Week 6

[airlockedmods]

[Six weeks later, and fifteen people are dead. All of you have lost someone important, from friends to family to lovers. Yet there is still hope. Most of you banded together to protect your own yesterday, and with an entirely unexpected act of mercy from Blaze Dudely, it seems like the winds may finally be starting to blow in your favor. It even feels a bit warmer in the penitentiary this week, though tension still hangs heavy in the air.

On Sunday morning, the last of your memories will return to you. There is nothing for you now but - maybe, somehow - to find a way out of here.]


Sunday | Monday | Tuesday

(( Welcome to endgame, everyone! As you can see, this week will ICly be shorter, with endgame beginning for your characters on Wednesday, but rest assured, the final investigation/trial will still be on Friday and Saturday as usual. Keep an eye out for an OOC endgame post on Tuesday.

There will be no official AC this week, just a check-in, and all characters will now be at their true canon points. Also, Monday is your last chance for regains! Get those benefactor threads in! ))

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SUNDAY

[airlockedmods]

[helladoptera]

[ Unless someone makes her, Max doesn't leave her bed today. ]

( ooc: i'll be tagging them, but possible cws depending on what comes up in conversation include drugging, assault against teenagers (physical and potentially sexual but that's only if you get super deep into mark jefferson talk), abduction, murder, straight up suicide, and... I think that's it? I have an opt-out post, and also I'm very sorry. )

[empathiser]

[Surprise Max, someone noticed you weren't milling around today.

Seeing as the doors lock from the inside, and he's not about to bust down the teen girl squad's door out of nowhere, Will just hovers awkwardly outside for a moment... before rapping his knuckles against the door.]

Max?

[nightcure]

[ Some time after Will talks to Max, Noctis is there at her door, knocking three times. ]

[induality]

[Fukawa had plans to force herself up, but pauses when she sees Max still in bed looking... rough.

...a little while longer won't hurt.]

...move over.

[She's coming in.]

[tokencanadian]

[It's very hard not to notice that Max doesn't leave their cell. And seeing as Pyrrha has the freedom to come and go as she so pleases, she leaves the cells for a few minutes, only to return with two mugs of tea in her hands.

And slowly, she seats herself on Max's bed, beside her, looking her over with a concerned expression.]

Max...? Are you alright?

[empathiser]

[If anyone needs Will, he's going to be in the library for most of the day. Aside from a brief detour to the license plate room - not looking at the cells because there has been enough happening in those cells - to make a specific, certain plate, and a little detour via cell 1 midway through the day....

... he's not really feeling like going anywhere. There are a lot of memories here now.

The plate stays on the table for the now. It needs to go up, for Leon. But it's not his place to put it up there, not really.]

library

[nightcure]

[ He's in here later at night, because he decides it's time to make plates for Ravus, Clarus, and Jared. He has them in hand, and he gives a two-finger salute to Will when he sees him. ]

Hey.

library!!!

[induality]

[Fukawa came here to do some work of her own, but she stops to check on Will when she sees him.]

Hey.

[She's glad to see he's still managing. Fighting. But then-- the plate he's left on the table catches her eye.]

...what's this?

library

[tokencanadian]

[Pyrrha drops in here sometime around lunch. She's been going around checking for. everyone, honestly.

As she spots Leon, she's gives him a small smile. She would wave but there's something in her hand.]

Good morning, mister Graham... [Her gaze wavers.] How are you feeling?

[nightcure]

[ The whole place feels different.

Emptier, quieter, more somber. Noctis felt it Friday, and it hasn't lifted. There's an incredible guilt pressing down on him--they voted for the person who saved them--but there's not much he can do about that but move forward.

It helps that he remembers everything. Some things he could fill in; he remembers before Altissia, and it feels like a breath of fresh air. But then he remembers other things. Finding Ravus dead... then fighting the same man, twisted into a daemon.

(He's still not entirely sure what happened to Ignis's eyes.)

He remembers learning about Prompto's past, too. Hearing everything Prompto had been through. I'm gonna make this world a better place. You with me?

Uh-huh. Ever at your side. ]

Gotta make it out of here, buddy. For everyone.

[ He goes to the kitchen to make some soup and tea. It's not much, but he's not very hungry, and he's not sure many people are. He pulls down some containers with lids and fills up enough for each person, then puts the lids on the containers. Tea goes into thermoses, and Noctis spends some time delivering tea and soup to the doors. He doesn't knock or anything, but he leaves each person a note.

Figured you might be hungry. My feelings won't be hurt if you don't eat it, though.

-- Noctis

After that, he grabs a few books, a basket of food for himself just in case, and retreats into his room. The door's open.

Later on in the evening, he's in the library again, with a plate that reads Nyx. ]

Room

[neverheardofhim]

[Varric had entered his room for a brief spell, hoping to cool down before doing some more work around the prison they called home. He hadn't heard Noctis outside, and had no reason to suspect there might be anything waiting for him outside.

