agogelogs | [open] don't let her eyes confuse

Entry tags:

[open] don't let her eyes confuse

WHO? Angel & you
WHAT? you must be dreaming!
WHEN? all over the event
ANYTHING ELSE? heavy, heavy warning for child abuse and drug abuse

I. WANDERLUST
The walls of the cave entrance rise up higher and higher out of strange square blocks. A corridor of vibrant stone that shimmers with strange whirls of what at seem grey, until they're looked at harder. A trickle of purple as the light catches them - and the source of it is very direct as Angel walks through the mix of peaked archways, between the eyes of great alien figures that are carved of the same stone, inanimate and look straight into the mind of those that stand before them. In their lifelessness, they watch.

It shouldn't be comfortable, but for Angel: who runs her hand over the stone - it reacts palpably to her, not just because the exposed line of her arm is glowy with markings. Bright and vibrant white, or her eyes are like headlights in the shadows of whatever this ancient place was.

But because in some way, she belongs to it. And just as soon as she might be within in touching distance, she runs a little bit further ahead, deeper and deeper into the vault of something ancient and below the earth, something rumbles, deep and dark and deadly.

You're definitely not alone in here, that much is certain.

II. YOU DIDN'T SEE WHAT SHE DID TO HER MOTHER
The kitchen of the apartment is nothing less than a domestic dream: white rooms, tiled neatly. The floors a the same polished brightness. A bowl of fruit, the arranged pictures of a family on the wall, a man with one green eye, one blue, and woman with dark, dark hair and their daughter between them. The fixtures and dressings for something so close and warm. Safe. A home.

And save for the blood splatters all over the walls, a nice looking one.

Angel stands in the middle of it all. In the middle of the kitchen, the blood - all over her face. She was younger when this happened, didn't remember that well. Too horrifying to know that she's the one that killed her mother. So the body is obscured. Hidden away, a hand that lays loose peaking around the kitchen island, the mess of that dark, dark hair on those white, white tiles. Angel looks from it, up, to her visitors, wide-eyed and confused. Her markings dulled to blue, eyes flat and staring.

She doesn't question whose in the room with her, when she hears the door rattle from the entrance. "Come on. We have to move. He's coming -" And she grabs onto the closest wrist, running up the little corridor that leads off from the kitchen.

III. THIS IS YOUR THRONE

The chair in the middle of the room is as unforgiving as the metal walls of black and yellow light. It speaks of a clean efficency. Stylish. Modern. White punctuating lines, that run down the walls, across a floor where they turn to a hexagonal pattern. The walls covered in screen that project the same face, of a man.

Removed of any affection.

And the girl strapped into it, kept down by bonds on her wrist, a collar on her throat to yank her by, isn't much better. Slumped forward, bound into the great metal chair, her shoulders are heaving with deep, pained breaths. The exposed skin crackles as she shifts in the unforgiving hold. Pushing briefly against it as her head rolls forward, chin against her chest, hair in front of her face. Down her back in marching lines of two - the plugs that pump a thick purple sludge going directly into her spine.

In front of her sit three pieces of stone. Purple, shuddering with that same light, though it's purple itself, it pulses the same as her input to it. Tied into those markings. Heavy and ancient, she matches the swirls on the stone.

The light of her body is strong, now, pulsing in out it doesn't truly go away. She is full of that light and when she looks up, her eyes are hazy, between where the hair is falling everywhere, one eye visible that looks up to the intruder.

"You have to get out, before it starts again."

It's the only warning before the voice cuts over the speaker, Angel looks up sharp, direct, tugging at the bonds that keep her again more sharply: "How's it going, Pumpkin?" The static crackles, she pulls harder and harder on the leather straps, the only sound in the room is that, the jangling creak, her sharp pants of breath. "Ah, ah, ah, - you promised to try as hard as you can, remember. We're not quitters, are we?" She says nothing and soon if she pulls any harder the leather will cut her skin. "Are we, Angel?"

The sound she makes is something like pain: she whimpers, something like a sob working up in her throat as she pushes out the words, slumping back into the chair. Shaking like the leaves that don't live in these chambers, no matter the river that runs on her skin. "No, Jack. I-I promise."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[There's absolutely no question here that Lup has any idea what's going on. She's got no idea. This is vastly beyond her in specifics; what those lights are she doesn't know, why this girl is soaked through with it she couldn't even begin to say.]

