towerofanimus | Have a 'reward'

Entry tags:

Have a 'reward'

Characters: Ψiioniic ([info]2nd_dii2ciiple) and open.
Setting: Room 2-08 and surrounding area
Format: Narrative please, I suck at action tags
Summary: Ψiioniic is NOT pleased with his 'reward'.
Warnings: Explosions. Possibly lots of them. Very pissed off and frightened powerful psychic.

When Ψiioniic saw the mention of a 'reward' on the network, he was curious to see what his would be. Nothing could possibly make up for the bullshit the tower had put him through, but he wasn't going to turn down something that would compensate for it a little. He couldn't imagine what kind of possible reward it could offer him, though. Unless it brought his computer system, which he rather doubted considering the lengths the tower had gone through to prevent people from having access to that sort of thing. He really didn't have anything else. He'd arrived at the tower with nothing in his chest but a change of clothes for a reason.

What he did NOT expect to see when he walked through the door of his shared respite block was a mass of pulsing fuscia biowires taking up all the space at the foot of his bed. The mound reached to about his hip height, and more trailed down from the ceiling. The helmet wires hung just at his head height, dangling empty like an obscene invitation.

He froze in utter horror and revulsion, panic and denial racing through his mind. With a sharp cry he blasted at it with his powers, lashing it - and the rest of the room - over and over with bolts of blue and red, so fast that they blended together into purple.

Backing out of the room into the hall, he continued to blast at the room, until there was nothing left of his corner but a charred and ruined hulk. Even then, he could see the withered mind of biowires, like a silent accusation of where he should be.

Turning away, he leaned against the wall and was noisily sick, bringing up everything he'd eaten so far that night.

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Reluctantly Ψiioniic let him go, because his desire to be rid of that thing was marginally greater than his need for comfort. And there would be a certain ironic justice to Signless helping to destroy the physical evidence of his slavery.

He hovered in the doorway, watching the two of them work on the half-melted wires. It was amazing that they'd survived his blast of destruction, but then they were built to take a lot of damage, so that the Helmsman they connected wouldn't be hurt if the ship was attacked.

The rest of the room was a little singed here and there, but for the most part his blasts had been concentrated on his corner. He was glad, now - he hadn't been thinking straight at the time, but he'd have felt bad if he'd destroyed the others' things.

Suzaku was shaking with anger. It never was enough, they had been kidnapped, experimented on. Psiioniic had been killed, been chased by those he trusted. And now this. There idea of reward was indeed strange.

"If we ever had any doubt," he continued hacking at burnt wires, "That our captors only meant us harm, this proves once and for all..." these wires were definitly going over the edge of the tower. Suzaku did not know what they were, but he understood enough of Psi's past to guess.

"There was never any fucking doubt of that," Signless snarled as he climbed onto the bed and pulled his sickles out of his sylladex. He cut through several biowires in one sweep of the wicked curved blade, and soon the wires dropped even faster than before.

"This is more than foul. It's completely disgusting."

In the wake of his paranoid episodes, he had withdrawn a bit. Though he still wanted to make their captors pay, his insecurities were getting in the way to a greater extent than ever before. How could they possibly get to them when they were able to affect their minds so deeply and thoroughly, until they didn't know what was real and what wasn't?

But that didn't matter, he knew. He had to pull himself up and stop being a coward.

"We can't just sit around and let them get away with this," he said.

Drifting a little closer, Ψiioniic couldn't stop himself from shuddering every time one of them sliced through the wires. "I can't dethide if it's really dithturbing, or really gratifying, to watch you do that," he murmured, hugging his arms tight around his torso as if he could warm the core of ice that had taken up lodgings in his thoracic cavity. "I keep thinking I should feel pain, becauthe I was connected to them for so long."

The Condesce had liked to yank on his wires to punish him, and it had been very effective for causing physical agony without actually damaging him. Cutting through the biowires would surely have hurt even worse. But he wasn't attached to them at the moment, so he felt nothing.

"They've proven themself powerful and cruel. The level of mind control they used on us is more powerful than any Geass I ever witnessed." But Signless was right, they had to stop them.

The question of course was how. Suzaku looked towards Psiioniic when he spoke. Not many things shocked Suzaku, he had witnessed horrible things; he had done horrible things but the idea that people would attach someone to these wires that he and Signless were busy hacking down...

He didn't know what to say so he concentrated on destroying the things. He was good at that, destroying things.

Signless glanced at Psiioniic, too, his eyebrows pinched together and his lip nearly bitten through. He just looked so vulnerable right there, and it hadn't even occurred to Signless that cutting the biowires might hurt him. Thank gog those assholes hadn't put Psiioniic into the station when they 'gave' him the reward.

He bent to slash at the lower wires, destroying them, too. He didn't want even a trace of this left to be used to hurt his moirail.

"Well it can't hurt you if you're not attached," he growled. "And that's not going to happen." He glanced at Suzaku. "I don't care if they can control us. They're not all-powerful. There has to be a way to surprise them and beat them."

"I jutht hope it doesn't grow back when the retht of the room is fixed," Ψiioniic said with a sigh. With his luck, it probably would. "I wonder if they did it on purpothe to fuck with me more, or if it really was the only thing they could find."

Turning away from the disturbing sight, he paused when he saw the neat pile of cases stacked on Signless' sleeping slab. "SS? Did you put thothe there?" he asked, approaching them cautiously. All things considered, he didn't expect it to be anything good.

"If it does then we will cut it down again." Suzaku hacked at the wires, cutting them as clean from the ceiling as he could manage. "We wont let them hurt you with it," if they could help it.

