001: REMODELING
For two weeks, the devils have lived in relative peace. Coexistence is noble, after all, and this is a place ripe for cohabitation. But with every stutter in reality, every gap in the walls and every tear in existence itself, there comes a certain reminder: this place isn’t safe. This place isn’t truly meant for you - not for humans, and not for devils. This place isn’t home.
It’s time to fix that.
All it takes is one moment - of weakness, of want, of
please come in - to let the devil in. Whether it’s your body or something else entirely doesn’t matter as much as you’d think. The next time the walls open, the next time the station yawns in complacency, reach in and grab hold. These walls have kept you imprisoned here for too long; it’s time to put up some decoration of your own. Maybe they’re subtle, things from your subconscious that mirror your needs and desires. Maybe they’re in keeping with your new changes, eyes and roots and fur where there weren’t any before. Or maybe they’re something entirely new, fractals recursing into infinity born from light bouncing through impossible angles.
Regardless, to those who pour themselves into these walls, the changes don’t “go back to normal” when the distortion is over. They remain, a monument to you and the ones who made this possible.
For some, this will be a gift. These walls can be friendly now, or aggressive, or anything their devil desires. But for others, this may be a step too far. What little semblance of normalcy the station once had is being shattered, after all.
But what can you do to fight back when the world around you is corrupting? What is there to do other than hope and pray that someone hears you?
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reverielogs2018-10-15 05:23 pm
Tyl Regor | I SWEAR THERE'S OPEN PROMPTS IN THIS WALL O' TEXT
002: Oh god he never stops talking
He hadn't slept in days. The tendrils never stopped twitching. They'd crawl all over him if he tried to rest, even if he sat on them! He'd decided he'd had enough and cut one off, but it regrew within hours. He was wandering the halls, disoriented and lost and getting groped by gray flesh noodles and he was going to lose his mind. Might already have done. Beneath the endless, endless hissing and screeching, he could hear a voice. And it wasn't that Devil, either.
"Owr krehatuun raws an akt of rahr." Distant, but familiar, a hundred thousand times over. "Kle Orokhun rehre too dazhy to rork, too hunruvuurawl to tranur togekler, too selfhusur to sakrhuufuke." It was a Grineer voice.
"Who's there?" He called, trying to get a fix on its location--damn the noise! He skittered one way and then the other--Ah! Yes! This way! "Re rehre kreahter to bruulr klehur monuuments to greer, muune for klehur rhukres, rhue for klehur foolusness." Female voice, confident, whoever it was--and reciting history for some reason. "Grineer! Report in!" He raised his voice to be heard over the static, teleporting towards the noise rather than risk another hallway twisting in on itself. Didn't work, he overshot somehow.
And the voice was still going. "--kley rhur kerhunr Grhuneer." He was closer, at least! But dammit he was frustrated enough to knock a hole in someone. "Grhuneer, rrog kle dekture na ro someklhung uusful foor a krange!" He called again, trying their native language this time.
"--Klen, kle Trhun Kweens kame to uus, na kley taugrt uus unuty na porer bry klehur gerfekt exampl." Wait. He knew this one. This wasn't just someone going spare and spouting off Grineer history. This was that voice you heard in the tanks. "Re rose up, re smaser kle Orokhun, took owr klonung tubres na freer ahss Grhuneer!" When you hadn't properly woken up yet, the half-remembered time when the conditioning was still happening, and you first realized those hands and feet of yours that you pounded against the glass sometimes, they weren't growing anymore, they were getting thinner and thinner, and they hurt.
"Bruht kle evul of kle Orokhun raws keyonr ahss rekkonhung. kley rar gohusoner owr templates, so klat re ruudr suffehr for owr freerom. So klat re roulr nor pahun na doss, na owr reserver perfektuun roudr ke renuer. Evhen kle Kweens rehre skarrer!" A lot of this stuff was drahk shit, he knew enough about their templates to understand that now. But it was sort-of true. Close enough, simplified, dumbed down so that everyone down to the slowest thinkers could understand who had hurt them all and why.
