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Entry tags:
( mostly open log ) how much damage can hosts do in 2 hours
CHARACTERS: Aoba Seragaki and YOU
WHERE: Avera 9
WHEN: Day 164
SUMMARY: Scavenging a crash site, running out of meds, and how not to deal with the loss of a brood member
WARNINGS: Death, violence, brain damage, possibly more... (will edit)
Day 164 - let's talk about fight club (cw: death)
Wildcard
WHERE: Avera 9
WHEN: Day 164
SUMMARY: Scavenging a crash site, running out of meds, and how not to deal with the loss of a brood member
WARNINGS: Death, violence, brain damage, possibly more... (will edit)
Day 164 - let's talk about fight club (cw: death)
[ The last day of the mission. While other hosts are out trading what's left of their salvage, Aoba is confined to the small rented room Steve was so kind to share with him. The curtains are drawn to block out what little light is being cast through low-hanging storm clouds outside. He's been out of medication for near forty-eight hours, and it is taking its toll in the form of a vicious migraine. He was so close, but failed to ration the pills Cathaway pointedly warned him to save.
Nothing helps. Not music, not darkness, not holding still or curling up and counting measured breaths. Through the dim light his vision flashes red with veins and his heart beats loud and echoing in his ears. At times he sleeps, in short intervals before the pain takes another stab and wakes him again, as if it had it's own agenda. In those waking moments, when the throbbing subsides just enough for him to think, he worries of not making it to the docks in time.
And then, just hours before they are meant to gather and return to the station, Parker. Aoba feels the connection severed from him like a hot blade cutting through a limb. It makes him gasp and coil tighter in on himself, and a scream comes up as a collection of short, strained choking sounds trapped in his throat. Suddenly the pain he'd been in during these final hours is paled in comparison to this new sensation. It is loss, it is guilt, it is anger, it is disconnection, everything and nothing and it is too much. His eyes roll back and Aoba gives in to the pain, going limp and motionless where he lies.
That is the last Aoba remembers of Avera 9. At least, the Aoba most other hosts know. The Aoba that walks out of the Minte inn moments later, bag slung over his shoulder with eyes alert and brighter than before, is not the same nice boy. He moves quickly though the misting rain, ducking into the nearest alley to ask the first person he finds something a little more than suspicious- ]
I'm looking for Rhyl Lolk. [ Said with some difficulty, what a dumb name. But where Aoba heard it in passing and pushed it from his memory, he had remembered. If this alleged fighting circle he'd heard whispers about was anything like Rhyme, he wanted in. It'd been so long since Sly Blue participated in a proper fight, and with aching sense of loss hanging over him, he feels as though he has nothing left to lose. ]
C'mon, I don't have long. It'll be worth the while... that's a promise.
[ His overly conspicuous head of bright blue can be seen going deeper into the winding back alleys, following a hooded Bari as they go straight for the first fighting ring he can join. Follow him or join him, but don't try to stop him. ]
Wildcard
(( There’s still two days between to work with - if there's anything you'd like to do with Aoba, let's plot or just go for it! ))
Day 161 - closed to Angel
They're off to find out whether or not Acgk made it safely away from Avera 9. If they did, then, well, maybe it was the happy ending Aoba was secretly hoping for. If not, there may be more salvage to be found near the Trench before the end of this mission.
He meets his broodmate in Minte, and after a short meal of bland rations and water, (nothing compared to the better food banned from them in Tari Town) Aoba brings up a map and the coordinates to where Acgk's ship was meant to take off. It's a long, long walk, and while Aoba is up to make the trip, he's not feeling so great. Starting to run low on some important medication. Fortunately Steve is kind enough to let them borrow a speeder, so they can make it past the Hot Line and over the plains faster. Aoba just forgot to ask one thing before they took off, trailing a fast line of white steam behind them- ]
Angel? Do you know how to drive?!
[ When they first clambered on the vehicle, he made it clear he didn't know... but maybe he was wrong to assume Angel knew what she was doing when she stepped up to steer. ]
no subject
Which that's hit the ignition, then his the fuel source hard to get, but she could do what she wanted in simulations, there's something else to gripping tightly with both hands on a rumbling engine that makes her arms go numb with vibration. The hard kick that puts it into gear. The rumble that goes through her body and the wind as it hits her in the face where she speeds up faster than she means but -- ]
Actually, I've never been outside before!
[ Shouts it over her shoulder against the roar of the air that rushes past them. Because this is clearly the time to tell him. She leans forward, pressing her body in closer to the speeder, head down, eyes up and focuses on keeping them from crashing. ]
no subject
You've never-?!
