towerofanimus | Trapped in Myself, Body my Holding Cell

Characters: Prussia and YOU!
Setting: The cafeteria for both options.
Format: Starting in prose, but I'll change to whatever you've got.
Summary: Prussia has been caught and droned. You may read the full rundown of his modifications here, but in summary: he's now a ghost from the neck down, and when he malfunctions, he's convinced he needs to kill people for their life essence.
Warnings: Character death and beatings and sword-ings likely. When you post, I'd like you to let me know if you're okay with Prussia attacking and/or killing your character (what this also means is that you should tell me if you're okay with Gilbert changing to malfunctioning in the normal function scenario). I might not actually be able to work out how to kill your characters in all cases, but if you want it, I'll try. Alternately, you can let me know what you'd like me to do here.

Cafeteria, Normal Functioning

Death was now all Prussia knew.

Whenever his mind was active, it was filled with thoughts of his oncoming end. He was dying, he was fading, and there was nothing he could do about it. The thoughts of death would be replaced by a brief but piercing horror every once in a while as he realized he was completely out of control, a prisoner in his own body. His will had been officially taken away from him, and he would most likely never be himself again except for those brief moments when the sentiment that everything was fine abated. The being known as Prussia was effectively dead to the world; his will was completely sealed off from the outside world and would not be seen. All that would be seen was the auto-piloted corpse that scuttled to and fro in the cafeteria, alternating between cleaning the place up and heaping piles of nutrition bars onto plates. (Well, at least the sentiment that others should eat well remained, sort of.)

But wait, there wasn't even a corpse to see! Prussia was really more of a ghost than a corpse at this point, thanks to his modifications. Though he could make himself solid enough to pick up objects (like his sword and its belt), he was nearly immaterial from the neck down. His body was translucent. He wasn't even a corpse; he was a phantom. The condition only reinforced the idea that he was fading away, heaping even more horror on the pile. Prussia had run out of second chances and tricks to keep himself alive. This was the end... if the tower would allow him to end, that is.

Cafeteria, Malfunctioning

Ah, wait! There was something he could do about this fading away! Life essence. He needed others' life essence to restore his body and eventually become whole again. Nations, however, did not possess any abilities for extracting life energy from people, so there was only one option: liberating the life essence by force. Translation: killing people. Suddenly, Prussia dropped the tray of nutrition bars he was carrying and pulled out his sword, pointing it at the people in the cafeteria with what would have been a hungry gaze had his condition not rendered him totally expressionless. Now, who would have the most life energy for the taking...?

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Tohko wandered into the cafeteria with the intent to manage other worker drones and keep people in line. Everything was going well, but when Prussia dropped his tray and pulled out his sword, she turned to face him, a hand on her daggers, and blood coming out of a leg joint.

"Prussia, put down your sword and clean up your mess. That's an order."

Sam was still in a state of shock from everything that had happened, and was looking round the cafeteria in a mixture of fear and anger. That this had happened angered him, and there didn't seem any way to him to make anything right.

After picking up a couple of nutrient bars he began walking to the exit.

Prussia froze when he heard Tohko's words. Once again, his mind was overtaken as he slowly put his sword away and began to pick up the nutrition bars and the tray he had dropped. The impulse to collect life essence was still gnawing at his mind, but he couldn't refuse Tohko's orders.

At this point, Prussia was mopping the floor. As Sam passed by, Prussia seemed to stare blankly at him. If only he could talk... if only he had a solid body.

Tohko nodded as Prussia slowly began to obey her orders and clean up the mess he had made.

"Why were you snapping off in the first place? Did someone bother you?"

Because there was no way his own body or mind was hurting them. What the Administrators had done to them was good.

Sam looked back, this wasn't someone he knew but Sam had soon worked out that those with pink collars were people like him, who had been somehow turned into... things.

