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redshiftlogs2019-08-02 02:02 am
modblob) wrote in redshiftlogs2019-08-02 02:02 am
Entry tags:
- !mod post: intro mingle,
- dragon age: cole,
- far cry 5: staci pratt,
- good omens: aziraphale,
- homestuck: aradia megido,
- hunger games: finnick odair,
- mass effect: commander rufina shepard,
- mcu: peter parker,
- mortal kombat: kabal,
- original: cameron waltz,
- original: cho takahashi,
- original: jeff calhoun,
- poison: poison,
- red dead redemption: kieran duffy,
- star wars: finn,
- umbrella academy: ben hargreeves,
- umbrella academy: diego hargreeves,
- umbrella academy: eudora patch,
- umbrella academy: klaus hargreeves,
- umbrella academy: vanya hargreeves,
- warm bodies: julie grigio
august 2019. welcome to the void.
Who: Everyone in Anchor.
What: Second Introductory Mingle
When: The Month of August 2019
Where: Around and outside the city.
Warnings: Please add any warnings in the subject lines.
The redout and accompanying power outage has been going on for over a week now - even though someone must have managed to get the generators up and running so things are a little less dismal, that doesn't mean that everything is fun and games. The generators are enough to power the essentials, like lighting, the MedBay, resident sat phones, sanitation facilities...basically just the things that make life livable instead of kicking the whole city back to the dark ages.
Sometime during the second week, though, around the end of July, residents might start to notice bright spots in the darkness, mostly around the Agricultural levels. Little bobbing blobs of bright blue or vibrant green or glowing red that move soundlessly through the night, poignantly noticeable because everything else is so dark. At first, and from a distance, they might look like your typical swamp gas fake ghost, little glowing smudges in the darkness. Could be promising...but it could be dangerous too.
If residents are brave enough to head up to the Agricultural levels in the darkness and investigate the source of the light, a mildly harrowing mission, they will find that the source of the glowing is...animals. Barely differing from the usual animals one might see in a daylight in the Agricultural levels, these animals prove to simply be nocturnal versions of the usual animals that might survive in the wild and who have made their homes in the faux forest and grasslands. And when everything else is dark, these creatures roam the night, letting off a curious and almost radioactive glow.
There are, however, a slightly wider variety of these animals, who are descendants of animals exposed heavily to radiation that mutated but did not kill them. While there are the usual deer and wild horses, foxes and monkeys, rodents and insects, there are also domestic creatures that seem to have thrived in their glow-in-the-dark forms where non-glowing ones were picked off by predators. Anyone investigating may find glowing kittens and puppies, domestic mice and rats, snakes that are open to being touched, and even a few more exotic domesticated pets like ferrets, hedgehogs, turtles and foxes. While these creatures are still wild, they are the descendants of domestic stock, and with a little effort and coddling, they might turn out to be passable pets, once they're scanned in the MedBay and found to not give off dangerous radiation.
It's not all puppies and kittens, though. Some of these seemingly predatorless glow-in-the-dark creatures are mutated, just like their regular counterparts, but to a more extensive degree. Keep a close eye out while you're trying to tame that adorable glowing purple kitten, because you might find yourself as the prey to a huge mutated lizard or spider, or maybe an oversized glowing wild warthog.
Nighttime exploring, after all, is for the brave at heart...and comes with pros and cons!
As if the mutated glow-in-the-dark creatures in the Agricultural levels aren't bad enough, there's something new in Anchor to cause problems. A couple of weeks after the generator room was opened, strange apparitions start showing up in various places around the city. At first they're nebulous clouds that gather in places where there's strong evidence of past violence - in the upper levels of the city where there's serious fire damage, near the security station, hovering outside the armory or wherever there are burns and gouges into the stone walls of the city. But as the month wears on, the clouds start to take shape, and some of those shapes might be very familiar.
