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

[unsea]

I would never, [ laugh at her, certainly not.

He leads himself to be physically reluctant to move his hands from her own, but as she has tended to him, he'll make good on his earlier point. She has a wound that ought to be seen to, as well. Dressed and hidden from curious, roving eyes. They don't know who is now in attendance at the scene, or where their loyalties lie. There are cameras - there will be pictures - and he'd like to avoid conversation outside of the other hosts, until they are all accounted for.

He'll take a look at her shoulder now: ] The first of many things that I hope keep you close to us.

[ Not distant, not always. ]

[circumspector]

[ gently as she turns to let him, she peels her jacket down her shoulder, exposing the line of her neck and shoulder, the white, white skin. Pale, and where it is almost bright, the wound is ugly. The bullet scrape is bright, red and tacked with dried blood, and a water colour of bruising is forming it's way down her shoulder. Splotches of red and blue and brown coming up under her skin. An ugly painting done in the mediums of frantic escaping. Under his fingers there's something vulnerable to it she is yet to understand if she likes or not.

It's finally acknowledging it that makes it seem to hurt, good at ignoring pain. What was this, to her veins being seared and choked, her organs dying without eridium to fill them. It's agony. But the air stings where it touches it and immediately she feels her eyes fill up. Shuts them tight and -- Parker had just gotten up with worse. Parker through herself off a building and threw up from pain only later. Wanted to be like that. She didn't need to be such a baby, vault hunters grinned as they stuck fingers into their own bullet wounds, she could be better. She would be like them, she would, she would. ]

My scars or your respect? [ an attempt at brevity as she smiles at him, or tries to. A prickle of sweat at her brow, at the hollow of her throat. ]

[unsea]

Your pain, [ he says, as he takes hold of her jacket from her, folding it back to keep it out of the way while he works to patch Angel up.

Through the motions he goes - mindful of the bruising, but attentive in the way he cleans and bandages. He does not shy away from causing her further pain, as it is an inevitability, when he gestures for her to lift her arm so that he can properly secure the bandage over her wound - but certainly, his care is not malicious. It's fastidious and well-practiced, a man used to patching up wounds on the battlefield, used to separating soldiers who could wait from soldiers who needed the immediate services of a healer.

Her jacket, he unfolds back up her arm, as it would help keep her dressings in place for the haul back to the Bearings, when eventually she'd go. ]

Though, I'd hope your scars would do the same. My respect for you, is for us alone.

[ Like a secret that would not be kept. ]

[circumspector]

[ She bites into her lip as he treats it. Does her best to keep it all in and to herself. She can do this, the way scientists and doctors had tended her once before, when they'd stuck needles into her, wires for her brain and ports for her spine and the thick wrap of gauze around her like the mother's hug she would never feel again. She does her best not to fuss and squirm like the child she feels.

It's a mistake, to sit still, because it lets her think, about everything that's just happened, and it's really all too much. She's a know it all and too smart for her own good and she knows it. Seen everything terrible thing under the sun, it doesn't make her flinch, no, but it churns, over and over inside her mind, without end, and all she's seen comes to just about -- ] If that's true then... [ -- nothing. ] ... You're going to have to forgive me.

[ To the smell she can't get rid of to all the bodies she's seen and with it she folds like paper, tipping forward over her knees at least enough to not make a mess of herself and especially not of him, and heaves up every last thing she ate. Shoulders wretching with each lurch of her body, the acidic taste in her mouth, until the last scrapes of the fried purple thing she'd had for breakfast that are now a slurry on the ground. ( the mournful little noise comes from the ever removed, always from herself, part of her: she'd liked that purple thing, and it didn't taste half as good the second time around )

The rest of her however, doesn't quite catch up, when she's finally done that in the end, she's just left sitting, waiting for something to make sense again. Like she can't believe it all just happened. It did, she reasons, but like the soldiers he would know best, shell shock is a strange thing to feel. ]

[unsea]

[ Though he has her wound bandaged, her jacket secured over her slender, pale shoulder, there are some hurts that run deeper, and are slower to reveal their hurts. Her silence, as he attends to her, is indicative of a mind that has been stripped of distractions, and has begun to wallow. His eyes monitor the fluttering pulse in her neck, the flex of her throat when she begins to swallow - and he knows, she's going to lose her stomach.