The voice was coming from the chapel. He could see the door now! "Well. Don't like this place much better. It's absolutely stultifying, and this feels distinctly like a trap," he announced to the general surroundings. "But if it is, whoever's done this has deeply underestimated how much I hate them."
So. If it was an ambush, well, they'd just have to learn from their terrible mistake. He paused outside the door, picked a spot far across the chapel, and teleported. A triumphant "ha!" was followed immediately by a far less triumphant "argh!" as the tendrils on his spine suddenly filled up with pain. What was this? Why had it suddenly decided to ruin his day more?
"Re klar bakk owr plaanets from resolatuun." So. Now he was stumbling into the pews, his unsightly spine-tentacles tying themselves into knots, and he was still getting a history lecture. Fantastic. If those tentacles were finally trying to become the horrible space plague they were always meant to be, he needed to--he didn't know. He didn't know! Maybe he could manage something in the medbay, salvage enough of himself to keep going. He had to move fast, though. He teleported away.
...And the pain stopped. "What?"
It had stopped! That place, you didn't see the afflicted showing up there. Maybe that was it! Maybe there was something in there that it couldn't stand!
He teleported back in, the pain stealing a little air from his lungs as it smacked him in the spine again. Right. Wherever that recording was coming from, he was going to find it this time. He'd been right on top of it before, he'd just been too distracted to get a good look.
"Bruht re rhuss never ke komplak--" "I'm not! I'm just very tired of this," he protested, searching for the radio. Wasn't where it had been. Had he knocked it off of something when he teleported? "--not ke duuke kle Orokh--." "I'm not planning on it!" "--ss not faass to dazhuuness--" "Be fair, though, I haven't slept in days." "--rk turelessly to--" "Nope. Very tired." "--not ke broken bry hunruvuur--" "I never liked that part." --remahun unhufuer hun owr--" "AHA! Gretesk, this hurts." He'd found it wedged in a corner. He bent down to look--"How did you get here?" It was a propaganda drone. With its wings folded up, it shouldn't even be active right now.
He picked it up, and then immediately fumbled it as the tendrils started thrashing in agony like salted worms. "Oh no. You're not getting away from this!" He picked it up again, gritting his teeth as the voice got louder, the history lesson ending as it always did: with patriotic yelling. "Grhuneer serve none bruht owr Kweens! Grhuneer protekt ahss! Grhuneer rhuss krusur ass gro tranur agahuntr uus!"
And then it stopped. "No!" Dammit, that wasn't what he wanted! Bring it back! The tendrils were still painful, twitching feebly--maybe they'd been damaged. He hoped. He needed that voice back. The louder it had gotten, the more it had hurt them. He knew more about pain than they did, he could handle it, they couldn't.
But it wasn't coming back. Oh, this was just--!! Wait. It was a propaganda drone. They had some presets. Loud ones. He cranked up the volume, flipped the activation switch, tossed it into the air, and immediately toppled off his feet as the klaxon went off. "Attentuun, Grhuneer!" it yelled, and it seemed like he was just going to have to stay on the floor until its batteries ran out, because the pain was horrible.
It took several solid minutes--mostly spent yelling nearly as loud as the drone--before the pain began to ebb, and he realized. This wasn't the usual propaganda. "Atenntsun, Grhuneer! Kle Revhul's rork mutr ke troger!" It was talking about the so-called Devil. It knew.
"Guuss ouht eevery root na krankr. Ahss mutr ke krusrer!" He shakily righted himself, the tendrils hanging limply behind him, lying still for the first time since they'd burst from his skin. "Brhung kle vohuke of kle Emphure to klem, na see klem rhukler! Klat hus klehur reahknes." That confirmed it definitively. Something about the sound this drone made could hurt this stuff, maybe even destroy it!