Starting at around August 8th, whenever a resident passes by one of these ominous clouds, it will start to coalesce into a solid form, the particles coming together into a concrete shape - the shape of fear. Whether the particles coalesce into the shape of a monster or villain from a character's homeworld or previous game setting, the nebulous representation of their worst fear, a person or thing from their past that evokes a terrible memory of trauma, or even just a generic horrific monster that would particularly frighten that particular person, it's something that is guaranteed to terrify. Essentially, they will turn into the worst thing that your character can imagine.
And these representations of fear? They're not ghosts, they're not digital afterimages, they're not apparitions or holos. They're real, or at least they feel real, they can do real damage, and they're almost impossible to kill. The best way to survive an encounter with the nightmare swarm? Run fast. Because they're generally confined to areas where the echoes of old violence linger, and the quicker you leave those areas the better. Get into whatever light you can, get somewhere safe, and the fear creature will dissipate back into a nebulous cloud, lying in wait for the next victim.
What: Second Introductory Mingle
When: The Month of August 2019
Where: Around and outside the city.
Warnings: Please add any warnings in the subject lines.
Redshift: Welcome to the v͖͕̺̲̘̱̜͎o̴̦̣̠̦̘̹͞i̯̖d̛̪̬͈̱̦̝͍̕.
Click here to read what characters will experience when arriving in Anchor.
a. bright spots in the darkness.
The redout and accompanying power outage has been going on for over a week now - even though someone must have managed to get the generators up and running so things are a little less dismal, that doesn't mean that everything is fun and games. The generators are enough to power the essentials, like lighting, the MedBay, resident sat phones, sanitation facilities...basically just the things that make life livable instead of kicking the whole city back to the dark ages.Sometime during the second week, though, around the end of July, residents might start to notice bright spots in the darkness, mostly around the Agricultural levels. Little bobbing blobs of bright blue or vibrant green or glowing red that move soundlessly through the night, poignantly noticeable because everything else is so dark. At first, and from a distance, they might look like your typical swamp gas fake ghost, little glowing smudges in the darkness. Could be promising...but it could be dangerous too.
If residents are brave enough to head up to the Agricultural levels in the darkness and investigate the source of the light, a mildly harrowing mission, they will find that the source of the glowing is...animals. Barely differing from the usual animals one might see in a daylight in the Agricultural levels, these animals prove to simply be nocturnal versions of the usual animals that might survive in the wild and who have made their homes in the faux forest and grasslands. And when everything else is dark, these creatures roam the night, letting off a curious and almost radioactive glow.
There are, however, a slightly wider variety of these animals, who are descendants of animals exposed heavily to radiation that mutated but did not kill them. While there are the usual deer and wild horses, foxes and monkeys, rodents and insects, there are also domestic creatures that seem to have thrived in their glow-in-the-dark forms where non-glowing ones were picked off by predators. Anyone investigating may find glowing kittens and puppies, domestic mice and rats, snakes that are open to being touched, and even a few more exotic domesticated pets like ferrets, hedgehogs, turtles and foxes. While these creatures are still wild, they are the descendants of domestic stock, and with a little effort and coddling, they might turn out to be passable pets, once they're scanned in the MedBay and found to not give off dangerous radiation.
It's not all puppies and kittens, though. Some of these seemingly predatorless glow-in-the-dark creatures are mutated, just like their regular counterparts, but to a more extensive degree. Keep a close eye out while you're trying to tame that adorable glowing purple kitten, because you might find yourself as the prey to a huge mutated lizard or spider, or maybe an oversized glowing wild warthog.
Nighttime exploring, after all, is for the brave at heart...and comes with pros and cons!
b. nightmare swarm.