[ That couldn't be possible. She'd at least been outside since... since they got here! But before that? She's bluffing, she has to be, and yet Aoba senses no humor from her other than her adventurous enjoyment. ]
How can that be true?!
[ When she hits the gas to go faster, he suddenly wishes they'd spent the last of their credits on a couple of helmets. ]
no subject
Well -- [ hard to have subtle conversations like this. Probably for the best, he hopefully will be too concerned with her driving. ] -- Not since I was a little girl, anyway.
[ He could just put it down to space, hopefully. She doesn't want to have this conversation particularly, not now, not ever if she can help it. Just gets used to gripping through the vibration of the engine that rumbles underneath them. This wasn't so bad, right? ]
Day 164 - closed to Prince
D̩͛̐ȅ͉͍͖̝͖͔͒ͪș̖̼͇̥̦̓ͯͮ͊̂͗t̺r̭̀͐̽̚õ̰̹͔y͈ͨͭ.͖͎̤̜̌̑ͨͯ
[ Sly Blue is back out. It's been a matter of minutes and his head is already deep in the game, high off an easy winning streak. Too easy, when all he has to do is dodge the other fighters long enough to whisper in their ears. It's not as exciting as Rhyme, but he always knew he never needed to be connected to another consciousness to be lethal with Scrap.
The underground venue wasn't large to begin with, and now it's getting difficult for the bouncers outside to keep the area inconspicuous and secure. People are pouring in and out, changing their bets and shifting challenger names around on the holo boards faster than their old processors can keep up. Sly Blue walks in a slow circle along the edge of the ring, not a scratch on him, unafraid of the rumors of foul play that trail behind the bloody footprints he leaves. ]
C'mon, who's next! I don't have all day to wait around for good challengers y'know. If no one wants to fight, I'll start grinding yourheads to little pieces!
[ It wouldn't be as fun as one-on-one fighting, but it isn't an idle threat. A phrase yelled aloud, a command such as stop breathing would be enough to effect a good portfion of the crowd. Make them hurt, make them suffocate till their minds broke down and ceased to function. He would relish in their pain, laugh in it. He'd destroy every Bari, human, every species in his way all the way back to the docks.
But before he can turn on the crowd, someone new enters the ring, and a tingling at the back of his neck tells him it is someone from the Nest. Even better. Sly Blue turns his head and the rest of his body follows, a cold grin spread over his face. ]
Finally.
[ Someone worth his while, someone who might give him a challenge. ]
no subject
Pain upon pain, and then, suddenly, nothing. Not death- he would feel that- but a quiet. A silence.
The connection stays open in the case that he awakens again, even as he passes over muddy ground and fetid marsh. And when he does awaken it is not with pain- beyond the loss- but with a feeling so different from the mind that Prince had been in that he could almost think he had found a new connection entirely.
His attention never fully leaves him, even as he finally locates him, a beacon in his mind. It is only when he sets eyes on him that it closes down to the thin untapped thread it usually was. And by then he has had enough time to fan something akin to anger. He pushes past the spectators, white boots stepping through trailing blood left behind by the boy's opponents. There is a tension in the crowd, something beyond the usual baying for blood. A fear simmering over distrust. An anxiety that comes out in the thick sweat scent that floods Prince's nose.]
Stop this. Now. I will not tell you again.
[There is a steel in his tone that invites no argument, a confidence in his step as he moves forward.]
no subject
I've been waiting for you to come. I've been waiting for your voice.
[ He had relished in it only a short while ago, before the shock and sorrow of Parker's death released him. The burst of mental pain caused by hearing Prince's voice inside his splintered mind would not be quickly forgotten. Normally he was the one inflicting pain, always having to claw his way out, his senses numbed by pills. It's a rare delight, to have any sort of pain it inflicted back. ]
Let me hear it again. Give us one more match before we go back, just one more... me against you.
[ He points across the circle, finger aimed squarely and aggressively at Prince's chest. When he opens his mouth again it's disjointed, split with an inner echo. ]
I̗̝̙͉̱͎̤ ͇̠̱͈͇͕a̪͚̻͉̲m̠͎͕͜ ͡ g͓̮̮o͎̙͓̥̜̜i̟̬n͎͜g̶̘̘ ̗͍i̖n̬̬̘̟̝̤̩s͇̘͓̱̞̯i̶d͏̫̹͎̦e̶͓ ̗̜͇̠̰̣͟yo̶̖͔̟̰̩ͅu̠̝̠̣̟̲͓.͇̦̠̰̬̣̗
no subject
Prince didn't look. Not unless it was requested, and even then with reluctance. It was something akin to a violation, rude if nothing else. He doesn't know what Aoba can do, but despite the straightness of his back and the tension in his shoulders no part of him fears it. It is a confidence born of experience.
