epidemiology | EVENT ★ BACK TO THE FUTURE

Entry tags:

EVENT ★ BACK TO THE FUTURE

BENDED TIME

As outlined in the OOC post, things start to slow down and grow quiet in Oska for a few days as the bugs crawl away and slowly disappear. But then the cocoons hatch. Fully grown temporal insects claw their way out of them, each about the size and temperament of raging bulls.

They come out far more aggressive and eager to fight, are are willing to take on anything that moves with jaws and claws alike. Except, of course, another insect — when two of them encounter each other, they enter into a mating dance and then slip away into another dimension, leaving behind only the temporary ghosts of years gone by. If you can’t find a way to pierce that thick shell to take one down, better find another one to pair it off with instead. Just try not to get bit while leading them around and find yourself suddenly 5 years old again.

The insects aren’t the only thing going on in Oska, though. As it turns out, unicorns really hate this adult form of the temporal insects, and will start kicking their way out of their stalls in the stables to get at the insects in an attempt to impale or trample them. According to Uruz they’re gallant warriors, but not always quite cut out to take on a bug, and can easily get themselves hurt or killed. She would really appreciate recruits taking a moment to recapture any stray unicorns they may come across and leading them back to the stables. Try to avoid any insects on the way, or you’ll find yourself suddenly fighting insect and irate unicorn, which is no one’s idea of a good time.

The lake is getting more active, too. All the fighting has woken up something in the depths of it. Dark red tentacles sometimes creep up onto shore — and don’t worry, this time they don’t belong to a sea goddess. The tentacles don’t attack unless attacked, and can in fact be quite agreeable. Nodes along the length of them act as primitive eyes, which see well enough to interact with anyone nearby. They’re also all a little peckish. Toss a tentacle a bit of food and watch it curl around and ingest it using tiny mouths on the underside. It might even be willing to play a few rounds of fetch or slap a bug into the sky for you if you put it in a good mood with a morsel of food.

The senior ALASTAIR members can be seen out and about and doing their part, too. Uruz and Dagny fight as a team, centaur and elf, sometimes fighting back to back and sometimes as mount and rider. They’ll stop and lend a hand, but the cats are a little less generous. Cherenkov and Crowley fight inseparably and use magic and science in deadly combination to ward off and destroy the bugs, but can usually only be seen darting on their way from one place to another. They have a lot of magitek to repair in the destructive wake of the insects. Pomarr, neither as senior nor as invested in actively picking off the bugs, offers shelter near a tentacle-free portion of the lake, calling down storms to toss away bugs for her and anyone in the vicinity.

OOC NOTES

This log spans a week ICly. Characters will find themselves beginning to understand each other again as the bugs first vanish, as the effects of the cats’ work on the magitek pays off. The translation problem will be completely fixed by the time the cocoons hatch. All of the bugs will have been killed or shipped off by the sixth day, leaving the last day before their departure to the next mission blissfully relaxing. Any temporally misplaced recruits will be back to normal by the last day, as well.

A reminder to anyone still texting: the texting feature of magitek jewelry operates based on thought! There are no physical keyboards, recruits merely think the message that they’d like to send to another recruit.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ Simulator Room, her old friend. Or her first friend, and her first place of a bug encounter. She doesn't know if she misses the smaller bugs more than she dislikes the present bull-sized ones, but she can admit, the bull-sized ones are really intimidating.

It's in the process of having outrun the aggressive territorial display of one (before it had, unbeknownst to Chihiro, become entranced with the sight of another of its kind) that she's ended up in an active simulation. Chihiro's not even sure if that's supposed to happen, or it's a side-effect of the problems caused by the bugs the last week and then some; she looks around the simulation at the apparent desert she's standing in. A sign in the middle distance reads, "Perfection, Nevada." No place she knows about.

There's no sign of any adult bugs, or cocoons, in sight. Which might not say much, considering the "apparent" landscape... and the reality that one might very well be missing a cocoon otherwise disguised by the simulation itself.

She steps further into the area, hands coming close to her stomach as she looks around for anyone else who might be in here. Did they start this simulation? Or was it already running for them, too? ]

Hello? Is anyone in here?