As if the mutated glow-in-the-dark creatures in the Agricultural levels aren't bad enough, there's something new in Anchor to cause problems. A couple of weeks after the generator room was opened, strange apparitions start showing up in various places around the city. At first they're nebulous clouds that gather in places where there's strong evidence of past violence - in the upper levels of the city where there's serious fire damage, near the security station, hovering outside the armory or wherever there are burns and gouges into the stone walls of the city. But as the month wears on, the clouds start to take shape, and some of those shapes might be very familiar.Starting at around August 8th, whenever a resident passes by one of these ominous clouds, it will start to coalesce into a solid form, the particles coming together into a concrete shape - the shape of fear. Whether the particles coalesce into the shape of a monster or villain from a character's homeworld or previous game setting, the nebulous representation of their worst fear, a person or thing from their past that evokes a terrible memory of trauma, or even just a generic horrific monster that would particularly frighten that particular person, it's something that is guaranteed to terrify. Essentially, they will turn into the worst thing that your character can imagine.
And these representations of fear? They're not ghosts, they're not digital afterimages, they're not apparitions or holos. They're real, or at least they feel real, they can do real damage, and they're almost impossible to kill. The best way to survive an encounter with the nightmare swarm? Run fast. Because they're generally confined to areas where the echoes of old violence linger, and the quicker you leave those areas the better. Get into whatever light you can, get somewhere safe, and the fear creature will dissipate back into a nebulous cloud, lying in wait for the next victim.
c. power up.
On August 2nd, the dust storm causing the redout and power outage will subside, and a stiff wind will take its place, washing away about two thirds of the red sand piled up on the dome. This fortuitous change in weather will make it possible to start work on getting the power back up. Residents will be able to exit the city through the usual channels so they can work on clearing the dust out of the various installations outside the city that transform wind and radiation and sunlight into power that keeps the city up and running. After they're cleared off, residents can start to get the power up by making repairs to the dust-damaged computer systems. Thankfully, once the power installations outside the city have been cleared off, an automated computer subroutine will boot up on some of the computer panels in the common areas of the residential quarters, with a user-friendly guide to repairing sand damage to the power system.
Mind you, the user guide assumes that residents have a lot of tools, supplies, and assistant bots that the current population doesn't really have on hand, so user-friendly or not, it's tougher than the system seems to think it is.
Thankfully, there is another option. Anyone with a particularly tech-savvy mind who's encountered the nightmare clouds might have picked up on it already, but the clouds are actually swarms of nanites. Released from the room that held the generators, these nanites were originally intended to conduct repairs on the city (there was a reason that room and those generators were so pristine!) that have been corrupted and are malfunctioning due to the ambient radiation in the city that has only increased since their creation. Anyone with even a basic knowledge of computers (and a very strong spine) could collect a sample of the clouds in one of the containment units from the labs or the R&D area, where the semi-functioning computer can be used to work out what's wrong with the nanites...and fix them.
If characters are able to work this out and deploy repairs to the various swarms around the city, those nanites might be super helpful for fixing some of the malfunctioning tech around the city. Food for thought!
Mind you, the user guide assumes that residents have a lot of tools, supplies, and assistant bots that the current population doesn't really have on hand, so user-friendly or not, it's tougher than the system seems to think it is.
Thankfully, there is another option. Anyone with a particularly tech-savvy mind who's encountered the nightmare clouds might have picked up on it already, but the clouds are actually swarms of nanites. Released from the room that held the generators, these nanites were originally intended to conduct repairs on the city (there was a reason that room and those generators were so pristine!) that have been corrupted and are malfunctioning due to the ambient radiation in the city that has only increased since their creation. Anyone with even a basic knowledge of computers (and a very strong spine) could collect a sample of the clouds in one of the containment units from the labs or the R&D area, where the semi-functioning computer can be used to work out what's wrong with the nanites...and fix them.If characters are able to work this out and deploy repairs to the various swarms around the city, those nanites might be super helpful for fixing some of the malfunctioning tech around the city. Food for thought!
d. the wreckage in the wasteland.
Once the emergency situation with the power is sorted out, residents might become a little curious about what caused all the trouble in the first place. The dust storm was, after all, initiated by a loud crash landing outside the city. With the dust storm abated and the windows in the Observation Area cleared off, residents will be able to see the wreckage of a spacecraft crashed into the ground, several miles out from the city. Far enough away to make it impossible to see any identifying marks, but close enough to be a tantalizing mystery for anyone so inclined.
