middleofsomewhere | So Familiar a Gleam: Finale

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A TL;DR notes version of days/prompts: (click to show)

EVENT BASICS:

DAYS 8-9 (M11-M12):

Buildings had begun to disappear during days 7&8, facilities and even whole streets begin vanishing. There are signs of crumbling infrastructure everywhere they look.
In the early morning of Day 9 (M12), the cracks in the city - in this illusionary world - finally spread. The void sky above shines brightly in its colours. Chaos - also referred to as the Entity, or That Guy - is heard screaming of vengeance against the Voidtreckers, blaming all that has happened onto them. It shows what happened to the original Diagad: It was destroyed by blocky shapes in the sky that came down and destroyed it, while Chaos itself fell into the void.

There is also some light mind torture, as a treat, to really wake people up. Memories, visions of their past assail them. This is the sort of stuff the voidtreckers have been training against and it's a good time for them to put all that work to the test.
Anan's group then takes over any electrical device still left. She explains that they have a way to get the non voidtreckers (4th wall characters and npcs) home and also a way to temporarily seal the world. The entity takes offence at this and the screens smash. The entity appears as a cyclone of crackling colourful energy.
Illusionary creatures are sent around to find and attack Voidtreckers, but they're also going after 4th wallers/NPCS. There's also monsters from other worlds leaking through, real monsters. People will have to move around more carefully, as going out on the streets is dangerous.
However, there's word that buildings are disintegrating/disappearing farther out from the centre sector. People see where the city limits are as the illusion of there being more to the city has completely faded.
Their SCA's begin to work fully, including comms. Of course not everyone was wearing their SCA when they got pulled and the 4th wallers don't have one so it will be up to those who do to make sure everyone is kept in the loop.
The main tasks are as follows.

"YOU. YOU WISH TO RUIN MY WORLD. TO TEAR IT ASUNDER, BREAK AND CRUMBLE AND INCINERATE ITS EXISTENCE AGAIN. AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN. I WATCHED IT. THE END OF DIAGAD, PURPLE SKIES, THE CHILDREN WHO LAUGHED IN JOY, THE SMILES I BROUGHT TO LIFE. THE REASON I WORKED AND WOKE AND WHAT KEPT ME GOING EACH AND EVERY DAY. MY EXISTENCE. MY BEING.

FALLING. FALLING. FALLING. I FELL AS IT CAME, BLACK TERROR WITH A HUNGER. HOW DID THE CHILDREN CRY? DID THEY SUFFER? I CAN HEAR THEM ALL, I CAN IMAGINE THEM. SEE IT. THE POSSIBILITIES, THE MAYBES, THE TRUTH. THE WORLD-- MY BEAUTIFUL DIAGAD, OH! THE VOID HAS BLESSED AND CURSED AND DAMNED AND DESTROYED AND BROUGHT TO ME A CHANCE TO SAVE IT THIS TIME, I WILL SAVE DIAGAD, I WILL HEAR THE CHILDREN LAUGH AGAIN, NO ONE WILL DESTROY MY CITY AGAIN. NO ONE, NO THING, IT WILL BE BEAUTIFUL AND SAVED AND IT WILL PROSPER FOREVER.

ALL WHO HARM US! ALL WHO STOP OUR RETURN! I WILL FIX WHAT HAS BEEN BROKEN. NEVER AGAIN SHALL YOU YOU VOIDTRECKERS HARM MY WORLD AGAIN. TWISTING AND RUINING OUR HOME NO MORE NO MORE I WILL END YOU."

The spiel comes in the early morning of Merriment 12, their ninth day on this strange world, though morning and night are indistinguishable now with the void-scarred sky burning above Jinnjar. Little exists of the sectors but the education and political district, and everyone has had to take shelter in its buildings, on cold tiled floors and with few blankets. There is no waking comfortable, feeling at ease. The city continues to crumble, and the citizens turned into the Entity's Heroes never quit their search and harassing of people who may be secret Voidtreckers, regardless of the ruinous world around them.

