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

"No. It's the voidtreckers, they are the ones who wrecked everything. Everything was fine until they got here! Everything was okay but you came and wrecked it."

The world was falling apart and she might fall apart with. "I do not even care if I fall apart, it's better than being a traitor."

Given the choice between death and betrayal there was only one option. "If you like me that much then stay with me, help me fight them."

"No it wasn't! There weren't even roads between the districts!" he protests. "No one 'came and wrecked it!" he cries. "You were there with me on the train before! I showed you my ghost room...I showed you ghost rooms in other planets, and...And..."

"...we played games together...I'm not letting you just..."

"I never went to other planets. I never. You never showed me anything. You are just a kid. From school. Stop listening to them. Stay with me, we can fight them. If you want to be friends that's okay! But you have to stop being a traitor"

She definitely feels some way about him being mad, about what he's saying. It's all lies. But she doesn't want him to leave and go with the voidtreckers. But it's stupid. She doesn't even know him.

"Come with me! We can fight them together."

"THAT'S WHAT I'M SAYING BUTTERCUP NO ONE TOLD ME THIS!" he roars, and it feels as if the wind blows back from all about him. His power had been energy gathering of all kinds though, so....that could well be the same thing, right?

Right? "THEY'RE MEMORIES..! And I know, why the thing here is doing this...I know, because it hurts when the world disappears, and there's nothing left...But it hurt more, to see people I cared about FORGET the real me..! Forget each other...Forget their FAMILIES..! How can I be a traitor, if I was never here first?"

She gets hit by that wind and her anger only grows. She concentrates and two more of her appear, surrounding him. "They are not memories! You were here! You were always here you've just been BRAINWASHED!"

She yells at him, her and her clones closing in slightly. "Just listen! Stop all of this! You say you don't want the world to disappear. It will! Unless we fight it! Even the stupid grownups got brainwashed so we are the only chance!"

"No I wasn't! And you won't make me forget where I came from either!" The storm worsens, and in response to the appearance of two more, he readies his guard. He can get to the air if he must. He can get to the air-

"I wasn't brainwashed into thinking I grew up where I did- into thinking about all the friends I made there, who died to keep me alive! This world isn't what I want to protect because it's not real- YOU are! You, and everyone else..!"

"How can a world not be real? Can you even hear yourself talk?"

This makes no sense and it's so windy and it is using all her concentration to not have any of her clones fall over from the strength of it.

"Think? It makes no sense that a whole world isn't real!"

Emporio....Finds himself holding the pendant he'd made at their last stop.

"...By being a construct," he says quietly, but somehow the wind carries his voice so that it's clear as day. "...You build something, piece it together, and make it pass...and then make sure no one can see the holes. But...."

Eventually...

"...Eventually, the holes are too big. ...Because everything wears down with time..."

"That makes no sense." She sounds less sure now. But it can't be. It wasn't a construct. The holes were only here because the Voidtreckers made them.

"But I lived here all my life, I remember."

"....There was a time, when I came into the games carriage," he says after a moment- a long moment of nothing but silence, searching silence where he tries to gauge if he even stands a chance at breaking through.

"...You were pulling everything out- just throwing it, shouting... ...I guess... ...since no one controls when they leave the train, someone important had left. ...I didn't really try to stop you, but I did start putting it all back, which I guess helped a little. ...You weren't throwing anything anymore, at least..."

...Maybe it's a strong enough memory.

Maybe not. He doesn't know...

Games carriage? Pulling everything out and shouting? If she's honest that does sound a bit like her. She had a temper sometimes. And he had put it all back? Why? Why would he do that?

Who was he?

She stared at him, bringing a hand up to her head and making a frustrated noise.

Dare he reach out? Take a step forward?

He doesn't want to fight, and so he chokingly calls-

"...Buttercup-"

But he can't think of anything else to say.

She scowled at him, when he said her name. This was all too much. She hated it. She shook her head, turned and began running, into the chaos of the city. Away from him. Away from his stupid words that didn't make sense.

She just hoped he didn't follow.

"Buttercup- !" He shouts, but she also summoned clones- and the clones are still there. He tries to follow, but he can't, not without trying to get beyond those two first.

By then she's gone.

Emporio stares at where she stood before, and is left to quietly return to the park and help with evacuations.

So Familiar a Gleam: Finale

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I'm assuming someone had dibs on 'bring LO back' right?

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