Adventurous souls will be able to suit up and trek their way out to the site of the crash in the battery Jeeps to see what's going on, risking the rough ever-changing terrain and the possibility of a red shift, to see what might be salvageable from the crashed ship, or just in pursuit of knowledge. Once those characters approach, they will find the hulk of a badly-damaged spacecraft, about as big as a medium-sized cruise ship. The hull is badly burned, with tears in the metal, and it will be obvious to anyone who's got any experience with space travel (or even anyone who's watched enough sci-fi movies) to see that the ship didn't do well on its slow fall through the atmosphere. The metal is melted and punctured, anything that might have extended away from the hull has been burned off and lies in tatters, and the sand around the crash site is littered with metal and plastic debris.
But the one thing that's still possible to tell from the wreckage? It probably came from Anchor.
The ship is pieced together from salvaged materials, the tech will be familiar to anyone who's been in the colony for more than a couple days, and there's even a few corpses of very familiar bots lying in the sand. Approaching a large tear in the side of the hull will reveal a way inside the husk of a ship, giving access to the ship's small crew quarters section. If explorers choose to proceed inside, they'll be able to dig through what few personal items remain and find personal tablet computers and sat phones with their hard drives corrupted but possibly salvageable with the right skillset and the right technology repaired back in Anchor. They will also be able to find a way down further into the ship, though it's dark and clouded with sand and...well, quite menacing.
Because it isn't just the darkness and the danger of the red shift coming while you're trapped down there, or the danger of the ship's hull cracking with the weight of the sand piled up on its shell from the dust storm...but looking into the darkness, there's a flickering bluish glow. Digital and glitchy, it flickers from wall to wall, with the faintest impression of a human form. A face. A hand. The movement of hair or clothing. And then there's the echoing sounds - soft laughter, snippets of childrens' rhymes, unintelligible whispers or mumbles.
Well. Enter at your own risk.
Adventurous souls will be able to suit up and trek their way out to the site of the crash in the battery Jeeps to see what's going on, risking the rough ever-changing terrain and the possibility of a red shift, to see what might be salvageable from the crashed ship, or just in pursuit of knowledge. Once those characters approach, they will find the hulk of a badly-damaged spacecraft, about as big as a medium-sized cruise ship. The hull is badly burned, with tears in the metal, and it will be obvious to anyone who's got any experience with space travel (or even anyone who's watched enough sci-fi movies) to see that the ship didn't do well on its slow fall through the atmosphere. The metal is melted and punctured, anything that might have extended away from the hull has been burned off and lies in tatters, and the sand around the crash site is littered with metal and plastic debris.
But the one thing that's still possible to tell from the wreckage? It probably came from Anchor.
The ship is pieced together from salvaged materials, the tech will be familiar to anyone who's been in the colony for more than a couple days, and there's even a few corpses of very familiar bots lying in the sand. Approaching a large tear in the side of the hull will reveal a way inside the husk of a ship, giving access to the ship's small crew quarters section. If explorers choose to proceed inside, they'll be able to dig through what few personal items remain and find personal tablet computers and sat phones with their hard drives corrupted but possibly salvageable with the right skillset and the right technology repaired back in Anchor. They will also be able to find a way down further into the ship, though it's dark and clouded with sand and...well, quite menacing.
Because it isn't just the darkness and the danger of the red shift coming while you're trapped down there, or the danger of the ship's hull cracking with the weight of the sand piled up on its shell from the dust storm...but looking into the darkness, there's a flickering bluish glow. Digital and glitchy, it flickers from wall to wall, with the faintest impression of a human form. A face. A hand. The movement of hair or clothing. And then there's the echoing sounds - soft laughter, snippets of childrens' rhymes, unintelligible whispers or mumbles.