[There are some things that are obvious, though. This shit, whatever's happening, is fucked up. You don't just tie someone up to have a nice conversation, even forgetting the fact that the girl's clearly in pain. So the question of going somewhere isn't even worth thinking about. It's just plain not happening. Not because Lup is any kind of hero, but because she's got a few ounces of common decency left in her.]

[Jack. Her eyes narrow, flicking towards the projection. Jack, Jack set this up, whoever the fuck Jack is--]

[She sidles over to the side of the chair and laces her fingers through Angel's. It's enough of an answer as words would be.]

[ She comes down to simple calculations, about blast radius and the containment zones. About too quick numbers - carry the one, subtract from zero - and what do you get left with?

That in some small way, she knows she deserves to be here. Alone, strapped in. Jack - Jack wouldn't have had to do all of this, if it weren't for her. He could have had a daughter that he could bounce on his knee and her mother would still be alive and if she keeps telling herself that, the loneliness, it might be better.

What she knows she doesn't deserve, is when her eyes open and her body jumps with the contact - is the fingers threaded through hers, is the contact. Is having someone with her. ] You don't understand, I'll --

[ And above them, a machine begins to kick up, whirring, churning, the great purple sludge beginning to churn in its great containment tubes, pushing the liquid forth and whatever she was going to say, whatever warning she had this time, goes out of in a sharp burst of air. ]

I know.

[She doesn't, not in detail. She can deduce that whatever it is will probably hurt her a lot. Getting hurt hurts. It sucks. She hates it. But at the same time, she's gotten hurt before. She's died before, and died a lot. And even if it kills her here, this is just a dream.]

[Probably. She's reasonably sure that this is just a dream. 90%.]

[In the end, does it matter, though? If she dies, she'll come back. She's got an extra life under her belt. So she squeezes Angel's hand and shakes her head.]

Not going anywhere. You're not alone, okay?

[ Her voice is small, so small, so quiet. It dies like a bird in her chest, desperate in the pulse of wings that flutter against her throat. ]

Please, please don't leave me.

[ A dream and a nightmare and for that, there are things out of place, that Jack was looking down from the screens around them, that there is someone here at all - when the horror of these dreams, is the one detail of them which is always the same.

When she starts to scream, as the purple light begins to move through and burns her, burns her from the inside out. Sears her veins, remakes her anew. Kills a girl and makes a woman out of ash and chemicals and light, as her fingers go from curling to being stiff and splayed sharply, as her screams go from pained, to terrified, to beyond even a sound and Jack's voice booms out the praises: This is it, Angel, this is what you are made for! That's my girl! You're making Daddy so proud!

Was that no one ever, ever came.

The sweat pooled on her skin, the heat of her went past what a body should ever produce. As the purple chemical sludge pumps into her, it becomes apparent, very quickly, that it's killing her. ]

He doesn't remember how he got here or why, but he also doesn't really question it. Does he analyze any of his other dreams? Typically not if he can help it. But this one feels particularly off, blue eyes fixated on that family portrait with confused recognition. It looks... familiar, and he can't place why. Or maybe just one person in it does.

At the sound of a voice he's taking a step back, however, gaze casting around a room that blinds him with red and white. When. How. Why.

"Wait--" The stench of blood hits and it's a familiar one to him, still warm and turning his stomach. "Who? Who's coming?"

She pulls, hard as she can, yanking him out of the room - not that it means much, she isn't very strong. Isn't very much of anything, she has never been. Isn't the point, really, that isn't what the problem has been when it came down to it.

She wipes messily at the blood on her cheek. "My - " a bite of her lip, a lowering of her voice as she gets them around a corner. "My dad." She presses them both back into the wall - the door at the other end of the hall, opens and closes.

The footfalls step in. One after the other. The set down of something heavy. The voice speaks - her father - loud and clear. "Hey, Pumpkin, where you hiding? Daddy's got a special present for you."

Aren't there more important questions he should be asking? More important concerns? If her father is the one on the look out for them then who is on the floor? Without questioning it, though, he already knows the answer.

And he doesn't want to actually ask.