[ a mistake had been made. in the search for obi-wan, anakin came upon this room. several of the alien bugs had been eating at the walls, which anakin quickly dispatched. he meant to live. but the technology in the room was impessive, and rendered partially nonfunctional after the creatures' appetites. he got it working again: the voice asked for training parameters to which anakin replied "surprise me." that was mistake number one.

mistake number two was not checking that the room still recognized the voice command to end the simulation.

he hops from stone to stone ( the things don't climb. ) he keeps an eye out for the control pads scattered throughout the room, hoping to find one a short leap rather than a long run away. the force has proven unreliable with the temporal chaos bleeding across it thanks to the bugs. thus it comes a surprise when he senses another presence. the sound of a voice — young — follows and anakin jumps from outcropping to outcropping in search of — ]

Hey! [ he waves at her; a boy in long robes. ] Climb something high! Get off the ground!

[ she doesn't understand the request as far as the why. chihiro blinks, but she moves even as it registers. stopping to ask why seems counter productive if there's a purpose. the worst she has to endure is feeling silly if it was just for the heck of it; instead she jumps from a stump next to a boulder up the boulder itself. get off the ground leaves her with a concept of go high.

which has her scaling the rock outcroppings her initial boulder is nestled up to, feeling the heat of a simulated sun beat down in the dryness of this unfamiliar desert. a puff in the sands and dirt behind her betrays a hint of what moves beneath the surface. she sees none of it, only coming to a stop because she's as high as she can get, fifteen feet off the ground and only now pausing to look for where the boy who'd called out stands now.

she finds him, cups her hands around her mouth and calls out: ]

What was that for?

[ the moving, the jumping, the hurry to get up instead of out. ]

[ at least she didn't hesitate, he thinks with a measure of approval. sometimes people don't. they're usually the ones who ignore him, then bend to a word from obi-wan. anakin doesn't resent him for it; obi-wan is a jedi knight, and a great one. people should listen to him. but sometimes it gets annoying.

he moves swiftly over the boulders. leaps a tad too high and inches too far to be a purely human effort. the long jedi robes snap in the air behind him; the unfamiliar silver lightsaber remains clipped to his belt. ]

There's something else here! [ he calls back. the gap separating them is a wide one. he could feasibly jump down. but he should also be able to use the force to manipulate the training simulation. unfortunately, every time he tried, he only seemed to make it harder.

and now there is another person in the room with him.

balancing on the very edge of the rock, anakin points down. ]

It's underground. You haven't seen it?

[ It's like watching someone in half-flight for a moment; Chihiro can't recall seeing anyone jump in the same ways. Perhaps the most athletically inclined could? She doesn't know.

What she does know is that when warned, she should take things seriously before deciding to act. She moves closer to the edge of the boulder she's on, peering down at the sand and scrubland. It's a puff of dust that catches her eyes, one that turns into a trail as she can see the ground be displaced in a lazy arc that moves between her cluster of stones and rock and his. She gestures with her hand at the rolling movement on the ground. ]

No, but is that it? I can see the ground doing something strange!

[ Her hand falls back to the rock, dislodging one of the small stones settled there. Cascading down the side, it hits and bounces and strikes the dirt with a dull thud.

The lazy arc stops, turning into a straight charge with alarming speed. Snake-like creatures burst out of the dirt and sand to feel around blindly, one grasping mouth glomming on to the rock and pulling it back down into the earth. Her eyes widen, head jerking back as she stares across the gap at Anakin. ]

What were those? Underground snakes?!

[ he was on his feet, lightsaber in hand, ready to leap down if she was caught— she wasn't, but he does not readily relax. ]

No. It feels much bigger! I think those are just its tentacles.

[ some creature similar to a dianoga. one that lives on land, rather than water. and about as treacherous. anakin, casting a look around, comes to a decision. ]

Stay there! I'll find a way to you!

[ some…how… ]

[ it feels bigger? she edges backward, holding firm to the rock with her hands. she has no desire to move after he says something like that, though she has no idea that each movement she makes is broadcast loud and clear to the creature lurking under the surface. ]

It's like a land squid?

[ her nervousness in looking over the landscape doesn't preclude her calling out. ]

Be careful!

