-first century was bad. ]

i thought i had tagged this.......... gome.......... im garbage

[unfavoured]

[ Honestly, it probably would be more normal in telling him he's being a disgusting slob leaving blood all over, but Parker's brain is apparently wired to be paranoid. It's not so much she cares anyone finds about them, has no fight in this stupid mission, has no interest in having a say in this cause that is stupid and pointless (according to her, of course), but it kind of comes with the territory.

She watches as he slides to the floor with a half bored stare. Not moving one inch to help him, even when reaches for the first aid kit. All she had to do was push the table a little with her foot. She doesn't. ]

You mean like having a window to your brain?

[ If sarcasm could talk, it would be named Parker. ]

[erbier]

[ She looks incredibly tired herself when she sits down on the floor next to the couch. She does this often, came from a world where people sat on rugs and throw pillows. She finds much of the furniture available more inconvenient to her than anything else.

Tired, yes, but after a few hours of sleeping like the dead she had washed the day's wreckage from her skin and changed back into the simple white dress she normally wore. Still pretty, but much more approachable than when she was dressed up to perform. ]

You should be with your brood.

[headinjuries]

[ Should he? It's still a strange thought to him, that he's got that kind of connection, and he's not quite sure about deliberately chasing it down like that. ]

I'm okay.

[ And maybe more than that, there's just the fact that he's used to having to handle his shit alone. His friends at school had no idea about most of what was going on with his life. Neither did most of the Avengers; the only one he'd told even half the story to was Tony Stark, and that was mostly just to ask for his help on trying to do some scans and figure out where his father's clone had gone. All of the rest of it...well, that wasn't really relevant to finding him, only relevant to Sam feeling like crap.

So he hadn't bothered.

That was what you were supposed to do, wasn't it? Handle your own stuff. ]

[erbier]

[ She knows very well what it is to be forced into self-sufficiency too early. She had not been so great at reaching out to brood at first either. It had caused some violence, and given herself and her brood a reputation for their instability... But now they have an accord, a promise to communicate. It has been eye opening for her, empowering. ]

Of course. [ She's not going to tell him he's hurt or rattled or exhausted, that's his own business. ] But the symbiote takes solace in those tied to you.

[headinjuries]

Oh.

[ That...makes sense. He's not used to thinking of himself as acting for two; even if he knows that a lot of the things he feels around the others are because of the symbiote, and not really his, feeling it makes him jump straight to how it's affecting him. What he should do for him.

But it's alive too. ]

I kinda wish it talked.

[ Not that having an entire voice in his head would be more comfortable than the way things are now, exactly, but it'd be easier to remember that the symbiote is alive in its own right, and that he's not just himself with some weird extra feelings coming in. There are two of them, now.

If it talked maybe he'd at least have something better to call it than "it." ]

[erbier]

[ She gives him a limp little smile. ]

You are not the first to say so. [ She folds her arms on the edge of the couch, lowering her chin. She's personally never thought about it that much. But then... the symbiote is not so much a passenger to her. It is just another plant, something to be tended and cared for. ] It does not speak, but it hears you and its strengths can be tended to.

[ She does not speak aloud to it the way she does the plants in her garden, but it hears her. Her thoughts and feelings, strengths and fears and hopes. ]

[deployed]

[ Sam's young. He's young enough to remind Bellamy of the dropship and Charlotte, of a bunch of kids plunged into something they shouldn't have been. Lexa had pegged Bellamy's reaction to him accurately. Beyond the pull of the nest, there's that same soft-hearted need to protect.

Though admittedly, as feverish and sick as Bellamy is in the moment, it's a bit of an unrealistic expectation. And based on what Lexa had mentioned about superheros, maybe Sam didn't need it. But the urge is still there, unshakeable, thudding in his chest even with Bellamy's senses eaten up by the aftereffects of losing Anakin and the blowback from using his powers. His gaze shifts over to Sam, moves from the stain of blood to his drooping head, observing for a long moment before he speaks. ]

You okay?

[ As an aside, accompanied by a flicker of connection between them as Bellamy's thoughts skew towards Sam. ]

[headinjuries]

[ It's probably a futile effort to try and fake anything, with the connection that runs through all of them here - but it's habit, and Sam immediately straightens up a bit and tries to look like he wasn't halfway to falling asleep. ]

Yeah, I'm okay.

