Welcome to the Program

[airlockedmods]

Good Morning, Champions. In the interest of maintaining healthy sleep patterns, a day/night cycle is in effect. Your presence is expected in the cafeteria in exactly one hour.

[The voice comes through not a large speaker, but through the device that's attached to each Champion's arm. Further investigation of the features of the device will reveal a list of profiles, a mini-map, and a list of rules. The hallways are shiny white and silver, with running lights along the floor and lights on the ceiling, and at the junction of the hallways is a sign with a knife and fork icon and an arrow pointing down the hall.

Welcome to the Excellence Program, Champions. Time to get to know your teammates.]

Comments

[photoshooter]

Wh-what the...?

[Prompto only scrolls through a couple of the profiles on the PIP before returning to the mini-map, scanning it one more time against his growing dread. There's no exit.

His clothes: replaced. His gun: inaccessible. His friends: probably in the same danger, because last he knows, they were all still together. Is this some kind of new Niff base, all white and sterile like this? Prompto gulps, having explored the room he woke up in from top to bottom, breathes out shakily, and creeps out of that sliding door into the hall, staying low, taut as a bowstring, to inspect the other rooms on the map.

And the second he sees movement, he yelps and ducks into whatever common room's closest, unwilling to risk detection alone and unarmed.]

Waah!

[challengesfate]

[She'd literally just started walking towards the center hallway with the sign, what the heck]

Aaugh!

[STUMBLING BACK BECAUSE OF THE NOISE there are no weapons there is no shield there's not a damn thing to defend herself with, but the boy just went and darted into the library, so she does the only thing she can think of - she darts after him.]

Hey, wait - please wait! Who's there?!

[photoshooter]

[He bolts straight for the stacks, throwing himself behind a couple shelves so that he can make a break for it once he sees which way she's coming from.]

N-no one! Nothing! No one important!

[Can he arm himself with a book? He grabs a few and starts packing them into the crook of his arm just in case he needs to throw something and run.]

[challengesfate]

[Ah, he's in the stacks, eh? Alright...well, she can position herself between two aisles and sort of peer around them to see where he's going.]

I am not going to hurt you - I just - I have questions - I need to know where I am and how to return to my own realm!

[photoshooter]

[Whoops, there he goes, scrambling around the corner into a different aisle. Dude is fast, if nothing else.]

I don't know anything, I--

[Wait. What? After a pause, he peers at her around the shelf.]

You don't know where this is, either?

[quadjumps]

[ when prompto slides out of his door, little does he know that yuri is there, just sort of...watching this weirdo sneak around?? it's when yuri shifts when the dude finally notices him and runs into one of the common rooms.

uh. ]

Hah? What's your problem?

[photoshooter]

[After a pause, Prompto peeks back out the door of the art room, as confused as he is terrified.]

Are... aren't you just a kid? What are you doing here?

[quadjumps]

[ ?! ] I'm not a child!

[ dammit prompto ]

And do you seriously think I know why I'm here? Why are you here, huh?

[photoshooter]

Because...

['My best friend is the fugitive King of Lucis and I've killed a bunch of Imperial soldiers and stole their property and, I dunno, jaywalked?' No, he's not saying any of that.]

Um. I. Don't know? I--I don't know. This isn't some kind of prison?

[stillstands]

[She'd just been wandering casually down the hall, with a book from the library tucked under her arm -- when someone comes barrelling out of the room next to hers, and screeches at her.]

Ahhh!

[I mean. Screaming back's going to work, right? Miki stumbles backwards... before darting into the nearest open common room herself, where whoever that was didn't go, pressing her free hand to her mouth to smother any sounds she might make.

...

... Good hustle, guys.]

[photoshooter]

[Prompto trips over an easel in the art room before it registers that that was a girl's voice--a young girl, very smol, not scary. As scared as he is, even, if that scream's anything to go by. He crouches there for a second behind the cover of a table, heart in his mouth, before he inches towards the door again and peeks towards where he thinks she went.]

Uh... hello? A-are you still there?

[stillstands]

[Miki had ended up scrambling back into the room she'd come from - but the books aren't exactly calming her down at all. She strains to hear anything that might be coming from outside the library -- and she almost expects to hear shuffling footstep and low, eerie groans, so the sound of a young man's voice startles her somewhat.

...

Slowly, and carefully, she edges around the door just enough to get a clear view of the other side of the corridor. She's still crouched low, book held in her hands and slightly aloft, ready to swing it if she has to.]

... Yes, I'm still here.

[photoshooter]

[He's not even standing, hunkered down in something like a sprinter's crouch in the art room's doorway. Seeing her, Prompto pushes himself up to his knees and raises both hands. They're empty.]

Sorry. I, uh, didn't mean to scare you. I just...

[He's just frightened out of his wits. But that's no excuse for scaring a kid. He glances away, back down the hall, then shakes his head and starts over, letting his hands fall into his lap.]

Hey, do you have any idea where this is? Or--or when they brought me in?

[immaculacies]

[. . .

Manaka hadn't even noticed him. Still, she can recognize that sound as one of... Surprise? Distress? Her expression is faintly dubious when she glances in the direction that voice had come from, eyebrows arched over her level stare.]

...It's all right. I'm not about to hurt you.

[photoshooter]

[He doesn't exit the media room.]

Th-that's exactly what someone who was about to hurt me would say!

[immaculacies]

[There's a second of silence on Manaka's end. Then, she steps toward the media room door and slides it open just enough to peek her head inside. She really isn't threatening to look at, so maybe he'll calm down when he sees her.]

I'm not, though.

[photoshooter]

[He immediately ducks behind some of the theater seats, but rises enough to watch her over the back of one, easing back from utterly terrified to confused and scared. She's gotta be Iris's age. Maybe younger?]

...Just how many kids are here?

[newcycle]

Ah--!!

[she freezes-- and then waves? And then peeks her head around the door frame]

Hello?

[photoshooter]

[He's hiding behind one of the game room tables.]

St-stay back! I'm warning you!

[...Warning her of what, he hasn't thought of yet.]

[newcycle]

I am not here to hurt you, or anything else!

Uh... Let's-- try again?

I'm Korra.

[photoshooter]

[There's a long pause where Prompto considers giving a fake name, just in case. But common sense kicks in eventually, because even if he has been captured by Imperials, who's going to know his name, anyway? He's not important.]

...Prompto. Argentum.

[He lifts his head above the tabletop.]

So were you captured or something, too?

[batfortheprincess]

[Two jumpy dudes in the same vicinity as each other can't possibly go wrong right??? Right. Anyways, it's pretty hard to miss the noise and the sudden movement.]

Who's there?!

[Slaine's first instinct is also to get behind something but yeah there sure is nothing else in this hall huh. Still, once the inital shock wears off he slowly moves to peep into the game room. what's up dude, don't freak him out again too]

[photoshooter]

[Slaine's treated to another panicked flurry of movement as Prompto dives from the the general direction of the shelves to the cover of the tables.]

Don't come any closer! I'm armed!

[Armed with a DnD guide. That's 1D8+1 for damage. BEWARE.]

[batfortheprincess]

[Well, if he was trying to startle Slaine with that, he was successful?! Gj Prompto, that's +1 weenie you made jump with a DnD guide, that's worth something somewhere... probably?!

But either way, the movement and answer makes him duck his head out of the doorframe and press his back against the wall next to it. No gunshots is a good sign he guesses, but he's still alert for the sounds of any further movement.]

Who are you? Are you responsible for this?!

[photoshooter]

What? No! Shouldn't you know? You're one of them, aren't you?

[He only got a quick glimpse, but the guy definitely looked Imperial.]