That there was happened to be a pleasant surprise.

Whatever he had on his agenda could wait. He made a beeline for Noctis's room first, knocking on the open door to be polite before stepping inside.]

Mind if I eat lunch with you, your highness?

[induality]

[Finally it's all back. All the gaps in her memory are filled. None of them go beyond what she saw last week. She's... relieved. There's nothing to say that Komaru and Byakuya aren't safe. That's not to say that... what she remembers is pleasant. Not one but two deaths fill the gaps. Masaru Daimon and Yuta Asahina. They both leave a bad taste in her mouth. Even her enemy-- to see his "allies" turn on him like that... it sends a chill through her.

And while Aoi Asahina wasn't exactly someone she was close to now, she still feels sick when she sees the outrageous way the kind boy died.

But it may have been just what she needed. Wanting nothing more to stay in bed after the crushing despair of the last few days, what Yuta said strikes a cord with the person Fukawa had been before last Friday.

"If all these despair-inducing things are going to kept happening, we need to prepare ourselves for the worst... If you don't do what you can to the best of your ability, then you're helpless in these circumstances."]

What I can do...

[Fukawa throws herself into the shower-- somewhere she hasn't been since Thursday. And just throws her hair up on the top of her head in a weird, messy bun. She goes to the kitchen and proceeds to make waffles. Not just for herself but... enough for the others too, if they want them. There's some alien bacon too.

Then she goes to the library to work on something. It looks like she's writing a bunch of invitations for some manner of gathering tomorrow. She's determined and focused.]

kitchen

[nightcure]

[ Noctis intended to come in here to make something for everyone, but it looks like Fukawa's ahead of him. Still, might as well make some soup. ]

Morning, Touko.

Kitchen

[airlockedmods]

[When Fukawa first arrives to the kitchen, the place is an absolute mess. There's eggshells and drips of yolk all over one of the countertops, and shredded cheese and a few chunks of unidentifiable vegetable seem to have ended up on the floor beneath it.

But there's also a large pan of scrambled space eggs sitting on the stove (which is thankfully no longer turned on), so. Plus one breakfast item...?]

[rickdiculous]

[Fuck all of you.

Rick can today, more often than not, be found in the exercise yard. His labcoat has been casted off to the side, and he can be found doing sit-ups on one of the mats. Gotta work off this frustration somehow.

Other times, very rarely, he can be found in the library. There, you may find him sketching...something. It looks to be some sort of weapon - a mechanical gauntlet. He has another few drawings that he appears to be referencing in the process.]

[tokencanadian]

[ "I'm sorry."
"Pyrrha-?!"

Pyrrha wakes up in Cell 1 and... it's all a bit clearer, all of a sudden. The way Beacon looked in the hologram, why she felt so awful when she first arrived here, the way the fight with Penny went. It's all starting to come together.

Jaune... he really did care. She should have told him sooner.

For part of the day, Pyrrha's taken herself to the exercise yard where she's continuing to practice moves with that metal broom she'd been keeping close all week. She's also taken to wearing an armor chestplate that's a bit big on her. Most will probably notice that it formerly belonged to a certain Luminary Knight.

After a brief return to Cell 1 for a shower, and to grab something from underneath her pillow, Pyrrha drifted over to the Memorial. She's not doing much there, not even looking at the wall, just at a plate in her hands...]

...I still have people I need to protect. I'm sorry, but I can't stop now.

spoilers for red vs blue season 10!

[tuskenlancer]

[ As she's come to expect, CT wakes up Sunday morning remembering more than she had the previous night.

She'd almost looked forward to it this time. She's been plagued all week by the now concrete, undeniable knowledge of her betrayal. And while she'd begun to understand, even to accept, just why she'd done it, the circumstances had been less easy to come to terms with. Yes, the Director had to be stopped. What she'd discovered stored on her dogtags - all the evidence she'd meticulously collected back on the ship - had proven that. But her last memory had haunted her. The steady ticking of the nuke. The caustic laugh of the Insurrection Leader.

"I left our guests a present."

All she'd wanted was to remember what happened next. All she'd wanted was confirmation that her friends weren't dead.

Well, she'd gotten that.

"I know what you are, Tex. And I won't take orders from a shadow."

"Actually, we don't need you. We just need your armor."

She'd tried to warn them. She'd tried to make them see, even then. Even as Carolina demanded she return with them. Even as Tex took out her weapon and fired.

The fight.

The retreat.

Pushing the information into the Leader's hands, begging him to take it. Gasping through the pain, just trying to focus.

Eventually, the pain had been too much. Every breath had felt like another blow from the axe. And then...

Nothing.