Well. Enter at your own risk.
ooc: exploration info.
As you can probably tell, this final prompt is kind of a doozy! While the first level of the ship is available for anyone to explore with the information provided in the prompt, going further into the ship will require mod guidance, via an NPC.
Any questions can be asked in the mod questions thread below, and if your characters have progressed to the point of wanting to explore deeper in the ship, please hit up the NPC request thread with a link to where the NPC should tag in.
Have fun guys!
Any questions can be asked in the mod questions thread below, and if your characters have progressed to the point of wanting to explore deeper in the ship, please hit up the NPC request thread with a link to where the NPC should tag in.
Have fun guys!
vanya hargreeves ( ota )
ii. tremolo.
notation.
I
CT!!! Get back here.
[The man who runs up after the wolf looks haggard and out of breath. He's wearing a green deputy outfit though the pouches and holster on his belt are conspicuously empty.]
Sorry she's... Trying to adopt them all I think.
Put it down!
[The wolf whines before putting the kitten back on the ground, laying next to it and starting to lick it.]
no subject
The alarm on her voice is cut short, and she looks to see... some kind of law officer, definitely, though why he's following after a pet wolf isn't all that apparent.
Vanya looks a little haplessly between him, the wolf, and the kitten, who seems to enjoy the attention from "CT" and begins to brush up against her face affectionately through the licking.]
Oh, um... It's okay. He's not mine.
[As if to argue with her, the kitten turns back to her and lets out a few squeaky meows. Really, he's just trying to get her attention, probably. Vanya's brows knit sympathetically in response.]
He just... doesn't seem to realize that.
no subject
[Because the kitten certainly seems to have a different opinion.]
I have no idea why she's doing this. She never did at home, something about them being small and squeaky and glowy and now she wants to keep them all. Which we are not.
[That last part is directed at the wolf who looks at him and chuffs.]
I'm Deputy Pratt by the way. She's ... I still haven't named her actually.
no subject
[The kitten isn't offended by this because he cannot speak English. He can only speak cat, and not very well yet. Now that he's no longer being actively groomed by what is obviously just a really big Mom Cat, he starts ambling back towards Vanya.]
Maybe the... glowing has some kind of effect on other animals. I don't know, I was terrible at Biology class, but I'm also pretty sure we didn't talk about glowing animals there either.
[...Yeah, she's not going to be able to effectively ignore the kitten at this rate. She kneels down and pets him a little, which he seems very into.]
I'm Vanya. I didn't realize we had, um... officers here. I thought you called her CT earlier?
no subject
[But not for wolves who want to gather them all in a pile and lay on them.]
I... That's a habit, I'm not really a Deputy here. I've just been introducing myself that way for years that it's kinda hard to break.
Yeah she's CT-107. Clinical Trial-107. Which is a terrible name. I just haven't thought one up yet.
no subject
Well... something would have to have made them radioactive, right? Deep sea fish seems like a stretch. Other things glow in nature, like... some types of... fungus.
[Yeah, that doesn't sound better, does it? Either way, the cat seems otherwise normal. Aside from the color. And the glowing.
Vanya pushes herself back up to her feet, letting the cat do... whatever he wants to do. Right now he's batting at her shoelaces.]
Oh. I see what you mean. Like... a serial number. Too bad she can't just say what she wants for a name.
[If she looks a little uncomfortable, that's probably just regular ol' empathy, right? Right.]
Maybe something with the same initials? Then it can stand for something better.
no subject
[But not too surprising given they seem to be in space. Who knows what's normal here? he's been here for months and he's still discovering new things. Maybe glowing kittens are totally average and it's the non-shimmering ones that are odd.]
Oh maybe. She responds to whatever I call her. She's real smart.
[He smiles and ruffles her fur.]