These new broods had troublesome Hosts, but they were hardly the most dangerous or troublesome he had seen in his time. If he wasn't capable of controlling them, he wouldn't be their guardian. He would be dead.
The boy's demands, his proclamations, the twisting darkness of his tone and the sickening echo of his inner self oozing off of him brings no response in return but the slightest lifting of Prince's chin, eyes still focused and unwilling to rise to the insult that the very demand represented. The shallow wrinkles in the corners of his eyes deepen slightly as he narrows them at him, as the boy lifts his hand to speak.
There is a time there so short to be nearly nonexistent, where nevertheless Prince feels the boy's attempt. He would enter his mind- not through the thin threading bond between them, the intricate web, the intimate ever-present gentle tug of the Nest, but through a power his own, changed.
But Prince's mind is occupied- it already belongs to too many others, and it is his will and the solid defensive line of his Symbiote- the Nest behind it- that rises up in return. He doesn't so much as move as a fragment of the Nest takes hold in him, his consciousness and countless others that flicker in and out infinitesimally quickly, providing no foothold for Aoba to find purchase- no single mind for him to enter. To attempt it will find him in one for such a short time to barely register it's existence, undeniably alien as it is, before it is gone again, kicking him clear even as Prince- not frozen and not still as a process more instinct than thought- bringing with it only the slightest twinge of pain and warm, almost unbearably tempting call of the Nest in his mind- steps towards him.
It is with the surety of an unstoppable force, and he would drag him from this place kicking and screaming if he were still capable of either.]
no subject
After the loss of a broodmate, however distant they'd been, it certainly feels like he doesn't.
The ends of his hair rise on a wind of their own, and from across the ring Blue's stare flashes yellow. There's a rush, a thick pulsing in the air, like a bullet being fired from a gun aimed squarely on Prince. Aoba's body goes down after that, hits the ground unceremoniously to the collective angry shock of the crowd that'd just shifted their betting money over. And Prince, he's supposed to go down too... but he doesn't.
Instead of entering a mind as he's done before, carefully walking onto a scene of some troubled memory, Sly Blue finds himself hitting a wall. Solid, cold, like thick metal. He hits hard, so hard that for a moment it feels like he's shattering, breaking apart down to the splintering of bones. The shards of him that remain are pulled in a thousand different directions over the vastness of space. He sees nothing, and feels only breaking. It's simultaneously the most pain he's ever been in, and the most numb he's ever felt.
It's fear that numbs him, the sudden and sharp panic of realizing he's made a gross overestimation. He's never encountered someone who can block him. Who can block Scrap.
Like a bullet ricocheting off armor, he reverberates backwards. Collects the pieces and retreats fast as he can scramble back to the security of his own fractured mind. When the boy moves again, it isn't Sly Blue who slowly turns and groans, barely conscious, though the pain and lingering fear Aoba wakes to feeling is the same. ]
no subject
He shifts down beside him, gloved hand grabbing his shoulder as he regains consciousness. He didn't know him well, but even as Prince clamps down on the connection he recognizes that he's different than he was a moment ago- more as he was on the station, when he called.
AN unusual situation. He's sure that Cathaway must be aware, in some way or another. Certainly she would have felt Prince's mind in the moment his connection with the nest was strong. Although whether she would understand it any better than him he did not know.]
Come, it is time to go.
[It's low and quiet enough that the crowd- jeering and booing- can't hear him, but it doesn't do anything to soothe the obvious ill-intent starting to build around them.]
no subject
Aoba tries, and his limbs betray him as pain floods his senses. The migraine is still present, but now there's a heavy weight and dull ache pulsing throughout his entire body along with it. He struggles to push himself up on his elbows, stiffly pulling up one knee, but his boot slips in something wet and slick. Is that smell... blood? The stuffed up feeling in his ears starts to clear and the hissing of the crowd starts to register. He can't focus, but he can feel eyes on them. This definitely isn't the dark room where he was waiting for Prince, where he was curled up in pain, the place where he suddenly felt-
Parker. The hole in his mind where a connection should be is wide and gaping, and the leftover ache from using Scrap pales in comparison to the feeling of loss all over again. His head droops as he tries, fails, and tries again to look up at Prince, eyes struggling to remain open. From their red-rimmed sockets, they are distinctly hazel where before they were yellow. ]
What... happened? Parker is...
