orderfromchaos | 30. deja vu

Entry tags:

30. deja vu

[Dillon has too many eyes. A pair on his forehead, almond-shaped and dull, dead. Two pairs on his face below his own grey eyes in different shades of brown, one on his cheekbones and one in the hollows of his cheeks themselves, alive, darting, glaring, as if with minds of their own. In his neck, a pair of hazel-green eyes that would be terribly, alluring beautiful if they weren't clouded with death as well, and a final empty blue pair set wide above his collarbone.

The bedroom behind him is a wreck; not like he trashed it, like a bomb went off, everything in splinters and shreds and smithereens. He grits his teeth, but takes a slow breath. When he speaks, he puts a little raw power in his voice, the power of order that finds the tiny chinks in the universe and exploits them, that brings things into line, and the subtleties of it carry even through the comm. It doesn't force people to believe - but it does make his words harder to dismiss, hard to rationalize away.]

You think you're going crazy, but you're not. You think you're out of control, or out of strength, or you were worthless to begin with - but you're not.

There are parasites here, feeding on the worst thing you ever felt. And like all parasites, the more you feed them, the more they grow. Starve them, and they die.

Whatever you're feeling, fight it. The feeling is part of you, but the parasite is not. Control it, instead of letting it control you. You can win.

[A long beat, to let that resonate. He knows perfectly well that for some people on the barge, it's a lie, but the force of the statement might help some of the people for whom it is not. In his own voice, but hard and shuttered and sure,]

Anyone who has magic, anyone with psychic anything, talk to me, I can find the people who are infected and not making trouble yet. If you need help beating it, call me, I can help. I've faced something like this before. It's so hard to fight, but it's absolutely vital. I can see the places they've grown, and I'm not letting a single one of these assholes survive.

[Feel free to assume he has tracked your character down if you want spam. He is completely ready to take people's doors off their hinges if necessary to get to people with despair!shas who can't get up to open them, or are otherwise resisting, he is really serious about wiping these things out. Dillon can't actually extract the sha on his own, but he will at some point be teaming up with Dean and/or Jean and/or others if you would like, and he can help someone on the edge find the strength to reach an acceptance vanquishing. Let me know if you want a particular scenario/solution.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only | Expand All

I cannot speak through video. Will this be a problem?

Edited 2015-03-31 17:35 (UTC)

Oh. Right. No, I just thought - nevermind. Just tell me where you want me to meet you?

If I do prove to be infected, what is the next step? Perhaps that should determine our location.

We call one of the people who knows how to force it to get out of you and form its own body, and then I kill it.

It has its own body? Perhaps my cabin is best. 210.

Edited 2015-04-03 21:01 (UTC)

[He leaves his shattered room and heads for the stairs.]

Not naturally. They're phatasms, spirit things. But if we don't make them take a physical form, they'll just float around until they infect someone else.

Do they think? Or are they animals?

I honestly can't tell.

[And he really doesn't care. Anything that tries to make him part of the food chain is in trouble, whether it's 'more advanced' or not.

Mewtwo does, though, and he has to remind himself that's actually probably a good thing.]

I don't think so. The ones I met back home weren't shy about trying to talk their way out of it when they were on the spot, these guys haven't tried it once.

You also have these at home?

[Darkly]

They were different creatures. They just fed the same way.

[He knocks, he's there.]

[The door is made of an odd metal, warm and strangely organic. It is an arch rather than a rectangular frame, and splits in the middle with a pneumatic hiss when Dillon knocks.

The interior of the cabin is lost in darkness apart from transparent pillars, glowing from within. There's also a raised, round platform in the center cast in a specular light by an enormous observation screen. Its resident makes an odd silhouette against the static.

Mewtwo's voice is calm, male, and entirely telepathic. It makes no sound at all.]

{Thank you for coming.}

Yeah, anytime.

So - okay, talk to me about your obsession. Uh. Expressively? If you don't really do facial expressions while you're think-talking, maybe move around. Pace or fidget with something.

{Telepathy.}

[Mewtwo pads down the stairs, into one of the brighter lights.]

{I must make it clear to you that you do not have my trust except in this matter.}

That's fair.

[They're not close. Dillon is not an especially trustworthy person. But he's the person for this job.]

{Hm.}

[It is true that Mewtwo is not normally animated, but it makes an attempt at gestures as it speaks with its odd three-thumbed paws.]

{The man who had me created is one I will always loathe. He is a human who sees other beings as nothing more than prizes or toys. Even with so much power, he is never satisfied. He expected me to live only for his wishes.}

[Frustrated snaps of power crackle through Mewtwo's fur.]

{Humans sell us, use us, teach us to fight in their petty arenas. To take a creature born into freedom and make them into a servant - is that any better than to ensure that one is born to live and die only at your whims? Is it worse?}

[He watches, listens. The telepathy interacts with his own abilities in a quiet but interesting way. It is so direct - it is exactly what Mewtwo chooses to express. Does it fit, Dillon asks himself quietly, as the pieces of injustice accused and only alluded chink into place, slowly form a more solid picture.

Anger belongs, certainly. But that only makes him a more tempting target. Does all of this belong to him?]

{And now I am here, among humans, who say that I am not worthy to live in freedom, or to live at all.}

[The threads of the parasite surface, now - not Anger, but Doubt.]

{The only way to succeed is to be a human. I know now that I am partly one of them. It would make my creator more like my father. Perhaps in his position I would behave in the same way.}

[Oh. Oh, hey, there's -]

Succeed at what?

{To have purpose, and the freedom to carry it out. To be deferred to as an equal.}

Personally, I don't think you have to act more human, or more like that human, or like that really messed up culture of humans. He sounds pretty terrible. There's a hell of a lot of ways and kinds of purposes, and some human somewhere has probably tried most of them, but that won't make what you try less yours.

...you have got one. It's not making you angry, though, it's making you unsure of yourself.

Dean, Clementine, and Anya can all get these things out of people a lot faster and more reliably than I can. Do you have a preference which one I call?

[Mewtwo can keep talking about it with him, if he wants. Or he can just answer the question, and Dillon will step off. Mewtwo said at the beginning he only trusted Dillon so far as was necessary, and he respects that.]

{Is that not the nature of power? Those who have it shape the rules by which it can be used.

And, are these humans? All three?}

I'm not gonna say anyone has ever wielded power without sin. But I am pretty sure power doesn't always mean cultivating or upholding slavery, either.

Yeah, sorry.

{If it was in your power to run the world the way you saw fit, would not your opinion become the law of the land?

It does not matter which, then.}

It is in my power, actually. I could've been running my world years ago. I didn't do it.

[Okay brb texting whoever's available to show up first.]

{Why not? You could eliminate many of humanity's evils by simple oversight.}

30. deja vu

text, private

video, private

text, private

video, private

text, private

video, private

text, private

video, private

text, private - > spam?

video > spam

video > spam

video > spam

spam

spam

spam

spam

spam

spam

spam

spam

spam

spam

spam

spam

spam

spam

spam

spam

spam

spam

spam

spam