Except when she's trying to adopt everything for a mile radius.
iii
Five would be a better person to do it, Ben knows. He understands all the temporal whatevers and he and Vanya had always had such a soft spot for one another. But, since Five isn't here, Ben is the best option available. Moreso than Klaus, who sometimes made things into a big joke when the truth got too painful, or Diego, who sometimes lashes out and lets his anger get the best of him. Ben had been the least involved in any of it - hadn't hurt her, hadn't been hurt by her.
But just sitting her down saying 'We need to have a serious talk' with no distractions present seemed like a recipe for disaster. So - the library. Ben waits to greet his sister there, with a big grin and a pair of rubber gloves to match the ones he is wearing. There are various cleaning and repair supplies sitting by the door, and it's clear why Ben wanted the help: the room itself is clearly gorgeous, but underneath a truly remarkable amount of dust, grime, water damage, and bits of scattered rubble that still need to be cleared away. ]
Hey, Vanya.
no subject
Not because she couldn't reasonably be of help, but because, uh, she's Vanya. Did he forget? Probably not.
While Ben could be blunt on occasion with her as a kid, he was maybe the most genuinely thoughtful of them. Which is what Vanya's reasoned to herself in her head. She shouldn't overthink things like this, even if it's easier to fall into the habit without her medication. She's definitely not currently overthinking it.
Part of her wonders about checking if her meds are in stock at the little robot hospital sometimes. Just to be safe. So far she's talked herself out of it. But she keeps imagining waking up to find—
—dust and crumbling debris where a room used to be. Oh, wait, this one's real. She didn't expect it to be quite this bad when Ben talked about it. Vanya stops in her tracks the instant she steps into the room, looking around at the mess... and seeing evidence of Ben's attempts to wrangle it thus far.]
Oh. Wow.
Hey, Ben.
[She tries to laugh off her weird greeting and makes her way over to him, eyeing the rubber gloves in his hands.]
Kind of a fixer-upper, huh? You were right, you could use the help.
[She smiles a little awkwardly, doesn't add that there are probably people more qualified than her for this sort of thing. But, well... He didn't ask those people. Maybe that's a good thing.]
no subject
[ It's true that this is somewhat of an improvement - the dust isn't so thick that they both immediately start sneezing, and Ben has had a few of the more technically-minded residents of the Anchor repair a few of the lights so it isn't a dim flickering cave in here. But the level of grime is still fairly intense, and he knows it.
He grins as he sets the gloves down for her. It's hardly glamorous work, that they're going to be doing, but he is happy to be doing it. Happy to be here and alive and to have his sister here. He knows that, by the end of their conversation, things are probably going to suck, a lot. So he's letting himself enjoy the happiness while it lasts. ]
No kidding. Thanks for showing up.
[ He means it, too. And hopes that their conversation won't be so awful for Vanya that she doesn't want to come back another day. Or... doesn't want to see him. Or their brothers. But he can't let himself worst-case scenario. He just - will tell her the truth and take it as it comes. ]
So, obviously, the walls need scrubbed, and the floor, and the shelves and tables need dusted, and the rubble needs taken out, and there's books to catalogue and alphabetize and put back on the shelves...
[ Ben has declared himself for wall scrubbing, and wanders to the wall just by the door, small bucket full of soapy water and a rag in hand. As he begins what is doubtless going to be a very long and tedious task, he admits: ]
And I. Kinda wanted to talk, while we work There's some stuff I think we ought to - that I should probably tell you about.
no subject
Makes you wonder how it got this way.
[Most of the beaten down areas in the dome are clearly not just weathered and crumbled with age. That's the thing about being stuck in here with no guidance from those who came before. No telling what could... come back, if anything.
Not fun to think about. She'd rather concentrate on the task at hand.
So, dutifully, since Ben's taken up the task of scrubbing the walls, she starts on the floor, trying to clear off whatever rubble is still lying around as she goes. She seems pretty focused, so at first when Ben starts talking, she doesn't catch it.
And there's a moment, where no one says anything, before Vanya registers what he's really saying. That this might be important. That Vanya's... got catching up to do, maybe.]
