MOD LOG

[reveriemod]

» WHO? EVERYONE
» WHEN? First half of October
» WHERE? all over Reverie Terminal
» WHAT? the devil’s in the radio
» WARNINGS? body horror, psychological horror

0 0 1 » THE DEVIL SPEAKS

”Oh. Hi there.”

The devil’s voice is sweet and smoky, sharp and sultry all at once. It sounds like honey warmed over a charcoal grill; it tastes like a singer in a shadowy bar, thinking of you and only you. And it has a presence of its own: very real, and very tangible. It slides down from the speakers to the walls, permeating the station all the way down to its inhabitants. When she speaks again, it is softly into your ear.

And oh, the things she has to tell you. Your past, your fears, the things that hurt you most - she knows all of them, just as much as she knows you. And to see you hurt the way you do hurts her in turn, so, so very much. She can’t do anything if you don’t want her to - she won’t do anything if you don’t want her to - but she wants, more than anything, to help you through it.

Well? Will you take the devil’s hand?

( ♪ )

0 0 1 . 1 » SHEDDING SKIN

You know the devil. How could you not? You are the devil.

What starts as an awareness turns into an itch, and then a need. There’s a new you, the real you, hidden beneath flesh and meat and hair. The devil’s shown you how to get there, her words understanding and kind, but in the end she’s just a voice on the radio - watching and supporting you from a distance.

No, this last step is up to you.

Maybe the changes come easily. Maybe you let go of your old body without fear, bloodless flesh peeling away like a hardboiled egg to make room for the new. But for others, that last step is the hardest one to make, flaying and ripping through meat and bone until you’re messily freed from your body’s prison. For some, it may be too much to do without help. Not that anyone would judge you for that - after all, all the other devils have been through this too.

To anyone who’s chosen to remain a human, all of this might seem - well, terrifying. The speakers are shrieking static, and the people around you are changing - warping, twisting, carving out a new self in a very literal sense.

But for all the new devils, none of that really matters. There’s a song playing through the speakers, wordless and indescribable. And oh, is it beautiful.

( ♪ )

0 0 2 » A PLACE OF WORSHIP

Whether out of kindness or necessity, the devil only speaks where her voice reaches: public areas, like the mess hall, and the empty corridors of the station. For those who have refused her gift, the static stays confined to these places as well, and one could very well hide away from it all in their room - assuming they didn’t need to come out for food.

However, there is one place hidden away from it all. The chapel on deck one appears impervious to the devil’s voice, and just stepping inside will stop the static (or the song, for those devils that are curious enough to enter) altogether. Nothing has visibly changed inside the chapel, but any humans who enter will find the place… reassuring. Soothing, even. Almost forcibly so.

Then again, it might just be the sudden lack of white noise helping things out. Who knows?

Devils who pass by the area will feel strongly uneasy, beginning a long ways away from the doors and intensifying the closer they get. If they manage to go inside - whether through exploration or getting dragged in - this uneasiness will transfer into outright dread and a physical burning sensation, escalating in intensity as long as they stay inside. Steer clear, if you can!

( ♪ )

0 0 3 » HELL AND HOME

It takes a few days for the oddities to begin. At first, they’re nothing special - a trick of the light here, a whispered voice there. But over time, the station grows more and more offputting. Doors begin to lead to the wrong rooms; hallways bend and turn at impossible angles, distances shrinking and expanding without warning; the flickering fluorescent lights invert, shining darkness down on a corridor of pure light. These strange phenomena die out almost as soon as they arrive, usually within a few minutes…

...but sometimes that’s all it takes for something to go horribly wrong. A single shattering glass, a single drop in pressure is all it takes for disaster to strike - so it’s up to you to be careful. Humans, watch your steps carefully. Travel in groups if you need to. And devils, remember: you used to be just like them. Be sure to help any you see in distress, and be sure not to give them too much trouble.

Or do. It’s not like they can stop you.

( ♪ )

0 0 3 . 1 » A PACT OF NECESSITY

Maybe you’ve ignored the voice whispering to you. Maybe you’ve asked for more time. Or maybe you’ve even cast the devil aside, focusing all you had on remaining yourself until only static made it through into your head. Regardless of your choices, though, the station continues to bend and change by the will of some unseen force.

And it’s during one of these changes that everything goes wrong. There is a sudden crash, a sound like a cast-iron phonebook being ripped down the center, and the world around you changes. The corridors rapidly depressurize; glass shatters; the metal floorings and walls are torn apart, and you are flung at terminal velocity towards a crack that should not exist. Maybe someone grabs your hand, holds you until the station rights itself. Maybe someone else is already inside, falling for what seems like an eternity with no way out.

Or maybe the devil’s voice cuts in one last time through the static or the song, loud and distressed, with three words:

Grab my hand!


Those who accept her offer, regardless of how they do so, will find their changes circumstantial and incomplete at best: a set of sticky tentacles to grab onto the walls, or an air sac to give them time without breathing, or spongy growths to absorb the eventual impact. These are not revelations of their inner selves, after all; they are mutations meant to help them survive one single catastrophic event. When they finally make it out, anyone who rebuked the devil will still hear static, and anyone on the fence can still make a choice to join her fully. These changes are like any other changes during the event, and can either fade away or stay after the event (up to player discretion).

This was a gift, no strings attached. Hopefully it’s one you won’t regret.

( ♪ )

Comments

Adrian "Alucard" Ţepeş | OTA

[reposing]

❧ 1. the devil speaks

So this is what Venus had meant by what she said, the utter vagueness of what she'd done. It brings about a mixed feeling, truthfully; for one, he thinks it can be a little cruel to put people in such a position, maybe even a little selfish.

Hello, Adrian.

Alucard is no stranger to demons, monsters, and any other creatures of the night. Here on this station, he's encountered Lucifer and others who would call themselves devil. To him, he is more pliable to listen to her than, say, God. It is as he always says, no god has ever loved beings like him. They are scorned, seen nothing but as mindless beasts.

Is it like this? Her voice is soft. It drips like hot tea, bitterness just edging on pleasant, honey to sweeten.

Alucard closes his eyes, his arms folded as he sits in the observation deck, listening. In his hair, his bat familiar is content to nestle in, unconcerned with the Devil's voice humming through the speakers.

You don't have to be afraid.

His fingers ache.

"I do not fear you," Alucard murmurs, scowling to himself.

Your father.

That earns a grimace. Yes, that has much fear circling in it. Strange, isn't it? He has no fear toward the Devil, but it is his father he is afraid of now. The loving man who raised him alongside a wonderful mother is more or less dead now, all but a raging husk of the being he used to be, mad with grief and furious enough to nearly rip his own son in half.

Alucard's fingers curl tight against his chest.

Sypha and Trevor have vanished sometime ago. Though he thinks that Connor's theory is sound, there is still that fear. What if they did not return to Wallachia? What if they are somewhere else entirely? What if they are dead? He can't fight his father alone. Though Alucard is strong, he certainly doesn't have the power to face him.

You are resolved to do this alone.

