001 || so we didn't screw up as badly as we could've

[reddeadvirtuoso]

Characters: Jade Strider and all of the people
Setting: Room 2-01, Floor 30, Cafeteria
Format: Starting action, but I'll do whatever!
Summary: Jade wakes up in the tower, and has quite the day before she finally makes it to the network terminals.
Warnings: Probably foul language and violence against generic Tower monsters, will update if needed

[Room 2-01]
[Her waking up is rather uneventful. One minute she'd dragging some needles across a giant disc while talking on and off to Eridan, the next minute she's... well, asleep apparently. It's admittedly a bit blurry and blinding since she doesn't have her sunglasses on, so those are the first thing she reaches for.

She simply skims the letters without much of a care (yeah yeah the world is over she's got it whatever), and she makes her way towards the trunk at the end of her bend. She quickly wrestles the white suit off to put on her pants and red atom shirt (she didn't really feel up to Godliness at the moment), and starts shuffling through the trunk for the rest of her belongings.]

[Floor 30-- Perpetual Nighttime]
[In a dramatic stroke of Jade Strider Luck, Jade ended up falling plop down on the floor when the staircase fell, letting out an unceremonious yelp. She recovered quick enough, standing up and... it was a toss up between looking at everything tinted dark and looking at everything blurry, so she hazarded a chance her eyesight might've improved with the whole god tier thing, and propper the sunglasses up on her forehead.

Not that it... helped much, so she just opted to keep walking until she found the staircase. And that was when she noticed she stepped on something and holy shit ow her foot ow ow ow-]

What the--!! [She'd been smart enough at least to bring her gun with her, and immediatelly whipped it out while she tied to clumsily jump away from whatever was at her feet, and started shooting blindly at where she thought the black blob of evil might be.]

[Floor One-- Cafeteria]
[It was quite the trial to actually get down to the cafeteria, and she had dutifully eaten the oatmeal she had been handed because son of a bitch she was hungry. The oatmeal wasn't quite enough to satiate her appetite for the moment though, and now she had an...interesting looking egg in front of her. And it was black and shiney and she was pretty sure it wasn't supposed to be.

Right now she was just kind of poking it and looking at it distastefully.]

Comments

[geometry]

[Oh. Well that's interesting. Apparently John still talked to some of the other trolls? Didn't he give up on the species completely or was it just him?]

Well, I suppose that's rea-- ... [Oh. Whoops. While they were having their inspirational speech party, it seems Jade had led them both directly into a dead end.]

[reddeadvirtuoso]

[GODDAMNIT she wasn't necessarily bad with direction, but these things were proooobably best left up to Rose normally.

So after mumbling some obscenities under her breat, she turns around and motions for Equius to follow.]

To be honest, there was probably some Time Wimey Shenanigans, but I'm not even gonna try and touch on that.

[geometry]

[It's a maze. Direction doesn't mean so much as sheer luck. Still, he continues to follow Jade.]

Aren't you the Time player?

[reddeadvirtuoso]

[To be fair, her luck was also pretty crappy considering she's on par with any iteration of Eridan.]

That I am, Colonel Mustard.

[Did not make her any good at the Timey Wimey thing though.]

[geometry]

[...Did she just call him a--]

Excuse me?

[reddeadvirtuoso]

[She stopped and looked back at him curiously.]

What? Too much?

[geometry]

No, I... did you call me a colonel?

[reddeadvirtuoso]

Yes? [And here she thought he'd be offended at the mustard part.] Do aliens have a different military set up?

[geometry]

I'm a yellowblood child. I couldn't be a colonel if I tried.

...Sorry, it just... surprised me.

[reddeadvirtuoso]

Well yeah. They're not gonna let some kid be in the army unless they're really desperate. Unless they do it differently in space. I dunno, Eri didn't tell me much about that stuff.

[So with shrug, she continued.

No she has no idea why you put so much emphasis on your blood color.]

[geometry]

Well, yes, but... even as an adult...

[And he just quietly lets his speech fade away following after Jade again. What a milquetoast.]

[reddeadvirtuoso]

I'm sure you could if you really wanted. I don't think you want to, but it'd be possible. Just do a shitton of training exercises ad make sure to say "sir" like it's going out of style.

[Shru~ug~]

[geometry]

...No. It's not possible.

[He's already got half of it down, but not the second or third half -- the third being, possessing a blood color that isn't equivalent to that of shit, or at least self-perceived to be equivalent to that of shit. Alternia works in mysterious ways, sweet JStri.]

[reddeadvirtuoso]

[Yeah well, Alternia was stupid.

She stopped when she found herself at yet ANOTHER dead end, and you could almost see the scribble coming out of her head before she turned around.]

Why not? Never say never, I think I can I think I can, positive thinking, cogito ergo sum and what not.

[One of those is not like the others.]

[geometry]

It's... it's not about any ability I may or may not possess. I just would not be allowed high enough in the ranks to become anything approaching a colonel. [He'd be the Alternian Empire's equivalent of a redshirt, basically.]

[reddeadvirtuoso]

Why? You got asthma? [Jade please.] You could be like Captain America and get super special experimental Super Soldier treatment.

[geometry]

No, I'm...

[Wait. She's a human. Well, that explains a lot.]

...my blood color. It's too low. I would just... never be allowed in.

[reddeadvirtuoso]

[Hang on she's got to stop and stare at him for a minute.]

What, the yellow? What's that got to do with it?

[Oops Eridan never taught her the Hemospectrum.]

[geometry]

[Siiiiiigh.]

Are you familiar with the concept of a caste system?

[reddeadvirtuoso]

I think I slept through that history class.

[She sleeps through a lot of history though.]

[geometry]

[Judging tbh.]

It's a system wherein individuals are placed at one spot or another on a social ladder of sorts, some below others. Alternia does this by virtue of blood color. I... I'm on the bottom rungs.

[...Wow. That's it? That's it. Well done, JStri. Somehow you managed to stop Equius from monologuing.]

[reddeadvirtuoso]

[It's a gift.

She does wait a while before speaking though, as if expecting him to continue.]

...What, that it? That's dumb. [She's like a goddamn philosopher.] I thought you guys were supposed to be an advanced alien civilization.

[geometry]

[...Oh, wait, there we go.]

We are an advanced alien civilization. It's important. There are twelve possible blood colors, of which I am third from the bottom. Yellow. I know what I need to do with my life by virtue of being a yellowblood, and I'm going to do it, because it just works. Everything has a place. And, yes, it means that some paths are limited because of blood color, but that really doesn't matter. Because when people try to surpass or change what's been set out for no good reason, then other people start firing at them, and that's how uprisings start.

[reddeadvirtuoso]

You're doing it because "it just works." [Air quotes and everything. We are not amused, although it's hard to tell behind that affected air of nonchalance.]

There wouldn't be uprisings if they didn't force a bunch of people into the lower class for something you can't control. What if there's this guy that's like, the most brilliant military strategist you've ever seen at the age of ten, and but he's got the bottom blood color. Wouldn't it be better for him to be a Colonel than some dude with a high blood color that spends all his time trying to figure out how to work a gun?

[Two can play at this talking-a-lot game!!]

[geometry]

Well obviously they wouldn't accept anyone who doesn't know how to operate the weaponry, highblood or not.