Indeed, she does. Asking him to forgive her for such a thing, as she tips forwards and empties her stomach onto the debris-strewn road before her. He's in motion, when she first lurches, moving from her side to her back, the heel of his hand pressed between her shoulderblades and his fingers spread across the base of her neck. His other hand, mercifully, has found the rest of her dark hair, and has pulled it away from her face. The simple, silent weight of a hand there while she shakes her way through sickness. There's always something... undignified about that loss of control, and so, he waits for her to be done, before he moves again.

This time, it's to press a water bottle into her hands, the cap already loosened for her. His weight and the width of his chest aligned along her spine, as he reaches down to wrap her hands around it. Holding her, without really holding her, if it's not the thing that she needs most. ] Rinse your mouth, [ he murmurs, and waits for her to do that before he's trying to get her on her feet. Best to walk it off. It may be time to go back to the Bearings, now. ]

[circumspector]

[ She's obedient to the lead, because - it feels better than expected, when he pushes his fingers into her hair, holding it up and out of her way. For a second, she's just a newborn animal under his fingers, going docile to the hold of it. Mourns it in turn when it goes, even if it is to help her. A soft pitiable noise that turns to follow it.

Still, she takes the bottle of water with numb fingers, bringing it up to her lips, takes a mouthful, feels it wash away the acid and bile before she spits it out. Then takes another to just drink. Put something back in her stomach. After that she stands with him, her fingers wrapping around his. She does not mind to be lead, at least for now. ]

[unsea]

[ He steers her down the street, away from the hum and the noise of the scene. Pulling her aside, onto the sidewalk and out of the road, once he has her away from the bodies and the air of fear and pain. They cannot read everyone's mind, but their feelings and reactions are pervasive. Angel's own mind is docile, for the moment - allowing him to do this, to walk her away from the chaos and into a section of the city that is still loud, but not as shaken by the act of violence.

Finally, he comes to a stop, and reaches fingers to the underside of her chin. Lifting her head up, to better see her eyes. To gather a sense of how she's doing now. As ever, his mind is calm. It drifts, cool and remote, and steeled against the shock. ]

Would you like me to bring you back to the Bearings, Angel? [ Where they can account for the rest of the hive, and determine their next move. ]

[circumspector]

[ she's docile to his lead. An easy pull, as she keeps him within hands reach, a need to touch and to be touched. She needs the quiet and the stability of his mind. He is important then, like the air to living things, because the haze of shock scatters apart reality. Calm, because it all falls apart. Keeping herself together is exhausting, and takes time to work back up to. Leaves bits and pieces of her between here and a far off purple inked there. Things were never real to her, and it shows now for him to see too: light is malleable, it twists and bends about her, distance warps. The scream of emergency sirens goes louder and quieter in turns and animals that have no business on this planet walk in between people like half there memories. The only thing, only thing that is real, is him. She cannot control him like she does other things -- and that makes him sun, moon and stars as far as her scattered mind is concerned.

At his prompting she turns up into his fingers. A second, and they do need to go back, but they have to go through all these people, and sooner or later, someone would walk into her distorted illusions, she can't risk that. Better now that they're not in the thick of it. But she needed the quiet dark, and he's the closest thing to it. ] Yes, I just need....

[ So she tugs him, she's only a little thing after all, and he's tall above her. Perfect, as she takes a step back to lean her back into the side street wall, and draws him after her. To let him block out the rest of the world for her. Knows what she needs in that regard ( hates Jack, as much in the aftermath as she did in living it, will she ever be able to survive alone without someone to cradle this broken busted body of her and shards of glass mind? ) her hands reach up, settling soft against his shoulders, as she buries her face into his chest like a needy searching animal. It's there that she takes the time to rebuild herself. Sure that he would not leave her, not right now.

She has herself to rebuild. Childish building blocks of mental control. He makes a good building base, with his mind a powerful, calm thing. ]