"I've no other choice on the matter," Alucard mutters bitterly. "If they are not there, then it falls to me. There are no other hunters of Belmont, and no other sorcerers that would dare reveal themselves in light of the Church."

I can gift you what you need, Adrian.

His fingers tighten against his tunic.

They ache.

"Not today," he relents quietly.

Not today, she whispers in agreement.

Alucard winces and hangs his head, feeling wretched for even considering it. Not that he thinks of her as wicked or evil, but asking for help is not something he's used to reaching for. He shoulders everything he can, he will burden everything he can. What choice has he?

Yet, she offered--

He sighs, rubbing his eyes.


❧ 1.1 shedding skin

"My lady?" Alucard calls out softly, looking up toward one of the speakers in the hallway of the fourth floor.

I am here, Adrian.

Maybe that's the heart of the matter. Alucard has a poor habit of reaching out and gaining that aid, but here she offers to help. If she can somehow manifest that ability in him, to help him hold the power to stop his father, to save the humans--

Your heart aches so much. I know it is cruel how this has fallen to you, but I'm here now.

"I accept," Alucard says.

I have you, she promises. I will help you be their messiah.

There's a soft gasp from Alucard as he feels the changes begin to manifest, glancing down as his fingers easily form into claws, blood dripping down from his hands. Something inside is changing.

And he feels wonderful.


❧ 3. hell and home

Eventually as the change is completed, Alucard feels at peace. There is no torment, no mourning. It lingers like a small flame in his heart, recognized as it is, but it no longer feels as overwhelming as it used to. A hand of help had been offered, and finally he'd taken it, and he's never felt stronger.

As he roams the calls of Reverie Terminal, Alucard embraces his changes. There is an unnatural flow to his hair, as if he's perpetually underwater as it shifts in the air denying gravity. Apparently to him, being the Devil also means forgoing any shirts in general, because he is calmly walking down the hall without it. Though his scar is shown, he isn't ashamed of it, and the air does not bother him. Blood runs down his palms, dripping from his fingertips, but it isn't a loss that will impact him.

Loosely drifting from his waist is some manner of cape, but it's hard to determine what it's made out of. Sometimes it looks like a fine sheet of silk, blood red and easy to notice. Other times, the edges flutter, as if bat wings are shaking out or readjusting. That, too, seems rather unnatural.

Yet, whenever he should meet another in the terminal, Alucard seems quite content, even as the halls and rooms shift, doors lead to the wrong place, and the terminal isn't quite what it should be.

"Are you well?" he asks, tilting his head, his hair shifting upward behind him.

1

[rickitikitarr]

"Talking to yourself, Vladislaus?"

Asks Ricki, because of course they're both still here. They've lost their buffer recently, he's keenly aware, and he can feel Rogue's disapproving stare at the back of his head. But he'll be damned if he'll stop yet- in fact, there's a kind of game friendliness to the barb.

"You're still with us, right?"

1.1

[wingstosee]

Venus has seen Alucard already, noted his lack of changes and moved on without wanting to pressure him. It's an intensely personal decision, after all, and one she wouldn't want to force someone to rush for all the world. But she can't help but feel a brief pang of- sadness? Anxiety? Anticipation, even, every time she sees him wandering the halls.

This time, though, there is blood running down his hands. She nearly rushes to meet him before she processes just what's happening: his expression, not pained or despairing but awakening. She walks over, kneeling by his side and offering her own hand palm-up. (She thinks how funny it must seem, offering to take his hand when he's been the one to dashingly take hers.)

"You said yes," she says with a smile in her voice. She's so, so glad.

1.1

[iustitia]

Everything's the same, and yet so different now.

Terezi let the devil in, of course. Alternian culture doesn't put the same emphasis on sin and temptation that some human cultures do, and listening to strange women speaking in her head has literally, not once, ever steered her wrong. There was no reason for her to not listen.

And what the devil had to say was comforting. She opened a door Terezi didn't even know could be opened. All Terezi has to do now is to start walking through it.

She can sense some of that on Alucard -- acceptance and want and being right on the cusp of change. She had some trouble at the start, but someone was there to help her out. It would only be right to pay it forward, if Alucard wants or needs it.

"Hey. Do you need a hand?" Her voice echoes oddly, the words coming from countless mouths covering her body. She knows how it looks. Okay, that's a lie: she knows what it smells like and has a very educated guess how it looks. Horrifying. Monstrous. But more beautiful and freeing than she's ever felt in a very long time, and she doesn't think Alucard is the kind of person who'd care about that very much.

3ish?

[rk800connor]

Even with the massive changes, a facial scan with a supporting voice analysis still brings up Alucard's information, any and all relevant data available to Connor immediately.

"Hello, Adrian. I'm very well. And you?" His voice might as well have been a recording, it lacked any genuine emotional intonation. He made no indication that he'd really noticed the drastic physical transformation Alucard had gone through either, politely waiting for a response.

3.

[foolishjourney]

Minato didn't even hear Alucard speak; he had his headphones over his ears playing loud music to drown out the shrieking static of the devil he had rebuked, and it's only from the instinctive feeling of someone being behind him that he turns around at all.

He takes a moment to absorb what he sees, the changes that had taken place in Alucard — he had taken the offer Minato had rejected, he supposed. What was it that tempted him, he vaguely wondered, moving to pull his headphones down off of his ears. Ugh. Now he had to listen to this cacophony again, he couldn't think with all the screaming going on. It was making him a tad grumpy.

"Hello, Adrian."

Minato lifts a hand in greeting before they slide back into his pockets, and his voice is a tad louder than usual, as if he was trying to talk over a disruption. "Did you say something? I have my music playing to drown out the screaming from the broadcast." Seriously, how was everyone else not getting bothered by this?

3

[twoaffirmations]

[9S never was good at stifling his impulses, let alone now when he'd finally decided to embrace them and all his emotions. So when he sees Alucard's new form without any preamble he visibly grimaces, tail comically fluffing up behind him.] Eugh!

[He recovers quickly, though that probably doesn't help any.] Uummm, shouldn't I be asking you that? You're bleeding!

Jun Kurosu | OTA

[floriographys]

1. Help Me Become

This is not the first time a being has whispered to Jun. Something otherworldly which offered him something, but this time it wasn't something selfish or vengeful. When the devil spoke to him, she spoke to him of what Nyarlathotep had done to him- reshaping him, remolding him into what the Crawling Chaos had wanted him to be. He made Jun a weapon, and wielded him against those he cared about the most.

Jun was in the hallway as he listened, the breath knocked from him as she spoke, mentioning it all. The way he'd had his memories twisted and warped until he turned, full of rage, choking Tatsuya and swearing to kill him for something he'd never done.

It isn't your fault.

It was hard to hear, and he choked back a sob. She was right but it was so hard for his mind to wrap around.

You mustn't blame yourself for the cruelty of others.

"But I..." Jun had a hard time arguing with it all laid out for him as he collapsed to his knees, holding himself a sob wracked through him. "It was my weakness... to be manipulated so..."

No one else could hear what she said to him, as she whispered promises. Not of power, not of revenge, but of his own freedom. He wouldn't be manipulated anymore.