Instead his hand reaches out to cup over her mouth, eyes stern as he smothers the sound of her breathing and casts a hurried look over his shoulder. Only then does he nod to the opposite end of the hallway -- they need to keep moving.

"If he comes," he whispers, barely a sound, "then I can hold him off."

"Noctis..." it's whispered, terrified, - and she is, completely, so scared she can't think. She's come so far - done so much, sacrificed so much, she can't be back here.

Dodging low up the hallway trying to breathe as quietly as she can. To the room at the end that she frantically opens. Grabbing onto him, pulling him in after her - that too, as quiet as she can as she looks up him. "Noctis, he's a monster. You have to go - it'll be worse if you stay."

It's only ever better if she's alone - because she knows how this will go, she knows how this always will go because it's how it's always gone. "You think you can hide from me, Angel? Think you can have people other than me?"

He'll kill him, and she can't, just won't, ( not again ) ever allow it.

He hurries after her and as soon as they've entered that room his hands are on her upper arms, squeezing gently in an attempt to calm her as he stares down into a blood-splattered face. What the hell happened here? Is there even time to ask? No, comes the resounding answer in his mind.

"Angel." Noctis hears her father as he calls out her name, immediately applying it so she can hear it from a less terrifying source.

"We stay and fight together or we leave together. I'm not hearing anything else."

"I've done awful things - I don't deserve - "

But she stays, selfishly, where he's holding onto her, blood and all. Mess and all. Monster and all. Her mouth opens and closes, words that live and die unsaid. But each step is shuddering and it remains true, since she first met him and even as much as she knows how this goes: how this always goes.

Jack will find her. Because Jack will always find her. Because she's Jack's little Princess, and he will always, always come for her. The footsteps outside the room get heavier and heavier, coming up the corridor, and she curls, smaller and smaller, into herself.

" - I don't want to go back to the Core. I want to stay with you. I don't want to ever go back - "

"Angel! What the hell is this, kitten?"

"You're not going--"

The sharp bark of her name from behind him has Noctis immediately whirling around, finally met with the sight of the man that instills so much fear into this girl. He's tall with mismatched eyes and a visible anger currently twisting a cunning face, and it has Noctis reaching back to make sure Angel stays behind him.

"She isn't going anywhere." More firmly, now, and directed at Jack as he extends his arm. An upward facing palm is suddenly filled with a summoned blade, heavy and dangerous. "Back the fuck off."

He splits apart - more than one of him, all at once.

"You're a real fucking funny kid. What are you going to do with that? Throw that at me?" Jack sneers, cocksure and arrogant, a man that's killed millions. A man that will kill millions more. "You really think you can stop me - I'm Handsome freaking Jack, you get it?"

The voices talk in multiple, impossible to tell which one was the real one. Behind him, her fingers dig into his arm, nervous, but quiet for now.

He quickly forces Angel further back in a bid for more space, eyes darting from one clone to another before that sword suddenly vanishes from sight.

Only to be replaced by a spear with a vicious edge, far better for crowd control than that smaller blade would've been.

"Throwing isn't what I had in mind." As his dextrous wielding of that weapon soon proves, forced to jerk his arm away from Angel as he firms up his two-handed grip on the spear, immediately spinning it into a windmill strike. It slices through two clones at once, jabbing at the next with lightning fast movement.

"Oh come on, you seriously think some pokey stick is going to beat me?"

Jack's laughter is arrogant, sharp as glass, and at least now, she can shut it out. Does the only thing that makes sense. She ducks. Hits the ground as quick as she can to dodge out of the clones that curse and flicker as they're sliced apart. Crawling out of the way as fast as she could.

A mistake, really, when she feels the hand grab her by the back of her head. Hauling her up by her hair. Her legs out from underneath her, her hands going up to the hands that yank, trying to get them loose but it doesn't work. It never works, it was never going to work. He would always be bigger, he would always be the hero that wins at the end of the story - because he was Handsome Jack.

"Angel - quite fighting me. You're my freaking daughter - and you think you can just run off from me?"

He is a child again, slender and so frail it looks like a breath of wind could knock him over; a little boy often touched with sickness who cannot remember his parents. They were lost in the war, he knows, but that's it. Faint memories of a smile and the tone of a voice are carried in the back of his mind but there's no associations. What Yoshitsugu always had was his one friend.