Dammit, he'd tossed the thing up too high! It was flapping just out of reach. "Kleahns klehur korruptuun! Retrroy ahss gro oposse gargr Kweens!" "I will, if you would just--There." Got it. He turned it off--better to save his ringing ears for now--and looked the drone over curiously. It seemed perfectly normal, from what he could remember of them. Right size, probably the right weight--wait.
"What's this switch do?"
003: MAKE SOME NOISE
It turns out the switch makes Tyl a brand new prosthetic arm. Odd choice, but he's willing to try it! He's now wandering the halls, inspecting his new find. It's compatible with his connections, it lights up in interesting ways when he plugs it in, it's got all sorts of things that might be buttons--
Anyone standing within a wide radius will suddenly be treated to something very much like music. It's loud. It's of variable quality and good taste. And the beat is literally punishing for any devils nearby.
REVENGE OF 003: MAKE MORE NOISE
He was so tired he'd spun back around to giddy. Maybe the walls were still moving, maybe that was just mild hallucinations from sleep deprivation. Who knew! He didn't! He had a weird propaganda drone that turned into a weirder prosthetic arm, it could hurt things that treacherous little voice had made, and oh he loved that.
"Hello!" He exclaimed gleefully upon sighting a target. "This is going to hurt terribly, but it's for your own good." Oh, how did the controls for this thing work again? "I say that for so many things, but I really mean it this time. Well, the first part, anyway."
THE DEVIL’S IN THE RADIO (LOCKED)
Venus knows that much. She’s not blind - she couldn’t close all her eyes if she wants to. She knows that this is a losing fight, maybe one that’s been lost since before she started. The devil’s voice is getting weaker over the station speakers with each passing day, God’s presence (and is it even God? Venus doesn’t think so, she hasn’t heard his voice even once yet) drowning out the devil’s hour by hour.
But everyone has their own cause, and this is Venus’s, and she’s not giving up until the bitter end. She has to take visits to the radio’s hiding spot now, more and more frequently, to tend to the crystal and clean the wires and adjust the wavelength oh so precisely so that she can eke out a tiny bit more reception. And it’s one of these visits that finally gets her caught in the end. The radio’s eldritch wiring is fully exposed to the outside air, rust and galena and metal tendrils entwined into the station’s walls.
When they come, Venus knows it’s over. There’s no way this ends well for her - for the devils who have been fighting so hard for this. But she owes them all this one last try, doesn’t she? So she turns to the newcomers, soft and apologetic smile already on her face.
“Haha. I guess you found me?”
This is it. The final showdown’s here.
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She wasn't expecting that, of course, and it had taken her far longer to track down the location than she would have wanted to, but she doesn't actually want a fight. If she could have just taken the radio apart with no devils to interfere, this would have been so much simpler.
(Also, she could have spent some time looking over that radio. Is that a galena cat whisker detector? Super old-school! And yet so much of it is alien to her, too! In another world, she and Venus could sit down and swap notes on something, she's sure.)
Marina smiles back, almost apologetic herself, but also set on her task. Her radio is gripped in her hand, but on its skeletal form--it's not on right now, because Marina is hoping this doesn't turn into a fight.
Still, this is really awkward!
"Hey, Venus. Sorry, but you have to get that this situation isn't really working out, right?"
Maybe she already understands? Maybe this will still be easy?
(Probably not.)
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"Surely you did not think you could hide this demonic presence from me forever? Those who shroud themselves with the masks of the devil are doomed before the unstoppable might of my Evil Fourth Eye!"
Gundam really lacks any de-escalation skills though.
"You did quite well, but the end is nigh."
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But that's different! This has been because the corridors wouldn't let him get back to his quarters for a couple of days, compounded by the eternally-wiggling tendrils that grew out of his back when he'd nearly flown out of the station five intervals ago. Wait. Was it five? No. Longer. Whatever!
