towerofanimus | (no subject)

Entry tags:

(no subject)

Characters: Luke fon Fabre, Nanako Dojima, Pit, and YOU
Setting: Various locations; see below.
Format: Starting action, reply as you wish.
Summary: Catch all post for all of my characters, because they're all trying to recover from last month at once. Please specify who you're responding to and where.
Warnings: Drone death, angst, and Pit being a freaking dork.

Pit
May 1st, Room 4-18

[Pit was rubbing at his eyes, still half asleep from being put under since getting out of the Dark World. Despite still being out of it, the only thing he could think of was getting to his double's room, to see if he was okay, and hopefully by the time he finished crying and yelling at him, he'd be awake enough to punch him.]

May 6th, Floor Seventy-Seven

[Now that Pit's caught up on the goings on of the Tower? He needed to get himself ready for the fights that were obviously going to come. He wasn't going to do that by training, by working out, or by making sure his weapons were in good working order.]

HOT SPRING!!!

[...hope you weren't in the sauna, because Pit just did a massive canon ball into the water, cloths, sandals, and all.]

Nanako Dojima
May 4th, Floor One Hundred and One

[Nanako hasn't been able to return to her room since Ken died.]

[She has been hiding in the gardens for a long time, mostly because it was the only floor she felt safe in. A lot of times she woke up, she found herself back in her room, but she scurried back to the gardens before anyone else woke up. She was so tired and stressed out from it all, that often times she found herself nodding off during the day.]

[She hated this place... she hated everything about it, and she wanted to go home.]

May 9th, Floor Twenty-Six

[Nanako was standing alone in the middle of the morgue, finally able to pull herself away from the gardens above. She didn't know what she was supposed to do... she wanted to cry and scream, but at the same time, she knew she couldn't do that. There would be no point.]

[After a moment, she curled her arms around herself, sinking to the floor.]

Daddy... I want to go home... Mommy, help me...

Luke fon Fabre
May 10th, Room 3-14

[You could probably hear Luke whining from outside the door, followed by loud "Mieu mieu"s in response. An irritable groan followed, along with the most... awkward conversation ever.]

C'mon! I'm not wearing that!

Mieu! Miemiemieuu!

But the admins gave it to me! I don't want it!

Mieuuuuuu!!!

All right! All right! Get off of my head!!!

[It's a moment before Luke comes out of the room, wearing a new outfit, and looking absolutely sullen about it. He paused to glare at whomever decided to stop and listen outside the door.]

...what are you looking at?

May 11th, All over the Tower

[...okay, so maybe he liked the outfit they gave him.]

[Luke was trying to keep himself busy in the Tower, trying to take his mind off of last month. He's been helping lay out chips, and if you're lucky you might be able to catch him on the meadow, media, dormitories, and forest floors doing that. But it's not enough to really get his mind off of what happened, and all the drones following people around? Really doesn't help him at all; there isn't anywhere he's gone in the tower he hasn't been able to see them, and it just got to him more and more. Every time he sees one, he feels the guilt from what he was forced to do hit him in the chest again and again...]

[Finally, he snapped.]

[He was passing by the abandoned hospital ward on floor fifty-six when he noticed he was being followed. The drone wasn't really following him or even paying much attention to him; it was obvious that it was just there on its way elsewhere. Despite how obvious it was, it didn't keep Luke from turning on it.]

[He didn't really know he was doing it. One moment he was turning, and the next, he was shoving the lifeless drone off of his blade, watching it tumble back down the stairs. Luke stood there, staring... before he tightened his hand into a fist. He could feel his stomach churning -- he had just killed someone -- but... if he could get rid of them...]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[She was just walking up the stairs in a solitary information gathering excursion when she was nearly crushed by a falling drone betwee the fifty-fifth and fifty-sixth floors. She flattened herself against the wall and quickly cast a Forcefield, watching the drone bounce off the barrier before it hit the stairs and continued down.

When she was done, she turned to glare up at whomever was responsible.]

Didn't you even think to check if anyone was coming up the staircase? You could have killed me! I'd like to avoid that!

[Luke stared in surprise, not expecting anyone to have been there. The full impact of what he just did decided to hit him at that moment, and he fell over, landing on the next step up and clutching at his stomach.]

T-Tear... I...

[The glare on her face melted as Luke proceeded to look like he was going to throw up. Before she knew it, she was at his side, hand on his back.]

Luke, are you okay?

I... I just...

[He buried his face in his hands, shuddering.]

...it's all my fault... I...

[Wow, it had been a long time since she had faced this with the redhead, but she figured that if this Luke was indeed from before Akzeriuth, it was probably beyond time for this breakdown.

She didn't think he'd ever fully gotten over the whole fighting against people and the need to kill to live in battle situations.

She tentatively ran her fingers through his long, red hair and tried to think of something to say. What she'd said to the Luke she'd known before still applied on some level, but she didn't know if she could be that harsh with him again.

With a deep breath, she decided to just go ahead and have this conversation with him again.]

What is your fault?

I...

[A shuddering breath escaped from him, and he fought to try and just... say it already.]

...Jason got a hold of me last month. He... turned me into a drone too... the only thing I could do was serve the admins, and... and I...

[He dropped his hands from his face, struggling and failing not to lose it entirely.]

I killed Asch. I killed Ion. And I couldn't stop myself!

[She stared at him. That hadn't been what she expected him to say. He'd killed Asch and Ion? How did she handle this? This was nothing like what happened after Akzeriuth.]

Luke, listen to me and answer me truthfully. [She took a deep breath before charging forward.] What drove you during our trip to Akzeriuth was the desire to be a hero and you said and did things that you couldn't take back. Was that the case with what happened?