And then it speaks. The Entity's voices wakes everyone, enters into dreams, reality and the fake undefinable between one another. Scenes switch from one to another. A sky. Purple, serene and calm. A feeling of great contentment. But then come the shadows. Dark clouds filling the sky, blotting out that most perfect sky. A scream. No, a thousand screams. A world of screams echoes in every ear. A shadowed figure falling into the void. Pain erupts through the body, the mind, madness and grief suffocating every sense, every fibre of the being, and more attempts to fill and drown each and every person in Diagad. There is grief, there is love, there is despair. A longing and desperation that can never be fulfilled that cries out.

Once it's over, many have collapsed from the experience, and there are screams of those scared for their lives. Go out into the streets if you haven't already, and you will see the streets breaking, buildings being pulled like cubes, splitting people and trapping them. And there is a surge that hits people - Voidtreckers, others - with a brainwashing that makes them think of only one thing:

NO MORE. END. WE WILL END THE VOIDTRECKERS.

In amongst all of this chaos screens switch on. Any screens left working in buildings, on buildings, peoples phones. All show a young woman, a droid sat on her hair, metal legs curled around her head.

"Malin?"

A woman's voice. "Yes, go Anan. Now."

"LISTEN UP!" Anan isn't as loud as the booming voice echoing through the city, but she makes herself clear. "We need to evacuate and seal this world. It is falling apart." Stating the obvious, perhaps.

"We can temporarily seal it and we think there is a way to get the others back to their worlds. I know you Voidtreckers have had no training and this is advanced and really dangerous but everyone who is not a void traveller is in a lot of danger."

In truth, even the void travellers were in danger, but she doesn't want morale to be too low.

"Anyone willing to help meet me in the big park. You'll know it, it's the only park left!"

'HOW DARE YOU! HOW DARE YOU THWART ME. NO. NO. YOU DON'T. THIS IS MY CITY. MINE NOT YOURS. NOT YOURS TO DESTROY.' There's a huge crack as the sky itself seems to crack apart as colours twist and turn, a cyclone that forms at the edgez of the city, slowly beginning to devour it.

Over the camera Anan looks visibly shocked, terrified even, lost for words. An older man with reddish greying hair steps towards her, putting a big hand on her shoulder.

"Focus Anan. Voidtreckers. We do not ask it lightly. Please those that can, fight. Buy us time to set the seals. Buy time for those with no void craft to evacuate."

The screens flicker in colour before it cracks into static.

'NONE OF YOU WILL SURVIVE.'

A DISJOINTED REALITY

[ FALLING CITY. ] The city has been torn apart, fragments of roads, buildings and structures floating in a horrible mess. Friends and comrades split apart, some trapped in rooms that once had exits, or with no way out than to fall to nowhere. Pieces may stitch back together again at random, but with the same unpredictably, tear apart.

And if it couldn't get any worse, those core lights buzz around the environment, searching for individuals. They will do anything to hinder our heroes: turn into monsters from their minds, attempt to encase them inside illusions of their fears; even try to make them see pathways that don't exist, to make them fall into nothingness.

But for those who honed their resistances against illusions, this time may be different from the last. And with some experimenting, or just some lucky wishful thinking at the right time - some will find they can bend the illusions to do as they want, if just for a while. Stitch back together pathways so they can be crossed over, or make a weapon appear where it's needed.

It requires concentration, will be exhausting with too much use, but still - when isn't an axe or road on call handy?

[ HINDRANCE OR HELP. ] But it isn't only the core lights and environment they need to worry about. There are monsters coming out of the void - monsters they may recognise, monsters they may not. But unlike those of illusions, these are real, monsters - mechanical, ghostly, flesh and blood, something else entirely - slipping through from other worlds to rampage here.

There are also civilians, those who remain brainwashed, going after the Voidtreckers with powers of their own: telekinesis, pyromancy, superstrength and endurance, and so forth. Their skill levels vary, but the strongest of all are those who features have become twisted, chaotic. Streaks of colours dance under the skin, and they listen to no reason but their own. The entity - no their god, Chaos, is remaking the world. Remaking it the way it should have always been.

Strangely, but luckily, not everyone is harmful. Amongst those out there are a peculiar sight: a short hybrid between child and woodland-creature. They're keen to help, particularly anyone young or good of heart. They will help to lead them to safe shelters - the safe-houses made by Voidtreckers, the protected rooms all that are left. They may even interrupt the core lights from harming youngsters, knocking and shattering them, and then staying close to the youngster.

