Week 5

[airlockedmods]

Week 5

[In a tragic yet seemingly inevitable turn of fate, the Champions have lost Zombina this week. OsoKaramatsu and Korra, too, are gone, both having fallen in their attempts to help their fellow Champions out of terrible circumstances.

Again, the Champions will find themselves experiencing strange dreams on Sunday night, until they're awakened by C.E.C.E.'s announcement. This is all starting to become routine.]

Congratulations, Champions! By surviving your third trial, you have unlocked the fourth floor of the ship. A new mini map has been added to your P.I.P.!

[The trash compactor is completely shiny and new again. In addition, the profiles on the P.I.P.s still inticate that Karamatsu is dead. Because of course he is, right?

Fuck you.]


Sunday | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday



(( Welcome to Week 5! Don't forget to check in and submit your memory regains! Turn in your benefactor threads for sweet loot, too! ))

Comments

[playthedamncard]

[He's never felt so lost and useless as this. In a time and place he can't possibly be, fighting an evil that can't possibly be. And Atem. The pharaoh with whom he is inextricably bound--and he knows this now, in ways he can't find the words for, not now, not yet. Yuugi, the true King of Games. The doorway of light.

He doesn't want to get up. But as ever, he makes himself. He hadn't checked the rooms the day before. Wasn't up for it. He's letting this place get to him, eat away at his ever defense.

When he finds the letters, he takes them to the cafeteria and leaves them on a table for everyone to sort through. And makes himself a very, very strong cup of coffee. Before disappearing for a little while.

When he reappears, he looks gaudier than ever. Joining his locket around his neck are dogtags, as well as that stupid plastic pyramid. At least he's got his coat back on. And a spiky bracelet around one wrist that...well at least it goes, honestly.

The new floor gets examined, as always, and he finds the infirmary to be like an offensive joke. He digs through the medicine, and the bags of blood, wonders if this would have been enough for Zombina and laughs bitterly to himself. Nothing else truly grabs his attention (some of these boozehounds are probably going to die from the bar) except the gym, where he'll actually take the time to do some working out in there instead of taking up cafeteria space.

In the holodeck, it's not a duel this time. There seem to be several little scenes going on, various constructs of memory. Ancient Egypt. A man that looks nearly identical to him holding the body of a pale woman. A knight riding a three-headed dragon. Anyone who's seen him in the holodeck before might recognize 'Yuugi', but decked in gold and much tanner, more regal than ever before. Several items not unlike the Puzzle or the Rod set into what looks like a stone sarcophagus. He's quiet and contemplative.

And if anyone goes to hang out in the greenhouse as of late, they might see Ibris the robot lizard clinging to a plant, blue ribbon still wrapped around it. Kaiba does not seem to be anywhere in sight.]

Infirmary

[in4apounding]

Ah- salutations, Mister Kaiba.

[Penny is... out today, if very subdued and still in her blanket-cape. But between Marisa's company and her new memory, she's at least not catatonic in her room.]

[She casts a quick look around at the medical equipment.]

...Is there anything in here that would have saved her?

[playthedamncard]

[You can tell she's out of it because she's willingly talking to Kaiba of her own volition. That alone surprises him, but he looks back down at the barely labeled bag of blood in his hand before putting it back in the cooler.]

Unless there's a dialysis machine, I don't know that we'd still have the proper supplies. And we don't have any of her preservative fluids anyway. [The question doesn't, however, surprise him, and he's ready with an answer.] So no. I don't know if that makes me relieved or just all the angrier.

[in4apounding]

[Look, ascertaining just how doomed her undead big sister was takes priority over avoiding Kaiba's crazy paranoid accurate questions about her species.]

...I don't know either.

[She looks around at the equipment again.]

It means- what Mister Karamatsu did wasn't useless, that she didn't have to- lose herself completely, or-

...but it means the Overseers never had any intention of letting her survive either.

[playthedamncard]

They wanted a wildcard. [Yep, looks like we're going with angry instead of relieved.] Leave a ticking time bomb among us and see what we do when it's about to go off.

[in4apounding]

...just- using her as a WEAPON like that-!

[All aboard the Rage Express, apparently. Choo choo!]

[playthedamncard]

[Everything in here is either too fragile or too useful to damage, so he doesn't throw or kick anything even if the urge is there. He just balls his shaking fists.]

She was always meant to die. It was just a matter of when.

[in4apounding]

She didn't deserve that. She was- a real person, and they just- just-

They're CHEATING.

