orderfromchaos | 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

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.}

Well, at the time an alien wanted everyone in neat lines so it could eat them easier.

Mostly because I'd have had to become one. Some people would fight me, unless I made them incapable of fighting. And then what? Just...more atrocities.

But there's a lot of middle ground between doing that and being the army's prisoner and used for leverage.

{They do not understand what is for their own good, it is true. You were imprisoned?}

Neither do I. I mean - I can pick a metric, even a couple. But what I pick isn't always what matters to them. You'd hate someone deciding what was best for you, too.

[He shrugs one shoulder - discomfort, rather than dismissal.]

Yeah. I thought it'd be - safer, if I was isolated. But the people I surrendered to just - used me. And then I was stuck.

[He looks away.]

I know it was dumb. I was young and desperate.

{To rule over others is the nature of power.}

[Mewtwo's eyes narrow fractionally. Its face doesn't always lend well to expressions, but this one is probably anger.]

{These were humans, I assume.}

Power is power. It accomplishes things. Alone, or over people, or with them. I don't think it really has a nature.

They were. So was the guard who risked her life and threw career away to help me get out.

[It's not Not All Humans so much as just, you know. There's a range.]

{Why would she?}

Because she started to care about me, I guess. Because she knew what they were doing was wrong.