...Do you mean "some stuff" that's happened here, or back home?
[Her voice is carefully neutral. She doesn't want to start jumping to conclusions, the way she did last time they talked.]
no subject
[ And that's just Ben all over, isn't it? Pretend something isn't happening, for as long as he possibly can? Shut out everything unpleasant and bury himself in whatever daydream or book he could get his hands on, because confronting reality is just too painful? How many times had Vanya known him to do this; to shut down the conversations the others would start about where their powers came from, or similar. So often, when it came to things that were potentially awful, Ben just tried not to engage.
Of course, that hadn't kept him safe, in the end...
He's trying to be different, now. At least, where it matters. As nice as it would be, to just keep it a secret what he and Diego and Klaus know about what Vanya did... avoiding it would only make the problem fester. So Ben keeps on scrubbing that section of wall, saying plainly: ]
I mean back home. We're not from the same time, technically. I came here from about two days in the future, compared to you. And... some things happened in those two days and I just - I don't want you to think I'm hiding things from you, Vanya.
[ Unspoken, but heavy between them, is the implication. Others who have hidden things from Vanya. I don't want to be like Dad. I don't want to be like Leonard. ]
So- I wanted to offer to tell you. If you want to know how it all works out. That way you know it's not a secret, and- you don't feel left out. I hope.
[ He doesn't need to say, either, the particular sensitivity that Vanya has to being excluded. Ben hadn't seen it so clearly, when they were kids. Back then he'd been blinded by his own envy of her and how badly he wished he could escape that in-group. Later, though. After years had passed and he'd matured, had read her book and seen how she saw herself and all of them and life in that house... he understands more fully, now. ]
no subject
Vanya realizes she's frozen in place as she ponders his words, holding her sponge still. She reminds herself to keep going. It was a good idea. To give her something to concentrate on, to move with her hands, as they talk.]
Um... Yeah. I mean... Klaus told me that Allison— about Allison.
[Not accurate to call her "okay," even if she's moreso than Vanya feared. Than she believed. It's still a relief.]
I don't know if knowing ahead of time is some kind of... time travel faux pas, but it'd be better, I think. To know what you do.
[She caught what he meant there, but she doesn't want to address it. So she doesn't. She's already caught herself in that particular trap while she's been out here.
Asking if she wants to know, though, instead of outright doing it or not... Vanya is surprised to realize that she feels a little relieved. Even through the nervousness that always comes with anticipation of the unknown, there's some calm at the center. She holds onto that.]
no subject
[ The truth is that Ben isn't sure what the results will be if he tells Vanya. But they're a world or a thousand away, and it's hard to imagine the result could be any worse than what had already happened. The world had literally ended. How could he screw it up any worse than that?
He looks over to her, and then back to the wall he's cleaning, even though all his attention is focused on her in the corner of his vision, and listening to her for any signs of distress. ]
If you change your mind at any point and you want me to shut up, you can just say so.
[ Part of that is sympathy for how hard some of this will be to hear, and part of it practical, too. He doesn't want her to become so upset that she loses control of her powers. It wouldn't really be her fault, if she did - she was never trained to control them - but Ben wants to prevent any more bloodshed or accidents if possible. For both their sakes. ]
So you know that Allison was alright. And I know what happened with Leonard, after that.
[ He thinks about saying that the guy had it coming, that she was completely justified... but he doesn't want to derail this whole endeavor before they get anywhere. So instead, he settles on a lack of condemning remarks and moves on: ]
You came back to the house. I wasn't there for this, but I heard about it after. Luther was the one who answered the door. He'd talked to Pogo and heard about your powers, and about- about how Dad felt about them. So... so he decided to knock you out, and he- locked you up. In that vault in the basement.
[ Ben's trying to be as factual and dispassionate as he can, to make it easier for her, but there's no hiding the way his voice gets a little strained with emotion. Just being down there. Seeing that awful, heavy door. Would he have been given a cage, if he'd been slower to control the deadly potential of his own powers? Would he have been made to forget them, as she had?