[playthedamncard]

The rules are a joke. Barely there, flimsy, poorly worded. And we're all just pieces in some ridiculous game.

[in4apounding]

That's- just- ...I swear I'm going to kill them.

[playthedamncard]

I'll gladly go back home a killer if it's them. A taste of their own medicine.

...Polendina. You could survive a bullet wound, couldn't you?

[in4apounding]

[She hesitates, just a second, at the question. Kaiba had sworn her origins wouldn't matter to anyone here, but he was still the one who'd started pursuing the line of inquiry during a trial to begin with.]

[And he was, by his own admission, fairly intimidating.]

[But this was about taking down the Overseers- taking down Rox Petuu, the woman who took such glee in robbing them of their loved ones.]

...I think so, yes. If it were the same kind of ammunition she used against Chloe. ...it wouldn't be GOOD, but I could survive.

[playthedamncard]

[He wants to elaborate on the idea, but he has to assume there are cameras here, too. He even makes a deliberate point to look before landing his gaze back on her.] Good. Keep that in mind for Monday. We're making a plan. We'll get out of here, one way or another.

[yeah about that]

holodeck

[immaculacies]

[You know, Kaiba, for someone who told her just last week that you don't believe in reincarnation...

Well, she's not going to say it.]

Oh! Is that your Pharaoh, Kaiba-san?

[She'll still bother him, though.]

[playthedamncard]

[he's seen some shit mkay]

...Ha. Well. He's the Nameless Pharaoh from my world, yes. Not so nameless anymore. [Atem wears the Puzzle, glinting bright and held by a leather strap. It's a damn sight better than the plastic nonsense around Kaiba's neck.]

[immaculacies]

It looks like you must have remembered a lot of interesting things.

[She creeps closer, almost tiptoes, until she's near enough to reach out and give the replica hanging around his neck a little prod with her fingertip.]

[playthedamncard]

I saw a lot. I'm not clear if it was a shared hallucination or really was magic involved. And just because I don't like magic dictating what goes on in my life doesn't mean it can't exist. In some form. It's just something I can't fully explain yet.

[He doesn't stop her, but he does raise an eyebrow at her.]

It's not mine. But I'll wear it anyway.

[immaculacies]

[Manaka raises her eyebrows.]

You're still looking for ways to discount it? [pfff] Kaiba-san, you know, magic existing doesn't have to mean it controls you. At least, not any more so than any other factor in your life. Everyone plans outings around the weather, but most people don't resent the sky for it.

[playthedamncard]

But what then of the magic that suggests it knows the future? Or the magic that insists that he and I existed together in the ancient past, that we were destined to meet again? If it's an unknown factor, how do I control it?

I can't and I won't allow magic to tell me who and what I am, to tell me what I can and will do.

[immaculacies]

You have it flipped around, don't you? Knowledge of the future doesn't control your actions. Your actions control knowledge of the future.

Mm, but it really disgusts you, doesn't it? Thinking that you might not be in control.

[playthedamncard]

...I've been fighting for control of my own life and my own destiny for half mine. To even suggest that it might be for nothing is unacceptable.

What did you mean by, my actions control knowledge of the future?

[immaculacies]

Well, let's say I woke up this morning and had a vision of the future. In that vision, I saw Kaiba is going to go to the holodeck and brood. But my vision doesn't cause you to go to the holodeck; your choice to go to the holodeck, even if you haven't made it yet, is what causes my vision.

[Simple! It's simple, right??]

[playthedamncard]

...For the record, I'm not brooding. [shush yes you are]

I don't know all the rules for how magic may or may not work, if there are any. A woman had an item, much like the Puzzle, and she could see visions of the future. She could predict my every move in a duel we had. [Which also wasn't the first time honestly and that pisses him off fuck the Items for real.] But something...interfered. I knew the move I was going to make, but so did she. And something caused me to see what she saw, this vision that she had prepared for, and plotted my loss. So I changed up my game. I played something else instead, and subsequently won.

So in that case, a vision caused me to alter my actions to alter the vision, in a way.

...Like I said, I can't fully explain it yet.

[immaculacies]

Hm... It could be something like a multi-dimensional refraction phenomenon? That is, there isn't only one future, but dozens or hundreds of different timelines that could exist. "Ourselves" only exist in one of them, but by seeing a vision of one possibility, you were able to interact with it and change it... Or something like that.

[playthedamncard]

[Okay, that? That's impressive. He's impressed.] ...Those aren't the sort of theories most fourteen-year-olds would be able to come up with. What are these magicians teaching you?