More importantly, he's got a new prosthetic that he's been enjoying immensely. It killed the tendrils, and they've been withering away the more noise he's made. The prosthetic makes him look like a lopsided crab, but he's been willing to put fashion on hold in the name of some very cathartic violence.
"This devil of yours." The one he would've been clued into from the start if he'd paid attention to the initial broadcast, but he remains semi-blissfully unaware of this. "Threatened my work, broke the station open just so I'd get stuck with these--" He reaches back, grabs one of the limp tendrils and pulls. It comes off entirely, leaving him with a new prop to gesticulate with.
"Not acceptable behavior. Stand aside. Or I'm feeding you that radio." Move fast, because he has a very shaky grasp on both time and patience right now.
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"Yeah. Don't worry, Marina, I get that much." It's not said quite hopelessly, but there's already a bit of resignation in it. "And- I guess not? I probably should have thought about the whole Evil Fourth Eye thing. Haha."
But it's Tyl Regor that really gets her attention. She's - a little intimidated by him, of course. Their meetings so far haven't been too bad, but he certainly seems ready to strike out now. Her shoulders tense; her knees bend, just a tiny bit, as she keeps herself ready to move with a moment's notice. And it's that last bit of aggression that pushes her over: them with their radios, and she as the devil.
It's a doomed battle, of course. Two can stand against the devil; what chance does she have against three?
"Are you sure she did all that?" She keeps her voice at least somewhat level, despite the clear tension in her back. "Do you really think the station will go back to normal if she's gone?" Because she sure doesn't. And judging from the way she's crossing her arms, she doesn't think his argument's very convincing.
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"Some of the other devils are changing the station themselves," she explains, though she thinks Venus probably already knows, because Venus was a devil before anyone else here was, and Venus started this. "And these things change things back, even things I don't think any of you are doing specifically."
Marina turns her brella stick over in her hands, twirling it. It looks a little silly without the canopy. It's still not on, though.
"I've been tracking the signal through the communicators, and I know it's a radio-like signal, and these," the tech they found in the chapel, "give off radio-like signals, too. They have to be connected."
1/2
A truly interesting, personal narrative! --Also Venus seems far more threatened by him.
How utterly... unacceptable.
2/2
Gundam doesn't have any tentacles to dramatically rip off his person, but he can certainly gesticulate with the best of them.
"I am not so cruel as to yearn for a meaningless death." Of course if Venus believes in her cause and wishes to fight for her ideals he can understand such a thing. He'll oblige her to the bitter end.
Re: 2/2
More importantly! Or immediately, anyway: "You're stalling." He takes a step closer, dead tentacle trailing from his hand. "I'm not fond of that at all."
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But he hasn't struck yet. Venus heaves a sigh, focusing her attention on Marina (or at least trying to, with Gundam's gesticulations and Tyl Regor's- well, everything). "Yeah. You got it in one. They're all radios, only-" She doesn't step away from the wall, but she does jerk a wing in Marina's general direction. "-those are tuned to the wrong station. Or, well. I guess the right one for you guys? The heroes taking the station back to what it was. Haha."
Yeah, forgive her if she's a little bitter. She's on edge and doesn't honestly think she'll be making it out of this just yet.
She finally turns to Gundam, ready to acknowledge his grandiose announcement - and frowns softly. "It's not the Hell we wanted. But it's as close as we can get around here. A station under our control... that's not so bad, is it?" A meaningless death, he proclaims, and she can't help but laugh softly as she thinks of it. That's what it's coming down to, isn't it? She's not letting go of the devil - of herself. And she's not letting go of the one thing she's managed to really offer anyone in this place.
And if she won't, well...
No time to think about that. She takes one step back towards the wall, wings beginning to fan out to block their vision of the thing inside it. "Sorry, Gundam." She doesn't look sorry at all - upset, maybe, a bit rueful, but not a single ounce of apology. "Think you can teach me some of your eyeliner tricks once I'm back?"
Her mind's set. All that's left is to watch for who strikes first.
