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!))

NAVIGATION • SETTING • FAQ • MOD CONTACT • GLOSSARY

( CODE BY WHAMBAM )

Comments

[adamance]

[The last time that Lexa truly comforted someone over a loss, it had been Clarke after she had killed Finn. In the days that followed, she thought that she needed to pass on to Clarke the same lesson that Titus had instilled in her: love is a weakness, and letting the loss of that love hurt her would only make her weak. Believing that she couldn't go on was a problem considering her status as a commander, so she had to learn.

Titus' lesson had been a lie. It had been a way of ensuring that Lexa would not fall prey to that kind of weakness again, and she had suffered grave costs because she felt she needed to adhere to it in every moment. Clarke had pointed it out to her once, and then again and again until Lexa went to her knees and offered Clarke her continued protection. And now she is here and that means nothing, except being here keeps Clarke (at least a Clarke) supposedly safe from an enemy.

But still, Lexa had adhered to the belief that emotions were nothing short of weakness as a way of coping with her grief from losing her first love in an act of war. It had helped her recover. It had helped her grow. And there is still a part of her that believes she is better off sharing little with someone else.

Belief does nothing for her now. Still, she is practiced in hiding the welling of grief inside of her as she speaks to Kun-Kun and his representatives, and as she takes the memory core out of the android. When she is done, she rises up, thinking to leave, but she pauses. There are people better suited to handling Ahsoka, especially given their history, but Lexa does know that grief. When she feels it, she can't help but think of more than just Costia, life lost and head left on her bed for her to see how she endangered, but of Polis and the images of its new found brutality.

To a degree, it's extremely painful to be reminded of this grief when she has been doing her best to suppress it. Lexa wishes she could truly excise her emotions, cutting them away so that they could no longer be a burden. But that has never been the case, nor will it ever.

She comes to kneel beside Ahsoka, and it's clear through the link that there is both grief (hers, Ahsoka's, possibly someone else's) and sympathy. She is not here to give a lecture, though she is prepared for Ahsoka to think she intends to offer one. That would follow the tune of their previous interactions (or clashes).]

Do your people have burial traditions? [It's likely an odd place to begin, but Lexa has her own, and it is one way to show that Ahsoka has someone who will care for her.

Besides, Lexa lacks any means of truly connecting with comforting words. She's never been very good at it, so she tries to find another way.]

[snippycup]

[It is likely apparent that Ahsoka has no measure for how to deal with grief of this magnitude. She had always been taught that everything that perished would return to the Force, and therefore death was something meant to be celebrated. But there's nothing that feels celebratory about this. This hurts, the Force doesn't come to either of them. He is just gone.

Obi-Wan's faked death had hit her hard, though not as hard as it had hit Anakin -- and certainly not as hard as Anakin's death hit her now. Lexa might feel Ahsoka acknowledge her, but she doesn't make any attempts to sit up or pull herself away from her old master. She can't speak -- considering that she has to bury him is almost too much to think about.

But one thought prevails among the others, angry and raw (though not directed at Lexa):]

( I won't bury him here. He deserves better. )

[adamance]

[The switch from voice to thought is surprising, but Lexa handles it as well as she can handle anything, accustomed to the bond with her broodmates even if she would hardly say that she's close with any of them. No, in truth: she is combative with the ones she might know best, which is not a good thing.

There is no room for that in her mind now. All she hopes to do is comfort and help.]

( He does. We all do. ) [None of them should be here to perish. Lexa has been trained to focus on life over those who have died, but she knows better than to hold to that notion now. It has no place here in this conversation.]

( My people burn our dead. We have a saying that I believe you might appreciate. When they pass, we take their braids, and we tell them this: Yu gonplei ste odon. Your fight is over. By and large, my people are warriors. Even those who don't live as warriors know to fight. From what you've told me, you are both warriors, so it feels suitable. ) [If anything, there's an awkward kindness here, as she's doing her best to respect Ahsoka here and offer her precisely what she needs to pull herself together.

But frankly, Lexa knows that she doesn't know what that is.]

[snippycup]

( The Jedi are buried in their temples. )

[But that isn't possible here anymore, and she knows as much. For a moment, she thinks of how else Anakin would want to be buried, and there is a pause in her grief as a more rational and mechanical thought takes hold. But it is quickly overridden when she realizes that she has to think about it at all, and she retreats back into that strange mix of denial and anger.

Lexa's words don't ring hollow -- in truth, the Jedi Order had always been poisonous to someone like Anakin Skywalker, a shackle that needed to be shed long ago. But they had both recognized that he could not walk away from it as she had. Like everything else, he was too old, and it was too late.

His braid had been cut long ago. Her's had been ripped from her in front of an audience. His fight ensured that his death would not be peaceful, and that his life would not be long.

Even if she hadn't been ready for it, she had to make sure that whatever followed would be worthy of him. He wasn't just a warrior -- he was a pilot, a commander, a Jedi Knight. And that meant moving the body back until she could do something proper.]

( I have to bring him back. )

[adamance]

( We'll carry him together and find some means to preserve him. ) [Perhaps Carata and Nirad will allow her to bring him back to the Station to handle things there. Perhaps they will even find a way to make the trip back to her world to bury him, if they come from the same iteration. It is that thought that makes her wonder if her stories lined up with Anakin's. Were they brought from the same moments, or different ones altogether? Perhaps an Anakin Skywalker lives on.

She doesn't know, but the technicalities of it all are currently buried deep.]

( Unless you know a means yourself. ) [She moves after these words, her confidence in her strength being enough that she shuffles over to his damaged legs to lift them under her arms in preparation.]

[snippycup]

( I don't know anything. )

[Its as honest as she can get. Moving is a chore -- some of her still bleeds from the building's collapse, and something in her abdomen shifts uncomfortably when she moves. A sharp inhale keeps her moving and ignoring the stabbing pain until it goes away entirely.

And then, after a moment of steeling herself for a task she doesn't want to preform, she strains to lift his body to her back so that they might carry it.]

( ...thank you, Lexa. )

[adamance]

( You are welcome. ) [Though she says these polite words with some feeling of formality, there is some relief underneath what she says. Lexa doubts that she will ever see eye to eye with Ahsoka, but her willingness to help here had been genuine.]

( When we return, I'd like to check your wounds. I won't have you die. ) [It's a selfish concern following what just happened, but one that still is genuine. As the leader of her people, she has never had a warm and strong connection to individuals versus a whole, and she finds it easy to translate it over here. It's easier to seek out that individual connection, yes, but it's still disconcerting and something she regularly struggles with.

But bearing an injury when there are better means of caring for one's self is unwise. Even when Indra did it, Lexa distantly was both aware and frustrated by the fact. She hopes Ahsoka's even slightly less stubborn than one of her generals.]

[snippycup]

( A few scrapes won't kill me. )

[But there is no refusal in her words. In truth, thinking about where she must be next is too overwhelming to consider. All she knows is that she carry this body somewhere safe until it could be handled, before someone else did it for her.]

[adamance]

( Most likely not, but my people use poisons when we attack. We don't know that these people aren't the same. )

[If there were obvious toxins, they would likely know already. But some of the agents her people use aren't fast-acting, instead taking their time to show themselves in the victims. It's better to clean the wound than leave it bare and make these things obvious.

Once she believes Ahsoka is ready, she begins to lift.]