She wanders the ship, staring blankly, arms wrapped tightly around herself. When she's not in the hallway, she might be curled up in a chair in the library, or sitting in a corner of the mess hall, observing anyone who might come through and mostly ignoring the food on her plate. She doesn't approach anyone, but she's trying, consciously or otherwise, to stay where she can see other people. The rest of the inmates. Those of them who had survived. Who are still alive.

She doesn't want to be alone right now.

She doesn't want to be dead. ]

[neverheardofhim]

[The dream had started out optimistic enough. Though Hawke was dead, her actions had struck a powerful blow Corypheus's army. They'd headed his assassination attempts off at the Winter Palace, had stopped his attempts at using an Eluvian to fell them all, and eventually destroyed the former magister once and for all.

He'd thought it over, then. He'd returned to Kirkwall to live out his days. He wrote stories, ones of love, sacrifice and friends. He'd watched Cole become human, had him visit a number of times, first alone, then with his lady love. In his free time, he worked to rebuild Kirkwall.

That was, of course, a particularly bitter point for Varric. Sebastian, in his fury over Anders' actions, had attempted to siege the city. Her guard captain had won the day and repelled the prince's forces, but the already suffering city had sustained even more damage.

Varric wouldn't be deterred, though. He poured endless time and coin into the city, watching its towers be steadied and its people begin to walk tall once more. He recalled, dimly, how familiar the sight of Kirkwall outlined in scaffolding looked, before remembering the letter that Blaze had presented him with.

It wasn't long until the nobles of the city approached him. He knew what it was about, and as much as he wanted to argue, the outcome was set in stone. Once more, Varric was forced to abandon his home in The Hanged Man, moving instead to the Viscount's keep.

He'd thought it would end there. His dream had caught up to what he knew. Thedas was safe, his friends were mostly happy, and things were finally easing back into a slightly bumpy normal.

And then the letter arrived.

He knew the moment he and Bran left the city that nothing would go to plan. In some ways, the Qunari attack was suspected. It was the betrayal from a former (albeit slightly odd) friend that had left them all stricken.

Once more, the fate of the world was in question. Only when he woke this time, Varric couldn't help but feel as if there wouldn't be any more to this story. Not yet.

Bothered as he was by this, Varric moved about his day in something of a haze. He spent some time in the library, scratching out what he remembered. Most of it had already been chronicled back home, but it couldn't hurt to have a back-up record of it.

Later, he stopped in the kitchen to make a bit of food. It wasn't nearly as expansive as his banquet, but there would be plenty of leftovers for those that wanted it.]

MONDAY

[airlockedmods]

TUESDAY

[airlockedmods]

PUNISHMENT: Footing the Billing

[theoversight]

[So far in the motives past Blaze Dudely has always called the Champions together around lunch time and gone from there. But today the speakers crackle to life with Blaze’s voice shortly after his office hours end around 10:15 am.] Champions, report to the main hall! I have an announcement. Oh, and Doc, you come too.

[When the remaining Champions and Price are gathered two robots are waiting for them. They’re side by side, a few feet apart, with one hand each turned palm up. It’s also immediately noticeable that someone is missing. There’s not a lot of time to react though because the robots' upturned palms light up and a holoscreen begins projecting upwards above their heads.

The holoscreen shows a room full of medical equipment that might trigger some memories: this is where Alec was executed. Blaze Dudely is in the middle of the frame. It's immediately obvious who's missing from the assembled Champions, because behind him, CT defiantly fights against the robots holding her in the background.]

Champions! [Even on the holoscreen Blaze Dudely, quite frankly, looks terrible. The light in his cyborg eye is bright as ever but the skin under his other eye is dark and sallow, like he hasn’t slept in a day or two. In fact, the skin on his face and the white of his still-human eye has a sickly-looking yellow hue to it but he doesn’t seem to notice or care. He’s moving with a manic, excitable energy, pacing back and forth while he talks and gesticulating wildly.] I come bearing good news! I hope you’re ready to get out of this damnable penitentiary because [He flashes a wide, toothy grin.] I found It! Isn't that right?

[He moves over to CT and grips her face with his robot hand, squeezing her jaw clearly hard enough to hurt by the way that she tries and fails to flinch out of his iron grip. Still, she glares defiantly at him, thrashing her shoulders to try and break out of the robots' hold.]

Oh, it's playing shy now, but it's caused me quite a bit of trouble. Haven't ya? [He turns CT's face, leans in close. Her lip curls in disgust from his proximity, and he grins, slowly and maliciously, leaning in until his lips are practically on her ear. His voice is mockingly sweet.]

Why don't ya show them all what It really looks like? Show them the face that will earn their freedom! Unless ya don't even have enough honor to die as yourself. Are ya even capable of feeling sorry for what you did? To me, my crew, to that first group of Champions? I want ya to look me in the eye and know that you're dying because of what you and that network of yours did to my girlie.