He scrubs a little harder at the wall, pushing forward. ]
Klaus and Diego and Allison all tried to get him to let you out, but you know how Luther can be. He wouldn't fucking budge. I don't know what his plan was, exactly. I don't know where Five was for all this, either. Off on his own again. But you weren't down there very long before - you broke out, somehow. And you were...
[ Ben stops scrubbing, looking over at Vanya. Seeing how she looks, now. Like the sister he'd always known. Not that pale-skinned, pale-eyed, cold version of herself. But that was in her, somewhere. Held back. The same way he held back the horrors on the other side of the portal in his stomach. There's worry in his face, and love, and a little fear. ]
Not really you. Like... you were in a fugue state or possessed or... I don't really know. But you- got out, and... started blowing up the house with your powers. Luther... says he saw you kill Pogo, and Grace was still inside when the whole place collapsed, so. She probably... didn't make it. But the rest of us got out.
[ He doesn't tell her how close a call it was. How Diego had almost been crushed under rubble. How he'd wanted to go back in to save their mother. Allison's face when Luther was explaining how they'd seen Vanya kill Pogo. He isn't trying to rub salt in any wounds.
And he hesitates, now, asks: ]
You want me to keep going? There's... more.
ii
Vanya's face, which is shattered and panicked, no dulled senses or masks of sedatives to hide behind, no vitriol to burn the world that hurt her screaming its way to the front. Just Vanya, looking as broken up and guilty as he thinks he ever remembers seeing her.
Weird how much can change in just a few months. Not all that long ago, Diego was ready to do something that would have haunted him for... likely... the rest of his life. Ending the lives of bad guys was written into his bones, but... he never in a million years would have predicted that one of the bad guys could ever be one of his siblings, and least of all Vanya.
Still. That feeling of being so ready to kill her, if it meant they saved the world, stopped the Apocalypse, has been run through a wood chipper in the last few months. He can't reconcile it with what's happened to him in that space of time, with the look on his sister's face, staring at Allison.
He keeps his eyes on her, instead of Allison, because he just keeps staring at that scar and he doesn't know how to process words if he's looking at it. So. Vanya is his focus, her and attempting to keep his voice steady, no trips or wavers in his words.]
Vanya... she's not here. [At least that, he's sure of. He's kept an eye out for any of his other siblings showing up since he got here. This... thing is not their sister, anymore than the one he'd found with Ben was their father.]
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No, all he offers is... logic. Of course, she knows Allison isn't here, but seeing the image of her was like dreaming. Knowing something can't be true, but worrying so much that it could be, that she is ready to believe it immediately.
Both of Vanya's hands come up over her chest, almost to coax her own heart into calming down.]
...I know.
[It's not defensive this time. Just a confirmation. Not that her small voice or the way she has to control her breathing makes it very convincing.
The Allison-shaped figure, though, doesn't seem to care. It looks between them incredulously, in such an Allison way, like she can't believe she has to be the reasonable one in the family yet again.
"That doesn't change anything. She almost killed me, Diego. She chose that monster over her family."]
Stop.
[Vanya jerkily covers her own ears in the hopes that will make it so she doesn't have to hear these accusations in the voice of her own sister. Real or not... she still knows how to cut directly to what hurts most.
That might be bad enough on its own, of course. But, of course, distantly the sound of thunder starts to ring out, loud enough to echo in this inner room of the Anchor despite also sounding like it's miles and miles away.]
no subject
As much as he'd rather ignore it-- and it is an it, not a her-- the image directs its attention to him and he can't ignore the fact that its speaking directly to him. When he responds, it's all knives-as-words:]
Yeah, because we've always been such a Brady Bunch kinda family, right?
[The thunder rumbles loud around the room, and he isn't sure if it's from outside or inside the room. He looks at Vanya again, cowering with her hands over her ears, looking like the most breakable porcelain thing.] Vanya?