[ advice she doesn't quite take herself, pushing up to her feet to look over the region around them and see if there's any other means of staying above ground, or a more roundabout way to get in the same area. maybe if these rocks arc around far enough in the other direction? (as always, her grasp of how the sim room works is loose at best.) ]

Hey! Do the rocks run back toward that ridge for you, too? The really tall one over that way!

[ squids do exist in the star wars universe ( never call a quarren that, however, ) so that is one reference anakin understands. he starts to nod, then looks over where she's pointing. he curses the lack of a macrobinocular, not that they would be of much help in this room. if the design lost detail in distance, the scope would be less than useless. ]

I think so. I'll go around! [ he yells across the space dividing them. ] Wait there for me! You'll be fine! The tentacles don't reach that high.

[ he hopes.

please don't try to prove him wrong, room. ]

[ the room works very hard on trying to prove him wrong. as it is, when the snake-like tentacles start patting at her collection of boulders, there's a puff of air and dirt that shows at least one of the ground squid is following Anakin's progress.

Waiting is never easy. Chihiro herself starts pacing, using her eyes to judge distances and keep track of what the tentacles are doing. The first time she feels the boulders underneath her rock, she holds her arms out to the side, balancing. The second time she falls to her knees to better hold on. Smaller stones bounce down to the ground, , the overall pile holding firm. ]

Are they testing this...?

[ Tentacles reach up the sides of the rock, grasping and trying, inexpertly, to pull them loose. It doesn't work well. The graboid pulls its tentacles back in, circling around this rock cluster again, testing different angles. Can it dislodge the prey it can hear perched up above?

She's not sure she can see her companion here properly or not, but in case he hasn't seen this happening, Chihiro feels she needs to try and let him know. Still sitting, holding on to the boulder's surface, she cups her hands around her mouth and shouts in the general direction of the rocks. ]

Be careful! They're trying to shake the boulders loose if they can!

[ Ending with a yelp as her rock cluster is charged and hit sideways, causing some boulder rocking and dust resettling. Geez...! ]

[ anakin's priority was different: find the quickest way to her. he didn't think the room would actually kill them. the room wouldn't actually kill them, right? no one would build a training room to those levels of danger. then again, he had never been in a training sim this convincing before.

he hears the shout as he's approaching the end of his rock pile. the trail of dislodged earth follows behind, then underneath. unsure if he heard her right, ] What? [ and forced to nearly swallow his tongue in surprise when the rock he was standing on shifted. a jump carried him back to safety as the rock sank. tentacles exploded from the ground, snapping at the air like mouths themselves.

the lightsaber ignites and slices the "heads" clean off. the creature emits a horrible screech. it retreats underground. anakin seizes the tiny window: he runs and jumps —

— and lands on sand. the injured one senses him as does the one hounding chihiro. anakin pounds ground as long as he can, jumping again barely ahead of a furious whipping at air. another head goes flying. and he scrambles up the boulders to where chihiro is still waiting. ]

We have to run! [ run where? is the obvious next question. he spots it in the distance, across a stretch of empty, dangerous sand: one of the control bases for the room. if they're to have any chance of getting out, that will be it. anakin points to it. ]

You have to get there! Can you run?

[ her heart's in her throat when she first sees his rock come under attack. the way he moves is incredible, reminding her of a different boy, dressed in traditional clothing. dark hair with green undertones; but she shakes that off. even at this distance, she can tell his hair is brown.

he has a sword, she thinks, but it's light and familiarity at the same time, puzzling when she has to shake her head and try to understand the burst of familiarity. it's all shelved when she sees him land, watching him run from the impossibly fast creatures. what kind of simulation was this frightening? training to survive shouldn't be an exercise in barely avoiding death. should it?

(she doesn't know.)

she steps forward when he's on her cluster of boulders, eyes flitting over him before she turns, looking in the same direction he is. her eyes don't see what he sees, not at first; it takes a moment and her squinting against the haze and glare to spot what he's pointing toward. such a direct presence he is. ]

There?