And then it happens. The change is sudden and explosive, and it's frightening at first. Jun watches as he's torn apart, for as long as he can, before his face cracks and tears, flesh falling away as he comes out of his physical cocoon.

And then... he's stars.

He's stars and he's mist, and he's everywhere. Filling up the hallway, pouring through doorways, and then a bright light gathers in his center, and pulls him back together. His hands glitter and flicker as the heavenly bodies inside of him shift into place, and he becomes just solid enough now to be a shape, and large cracks in his body fill with gold and solidify further. He was broken, and now he's been reassembled. The pieces don't fit perfectly, but for every missing inch, it is filled with gold. Broken; and more beautiful for it.

Jun floats in the hallway, weightless and dumbfounded. Things didn't make any more sense now than it did before, but he thinks he's beginning to understand. He could stop hating himself now, maybe. With time...

It's hard for him to notice when someone else approaches, but if one stops for long enough in the hallway with the mist and the stars flickering and shooting this way and that, he would eventually turn his head to them to look. To see what they think of him now.

"Ah... not so bad... after all..." Better than his last transformation, that's for sure!

2. Hell and Home

Getting used to this new form is odd. It's very odd. He's solid, but not all the way, and not all of the time. Wearing clothes has been a challenge while he's less than used to being what he is now, but Jun still wanted to be as modest as he could manage. That's ended up with him just in his white briefs and a tank top for the time being(his arms keep phasing through the jumpsuit...), as he explores the station.

He's a little more curious now. A little more interested in meeting people, if only to reassure them that things would be okay, but also because... he still enjoyed helping others.

And boy, this place was beginning to get weird. Again. He wasn't sure if it was dangerous or not, because he could manage navigating the place pretty easily despite the fact that the hallways shorten and lengthen, but so far the station has been a dangerous place, so best to assume the worst.

Jun will come up behind anyone who seems like they're having trouble. "Don't be scared", he warned, because you know... he was a mass of stars now, "Do you need any help...?"

become

[rickitikitarr]

"Jesus!"

Yelps Ricki, when Jun explodes into stars around the corner he's just circling. He throws a hand up in a hurry, shielding his eyes from the brief burst, and then says, with more sincerity;

"Jesus."

The things that've gone on here lately have been strange enough to get an old lapsed soul like him back to chapel. When nothing seems to be actively more terrible than usual, he lopes forward, trying to find the source of the mess, and calling, carefully;

"Hello?" It's not easy to see where people begin and people end lately. "Anyone hurt?"

1

[wingstosee]

Venus doesn't know Jun. She's spoken to him, once, maybe...? She can't remember. His voice is just a foggy memory, something she might have heard once in passing through the cafeteria. But he's one of the first people she sees once the deed is done, and she can put two and two together as to just what he's saying. She stays back, almost at the end of the corridor, watching through a hundred eyes. His skin peels away, the chrysalis almost done cracking-

-and then a galaxy is born.

She can't help the way her hands fly up to her mouth, or the way she watches him almost enviously. Her own rebirth had been something like the hatching of an egg, peeling the old pieces away until she could walk of her own volition, but this is something else altogether. It's a star going supernova, and a potter at his kiln, and an identity coalescing all at once. She doesn't approach - she's not sure she could move if she wanted to. But when he turns to look at her, she does give a slow wave back.

"That was- beautiful," she calls back after a moment, her voice still shaking. "You're beautiful. Wow."

1

[bu773rfly]

[It's kind of inappropriate and uncouth, maybe a little invasive and rude, possibly something new to being devil-like and something worth questioning,

but,

watching people embrace it is fascinating and gratifying and makes Erika very happy. Relieved? Happy for them? Glad to see a kindred spirit? Something. Jun in particular looks great, and Erika's winged infinities unstick themselves from the ceiling and the walls and tumble into coherence to investigate his starry ones.

Most end up on the floor, or fluttering clumsily above it. A few land on his head and his shoulders, with a surprising weight that's more conceptual than physical.]

Mm-hmm?

[Not so bad? Correct. Keep going.]

1

[iustitia]

"Not so bad at all!"

Jun's a riot of color -- deep blueberry and decadent witches fingers, bright lemon yellow and sweet gold like mango. He is very pleasant to the nose. He's certainly more impressive than Terezi is. Not that she's jealous! She's quite happy with herself, even if she's objectively kind of horrifying, what with all the mouths covering her body. But she finally has a voice for every thought and trouble she's never been able to share, and that's enough to her.

"I think it's very nice."

2

[motorcycle_noises]

Tatsuya wasn't there for Jun's dramatic transformation-- wasn't there to see a rebirth of galaxies and stars and newness. It's something he could regret perhaps, later, when he's aware of it. Or maybe he'll just be happy for Jun's newfound peace-- who can say?

He's heading back to his room-- their room, thinking of it that way still sends a giddy thrill through his entire body, like fire through his veins and warmth through his skin. As he gets closer to the room, he thinks he hears Jun talking to someone further down the hall-- "Don't be scared."

And he turns to look.

[bu773rfly]

A) [around and about]

[There are butterflies in the station.

Small and blue and luminous, and perfectly impossible, hard to look at and easy to see, each one doubling and tripling itself into teeming infinities until you blink hard and they all collapse back into one, perched on the wall, beating its wings serenely.

Blink again, and they're a person. The hacker girl from the VR room, Erika, secretive and selective with her company and always eager to get out of a conversation and back to her own work - except she's here, and wherever she is (everywhere), she's more than she's ever been, like she could take up all the space in the room if she wanted, let loose something uncountable and uncontainable.

Look away, and she's back to butterflies, moving as a sinuous cloud in curious patterns.

What the fuck is that, seriously?]

B) [trust me on this]

It really isn't as bad as it seems.

[It's harder to shut out people in distress, now. Being everything means seeing everyone, and...she can't blame her soft heart on the devil. That's old news.

But the panicked, the angry, the skeptical - not to discount their choices, but she thinks they might not understand the full scope of things. Which...is ultimately kind of her fault, for helping it all get started so quickly. So she owes them an explanation, and her new body is good for that kind of thing. For insinuating itself into the corners of rooms, and spotting problems as they develop, and materializing a decent aspect of her there - or just staying in formless form, that ethereal presence of butterflies across surfaces that changes as it's viewed, infinity doing its level best to compress itself into visible form.

When she whispers like that, from the ceiling or the wall or some other startlingly close place, it's with a faraway cacophony of a thousand other words just beyond earshot, sound waxing and waning according to her focus. This is a body that takes some getting used to.]

It's not something the station is doing. It actually seems to have a protective effect.

3) [hacker's handshake]

[Tracing the devil's message back to its source is not a job for the untested, but it can be done. Shutting it down is another matter.

But as with everything, there are fingerprints, and the fingerprints lead back to a particular one of the station's hackers, and chasing them -

- there's an odd text string that keeps coming up in all this code. Specifically, "此之謂物化".

Anyways, the perpetrator's inbox is as open for comment as ever.]

trust

[veristitalian]

I could not care in the slightest about the supposed protection of this monstrosity.