It felt like a lie even as he said it, because it had been proved that the two of them could not fight the mind control and if it happened again...

"I can only assume it was on purpose... my reward," he spat the word out, "Wasn't even mine anymore..." He shook his head and looked round to Signless' bed, wondering what the other troll had been given.

"What did they give you, Suze?" Signless shoved the last of the wires onto the floor, then straightened and turned to look at what they were looking at. "Huh? No, I didn't put those there."

Was this his reward? It had to be. Nervously, he moved over to his bed and picked up one of the boxes.

And his mouth fell open.

"It's In which a sea dweller takes a lowblood into his hive and schoolfeeds her in proper highblood deportment in order to win a bet with his moirail that he could train a lowblood to be indistinguishable from a highblood in all but blood. Though it appears the sea dweller is may win his bet, Her Imperial Condescension discovers the farce, and appropriately, the lowblood is culled and the sea dweller's fins are removed as punishment. Contains several musical numbers, sixteen jokes regarding the differences between lowblood and highblood vocabulary, one flushed relationship that crosses the hemospectrum, one significant kiss, no particular on-screen violence, and one culling." He turns wide eyes on the others. "This is one of my favourite movies! I don't watch the last fifteen minutes, though," he added to Suzaku. "The end is pretty depressing."

For a long, astonished moment, Ψiioniic just stared at Signless and the movie in his moirail's hands.

Then he started laughing again, because it was either that or resume blasting the room to bits, including Signless' area this time. His laughter was bitter and slightly hysterical, but he didn't think he could be blamed for that.

"I get ekthperimented on, tortured, attacked and killed by my friendth and moirail... and my reward ith the phythical devithe uthed to keep me in thlavery and control my very thoughtth. YOU get your favourite romcom. That... ith jutht... tho fucking typical of thith fucking plathe!"

"A pocketwatch," was all he said before he listened to the... that was the synopsis right? Of the film. Strange though that it was so specific and seemed to give away the ending. He blinked at Psiioniic when the troll started laughing.

He recognised the feeling behind it, the despair and helpessness behind it. "They... this is probably their idea of a joke... Or something..." He shook his head angrily and bent down to start gathering the wires up. "I am going to throw these off the side of the tower." He told them.

Signless let the movie drop as Psiioniic started laughing, his surprise - and slight gratification of getting his movies back - replaced by bitter guilt. Why should he get a real reward when Psiioniic got such pain? And Suzaku just got something lame, apparently.

"I'm going to throw these away, too," he growled, gathering up the disks, though not without some regret. The nice thing about movies was that they were an escape, but these were tainted.

"No, don't you dare," Ψiioniic said, reaching out with his powers to snatch the discs away, though he was careful not to damage them at all. He held them up out of Signless' reach. "There'th no reason to throw out a bit of brightness we can all enjoy, SS. Even if your tathte in movies is pretty awful." It was a weak jab and he knew it, but it was the best he could do right now.

The words were sincere, though. Just because he was suffering, it didn't follow that Signless should be, too. That wasn't how it worked, not even for moirails. "They can be the reward for all of uth," he said, coaxing. "Sitting around watching louthy romcoms with you sounds like a pretty good idea, right now."

"Maybe..." Suzaku didn't really want to voice the thought that had just came to him, but he did so quietly as he gathered up the wires.

"Their results implied that not everyone acted the way they wanted... maybe it worked better on you so you got a real reward, whereas me and Psi got punishments because we did not do as they wanted..."

He shook his head, not liking that thought or where it took him. He focussed on Psiioniic's words. He never really watched films, not many were made with Britania's economy focussed on war and everywhere else being invaded. But he was interested enough by the idea of a troll film to nod at Psiioniic's sugestion.

"Great, so apparently they wanted me to act like an utter douchenozzle, then hide like a grub for a week," Signless snarled, looking at the pile of disks limned in red and blue and floating just out of his reach. He wanted to keep them, but he didn't want Psiioniic hurting.

He scrubbed his claws over his scalp. "Well, so long as you want them, I'm not going to throw them away," he said grudgingly.

Then he brightened. "The truth is, you know they're works of pure cinematic genius, like I always tell you, and you're just slavering to see them, but too lame to actually admit it. Well, prepare to have your foot covering tubes knocked off and your hair blown back."

"Pure blockbuthter flops, you mean," Ψiioniic taunted him right back, falling into the easy and familiar banter with profound relief. Focusing on his friendship with Signless meant he could ignore the horror evoked by his 'reward'.

Though Suzaku was right that they still had to DO something with the aftermath. "That'th a good idea," he said firmly, and gathered up the rest of the hacked wires with his powers. Again, there was ironic justice in him using his powers to rid himself of the thing his powers had locked him into in the first place. "We'll go throw it off the tower, then take over the tv room and watch crappy movieth all night. THAT thounds like a reward."

Suzaku nodded, not joining in with their casual taunting. Mainly because he had never seen any troll films so didn't have an opinion on them, and secondly because he wasn't that comfortable around them. Or around anyone really. As the last week had proven it was very easy to hurt those who he thought of as friends.

He gathered up as many wires as he could and set off to the roof. "That sounds good." He said quietly and cautiously not knowing if they would want him to join them.

Signless rolled his eyes at Psiioniic, grabbed a few handfuls of wires that the others had missed, and shoulder-checked Suzaku as they walked down the hallway. "I hope you're prepared to weep at the pure ecstasy you're about to experience," he said airily. "This is going to be a schoolfeeding of a lifetime for you. When you truly understand and experience this aspect of troll culture, you'll be begging the tower to give you horns so you can be one of us."

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Have a 'reward'

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Translation: My Fair Lady

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