["I don't know what you're talking about," CT replies, her expression brave but her voice wavering. The smile falls from Blaze Dudely's face, and he lets go of her jaw only so that he can strike her across the face with his cyborg arm. She cries out, her face snapping to the side, the broken blood vessels blooming bright red like fireworks on her pale cheek and his fingers already leaving bruises on her jaw and cheeks.]

They'll see in a minute.

[His voice is dark and deadly, as he twists her hair in his robot hand and yanks her head back, baring her throat to him. With his flesh hand he pulls out the knife that's magnetized to her armor, holds its tip to the soft spot on the underside of her chin. She doesn't whimper, but she goes completely still, flinches as he presses it in just enough for a bead of red blood to well at the tip and slide down the length of her blade. He stares at her blood, turning the knife so that it rolls onto his fingers, studying the color of it.

His triumph falters.]

Who gave you your orders? Tell me and I'll let ya go. I'll let all of ya go.

[CT hesitates, for a moment. Then, her voice tight, she gives her reply: "I acted alone."]

Then ya die alone.

[In one swift motion, he drives her own knife into a gap between the plates of her armor. She gasps and stops struggling, her eyes going wide. He twists the knife, drives it deeper, and she gags on fresh blood that stains her tongue, her lips, her teeth in bright technicolor red. When he rips out the blade a spray of blood follows. The robots let her go and she clutches at the wound, pulling her hand away to look at the blood in disbelief.

Blaze stands back silently, as blood continues to pour from the wound and she staggers, falls to her knees with no one there to catch her. He addresses the camera without looking at it.]

You'd all better pray she changes. Because if she doesn't, you're dead.

[And then he walks off-screen. Soon, CT's ragged, bloody breaths start to come at more staggered intervals. She looks up at the camera that he left behind, blood loss leaving her even more pale and fragile-looking. But her eyes are determined, even as she grits her teeth against the pain.]

I'm sorry... I couldn't finish him off... [She draws a deep, shaky breath that rattles in her chest, and her voice breaks, thick around the pain.]

I'm not afraid. I know you'll get out of here. And when you do... Take this son of a bitch down.

[Her determined expression begins to go slack with a soft gasp, and she drops again, first to her elbow and then flat out on her back as a last bloody breath bubbles from her lips, rattles around in her chest. Her eyes stare up at the ceiling, sightlessly. She doesn't change.

Agent Connecticut is dead.]

Hey Mods

[neverheardofhim]

[Regardless of what was said to him afterward, Varric would eventually retreat from the main hall. He barely remembered making it to his room, or sitting on Hamilton's bed. From his vantage point, he stared at his own resting place, remembering how they'd sat together just a few days prior.

He'd promised to protect her, and in the end, he'd failed her.

Varric would refuse to leave Cell 4 for the rest of the day. People were more than welcome to knock -- he'd at least pretend to be interested in company.

It was only once the bulk of the inmates had settled in for the night that he finally left. He didn't go far -- just to the cell nearest his, now rendered empty.

He didn't know what he was looking for as he searched both desks. All he could think about was what the Counselor had told him the week prior and the role CT once played. Perhaps they were not so disconnected. Perhaps she'd left something for him, or anyone else, to find.

Or perhaps he'd find a token to remember her by until he, too, eventually met his end in this blighted place.

[tokencanadian]

[Pyrrha's morning had been going so well. She started in the kitchen, determined to at least have a breakfast of alien pancakes before 10:15 rolled around, and they were all forced to the main hall.

Being forced to watch someone else die was the last thing Pyrrha wanted, but she was determined now to see that CT's last plea wouldn't be forgotten.

She busied herself, after that. Stopping at the License plate room to make the necessary addition to the memorial.

It's later that she goes to the exercise yard to just... sit on the ground, and think. Watching the stars usually helped her collect her thoughts, and after today, she had a lot to think about.]

[helladoptera]

[ "Don't you forget about me."

But she had, hadn't she? Because of whatever forces were at play here. That took away her memories of Chloe. That kept taking away people she cares about. But no more. No more forgetting.

Early morning finds Max in the arts and crafts room, using... oh, she's using safety scissors to try to get the sleeves off of her Jane Doe shirt. Those poor scissors... then she swipes a couple markers for Fun and uh. Well, the whole CT thing happens, which she finds less than optimal. Or fun. Actually she's honestly upset!!!

This takes her back to the exercise yard where she spends some time just kind of... gathering herself. She also has a black leather bracelet with some metal studs in that people might notice Leon was wearing? It goes well enough with her now-tank top, anyway, at least kinda.

Then later still she can be found at the memorial wall, taking down the ALTCHLOE license plate and replacing it with one that just reads CHLOE. Then she takes one of those markers and kind of... spends a little while drawing skulls and music notes and the odd marijuana leaf in the negative space, finishing off with a blue butterfly in the upper left corner. ]