[Snarls Jasnah, at the butterflies. She's never actually lost her temper with Erika before.]

Is that you, child?

Jasnah Kholin: Open

[veristitalian]

Hear no Evil

The voice in her ear is enough to make Jasnah pause in her step. She's been on edge since the music began, shoulders tight, grimly anticipating a return to the old torture. Hearing someone there feels like a confirmation that things are going wrong again and that someone is doing this to them on person.

She listens to about half a sentence, before she interrupts, to the air out loud;

"No."

No, never, and there was never a chance it would be a yes.

Jasnah claps her hands over her ears at the sudden rush of sound, and lets out a scream in time with the first one to pierce through the static. The shock brings her to her knees.

"Not again!"


See no Evil

As the people around her begin to transform, Jasnah spends a little while cataloguing the various comings and goings, and the shapes people take. Each one is more disturbing than the last, but they are indisputably fascinating. She chronicles what she can, though she doesn't have much paper to spare any more.

The easiest thing to do is sit in the mess hall and watch the comings and goings- though as more and more people lose the need to consume human food she transfers herself up to the observation deck, since people tend to come seek out starlight.

She has stormlight left enough to read by, and her sword at her side, and the static in her ears is grating enough that she would welcome trouble.


Speak no Evil

Fairly early, she puts up the post;

History is full of lessons for men lured by honeyed words. Succumbing to this temptation shows pathetic lack of judgement.

There are obvious implications in terms of the moral character of the seduced. I'm a realist, and inclined to consider that measure slightly less serious than the sheer stupidity of voluntarily letting this poison gain a hold in your soul.

If you succumb to the sounds it inflicts after an initial refusal, I offer my pity. If you turned before the enemy had a chance to show you it was willing to beat those did not consent into psychic submission, then I hope you've learned something.

If anyone human is still alive, this is Jasnah Kholin, I'd like to meet and discuss what hope we have left.

speak no evil

[possidetur]

Where are you?

Tyl Regor | OTA

[biochemastery]

001. He doesn't listen.

Regor had mostly ignored the initial announcement. Tearing the walls down? Good for you! Tear them to shreds! But you do it. Not him. He's tried several times now, and he's getting sick of being sick.

The second voice, though. "What was that?" He looks up sharply. The voice was there. Not over the intercom, not the station-issued communicator, not in the pitiful, dead Grineer-tuned radio in his suit. There was a voice right there, right with him, but there was no one in the corridor.

This shouldn't have happened to you. You still have so much work to do. "You have a remarkable grasp of the obvious," he drawled, utterly unimpressed. "Who are you?"

You'll need to leave soon. The Queens will move on without you. "And give up what I'd done for them? No. No, they'll take me back." He started pacing, or as close as he could get in the one-third gravity, strides too long, the staccato tik tik tik of his feet too slow to be calming.

I know why you worry. They won't be satisfied, once you've lost their focus. You'll lose the chance to make them all better. "No. Won't happen. Eternal Queens have a longer attention span than I do." Obviously. They were the Queens! A hundred other kingdoms had clawed their way up, and the Queens' scepters had broken their hands, thrown them back down the slopes to power.

But they're not the only ones in the Empire. What if Tengus claims it all? He made an expansively disgusted noise at the name, "I've trained the guards. If they see his ugly hat they'll shoot him on sight."

The voice had another comeback ready, and he was starting to hate that about it. It only takes one raid to steal something vital. What if Sargas Ruk takes the artifacts? The body? "He's hydrophobic. Hasn't had a bath in years. Wouldn't dare come into my ocean." You know those are just insults. The kind you came up with to make him angry. He'll remember those moments. "He doesn't even remember to bring me live defectors for the dissections. He won't matter." But you've judged him wrongly before.

He had! He had, he knew that, Ruk wasn't as stupid as he sounded. Few got to the top in the Empire if they didn't have brains, except for-- And there's more in your labs, and they can't stay there. What about your best, last children. What if they're sent to Earth and Vay Hek? Oh, that made him angry. That pushed him over the edge into a full-blown rant. "Hek! The shrieking parrot's got his stinking, rotting, tiny-brained ghouls, and he couldn't even reign them in!"

He pointed a finger at the nearest intercom speaker, voice descending to a furious snarl. "My children are too clever for him. They'd rip his wings off and eat what the ghouls didn't! And they're not the last! I'm not done!"

But the voice wasn't done. He knew what it was leading up to. What if the T-- "Don't even say it, you--" What's to stop them coming back while you're gone, to take away everything that's left? "Nothing! When they found a lab, they crawled in anyway!" The Corpus, jellyfish, bottom-feeding scum, they'd told the Tenno, they'd led them in, and there was nothing the Tenno liked better than taking something good and beautiful and tearing it to pieces.

The Corpus had their tendrils in so much the Grineer made, but not everything. "The last ones, they're still safe. Secret. Leechlizards can't suck the life from a secret."

But how long until they find it without you protecting them? It doesn't have to end that way. "It won't." He turned away from the speaker.

I can help you. I want to help you. He turned back again, anger simmering down into suspicion. "You're a noisy, stinging fly, trying to crawl in my ears, what can you do?"

If you'll let me help you, you can tear this place apart and take back what you need to show them all you're different than the rest.

"You want that."

More than anything in the world.

"Liar," He growled, deep and venomous, slowly rising back up towards mania. "You want my secrets. You want my children too! Unless you want them murdered like the rest of them."

The voice was talking, but he wasn't listening anymore. "Or you're one of them. Little buzzing fly, you sound so... familiar."

It made so much sense. He'd already suspected it before, but now. "Is that it? Is that what you are? Not a fly. A stinking flower. You can't have them! You can't have me either!"

The Lotus isn't here. I could help you hurt her too.

"Go away, lying little weed. I'll pull out your roots and watch you wither."

The voice cut off, replaced with static, screams, unnatural howling, and he laughed.

001.1 He's just going to watch.

The noises were going to get annoying eventually, but not yet. It sounded like Corpus, when you didn't take their helmets off before taking a look inside them. Best way to do it, really. It was easy to clamp down those boxy things, and who wanted to look at a Corpus, anyway?

But the people. The boring, ugly, human people. He'd ignored so many of them, so completely. And now they were changing! Look at them!

"Look at you," he purred, advancing slowly, metal feet going tik, tik, tik. "You're fascinating."

002 Maybe rest a while.

The noises were getting annoying, making it hard to work in the lab. He'd brought some of it back to his quarters, but he still had to go out, still had to see more, try and find something new. Wander the decks, looking for fresh meat.

He hadn't bothered with this room before. A chapel? Pointless waste of space. A place for people who had no Queens, no real power driving them, so they had to just imagine what that would be like.

There weren't any changed in there. Nothing interesting to work with. But at least the noise was gone! He could stay here for a while.

Even if the company wasn't as intriguing. On the other hand... "So, you're holding yourself together. Why?"

003 Lose his way.

The noises were becoming intolerable. He'd started mocking them, every so often, just to make himself feel better. "Screaming little weed. Sulking! Gonna have to do more, more than you can, because I know," he muttered. "Pull your petals off one by one. Leave you in the mud. ...Where am I?"

