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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Comments

[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.]