towerofanimus | 0000000

Entry tags:

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Characters: [OU] Luke fon Fabre and you!
Setting: Media Floor
Format: Starting action tags, but will match you.
Summary: The lights went out while Luke was surrounded by a bunch of monitors. You can guess how this ends.
Warnings: Spastic, flailing redhead.

[If you happen to be passing by floor fourteen as the lights go out, you'll get to hear a yelp of surprise coming from inside, followed immediately by a completely undignified screech of terror. After a lot of banging and what might have been something breaking, Luke will come fumbling toward the staircase, sheet white from being caught completely off guard.]

[Luke had gone down to the Media Room to catch a break, to have something else to listen to other than the screeching that had been going on all over the Tower. He could still hear it in that room of course, not even thinking for a second that it could have been coming from the chips planted inside, but at least on that floor he could blast a moovee (that's what they're called, right?) to try and drown it out.]

[He hadn't counted on the power going out. That had been startling enough, but to suddenly have every single monitor in the room glowing with static and flickering? That was enough to send him running, half afraid something was going to start popping out of the screens. He would put it past anything in this Tower, after all.]

[And damn, he swore that screeching got even worse.]

[So look out, person passing by the Media Room. Luke's about to plow into you; hopefully he won't knock you clear off the stairs.]

S-sorry! Sorry I... d-dammit...!

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[Asako was ALSO in the Media Room, playing video games. As such, she crashes into Luke in the mad scramble to get the fuck out of there.]

WAUGH!

Augh!

[Luke fumbled, grabbing onto the other person -- shoot, he didn't even realize there was someone else there; that really was a good moovee -- so they wouldn't end up falling over. Somehow he managed to keep them both steady while trembling like a leaf.]

S-sorry, I didn't see you.

I'll give you that one 'cause it's so dark in here!

[WEH! It's okay, Luke, you're not the only one shaking like a leaf. She manages to look up in the general direction of where the person's voice is coming from.]

...What the heck do we do now?! I think the Tower broke!

[This is the only explanation, okay.]

Edited 2013-06-01 03:02 (UTC)

Y-yeah, it does that every now and then.

[And usually without any warning... like this time. Although, maybe all the screeching was warning enough. Luke shook his head; that didn't matter right now. He needed to focus; with the Tower dark like this, they had bigger problems to focus on.]

D'ya have a light on you? We're going to need to keep an eye out; monsters are really bad when it's dark like this.

Yeah, but it isn't usually this bad...!

[Deep breath. Deep breath. Okay, Asako. You can do this. A light, huh? Hmm...]

I've got an electricity spell. If there's something that'll catch fire when it gets hit with electricity-- but that's all I've got. Maybe somebody left a lighter around.

Maybe, that--

[And Luke cut himself off; what glow from the monitors was filtering out to the stairs suddenly winked out, and all that screeching finally just... stopped. He could literally feel the fear settling in his gut, and he swallowed, hard.]

...I think we're in trouble.

Ya think?

[There's a pause. Wait. If the power's completely out, then they can't use the network to find anyone, which means...
And this means it's technically after dark, WHICH MEANS...]

...Don't the monsters usually come out after dark...? ... How many people were on the bad floors when this hit?!

H-how am I supposed to know that?

[Luke let out a breath, squinting in an effort to adjust. Damn it, it was like light stopped existing. This wasn't the chips they planted doing this, was it...?]

We're just going to have to feel our way back up the stairs. T-the monsters don't usually attack on the stairs...?

[...actually, he wasn't very sure about that. Damn, he wished he hadn't left Amnon up in the room...]

I know, it was a rhetorical question...Damn. Hang on.

[Snap, snap, it's Norn and Garuda.]

Don't be afraid, they're - Well, they're my minions. I summoned them, they're not enemies. Let's get moving.

[The Overlord is up and about and shit has gotten real. Time to take the lead, to the stairs!]

Wait, summon, what?

[He heard something, but like hell he could see anything. Well, maybe a bit of a glow, but... yeah.]

All right...

[She'd recognized that particular screech even over the incessant beeping and went running up two flights of stairs, only to nearly be plowed over by Luke.

Lips touched her own and as she raised a hand to her mouth in surprise, her footing failed and she slid down the stair case, passing out at the bottom of that particular flight.]