No, really, where was he? He'd been headed for his quarters again, but this looked like the corridor leading to the observation deck. Or was it? He didn't recognize that smudge on the wall. And the lights were going out. Stupid, rusting bucket!

The lights overhead went out, leaving the little constellation of yellow lights on his suit as the only light source. He sighed heavily, casting around for a landmark.

Oh. We was right, this did lead to the observation deck. He could see stars up ahead. Tik, tik, tik went the feet, accompanied now by a quiet sound of metal sliding against metal, as he kept a hand on the wall, soft yellow glow only illuminating less than a meter around him.

003.1 Make mistakes.

The station had gotten more treacherous since then. He'd tried messing with the communicator's hologram, scrounging hand lights from the lab, but in the dark places something messed with the power, drained them down to a flicker.

It didn't stop that STUPID NOISE, THOUGH.

And the corridors weren't behaving either. That was clear now. Try and analyze it, and gravity went sideways like he was a bug in an upended cup. Head for the lab, spend half an hour trying to leave the gym. He'd gotten tired of it. He was sulking at the bottom of the pool now, where the noise was quieter. Fifteen minutes of air in his suit, he could stay down here for a while, yellow lenses staring balefully up at the ceiling. It was still shifting, but at least that was because of the water, the refraction, not this reality-warping nonsense.

Or at least that was what he was telling himself. It was starting to buckle upwards in an unfortunate-looking way. Oh dammit.

With a massive shrieking of metal that reverberated through the water, the ceiling let go, and he fell upwards, caught in the sudden deluge. He turned to look down--up, towards the floor, sighted a handrail, teleported to it and latched on, muscles straining against the pull. Not spin gravity anymore, not one-third Earth gravity, this was crushing, this was a foundering Corpus platform over the endless storms of Saturn, power gone, tilting, sinking fast into the gravity well, heavier with every moment. Felt that once, only once, got out by luck and desperate scrabbling. Had to do it again now. Another jump could get him to the doors, straight shot out into the corridor--

Stupid bent reality betrayed him again. The teleport failed, fizzled, didn't carry him far enough, and now he was freefalling. He was going to miss the edge, go straight through.

Grab my hand!

He didn't stop to think, snatched at something. It sunk in deep, and he howled in pain as his skin tore open.

--

Now he's back in the medical wing, still dripping a mix of water, blood, and something that smells too harsh to be either. He doesn't look much different than normal, really.

He grips one of the segments of his suit near his shoulder, prying it up, snaking his other hand underneath to grab something and pull it out with a grunt of effort. A long, flat, gray tendril, flexing like a worm, a leech, split on the end into fingerlike growths, terribly familiar ones, he thinks. He can feel it rooted to his torso, sunk deep, flexing beneath his skin. Far too late to cut it out now.

He laughs.

004 Wildcard

[ooc: Got other ideas? HMU at PaleAntiquarian, or on discord (CellarSpider#9984)!

[hyperfresh]

[That honeyed voice speaks to Marina and tells her all about the things she already knows--about how she wants to fit in, about how she wants people to like her, about how she's afraid of people hating her because of what she is. That voice says I can help, and Marina thinks of sanitization and brainwashing technology and, more than anything, Pearl:

DJ_Hyperfresh > Do you think I'll still be welcome in Inkopolis? Once everyone knows I'm an Octoling?
MC.Princess > ARE YOU KIDDING? Of course you will! everyone loves you!

Marina doesn't need help, not from voices whispering promises in her head. She rejects the devil, and the voice dissolves into static and screaming.]

002
[She may have rejected the devil, but Marina doesn't like the insistence of this place much more. Still, it's quiet, and in a way that makes her feel as if it will stay that way. She tried working in her room, but she couldn't help looking over her shoulder, wondering if the static would creep in or the walls would start shifting into unnatural angles.

Here, she can work. And by work, she means track down the source of this. It's definitely coming from the communicators, so she should be able to follow it back to its source.

If you want a quieter moment to talk to Marina, here's the place.]

003
[Marina brushed up against a wall and it started twisting inside out. Her footsteps fell too heavily on the floor and it yawned open like a cat, and she's sure she can see teeth and a tongue and even if it's just for a second, just for an instant, it's enough to get her form shifting, shrinking down into an inky teal octopus. After a few seconds, she's rocketing through the air, propelled by ink...

...But that was just a panic response, and you really shouldn't jump like that inside such an enclosed area. She slams into the ceiling, which sucks in a breath in a way a ceiling really shouldn't, as if it was as surprised as Marina by the collision.

Someone please help this octopus.]

[wingstosee]

[ okay, so maybe this is more than she expected. not a problem! definitely not a problem. after all, this is her world - their world - now. it doesn't really matter if things get a little freaky, as long as they're all together to work on it!

which definitely isn't what's happening here. actually, it seems like the station is just changing at random - none of neptune's oceanic pull, jupiter's mighty arms, or her light bearing down on things. it's like the devil is fighting the station, or like the two were never really meant to meet. and it's during one of these "fights" that she sees marina's unmistakable teal, rocketing into the ceiling above a maw of teeth that's already closed back into floor again. ]

I'll catch you! Don't worry, I got you, just- [ she extends her hands and wings, trying to create a safe spot for marina to land on, and frantically runs beneath the falling octoling. ]

Raphael | OTA

[bedsidemanners]

i.

It's not a hard thing, throwing away happiness. Raphael's been eagerly tossing it to the side his whole life, multiplying lovers in a hellish arithmetic while denying himself any semblance of love itself. Nothing beyond the act. Nothing beyond the pure physical pleasure, erupting just readily enough to ease the buzz in his brain.

It's Sara's voice, but she knows more than Sara ever did. More than sanctimonious Jibril ever did, either. The voice is promising him a peace he'll never encounter and warmth he'd sooner scorn. She's offering to show him what he really is--

"I already know," he snaps, and the voice turns to shrieking static.

ii.

The static hasn't let up since he turned her down, but Raphael's kept himself busy. He's set up shop in the medical wing, irrespective of anyone else, feeling like a short-sighted peddler. Wares for free.

The mutations, the transformations-- they're unlike what he's seen before. Frankly demonic. He doesn't know if they're something he can stop. He doesn't think any of the affected want them to stop. He remembers white wings shifting to inky black, auras that once radiated heaven's light growing dimmer. A third of the host of heaven gone to the devil.

It might be better to renege on the Hippocratic oath he never actually took than to try to ease their pain. It's hardly a battlefield, even with all the blood and feathers and pus from growing appendages. The war he's idly waging now is one of anaesthetics and pain relievers, as he raises a hand to the next patient's forehead, or waves in another likely mutating soul from the corridor.

"Don't worry. But you aren't, are you?"

iii.

It's not too long before the whole station turns into a funhouse.

He knows why-- of course he knows why. The devils have control; they're using every method available to them to ensnare the rest. He'd laugh off the manipulation attempts if they weren't getting more intense by the day. Rooms that don't seem to be there anymore, or are in the wrong places. Hallucinatory noises beyond that ever-present static. He thinks it's not the shifting that's bothering him as much as the deep-seated feeling that everything is slowly caving in.