[ THE EVACUATION. ] For those who manage to make their way to the park, Anan is there, looking grim. One good thing though, as voidtreckers rush towards the entity or get ready to protect those helping evacuate this world- those with SCA's will see them burst into life, comms online.

The evacuation area needs protecting. Those acting as beacons aren't able to fight for themselves and the evacuation process is intense, slow and there are many many people in this city. The main entity is distracted but the monsters are drawn towards this gathering of people. Holding them back is vital to this plan working.

It's going to take everything the voidtreckers and their new friends have, to pull this plan off.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

They're nearly there. Seto finally reaches the anchoring team, and manages his first evacuation with...only a little difficulty. He's feeling exhausted by the time he pulls out, only for a dog to flop at his feet. Didn't he see this dog on campus before...?

Strange. He instinctively reaches down to pet, too exhausted to put energy into resisting.

"Somehow, our messes get bigger and bigger."

The huge, fluffy dog leans into his touch and looks up at him with beseechment in its liquid, droopy eyes. In response to his words it-- did it just nod? Like a person in agreement?

Are they having a conversation? Seto smiles and continues petting.

"This isn't where a therapy dog would usually work..."

But he doesn't mind. He feels calmer the longer he spends with his new friend, shutting out the chaos overhead. Maybe he still has the strength in him to ferry a few more souls across the river.

"Are you tired too? All this nonsense with forcing despair on us can't be good for anyone."

The dog shakes its head, tongue lolling almost as if it's amused as well by the irony of a therapy dog turning up so incongruously during an emergency, rather than after.

But then it seems to droop, slumping against Kaiba's legs and whining softly. Its ears lay back and tail goes flat against the ground. Despair? Oh yes, this is a dog that feels the despair.

How...cute. Seto answers by crouching beside the dog and rubbing his soft head, leaning against him briefly.

"We'll get as many of you home as we can. Your family will get home too, if I have anything to do with it."

Which means he has to get back to anchoring. He sighs tiredly.

"It...really takes more out of me than I thought it would. I feel like I'm being ripped at the seams."

The dog remains flopped at his feet, but its tail thumps a couple of times. Reassured?

Or maybe attempting to reassure. It rolls back up to its big paws, standing and shaking out its full coat for a moment before it noses at Kaiba's hand. It gives his palm a lick with a big pink tongue and looks up at him. There's a certain weariness in those brown eyes now, a certain air of... understanding?

Because of course Devero understands. Things are... different, when he's a dog. He can tell that he thinks differently: everything seems a lot more simple, for one thing, and it's a lot harder to worry about the past or fret over the future. As a dog, there's a kind of grounding immediacy that is very, very appealing to a man who gets lost so often in his own head.

That's why he's taking the risk now, even if the desperate grasping tendrils of the entity's illusion can get much closer to him in this form than in his real one. Being a dog makes him feel better, and he has a head full of memories of his dogself being a comforting, stabilizing presence for others, too. Sure, most of those memories are lies, but they're logical lies. If he can help someone else while also, selfishly, indulging himself, he's going to do it.

And this conversation with Kaiba, such as it is, is helping keep him focused on the work, and that can only be good as well. He licks the young man's hand again.

Kaiba smiles at the palm-licking. He doesn't normally enjoy such sloppiness, but the easy affection is very needed right now. He's tired and hurting and would love to curl up under a blanket right now, but this brief respite is the next best thing.

"You understand...and that makes me worry about you."

He leans ever-so-lightly on his new friend, nuzzling that soft fur. What a friendly pup.

"Try to stay positive? We'll end this and keep you safe, promise. I'll have to hold on too."

Devero leans right back against Kaiba, and makes the decision in that moment not to reveal himself to the younger man. Not right now. He'll confess later, when they're through all of this. Kaiba needs the dog.

So he lets his plumed tail wave back and forth with more vigor after Kaiba's words, and lets out a single, huffy boof to punctuate him. Positive is easy for a dog; he positively radiates the trust and confidence in the human at his side.

So Familiar a Gleam: Finale

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