*The fact that his roommate hadn't returned to their room was worrying at first and then terrifying as he began to spot the mutilated, now pink-collared residents. He feared every moment he would run into Prussia. And it took him a couple days or so, but he eventually did. He had to eat, after all.

He stares at what appears to be a severed head floating around in the air before his eyes refocus and he notices the translucent form beneath it.*

Gilbert...?

Silly Tohko, Prussia can't talk! But he can try. He gestured to his body to indicate his state of fading, hoping that that would make it clear (because damn if he wasn't awful at charades). For extra emphasis, he put one translucent hand through his chest- he could pass through himself.

Suddenly, some switch went off in Prussia's mind. Here was a perfectly valid target for gathering life essence, and he was getting away! That couldn't be allowed. He dropped the mop, and it fell to the ground with a loud clatter. Slowly, he pulled his sword out of its sheath and began to advance on Sam.

Enoch! Something went off in Gilbert's head. During a brief moment of painful sanity, he desperately wanted to say something, anything to him, inform him of what was going on, apologize for anything he might be about to do. But that line of thought was swiftly shut off, muzzled into muteness. Doing his duty as he was supposed to and yet trying to do something with a last vestige of clarity, he put a rather large amount of nutrition bars on a plate and brought it to Enoch.

Thankfully, Tohko understood Prussia's game of charades..but she didn't like the answer.

"The Administrators gave you those modifications to help you in your work. To hate it is to go against them."

Enoch took several bars from the plate, looking rather disoriented about the whole matter.

He wasn't sure what to say, what questions he could ask, if he should be keeping his distance or...

All he could do was look at his roommate with a worried, confused expression.

Sam wasn't sure what he had done, but the worker was pulling out a sword and heading his way, Sam pulled out his own blade, though he knew that against one of the big folk in a fair fight he didn't stand much chance at all.

Close, but not quite. The problem wasn't just that his body had been altered; it was that he was dying. He shook his head and tried again, this time making a throat slashing motion and lolling his disembodied head over to the side. Would that get across the picture of "dying" better?"

It did, but Tohko didn't understand why Prussia was worried.

"You are not dying at this moment."

Gilbert stared at Enoch for a good few minutes before taking fetching another plate of nutrition bars and setting them on another table. It was another task, and the part of Gilbert's consciousness that remained was very glad that he wasn't malfunctioning in front of Enoch. What would he do if he killed him? That would be incredibly hard to apologize for.

No, this can't be happening-

But it was. The thought was swiftly overwritten by the urge to collect Sam's life essence. He lunged at the smaller man, more than ready to strike.

She got it, but she was still wrong! Gilbert was definitely dying at this very moment. He emphatically shook his head and gestured to his body again. Wasn't that proof enough that he was fading away?

"You resemble a ghost, but you are not dead."

..Sorry, Prussia. Compassion and worry weren't something they put into Drone Tohko.

Sam leaped back, bringing his sword up to try and block, stumbling a little at the power of the other blow, but keeping his head together, looking for a way out of this.

But he was deeeeeeeaaaaaad! Or at least dying! Clearly Tohko wasn't going to accept this, though, so Prussia just shook his head one more time before staring blankly at the tray he had set down. Should he try going back to work, or should he wait to see if Tohko had any more orders for him?

As time went on, the more desperate Prussia felt. In the beginnings of a frenzy, Gilbert swung a wild slash down towards Sam.

Oddly enough, Tohko was going to compel him back to work with an order.

"You are not dead. Get back to work. That is an order."

And that time the blow hit, slicing at his shoulders. Sam stumbled and tried to strike back with his sword.

Trapped in Myself, Body my Holding Cell

Cafeteria, Malfunctioning

cafeteria

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Did you want normal functioning or malfunctioning? Or both?

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malfunctioing is fine!

Cafeteria, functioning normally (if you want him to malfunction during this it's okay with me!)

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Would you like to go with death or an injury, or should Prussia fail? (For future post purposes.)

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Death is fine- might as well get the first one over with!

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