(no subject)

[midgarhorizon]

Characters: Anyone who stayed behind
Setting: 29th to the 31st, Anywhere
Summary: After the volunteers went below, what did those who stayed behind do?
Warnings: Usual Animus warnings, check for subject lines!


[Post your prompt and time in a subthread!]

Comments

this conversation now turns towards "one of them is going to end up yelling"

[bloodyashes]

Scared of what? Dying?

[Asch doesn't even look up as Reno paces behind him, his vision locked on the page in front of him as he continues to sketch the pattern, firming up lines and scrawling notes.]

Personally, I'll take that over spending the rest of eternity wandering Auldrant, trying to find grave space for all the corpses.

[midgarhorizon]

[His shoulders slump a little, and he shakes his head.]

No, scared we're going to get... whatever she does to souls. Scared they're not goin' to come back. Scared we will wind up wandering forever. I had seven months of that, y'know. That was enough.

I'm supposed to come up with something to get us outta here because I promised, and I got nothing.

[Going back to the table, he straightens out some of the papers, restacking the maps by floor.]

If Ruana was reasonable, we'd just freakin' talk to her.

[bloodyashes]

[Finishing the notes, Asch looks up, his expression sour.]

Then congratulations on being the first person who actually understands what I'm shooting for.

[The pile of sketches gets set off to the side. He's still angry, when he thinks about it - still wants to smash Jade's face into the wall about it. But Jade's not here - he went down, the way Asch didn't, couldn't.

He kicks lamely at the table leg, semi-intentionally missing.]

...It's not something I have any answers for, either.

[midgarhorizon]

[Shifting his weight to one leg, Reno sets a palm on one hip, and pulls out a pack of cigarettes from one of the many pouches on his belt.]

I'm not cut out for this shit. The people we need up here are all down there. I should'a gone instead.

[He pulls one out and sets it between his lips, and returns the pack to the pouch. Need a train of thought... something to talk about other than fear and things like that.]

You were here durin' the summer, right? Wasn't Ruana pretty pissed the Tower got broke in the first place? What do ya think'll happen to Jason? He's practically brought the whole damn thing down around our heads, if ya believe Riki.

[bloodyashes]

That's a good summary of it. As it happens, I wound up taking a vacation for most of the rest of that month myself.

[He idly straightens the couple of pens within his reach into a neat row.]

I doubt she'll kill him as long as he's useful. It's not like she has anyone handy to replace him the way she did with Dax and Zo.

[He starts straightening the piles of papers next, evening up the corners before putting them back in place.]

I suppose it would be too sweet to hope for her making him into a drone.

[midgarhorizon]

Y'mean like they did that one time with putting Zo in a collar?

Hnn. She's punished Jason before, back during that experiment where they took people to prove they could run the Tower better. I don't have too many reports on that because I wasn't as serious 'bout taking notes of everything down.

[Reno sighs, and starts patting his pockets for matches or a lighter, or something. He could try the fire magic he knows, but control of the keyblade world spells were shaky and he'd probably wind up frying the whole thing.]

That was when I was still on Ganondorf's council.

[bloodyashes]

[At Reno's question, however, Asch's eyebrows shoot up - he doesn't hear too much these days of the time before he arrived at the Tower, and it's clear from his expression that this is one he's never heard before.]

They did what? That all must have been before my time.

[He sets the last of the notes aside.]

While you were gone, one of the things Jason did was use a good portion of us in place of the drone units, with degrees of brainwashing ranging from "acting completely normal on the surface" to "none at all, just trapped in your body while it works."

[He can almost talk about it without flinching, now. Almost.]

It's too much to hope that he'd get a taste of his own medicine, probably.

[midgarhorizon]

...That's somethin' I've only vaguely heard about. Guess people are too traumatized or something. What do ya remember about it?

[Reno sits back down, taking the cigarette and tapping it against the table.]

Ah that was... back in June, I think. Not this last year, the one before that. Several months after I arrived the first time. June? No, wait, that was the labyrinth debacle. [Going by on memory alone is getting tricky with his head filled with so many other things.]

Was it? No, that was May. Had to be May. June was the living experiment. After June, we got the rotating administrators each month after that. Before it'd just been Dax all the time. That October was the first time Ruana was in charge.

[bloodyashes]

...Nothing good.

[Congrats Reno, you hit on one of maybe two things he prefers to not talk or think about. Asch's words come with a clipped tone that's clearly struggling to stay detached.]

In addition to the brainwashing, Jason modified people mostly according to ironic whim, with worse modifications for those more brainwashed. I was in the group trapped in their bodies, but I couldn't recognize anyone. Wound up getting killed twice by people more brainwashed than I was.

[He makes an aborted gesture towards his ears before managing to still his hands, shifting uncomfortably.]

If you're having trouble remembering it now, write it down before you lose it.

[midgarhorizon]

Eh, I already did, it's in my report book right now.

[Sigh.]

It was June because that was the first month we went without food. Think that was about when I started to take up hunting. They left Zo in charge and he didn't know how to do anything. We organized a couple assault teams and went down to the administrator levels. I think that's the first time we did that. I was on Ganondorf's team and got into the control room. The other one tried to bust the others out of Jason's living experiment.

[bloodyashes]

Makes good enough sense to me.

[He's plenty happy to get off the subject of the brainwashing, at least, but trying to think of something else to think about is hard when there's a trauma nudging at your brain.

Time to read some papers instead, definitely.]

[midgarhorizon]

[Falling silent for the moment, Reno starts to organize the notes again. Nervous? Yes, but there's worse things he could be doing.

Soon enough, he stops.]

Asch, do ya think there's a way downstairs we can't see? Other than the elevators. I was takin' a look at the staircase... there's a lot of tech in there.

[bloodyashes]

I wouldn't be the one to ask. The Tower's well beyond anything we had on Auldrant.

[And it wasn't his area of study anyway. He's used to the science of living things - politics, anatomy, a dash of fomicry centered on the living replicas - not metal and wires. Truth be told, Asch probably couldn't fix any more complicated electronics than a lightbulb on a single circuit.]

[midgarhorizon]

C'mon Asch, I'm just tryin' to bounce ideas around here. I don't want to be empty handed when the others come back. Anything'll work, even if it's crap.