I... I don't know...

[He curled up on himself, struggling not to lose it.]

...I should have fought harder. I shouldn't've let Jason get his hands on me in the first place.

[She wanted so much to try to help him, but the more he curled up in on himself, the worse it was going to be. So, she was going to have to be harsh.

She could do this.]

I don't want to hear what you should or shouldn't've done, Luke. What can you do? Can you change the fact that you did that? Can you erase your memory of the events occurring? Can you stop this Jason by yourself? Can you do anything productive curled up like a baby, crying on the stairs?

[That got him annoyed enough to uncurl himself, glaring at her.]

I'm not being a damn baby! I... I killed my friends, and because I couldn't stop it, these drones are following people around. Yeah, it wasn't just me, but dammit, I contributed! It's my damn fault!

[There was the fire, the spirit, she was used to seeing from him. Although, she really wished she hadn't had to resort to playing the bad guy here. She'd do it though. It obviously needed to be done.]

I fail to see how you being literally forced by some psychotic scientist to go around murdering others is your fault. Unless, you could have stopped yourself and you chose not to. Did you intentionally go out and find Asch and Ion to kill them? Did you desire for your fellow residents to become any more oppressed than they were? Did you?

I-I... I don't know.

[He curled up his hands into fists, shaking.]

Everything was so messed up... I couldn't think for myself, or... or do anything except what they told me to. And now everyone's paying the price for that.

[Her own hands were wrapped around her staff that was attached to her belt. She wanted to hug him so badly. He needed it, and she wanted to give it to him, but he also needed to be shaken out of this mindset that he was responsible for what happened.]

Luke, when I got here, I ran into a girl with wings. She told me about some of the things that happen in this tower. You've told me about others.

What you're talking about... This was one of Jason's experiments, yes? The same Jason that tortured you with the fonic hymns for his own amusement?

[Luke just gave a weak nod in response, unable to say anything.]

[Okay, that was progress. He was listening to her, which was always a good thing for them to progress. Perhaps she hadn't ruined their fledgling relationship two days into it.]

What makes you think that you should have had a choice if that's the case? There are some things you can't control. This time, it just happened to be that one of those things was your action. You had your free will stripped from you.

I won't say that I know what that feels like, because I don't. But I do know what it's like to have the heavy weight of your decisions resting on you every second of every day. As I'm sure Jade did as well.

[She puts her head down, eyes clamped tightly to avoid the emotions she could feel attempting to control her until she could speak clearly again.]

You need to start with the things you can do. You were the one who told me that.

...I did?

[He looked a bit unsure; right now, there didn't feel like there was much he could do. Killing the drone hadn't brought him any kind of peace, even with the thought that at least it wouldn't be stalking someone later. Beyond that...]

Tear... when I found out about Van, I promised myself I wouldn't let anyone just... tell me what was 'the truth' and follow it blindly. That I'd make my own choices. Jason threw that in my face.

Yes, you did.

[She sighed when he was finished speaking. She really did understand how he felt, but he was going about it the wrong way.]

Luke, did anyone else ever tell you what happened on Auldrant after Akzeriuth?

Not really, no...

[At least, not that he could remember.]

[In the way that only she could, she detached herself emotionally from the entire situation and carefully told him about the fallout of Akzeriuth's explosion, how Asch had brought them up to date with Van's theory to destroy the world, how'd they'd gone around and lowered the Outer Lands down into the Qliphoth, how they'd had to fight her brother, how she'd been diagnosis with miasma toxmosis, how Ion had died to save her, the Tower of Rem, his own diagnosis of fonon separation after the Tower.

She left out any of the side stories of their traveling party. Jade, Natalia and Guy would tell him their own histories, if they wanted or could.

Mainly, her focus was on Van, Luke, Asch and herself. She only told Anise's secret because it was so tightly wound with her own story. After a while, the words just stopped, and she was left sitting next to him, silently staring down the stair case so he didn't have to see how she was ready to cry.]

[Luke just stared, at a loss for words as she finished the story.]

All... all of that... happened?

[It was difficult to process, hearing how his life was supposed to be played out. It didn't even sound like something that could be real...]

As much as it sounds like some far off plot, yes, it happened. Our group was headed to face Van down on Eldrant in the morning when I found myself waking up in this tower.

[Nope, still not looking at him and using a flat voice to answer his questions.]

[Luke hesitated; Tear looked... so out of it, explaining everything that happened. She did that too when she talked about Van, like she was trying to separate herself from what she was talking about.]

[After a moment, he reached around her, wrapping his arm around her shoulders and giving the one opposite him a squeeze. He couldn't do much... but he could at least try to be comforting?]

[Even though she didn't know if she could look at him without crying, she leaned into that arm around her neck and placed her head on his shoulder. A part of her wished that she'd been able to tell Luke how she felt before they'd parted for the night and she'd ended up here.

But, this wasn't...bad. It felt real, unlike the last year of her life.]

[Luke hesitated a moment again, feeling really awkward as a blush creeped up along his neck toward his face. He tried to ignore it as he reached around her with his other arm, pulling her into a hug.]

[As she wrapped her arms around him awkwardly, she wondered how things had turned out this way. She'd only wanted to explore the Tower and now she was exchanging an embrace with Luke, of all people.]

[She let the silent hug go on for a few moments before she pulled back with a bit of a watery smile. To break up the serious mood, she pulled on one of his forelocks gently.]

I'd almost forgotten how good your hair looks long.

Luke, of course! On the stairs!

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She's crying on the inside. This hurts her more than it hurts you.

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