Raphael's on his way to his room when the lights go out. He tries to feel around, at first, steps slow and cautious, wishing for a lighter or Michael or both, hearing nothing but the sound of his own feet. After several minutes, he gives up on stumbling about, opting for one last tactic. If nothing else, it'll alert him to someone else's presence.

He takes the small metal clip off his ID card and then lets it go. Relatively. He's not seeing where it's going even as he manipulates it in the air, letting it hover, and then zoom in random patterns, the clacks against the metal walls the only indication of its direction. If necessary, he'll use the clip to navigate his steps, but for now, he's only trying to see if someone else is there in the darkness. And soon enough, there is a sound from another person after all.

"Don't let that bother you." The clacking of metal against metal stops, the clip returning to hovering somewhere in the air again. "It's not part of the show."

2

[counterfeitheart]

Kira stands at the doorway. He knows how it must look, with "the devil" whispering promises into everyone's ears, tearing them apart and rebuilding them. He knows what Raphael is thinking, and he just stands there, a smirk on his face.

"Of course not." His own stance in this is rough. He didn't reject the offer, but neither did he take it up. After all, he's alreay the devil, and he certainly needs no help in transforming himself.

"What're you planning on doing about all of this?" It's more taunting than it needs to be, but that's the nature of how he interacts with angels. "Bandaging the demon out of them?"

Venus | We Know the Devil

[wingstosee]

anticip[a]ting attacks

[ she's just made either the best decision or worst mistake of her life.

no time for regrets. the three of them go their separate ways quickly (or at least, she THINKS they do - hard to keep track of erika when she's everywhere and nowhere at once), maybe for plausible deniability or maybe to see the place. and so venus walks the halls of the station the next morning, watching with curiosity to see where the devil's voice has reached.

footsteps behind her. approaching. venus doesn't have to turn to see who it is, not with eyes on the back of her wings, but she does anyway. it's only polite, after all. she crosses her arms in a defensive stance, her smile just a tiny bit wan. ]

Hey. Uh... what's up?

[ hopefully they're here to talk - not to fight. ]

new [b]odies

[ not everyone has taken the devil's voice to heart. but not everyone has rebuked her, either.

she sees people changing all throughout the weeks - some sooner than others. she can't make it to every one, of course, but she tries to find them as they happen. maybe it's different for them, but- they all deserve someone to keep them company as their life changes course. it's the least she can do for them now.

she stops by another changing form, smile clear in her soft voice. ]

Hey there. Need a hand?

solar [c]ruise

[ sometimes, you need a break from the world. and where better to go than the void of space?

she still has her dumb little fishbowl helmet, and she still utterly refuses to use one of the safer suits. (not that she could even if she wanted to - she's fairly certain the humans have holed them up somewhere.) and it's in this helmet, and her normal tank and jumpsuit, that she proudly stands upon the hull of the station. out here, it's quiet. silent, even, except for her own breath bouncing around in the oxygen of her helmet.

she can't hear the newcomer, but she can see them easily enough. she turns to them, smiling and giving a gentle wave through the vacuum of space. she tries to speak - stops - laughs a bit before tapping at the glass of the helmet. looks like they'll have to handle the silence a bit a longer. ]

[d]isaster

[ the wall opens, and someone falls in.

venus doesn't stop to check if they're human or not. she doesn't even bother to think about just who it is she's diving after. she just flings herself forward, falling flat to the ground as she grabs at the other person's hand. ]

Hold on! I don't know what's happening, but- just hold on!

A

[counterfeitheart]

[It has been a little while since he had seen Venus in person, since before he had... come out. He was happy to hide away, pretend he was not the one that he had revealed himself to be.

But of course he had to come see her after this stunt.]

Hello, Venus. [His voice isn't quite the way it usually was. He was in Kira's form, but he spoke as Lucifer. He needed to in this case, he thought.]

...So, what is all this, now?

9S | OTA

[twoaffirmations]

a; the devil speaks
Oh, Nines...

[A voice whispers softly in his ear, and 9S feels goosebumps prick at his skin. He whips his head around to identify the source of the voice only to find nothing but air. Was it Venus? No, it didn't sound like her this time.]

You work so hard, don't you? But the humans back home never acknowledge you, and it feels as if the humans here don't have any use for you.

Huh? N-no. That's not...

You want to find a purpose beyond the one you were made for, but it's hard, it feels like a betrayal. You feel guilt for indulging the emotions that swell within you, when they're meant to be forbidden.

Who are you?! How do you know--!

I'm the devil, and unlike the God who's abandoned you, I care, Nines.

[9S swallows, his mouth dry.] God really did abandon us androids, huh...? And he abandoned people like Alucard and Crow too.

You want to embrace people. [She says simply.] That hatred you feel only comes from what you cannot have. So what if I said I could give you that? A way to be closer. A way to shed your skin and finally live for yourself like you've been wanting to.

[9S feels his breath grow shallow, standing in the middle of the walkway, his gaze unfocused.] You can do that...?

Yes, I can.

b; shedding skin
[When he finally gives into his curiosity and into the desire he's tried so hard to bottle up, 9S feels a tingling warmth cross over his body. Panic and anticipation set in almost immediately, and he suddenly tries to take it back.]

W-wait, maybe I-- Gah! [9S stumbles to grip his head as his artificial skin splits open and falls away, his face peeling off like a gruesome Halloween mask. But beneath, the changes are minor. Gone are his humanoid ears; they've been replaced by a pair of fluffy white cat ears that sit on top of his head, blending into the white of his hair. At the same time, what consists of his spine bursts from beneath his skin as it elongates to form a fluffy white tail.]

No way... [His eyes are wide with bewilderment, as he goes through the last of his transformation. He feels a heat burn instead of him. It doesn't hurt. It's warmth is welcoming, like a campfire on a cold winter night. Stumbling over to the Observation deck's window, he rests his palm against it.

Looking at his reflection, he can't help but blurt out--] Cat ears?!

c; a place of worship
What's going on?

[9S stands on the observation deck, a deep dread in his chest that he can't quite explain. His tail and ears are fluffed and alert, telegraphing his unease.]

I've got a bad feeling.

d; hell and home / wildcard
[9S will be around, curious and trying to help as the station grows stranger and stranger. He's going to be feeling extra social thanks to his changes; he wants to see if they actually work. Basically, this is where you can just run into him and gawk at his ridiculous excuse for a devil transformation--or scold him. Either way.]

b

[counterfeitheart]

[You know, Kira had been looking forward to seeing the new devils after speaking with Venus. He wondered how they would look, with humans and other species 'falling'. Angels simply lost the light in their wings as they were stained with darkness.

He comes across Yuki as he transforms too, more than happy to see that he'd taken the option. What a good boy. He deserved it, deserved to free himself from the shackles he'd been willingly strapped down with.]

...Cat... ears...?

[He echoes Yuki's confusion, but... like okay. That wasn't a BAD transformation either? It was cute, at least. A cute devil...?]

Ah... ha ha! Yuki, you became a cat boy!

[This was just like his animes!]

Connor | OTA

[rk800connor]

Connor is used to having a voice in his head. CyberLife, the company that manufactured him, had an open line of communication with him. Anytime they desired, they could pull his consciousness into a purely digital garden where a woman, Amanda, would speak to him, ask him about his missions, critique his performance, and give him new objectives. Being so far from home, Amanda had been silent... until now.

The devil's voice quickly becomes interchangeable with Amanda's but, unlike the meetings he's used to, it's constant little whispers.

Don't disappoint us, Connor. You need to do everything you can to return home. Stay focused. You have a job to do.

1.1 Shedding Skin

The changes, for Connor, are subconscious. He already has the ability to 'shed' his artificial skin to expose the glossy, white plastic looking exoskeleton of his android body underneath.

The changes are subtle, faint outlines of the segments of his articulated parts can be seen in his skin but most notably are his movements, stiff, robotic and most importantly efficient.

It's impossible to know just how long he's been sitting in the mess hall, stock still, but he'll suddenly blink and turn to offer a small, polite and completely emotionless smile to anyone who approaches him.

"Hello. Are you in need of assistance?"

[twoaffirmations]

[9S had already accepted his own changes in the form of a pair of fluffy white cat ears and a tail to match. There was also a comforting warmth to him if you go close enough, like a campfire on a cold winter night.

Being addressed by Connor he slows to a stop.]

Er, no... I'm actually feeling pretty good... [He trails off, noticing almost immediately the difference in Connor's behaviour.]

prax "plant guy" meng | the expanse

[contorta]

one. shedding skin

[ he lets the devil in. how could he not, when she recognises his loneliness and his fear, his sense of inadequacy and of being uprooted. he has no home anymore, ganymede destroyed, and he still hasn't failed his daughter. every day he remains on the station is a failure, but even before all this, he'd failed mei in so many ways, her illness first and foremost.

it isn't your fault, the devil tells him and he wants to believe her.

amos is gone - the last of his gravity, the closest prax has ever had to a saviour. alex is gone too, the one who could put things into perspective, who'd clung to hope and made prax believe in it, too.

you'll see them again, the devil tells him and he wants to believe her.

in the end, it isn't a difficult choice and the transformation doesn't hurt. roots grow from his legs, steadying him, his skin taking on a green-ish hue and leaves sprouting from his hair. it doesn't solve anything, not really - he's still here, after all - but he feels steadier for it. plants are familiar; plants have always been his safe haven.

he looks down at his hands and the green doesn't scare him. ]

I wonder if I'll photosynthesise.

two. hell and home

[ strange things are happening. the change should scare him, should remind him of ganymede's destruction and to some extent, it does - but his roots keep him steady and when he spots someone in a hallway that is bending, when he sees them lose their footing despite the magboots, he acts without thinking.

one of his roots shoots out, a lifeline, an offering. ]

four. wildcard

[ occ: find prax in the plant room as usual, spot him on the observation deck, sit by his roots and nap there while he watches over you... anything goes. ]

two!

[biochemastery]

[Sadly, Tyl doesn't have those magboots. Well, he has a pair. But they were made for humans, not Grineer wearing fashionable, minimalist feet. Walking here's a chore at the best of times. He might be 230cm of cybernetics, but that mass still doesn't hold him down. Every step floats a bit. Normally, his biggest concern is scraping his head on the ceiling.

Now, though. Now's got more problems for him. Lights keep failing, static keeps screaming, and the floor just lurched, tilted, bent so hard that his fashionable little feet can't keep a grip. With a longer pair of arms he would've been able to catch himself, but no, he's not got the right pair for that either! All he's got left to do is flail and fall and slide--

Or not! He's caught hold of something. Not the most sturdy something, but it'll do. He scrambles up, out of the distortion, giving the offending stretch of hallway a glare, still holding onto the whatever-it-was.]

Third time! Third time that's happened, hateful thing, can't walk anywhere these days without physics just giving up on me! And--oh. [He's finally looked down at the root in his hand, then over to its source.]

More changes. Big ones, fast ones. [He approaches, peering down at the man.] No patterns, no templates, just new parts. All custom work, every time.

[Right! Introductions.] Tyl Regor. You were probably a human, right?

akira fudo | (mostly!) ota

[dvmn]

I. — private to venus
[At first Akira does what he can to ignore the voice, because at first it pursues avenues of convincing that he could force himself to look past. The reason why he was able to do that was because he had had so much practice doing so. The tangible saccharine nature of the words turned sour and twisted in his stomach when they spoke about his family — or families, tugging at the tangle of heartstrings which lie between the parents that had come back to him only to be lost to him forever, and the people who had stood in for them. But that tangle didn't pull apart so easily, not when these last few months had offered Akira so much time to learn how to compartmentalize, knowing that thinking constantly of the world as he had left it behind would drive him insane faster than anything else happening in this place, be it music or sickness or the smoky voice of the devil in his ear.

But the devil is cleverer than that.

"It's because you're only half-done, you know." He doesn't need to ask to hear the answer, and the slight lapse in his inattention to it was more than enough to elicit it. "Finding yourself saying things you wouldn't usually say... Stopping yourself in the middle of things you wouldn't usually do. It's because you're a mixture of half yourself and half something else, but you are both oil and water: one will never give into the other, so neither will ever have peace. But I could give you that."

Akira falters. It — it would...

"You could be yourself, without ever having to worry you were being anything but."

It wasn't long after that. It's not like Akira is a stranger to devils and demons, and neither is he a stranger to trading one body for another. What was strange was that the body he traded his last one for was nothing like how he had been, and yet it felt more like himself than he had felt in months. But he had... questions, and he immediately opted for one option: phone a friend.]

@aphrodite uh venus
@aphrodite can I ask you a question
@aphrodite or like multiple questions actually

II.
[This room is a lot larger than it seemed when you first entered it.

It also paradoxically feels more claustrophobic, despite taking entire minutes from one door to another. The walls seem to fluctuate in the corner of your eye, falling closer or farther away like the beating of a dragonfly's wings, though when you turn to face them they iron out smooth and still. The lights in the ceiling are nestled in a tangled mess of thick piping and protruding ventilation shafts; they seem dim as they flicker within the nest-like lattice, making it hard to see too far ahead. The total effect is discombobulating, interfering entirely with one's sense of direction and distance, bringing the fear that one might become trapped in here —]

Hey.

[The bright voice chimes from — somewhere. Above?

A flicker of movement can be seen silhouetted from one of the flickering lights, and two bright and gleaming yellow eyes can be seen leaning over one of the ventilation shafts; the individual they belonged to seemed to have been resting up there, and even with the bad lighting, that individual also very clearly does not seem to be human.

His voice sounds genuinely concerned, however.] Sounds like you've been wanderin' around for a while down there? Looking for something, or what?