Just one. The one he always survived with.

But this is not his dream, it's the one he's been pulled into. There's a strange sense of not belonging, of being somewhere wrong, but Yoshitsugu does not think about it. Touched by his surroundings with clothing to match, absorbed into it as best as possible as he goes with the flow, he accepts the hand that curls around his wrist as if it were the touch of his one friend dragging him along. Moves fast enough to keep up.

"Where?" A cough. "Can we hide?"

She can't quite remember if she had friends at this age: she must have, she reasons, looking back at it from time to time. All little girls must have friends because the videos of the echonet give her statistical averages, whether they're real or not: about how little girls are supposed to have friends. So she must have had at least one, then. Just... can't be certain.

But what she can be certain of is that Jack has rules about his daughter having friends. About who she can and can't talk too. About what she can and can't say and the first, and foremost rule remained the same. There's no one more important than Daddy, is there, sweetie?

And if he catches someone, anyone - here - after what has just happened?

"There's a cupboard, upstairs. H-He never looks in there." It's as much as she gets out when she hears the door finally creak open. No time, no time to hide. Maybe she can just make him think she's - out - how long, until he sees the body. She takes him by that hold still and drags them under the dining table in the kitchen. Desperately yanking them together in a small, huddled ball to hide where the tablecloth will cover them.

Fear permeates the air, thick and heavy in a way that sits in Yoshitsugu's chest; it's not like he's immune to the feeling but only as a child did he ever really let it show. So, of course, it does now; he's shaking a little when pulled into that ball and holds on tight to his friend, not fully aware of the nature of this danger but keenly afraid all the same.

A tickle itches in his throat.

Coughing would be the worst thing to do, though. He can't, no matter how much it hurts. Clapping a hand over his mouth he leans his head forward and tries to breathe as best he can through his nose. Can't cough. Won't cough. He'll hear! He'll hear!

(And because it's a dream she might feel that urge to cough rolling off him, the sense of sickness practically an aura as he pours everything he has into not revealing their location).

It wells up in her throat, that cough, sick in her lungs. It makes no sense. She'd never been a sick child, these markings a blessing and a curse all in one, but she can feel it pour out of him. Desperately she latches back onto him, not sure if it's him or her that might cough. Locking her bony arms either side of him, pressing her face in as - thud, thud, thud the steps come up the corridor.

"Angel. Where are you Angel? Daddy doesn't have time for your games."

Don't make a sound, don't move, don't blink, and the footsteps underneath the tablecloth and in the door frame, come into view.

The cough can't come, it can't... his throat rattles, the tickle grows worse...

And inevitably, sadly, it spills out; a sore and painful cough that echoes louder than it should and doesn't stop. Pain splits down his throat and tears begin to stream down Yoshitsugu's face. In one instinctive move he pushes himself out of the secure ball he'd made and despite the fear, despite the way that voice makes him feel, crawls out from beneath the table. Better one gets caught than both. Maybe she can stay hidden.

But still Yoshitsugu coughs as he crawls, coughs more and more until blood drips. Sorry, sorry, he's so sorry, he can't stop himself... his fragile body shakes.

It's instant the second he crawls out - Jack grabs him. Yanking him up by the back of his neck. Giving him a hard shake. "Are you kidding? Angel! This is what you're hiding from me for? Some snotty kid!"

It comes, like obvious. He shakes him, hard, then again enough to make him cough again.

"You're going to let this kid get it because you aren't willing to act your age? Alright Angel, I don't want to do this, but you're making me. Is this what you want?"

Yoshitsugu still coughs as he is pulled into the air, blood still dripping to the floor and pooling in spots too large for what falls, but he is a child who had to live rough from a young age and despite the fear welling up in his chest he has a strong fighting instinct too.

Fight. Struggle. Protect your friend. We'll survive together, won't we?

The thread of his magic had been undefined when he was a young boy, shapeless and raw, but echoes of who he would become pour out now. Little purple dragonflies start to manifest around them and dance in the air, fluttering their wings as they move; energy hums around each. There's a kind of anticipation surrounding the little illusions, as if they might... explode?

"Hit me." He splutters the words and kicks his legs. "Try to..." Cough. "Kill me. I'll go with the flow. But it'll..." Cough. "... hurt you too."