[...wait, what just happened!? It was too dark for Luke to be able to tell what he touched, just that he lost his balance when he did and went fumbling down with whomever he plowed into. He let out a groan when he landed, his head swimming around and around; at least he landed on something soft... not entirely sure what it was, but yeah.]

O-oy, are you okay?

[He fumbled around the person, trying to locate a shoulder to shake.]

[She woke up to a heavy weight on top of her and a hand groping her breast.]

G-get off of me! [Yep, she was shrieking and using her hands to strike at her assailant, ignoring the way her stomach turned as she moved too quickly to get away.]

[...and suddenly he had a face full of righteous female fury, not that he didn't deserve it, but at the same time, he didn't really know what he grabbed. He let out a yelp, his hands going to his face and... wait. Wait. He knew that yelp.]

T-Tear?!

[...w-well, that explained the soft.]

[At the sound of his voice, Tear calmed down. A little.]

Get off of me, Luke. Now.

[Despite being able to stop moving, she was still feeling lightheaded and nauseous. She raised a hand to her head, using her fingers to search around it, finding a huge bump and some wetness that explained why her stomach was threatening to fight back.]

I think I'm bleeding...

[...oh.]

[Oh crap.]

C-can you heal yourself? Are you going to be okay?

[She didn't want to distress him, but all Seventh Fonist healers were told repeatedly not to heal their own head wounds, as it was likely that they'd make themselves ill or pass out. How she wished that Natalia was here or that Luke was far enough in using the Seventh Fonon to heal her.

As it was, she attempted to shake her head, despite the pitch black, and ended up making herself nearly throw up. It was really a close thing.]

N-no. [Her voice is shaky and laced with her attempts to keep from being ill.] Too dangerous to do it myself right now.

[If she could get somewhere to rest, she might be able to heal it later.]

What can I do to help?

[He had to help; man, he screwed up. He shouldn't have freaked out like that. Hell, he was so worried about her, he didn't even notice the sound had stopped.]

Please, Tear! What can I do?

[She reached out to grab a hold of his arm and squeezed, tightly, to keep him grounded. One of them needed to be ready in case they were attacked by the monsters she kept hearing about in the tower.]

The room you came out of... Help me there. And don't yell. Hurts.

O-okay... sorry.

[Luke hesitated, unsure; he couldn't see at all. It was like light itself stopped existing, and it kind of creeped him out.]

I'll try. This is probably gonna hurt though, okay?

Okay. That's fine.

[She braced herself for the pain of him helping her up. It was going to continue to hurt for a while. Stupid head injuries usually did. It was just some miracle of Lorelei that she was awake and functioning.]

All right...

[He knelt down beside her, reaching to carefully pull her up, so her head was resting against his shoulder. He didn't want to move her too much, because that would be bad. Head injuries were scary things, after all.]

Okay, re--

[And before he could finish, he found himself interrupted by a voice blaring over the loud speaker, announcing all the power had failed in the Tower. No shit; stupid fontech telling them what they already knew and...]

[...wait, what?]

Glamour? What's that mean?

[...and why was it counting down?]

[The light was both a godsend and something she could have wished away. The body that she knew was right there, that should have belonged to Luke as she knew him, was replaced by a violet liquid and wire framing that reminded her of a few of the experiments she'd seen in Sheridan. The only thing that remained the same was the violet collar that she'd somehow become accustomed to seeing around the boy's throat.

She looked at her hand to see that she was in a similar position. And then she realized what they'd heard meant.]

It's all been an illusion?

[Luke was busy looking around in mute shock at the real face of the Tower, not sure how to process all of it. He'd heard Yu talk a lot about always wanting to see the truth beyond the lies, that even if it was painful it was better to know than to live in an illusion.]

[He wasn't so sure about that.]

Just... how could we--

[He turned to look down at her, but the familiar face he knew was gone; Tear was just liquid and violet, with only the place where the collar used to be staying more or less the same. He looked down to his hand, holding her up, and... it was no different. Just a shimmering light in the middle of them both.]

[They... weren't even real? At all...?]

...w-what...?

I...I don't know. [Inside, she was a wreck, nearly crying out how unfair everything was. Until she closed her eyes and let her instincts carry her into the place that made Luke hate her.

She'd be a normal, teenaged girl later, when she was somewhere safe. Well, safer...]

Luke? Are you okay?

I...

[This wasn't right... this couldn't be right! He'd been able to feel, touch, taste... how could all of that had been fake? The pain he felt in the pods, the horror of fighting his friend and dying, the agony of being ripped apart and turned into something else... that all had been real. So why... why was he fake.]

This... this can't... I can't... w-we can't...

[He was shaking and he couldn't stop, staring down at his hand like it was going to bite him. It couldn't be... i-it was just an illusion, it had to be... it had to be a lie, right?!]

[She could tell that he was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. There was only one thing that she could think of that would fix it if that was the case.

With a huge sigh, she reached out and slapped him hard across what should have been his cheek. It was strange to watch her violet and wireframe hand move through the air to connect with his face, but she shoved down the way her stomach flipped to deal with his hysterics.]

Luke! I need you to stay with me. If you insist on freaking out, I will slap you again. Is that understood?

[Luke let out a faint sound of surprise, his hand going to a cheek. Hunh, that... still stung. That was... that was so weird. How could wire hurt?]

Y...yeah...

[His shock had immediately turned to surprise, and now was slowly ebbing of into numbness. All he could think of was why them? What had they done to deserve this.]

A-are you still... uh... b-bleeding?

[She blinked, raising a hand to the back of her head, pushing aside the film that made up her hair and feeling liquid there.]

I don't know if it's bleeding if it's not blood, but there's definitely an injury there. I-I don't know if my healing artes would work. It...it doesn't seem like a bad injury though, so we can try to find the others and see if they're safe.

I wouldn't want to chance using anything right now. Who knows what'll happen.

[It was hard to think, to keep himself from freaking out. Everything they looked at, everything they touched, all of it had been a damn lie. The only thing they had were the interactions with each other... but how much of that had been genuine? He didn't want to think about it; the idea made him ill.]

C'mon.

[He wrapped an arm around her tightly, helping her up to her feet.]

[When she was back on her feet, she struggled to clear her head again. Fainting or throwing up would do neither of them any good, especially if she was the one who had to stay calm, stay rational, despite what it would cost her.]

Let's start with the dorm floors first. They're closer.

[They need to stop meeting like this. Or possibly period. Thanks to the lack of light, this Luke doesn't know who's just run into him, but he's grabbing at whatever part of that person he can reach first to keep himself from tumbling down the stairs.]

Augh!

[They don't go tumbling down the stairs, but Luke still falls over awkwardly, landing hard on his rear end on the edge of a stair, and likely bringing whoever it was that grabbed him down with him.]

Ow!

[Suddenly, redhead pile! Or at least one Luke draped across the lap of another one.]

Lights had to go out right then...

[Also hey, your voice is familiar. That's...sort of good.]

...Luke?

[...it's so weird hearing yourself talk back to you.]

Yeah... You okay, Luke?

Yeah, I'm fine. Are...you okay?

[Yup, definitely is weird. 'Scuse him while he climbs out of your lap, pulling himself up by whatever shirt you happen to be wearing.]

[...yeah, he's still wearing that last outfit he got from the last event. He thinks it's cool, okay?]

Yeah, I'm all right. What the heck happened?

[Luke flinched; dammit, he wished that screeching noise would stop--]

[...]

[Like it just did. The glow coming from the room he just ran out of suddenly winked out too. Well that couldn't be good.]

...uh oh.

[Thorin was still attempting to play a new video game, when the lights went out. A power failure or some other witchcraft to blame? He huffed as he threw the controller down in annoyance. He noticed others in the room also.

One red-haired boy seemed very put out. He went over to see what was going on.]

Do you know what is going on here? Do the lights often extinguish themselves without any reason? [Also, the screaming was quite unnerving.]

S-sometimes.

[Oh god, he could still feel his heart trying to beat its way out of his chest.]

S-sorry, just... everything going out, and the monitors blinking kinda creeped me out.

Sometimes? [He growled in annoyance. Damn these Admins and their cruel games!]

It is enough to frighten the toughest of warriors, I understand how you feel, lad. Tis an evil curse placed upon us all.

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