[ The only one that matters, however very irrational in this moment. So what if the crowd is getting louder and rowdier, so what if he can't move enough to find his footing or stand. There's an unspoken plea beneath the dull aches in his mind, a desperation to find Parker, to fill that gap, because he can't be gone. ]
no subject
He is dead.
[There was no softening the blow, and Prince's tone is more of a statement of fact than it is an expression of his condolences. There was no time for softness. Avera drifted ever closer to the asteroid belt and the crowd grew ever more angry. There is only the slightest moment of hesitation before he draws his hand back and instead slips his arm under Aoba's shoulders and his bent knees, wrists and elbows through blood and dirt. He stands with almost too much ease even for someone of his build.
This would be more simple if he were unconscious.
He wastes no time in heading back the same way he had come, with little apparent interest in Aoba's inner turmoil and far more attention paid to the Bari that comes to stand before him, a twisting scar up his face and an uncomfortable tendency to lick his thin lips. When he opens his mouth to speak Prince does not waste the time to listen to his words- which would be obvious echoes of the same ones from the crowd- fight's not over. Instead he merely kicks him hard at the outside of his knee- not that most of the crowd has the chance to see what it is that makes the man crumple and scream.]
The fight is over.
[It's a very simple statement that is barely audible over the crowd, even in their relatively hushed confusion.]
no subject
Fight...?
[ It's mumbled as they brush past others, (he can feel it, though numbly, as his hair catches on sleeves). They're leaving, ascending up from the underground ring to the back alleys again, a trail of uttered curses following as they pass. Outside the light is dim, but bright enough for Aoba's migraine to make him squint his eyes, stiffly blocking it best he can with the back of one hand. ]
The docks-
[ How much time had passed? How far where they from them? Would they make it in time? All of these questions groggily swim to the forefront of Aoba's worries, but the one that escapes his tired lips is- ]
Is... is Parker's body...?
[ -one he can't bring himself to finish. ]
THat icon is banned
The sky outside is light bug it is growing darker all the time, and if the clouds weren't so thick you would be able to spot the asteroids blocking out the stars more than ever before. It would not be long now.
He ignores Aoba's slurred words for the most part. He was in no shape to comprehend the situation or explain it, as far as Prince could tell. The question, however, does give him some pause as he nears his abandoned speeder.
He has not thought on retrieving Parker's body. There is no purpose to it- he reconsiders- yes, possibly there is, but that makes him even less likely to pursue that option. It was grotesque, and while Cathaway may be more practical in his place, there were other options.]
The dead are at rest. It is the living that matter now.
[And a body would do little to help his brood mourn.
He pauses by the side of the bike, a moment of thoughtfulness before he discards options besides keeping the young Host in his lap. He seemed far too weak to hang on in his current state, and giving him the option to chose himself would only bring pride into the situation.]
The rest of your brood will need you close.
[The first loss always brought with it confusion in addition to the pain, the emptiness. You understood it- there was no way you couldn't- but to believe it was another story. To realize that the feeling would never truly leave.]
You should attempt to rest.
˚¬˚;;
[ His head, his body, but nothing more than the hole, wide and gaping and void, at the forefront of his mind. He didn't know Parker, in fact his broodmate had taken special care to make sure they kept a far distance, and their bond had been wholly artificial to Aoba. And still it hurts, more than his concern over possibly losing Ren, almost as if he'd lost Granny, his only family-
Prince says to rest and he agrees, though it's more subconscious agreement than anything. His aching mind is trying to race a million miles a minute, but it's like running through quicksand. He tries to clear it as Ahsoka taught him, but finds himself distracted by the feeling of Prince's arms around him instead. It's... a strange distraction, but he'd rather focus on anything else now. His muscles are firm, warm beneath the smooth fabric hugging them, tight. Again there is no comfort in him, but security. Aoba breathes out and finally allows himself to fall into the security Prince provides.
Before Prince can rev the bike's engine Aoba is asleep. His head in the crook of his arm, half his face pressed up against Prince's chest, the rest of him slumped over this lap and the bike. Out cold, one side of his fractured mind too exhausted to go on, the other too shaken to show it's face. ]
day 164
[He doesn't know what to make of the feeling from before. Of course, Parker was never a part of his brood, but there had been a deep shudder that had passed over him, momentarily. He doesn't know where it came from. It certainly wasn't anything good. And now he sees Aoba heading somewhere that really doesn't look like a nice and happy place. Coincidence? Or not? He doesn't know, and he certainly wants to find out.]
[He ups his pace, reaching forward to tap Aoba on the back of his shoulder, concern apparent in his voice:]
Hey. Hey, Aoba! Where are you going, dude?