[ He's a little banged up, sure, but nothing as bad as that time with the Hulk. So it's a perfectly truthful answer, right?

(He avoids thinking too hard about the mental part of that equation, when people ask him that.) ]

[deployed]

[ The mental part of the equation isn't Bellamy's strong point either. He'd spent months ignoring his own internal issues, anger and abandonment festering unacknowledged. There are better people here than him to press that point. Bellamy's more apt to hedge around it, to hesitate but ultimately let Sam's answer stand.

What's a Hulk? catches, faintly baffled, but the wisp of inquiry doesn't hold for very long. ]

It's not a bad thing, if you need to sleep, [ he offers instead, maybe hypocritically, considering Bellamy should probably be in bed himself. ] Not after what happened.

[ The vague summation of what had happened at the parlor is absolutely intentional. All Bellamy has to go on is what Lexa had told him briefly, what the Darkling had shared via their link, and the crippling agony of Anakin's death. It was all overwhelming secondhand. Bellamy doesn't know a way to wrap all of that up in a neat statement, so clumsily vague and all encompassing will have to do. ]

Were you with Lexa?

[ He remembers the Darkling mentioning that Sam had intended to go with Lexa to meet with Kun Kun. It stands to reason that he'd been there, perhaps, when she'd made her bid in the midst of all the chaos. ]

[headinjuries]

[ Stuff's still going on. It feels...well, not quite right, somehow, to just roll over and ignore everything to catch a few z's. He figured he'd wait until all of the initial discussions and everyone reporting back to each other and all of that stuff tapered off -

It's just that he figured that would've happened by now, because he would've expected everyone else to need to get some sleep too. ]

Yeah. We're gonna meet Kun-Kun again later.

[ When stuff's not exploding, and people aren't dying, and everyone's in a better place to actually have the conversation they were planning on having. ]

[deployed]

[ Later.

Bellamy nods, though the idea of waiting when there's been bombs and death. His thoughts click back to the irritation he'd seen at the parlor with Steve, the crowds ripping down Kun-Kun's posters and cheering. ]

Lexa told me. It's smart, waiting.

[ Even if it's difficult. Everything feels so unstable. Bellamy's impatience bleeds into the statement, even as he recognizes the need for it. ]

What was he like?

later...ish, still in the same place

[decommission]

Guess I missed the debriefing, huh? [ Any humor's been drained from his voice as he calls from the kitchen area to the common room, the fridge door open and his head half stuck inside. He's been out of it for most of the day, drifting in and out of sleep. His head's still buzzing ever so slightly, like a radio on the wrong frequency. Back turned and half stuck in the fridge, he calls over without turning. ]

You want anything? [ He's grabbing a can of something soda-like. It's sugary, and it's cold, which is good enough for Steve's bruised face. ]

[headinjuries]

You kinda had a good excuse.

[ Sam still has only a half-understood idea of what went down while he and Lexa were outside - even the broodlink wasn't much help in figuring it out, since the only member of his brood involved had been Bucky, towards the end, and...that was a can of worms he wasn't even going to think about opening. ]

Uh, one of those drinks that wishes it was Mountain Dew? [ Wait. Steve does not have a frame of reference for Mountain Dew. ] I mean, the stuff that's kinda neon yellow.

[decommission]

[ Mountain Dew doesn't ring any bells, but whatever it is it sounds uh, refreshing? He does, however, definitely remember opening a can of something that had that particular glowing shade of yellow inside. Gently closing the refrigerator door with his foot, he heads back over to the living area to hand it over. ]

Splode? [ Spelled splodE for some dubious graphic design purposes. He keeps reading it as splod. ] I can feel my teeth dissolving just thinking about that color.

[ This time there's some light humor in his voice. ]

[headinjuries]

The dentist hasn't given me any horrible ultimatums yet, so I must be doing something right.

[ Or maybe there's just a limited amount of scolding to go around, and the doctor already claimed the entire allotment for yelling at him about all the concussions.

He accepts the can, pops it open, and takes a long swig. ]

Thanks.