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And they have to live here, too, until everyone figures out how to go home. A place under control of the devils, from what Marina has experienced, feels as unsafe as the station did before. Maybe more for someone like Marina, who understands the science of metal and wiring but doesn't understand angles that are more obtuse than they look and perfectly parallel lines that intersect anyway.
This is going to be a fight, isn't it? But Marina isn't going to strike first. Her radio stays off. Let that prove her intentions, if nothing else will.
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But for some reason, not everyone here has gotten with the program. "Oh, nobody has to, but I think they will anyway." And without pausing a second more, he charges forward--and disappears, leaving only a small burst of light and a strange, wing-fluttering sound.
...For about half a second. He reappears over Venus' head, radio blaring, leading with the elbow of his new arm.
first tag... after game's end i guess?? CHASE SCENE BEGIN
And then there's a burst of light, and Tyl Regor is gone.
Venus stops in her tracks, a hundred different eyes swiveling to find where he could possibly be. She doesn't even wait the full half-second: she immediately reaches back behind her, wrapping her hand around the familiar hilt of the radio. It's been a long time, now, but it still fits into her hand; still has that comforting, terrifying weight beneath it.
She grips tight and rips it out, wiring and tendrils all snapping together as the radio bursts free. There is a sharp whine of static, a sudden flare of noise, and then a burst of light; she brings it up, holding it defensively in front of her just in time to see Tyl Regor body slamming her from above. His radio is loud, painful; his aim is true. Venus moves to stumble out of the way, but it's too late - he makes contact with a nearly musical sound.
Venus reels back from the hit, the noise and the radio both sending her off balance. But the radio in her hands - the one spewing static and light and that sweet, sweet song - let her recenter herself, and with one look at Marina she makes her mind up.
She turns and runs, light trailing behind her as she tries to make her escape.
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Marina turns her radio on and blasts silvery liquid metal on the ground. In an instant, she's an octopus, cutting through the metal like a fish in water (or an octopus in water, maybe).
If she can get to Venus and the radio first, maybe this doesn't have to be as bad as it could be.
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[Marina has been spending more time in the chapel, lately. It still feels stuffy, but it's quiet and it's easier to talk to people here than dragging people to her room, which is barely big enough for her. When it fills with machines, Marina is quick to find out. It's very exciting, but the one she's drawn to is familiar to her--a splat brella, but lacking its canopy. There's an extra button, besides just the trigger. Pressing it--
There's music filling the chapel.]
002.02 I prefer science fact to science fiction
[Marina is sitting on the floor, brella stick at her side, radio pieces strewn about her. She'd taken apart one of the radios--one that looked like a radio--and now she's turning over pieces, looking disappointed.]
It's just a radio.
003: that's cool and all, but I'd rather roll up with the brella like BLAMMO
[BLAM! BLAM!
The brella radio works like a shotgun, except it fires liquid metal instead of bullets. Still, it does a good job of splattering all over the floor in the hallway Marina is working on. The hallway is all twisted and knotted up, but with every burst of ink Marina forces it back, engineering straight angles and metal walls from all this organic impossibility.
And then, after she's satisfied, she turns into an octopus--even in her humanoid form she's silver in the places she was teal before--and vanishes into the metal just as any sea creature might vanish into water, rippling at breakneck pace down the hall to the next part of it that needs her attention.
Don't mind the noise.]
002.02
[Maybe she happened up this scene, maybe she had been looking around for people she knew again. She's not really sure. But seeing Marina (not in octopus form) this time was enough to make her feel a little better.]
You took it all apart?
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[She sighs a little, crouching down where Marina is.]
So what do you suppose happens from here?
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Did you need anything while you were working? Food, drink? I don't want you to overwork yourself.
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[Isn't it funny and weird except actually it's pretty alarming and Marina is trying not to freak out.]
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[She declined to see photo or video. Like, no thanks.] It kind of makes me never want to eat again. But I know in theory that is a little silly.
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