III.
[There was some kind of sickness in the station, but it was hard to put your finger on it when you were just a part of one of its symptoms. But it became pretty hard to ignore when the corridor in front of you tore apart, rending in a way that could either be physical or metaphorical, though the sound and the sensation of it felt so real. Akira begins to be drawn towards it, plummetting as if from a great height. He's felt that sensation before, though, and though he's gone a short while without them, a sense of fear was enough to rearrange the configuration of his new devil body to give him back something he'd temporarily lost: his wings.]

a) [Akira glimpses someone else slip into the rift before he's brought up to it. His yellow eyes go wide, and he doesn't think before he's actively throwing himself into the tear into nothing, calling out,] Hold on! I'll get you outta there!

[And now you've got a very fierce-eyed, fuzzy, winged devil boy plummeting towards you, but hey, at least he says he's here to help?]

b) [This time it's Akira who's pulled into the void, and peering through the tear in the fabric of the terminal would show that he was actively trying very hard to get back up into the corridor, the wide spread of his wings beating again and again against what seemed to be nothing.

It was a battle he didn't look like he could win himself. Upon seeing the silhouette of someone else in front of him, he calls out, reaching a hand outwards in desperation.]

IV.
[Wildcard! Feel free to hit me up at novaphase.]

IV & II

[luciformis]

[ Ryo is a pale thing in the dark.

The corridors coil like the chambers of a nautilus, recur with endless symmetry in ratios comforting to the eye and comforting to one's cognition. Mathematical constructs are consistent and Ryo calculates the odd and impossible distances between each threshold and the next. Part of him has become aware that it is the influence of those like him, as much as part of him is aware that those without preparation cannot hope to brave a devil's nest without returning as something new or strange or ancient. Ryo does not understand the reasons for his own acceptance, as much as he does not understand the devil's own insistence in what he recalls she may have said, smoky and soft into the once rounded curve of his ear.

"You'll come around on your own."

But, it doesn't matter now. It doesn't matter when it isn't himself he's concerned about.

His music is clear and sweet, a long draw of notes over strings. It reverberates lowly, tinged with the absence of something he'd learned he could not crave because it had not existed to begin with. It continues even now in the halls that lack another presence, sits up against his skin as though a tide desperate to come in. But, he'd never let it. And now, something sinks into the skin and blurs him from the inside out. It erodes another residual line of all that Ryo Asuka ever was and builds him into something he could be.

It's gradual, to filter out the current of the station. He skims the thoughts of those he passes, like fingers dragged through water along a boat's side. He does not find the shape of what he is looking for until he steps into the mass of wires, the squaring of ventilation shafts. He doesn't need to open his mouth anymore to say the name, but still he finds it leaving his tongue anyway. ]

Akira, [ There you are. Can you hear me? His voice doubles itself, like light refracted through dampened window panes. It smudges at the edges, the clarity of syllables lost in the drag of its own echo. Beneath it, relief breathes. Come to me.

He knows Akira's form anywhere. He'd known it that evening too, his mind fixed toward a location he had no means of tracing Akira to. He steps over a snarl of tubing, his hands coming up to push down the hood that covers the new growth of his hair.

It'd only been a few hours since it'd started, but he'd sought Akira out as he always did.

Perhaps now, at least, his ability to track Akira down had precedent. ]

The Operator | OTA | will match format

[devilmind]

i. send a heartbeat to (the devil speaks)
It has been so, so long since the Operator heard a voice like hers. At first, they think that it is the Lotus speaking to them and their heart leaps with joy. Finally, they’ve been found. Finally, they can leave this place and this body and return home. But the voice corrects them, gently.

I am not your Lotus, Tenno. But I can still help you.

The Operator’s wild hopes come crashing down quickly and yet, they can’t help but feel reassured all the same. Perhaps the woman’s soothing voice in their ear is still enough a parallel to the Lotus to soothe. Or perhaps her voice possesses that quality independent of the Operator’s own longings. Whatever the case, they respond readily. “How can you help me?”

You are so lost here—in body as much as in space. I can help you find your way.

“You’ll help me return to my true forms? Back in the Origin System?”

There is a considerable pause. Then, the voice speaks again.

Your true form is already here, Tenno. I can give you the guidance you need to find it.

The Operator’s brow furrows at that. Could one of their Warframes be on the station? And does this voice know how they can return to it? Maybe if they find it, they’ll be able to finally reach out to the Lotus. Perhaps this human body simply doesn’t have the capacity for that kind of connection.

Will you accept?

The Operator doesn’t hesitate. “Yes. I accept.”

ii. the void that cries through you
[It was simple. So, so simple and sitting right in front of them all this time. All they had to do was remember. And this “Devil,” as she calls herself, had given them the courage they needed to do so.

Perhaps it was a bad idea. It certainly looks that way from where you’re standing. The Operator is crouched in a corridor, hands clutching the back of their head while they—disappear? Repeatedly? One second, they’re there, the next, they’re not. And then the next, they’re back again. The only sound is that of their own shallow breathing, chopped and distorted as it is by their flickering in-and-out of existence.

Maybe they need help?]

iii. flesh and blood disintegrate (shedding skin, cw: body horror)
As if coming to grips with new memories and new powers wasn’t enough, their deal with the devil apparently also grants them a new body.

The changes are swift and violent. One moment, they’re in the communal area of Deck 4, catching their breath after everything that’s already happened, and the next, they’re doubled over in pain. The worst of it comes from the sides of their skull just above each ear, but they can also feel it radiating from their collarbone into their forearms. It feels like something is trying to claw its way out from inside of their body and as the pain escalates, they become convinced that that’s exactly what’s happening. They only have a short time to process this new horror before flesh and bone alike suddenly split to make room for something new.

What pushes through their fragile body is sharp and gold and shining: halos of warped gold circling their head and curling around their forearms, while four rib-like protrusions trace their collarbone.

They realize that they’re screaming and then, just as suddenly, that they’re laughing, a reedy, brittle sound. They hadn’t wanted this. But it’s fitting, isn’t it? Beautiful, even.

Say hello to Operator Prime.

iii, cw more body horror

[biochemastery]

Digging it out wasn't going to help him. Its roots were woven in deep, he could feel it flexing deep in his flesh when it writhed, it winded him when he pulled at it, he could feel it hurt when he cut it. It was in his skin, in his flesh, in his nerves. It looked utterly Infested, long tendrils trailing down to tangle with his feet.

But it wasn't acting like Infestation. No, no, rooted this deep it should be pulling at his lungs, getting into his throat, it always did that when it went rampant, you could hear infestation in a voice, it mumbled, wheezed, bubbled. But he still had his! It was still his!

This was the station, that voice, that's what did it. He'd wondered why it'd backed off, hadn't touched him just 'cause he'd said 'no, go rot'. It'd twisted most of the people, most of the space, and now it'd done it to him too. Power-tripping, preening thing!

Half the lights were shining backwards, leaving him a hulking shadow covered in little lights: lenses, accents on his suit, unholy little glimmers on the tendrils. It wasn't just dark under those un-lights, it was hard to see beyond them too. He could hear the screaming, though. He moved towards it, into the border between light and un-light.

"So, that weed got its roots into to you too." He ticked closer, tendrils twitching and tangling themselves. "Lasted longer than most. Now it's gonna get worse. It doesn't care about us. Doesn't carer if you said no. Hateful thing."