Hopefully she'll still hide.

He follows the girl slowly. Whatever he'd been doing before, he can't recall, but now he's here, exploring a fascinating cave of bizarre lights of unknown source and unusual cuts of stone. They almost look man-made with how clean some of them are. The eerie sensation of being watched overwhelms him for a second, but this girl seems comfortable here and her calm resonates.

The lights glow softly and react to her, and intrigued, he continues after her every time she's just out of reach. He thinks about calling after her, but it didn't seem right at the time. It's not until they start delving further into the cave does he feel a little anxious.

"Oy, what's down there?"

Her head turns back, and despite - that it should make her nervous, that all of this should make anyone nervous - she's calm, at ease. Her hand stays guiding to the wall, filled with such surety, of being connected to these stones, of knowing that those impassively watching eyes are waiting for her.

That as she breathes in, she can feel that rippel of almost electric current in the air.

"The only thing looking for of course: the vault. Come on, you've got your gun don't you?"

And by the logic of dreams, or maybe this strange halfway place, there's a gun there, just in reach for him to pick in the same moment, that there is one in her hands. Because of one thing she can be very sure: "You'll need it."

Oh, right, his gun. Dream logic tells him he definitely needs one along with Angel's warning, and his grip on it tightens. It feels a little strange in his grip as he's never really held a gun like this before, but his steps are a little more confident.

"The vault, right. What's in there again?"

The eyes on him, stony and cold, make him a little wary but he's used to being around electrical currents. It almost feels familiar, even if the source is something completely out of the norm for him.

"Monsters. Treasure."

She smiles, breathless, wide, all lit up, all poised and sharp as she begins to glow and glow and glow, the crackle that snaps the air. The gun - a compact pistol, brightly coloured, like a snake's bite - is lifted up above her head.

"Ready?"

Too late if he's not, she fires off a round, short and ear-splitting bursts of gunfire that are immediately drowned out as the air echoes with the scream of Rakks. They fly out like a bat swarm, but not half so forgiving - their targets are direct, straight for them.

Think quick, Henry.

His eyes widen as she glows, the light intensifying like an overcharged beam katana, ready to blow up or something. He watches her aim and follows it with his eyes, strengthening his stance while also readying his bizarrely colored gun.

"Yep, always."

The moment she starts shooting, he sees them. Giant bird-like creatures, more like dinosaurs, and he fires a few rounds to bring one down while more swarm around. He rolls out of the way as one swoops at him with claws extended, trying to swipe at him.

With a grunt, he shoots one more fire after the retreating Rakk. Then automatically, out of nowhere, he slaps in some ammunition from somewhere (maybe in his pocket??) and fires again.

"How many more left?!"

With two down, it doesn't seem like much of a dent but maybe the girl has had more luck.

They screech, swooping and diving - screeching a racket between the bullets - and her laughter, clear and bright as she runs. Running, skidding in the dirt, she kicks it up and the markings flow their light around the gun and around her, crackling and sparking as she fans the hammer of the pistol quick and fast, one long step after another, straining with the breath.

"Enough." Is the call, running ahead further into the cavern. The walls shimmer, the earth alive underfoot, she jumps, lands heavy on both feet. "C'mon."

A rakk shrieks as it swoops in front of her and laughing - laughing she empties the last of her clip into its face. A splatter of blood on her cheek that she wipes to a messy streak as it crashes and slides past her feet to hit a rock and stop. There she waits for him to catch up to her in the breaks between their attacks - and when he does, she grins still recklessly. "Don't you know - ? This is Pandora. There is always something else to kill."

Angel ahead of him, he quickly follows her, shooting when he needs to whenever an injured Rakk dives for him. Her energy is perhaps a bit contagious, as he's grinning from ear to ear by the time he's within earshot of her.

"Sounds like my kind of party."

Then he surveys the area briefly. He also notices the mess she's made of herself, but decides to leave it alone. Killing is a messy business and no one's got time to clean up!

"Now, shall we? I can only imagine what awaits in the vaults."

Edited 2017-12-31 06:41 (UTC)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[open] don't let her eyes confuse

iii

no subject

no subject

no subject

ii... go hard or go home

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

ii.

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

i

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject