the final week

[airlockedmods]

[Eight weeks. Eight weeks of friendship and love, death and loss, hope and despair all muddled together in a cocktail that's too sweet on the tongue and leaves an acid-y pit in the stomach. With nine of them left (ten counting their dear but lone surviving host), things look darker than ever. Come Sunday morning the last of the Champions missing memories will be returned to them while they sleep. For some of them this will reveal answers, for others it might just be a fate worse than death. They could even be death.

But how does the song go? "It's always darkest before the dawn"?

There are no announcements from PAL this week. Not even morning and evening announcements.

Sunday Monday Tuesday



[ooc: Welcome to endgame, everyone! We're all very proud of you for making it all the way to the end. As you can see this is going to be a short IC week but we promise things will not be going down until this weekend (7/7-7/9). On Tuesday we'll be unveiling the OOC post for what to expect during the final investigation. There is no official AC this week, just a check-in and as mentioned above characters will be at their true canon points on Sunday morning.

Buckle up, kids, the ride's not over yet.]

Comments

[goteachother]

[Welp that gets another kiss, smiling and laughing against his lips.]

[misanthropicprinciple]

Mmn. Woke up a while ago.

[Which doesn't mean she's not waking him up now, but he doesn't sound fussed. He doesn't usually take his time waking up like this, but it's been a long, long weekend, and with all of them there, together, he doesn't have any terror telling him to get up, to see who's gone or might be going.

He slings his arm sleepily around her and snuggles closer in.]

...It's a good morning...?

[Sounds a little fake, but...]

[scourgingstars]

You can't expect us to like him. But I'm not firmly opposed to a temporary ceasefire for the sake of a chance at survival.

Was he so certain some form of rescue is coming? Did he say more than that?

[daughterofthemark]

[It's a while before she answers. ]

[goteachother]

I... don't know what's going on exactly...

[motherfucking_ghost]

[He almost leaves the second he walks into the room, because no, nope, he is not dealing with this bullshit today. This is already a really fucking fucked up day, and so was yesterday, and he should be happy, right? He should be ecstatic, but he's got anger bubbling up to the surface instead.]

Can he bring the others back? [He says it through grit teeth.] We've got the bodies. If we're just programs downloaded into a head, maybe he's able to do that.

[misanthropicprinciple]

Already told you all I dropped out of university.

[daughterofthemark]

The Calamity. We fought it.

[misanthropicprinciple]

...Or he could be worried about other people watching him.

Pinging the PAL

[everylittlesecret]

Of course he's being.................... PAL? If I promise not to fry you like ever unless you're about to kill, would you answer us some simple questions? Like... one blip of blue is yes, two is no?

[scourgingstars]

...Was that not advisable? Usually things with names like 'Calamity' rather need to be fought.

[goteachother]

No, no I don't know. I don't know if he does. Maybe 's just wishful thinking but-

He said no more motives. No more murders.

We might not be able to get outta here right away but... we can live safely at least.

[airlockedmods]

[One blip of blue.

...And then another, immediately after.]

[serrata]

... But for how long?

[ She doesn't want to rain on anyone's parade, but... ]

Do we have an idea of how long our supplies are going to last?

[daughterofthemark]

That was what we believed--knew. [She still doesn't doubt that much. The damned tentacle tree thing needs to die.]

And we believed we had defeated it, but then...

[goteachother]

Oh gosh! Nari that's brilliant!

[everylittlesecret]

[She sighs.]

.............. Fine. I won't fry you. At all. For any reason. Promise. I don't break my promises... will you answer me now?

[everylittlesecret]

It's what my dad did with a patient who was a paralyzed and could only blink. It's a very old trick.

[serrata]

I... maybe? I didn't think after Friday it could be, but...

[ She curls up against him and tucks herself in so she can butt her head up against his neck like a needy cat wanting attention. ]

I'm here. You're here. There's still eight people here with us and we're alive. It might not be a good morning yet, but maybe it's a good enough start.

We'll just have to see what we can do from there.

[scourgingstars]

I don't trust him and I halfway expect he'll go back on that somehow at the last moment, but...it's as I said. He didn't have to do what he did for me, and he didn't have to save you either.

[He sighed, clearly reluctant to admit that maybe the AI wasn't who they needed to be fighting.]

...I'm trusting your judgment on this, Queenie. And if that backfires on us, then I'll do all I can to fight back.

[scourgingstars]

Parenting is clearly no easy job with children like you. Little wonder Father always seemed so exasperated. Ah, and it only took me...two thousand and forty-five years to understand it, give or take a few generations.

[serrata]

[ Yuuri's quiet for a while, just stroking Arianna's hair as she listens. ]

Did it come back...? Or... whatever you did wasn't enough to finish it off for good.

[daughterofthemark]

[She nods.]

The moment we let our guards down.

[misanthropicprinciple]

[Junpei's doing some quiet math in his head. He rolls away a bit to lie on his stomach, looking at Ardyn curiously.]

So you'd be... forty-five? Minus the two thousand years? 'Cause if I'm twenty-two, then you'd have had me at twenty-three, and no wonder I came out all fucked up, man.

[serrata]

And I don't think it's likely we'll be getting out of here without him, anyway. We'll just have to call it a...

[ She gestures vaguely with her hands. ]

A ceasefire, maybe?