[ she grits her teeth, steeling her shoulders as she turns her head to look at him. her fingers curl into fists at her sides, but she nods, a firm movement of her head paired with eyes that refuse to look away. her heart is racing in her chest, and she knows she can make herself as close to flying as she can without falling if she must. she's outraced the improbable before. she can feel it, the wind whipping past as she moves. ]

Yes. I can!

[ but it's not waiting for a cue by then; the dust of the monsters below the surface, the decapitated snakes of their tentacles, all generate their own fervency in this desert landscape. she moves forward, one glance back to anakin to make sure she was on the right path, too late for her to decide to do anything else when she slides down and makes her own leap, stumbling before breaking into a run.

he's quite likely faster than she is, but she's terrified and focused. the fear flows through her, acknowledged, and reminded that she understood and appreciated its necessity, even as her feet pounded against the sand and shrub between the boulders of her temporary sanctuary and the lone control base dictating the reality of this room as a whole. the creatures react to her sounds, one diverting in an arcing curve, the other only hesitating to determine what the other prey will do. if anakin is following after the ten year old that just bolted under what she presumed was his request, the second creature will be arrowing far more directly at the both of them. ]

[ he does jump after her. for a moment, looks as if he would follow her. but his acrobatic leaps ( meant to attract attention ) don't quite follow the straight line she follows. and the intensity of his expression is aimed not at the pad, but at the ground under which he can sense the constructions of the room.

she's fast. but the aliens are fast too.

the lightsaber plunges into the ground to the hilt. the ground shudders, and even through the feet of earth, a shriek raises the fine hairs on the back of his neck. tentacles explode out of the earth, then the hideous true maw of the beast, a pallid creature whose face tapers into a beak-like mouth. anakin whirls away. more of the tentacles drop wriggling to the ground, but one snakes around his ankle and knocks him off his feet.

panic rises up his throat. anakin forces it back down. when it tries to pull him in, the lighsaber flashes. the beak splits in half, an opening that follows it down to its neck. it shudders and screams and grows still. but one of his feet remains awkwardly trapped and when he turns — hands gripping at the loose earth, coughing dust and sand — he sees the unmistakeable shifting of the ground catching up to her.

anakin's heart is in his mouth. he throws a hand out. the force pushes her the last few yards toward the pad. ]

Turn it off!

[ she's thrown forward with a kind of general force she doesn't understand, almost like having a particularly strong wind at her back. the recollection is swift and piercing; a young boy, older than she is, the wind of his passage; falling through the air.

Turn it off!

she doesn't hesitate, scrambling to pull herself around the panel to slam down on the emergency shut down switch. the whole of their scenery goes still, the creature close to her feet even now an unmoving hill in the sands. anakin's defeated creature ceases to bleed, a still life left painted on the world around his feet. ]

Got it!

[ the colours fade to grey. there is no desert; there are no monsters at their feet. there are silver walls and muted lights. there are quiet whirring fans, and lightly scuffed floors, used to seeing many feet in their days. there are panels of light that flicker and go steady, and a panel that awaits further input.

her knees go to jelly. chihiro stumbles, moving his way, a blend of concern and euphoria for the end of that horrible scenario. what kind of training was that? an exercise in waiting? in fear? she doesn't know. all she does know: ]

Are you okay? Thank you.

[ anakin releases the breath he was hardly aware of holding. when she moves toward him, he struggles to a sitting position. smiling, he shakes his head. ]

You turned it off. [ fair is fair, and she played an important role. looking around the room, how small it looks in comparison to the vast dry expanse, he chuckles to himself. ] Guess we have to be careful with the training sims.

[ lightsaber still in his hand, anakin climbs to his feet. he clips to his belt. facing chihiro again, he inclines his head in a small, respectful bow. ]

I'm Anakin. Sorry I yelled at you before.

[ she bows in return, near automatically, straightening up with a look of surprise on her face. she knows that name, but she hadn't expected to hear it again right now, let alone when... huh. ]

Anakin?

[ maybe he is? younger features throw her off, because she's not used to looking for the children or young adults in the adults that people become. ]

It's okay, Anakin-san. Though um... I think I've met you before? When you're older, except it was here, and it wasn't that long ago.

[ she's not sure, and it shows not only in her thoughts, but the uncertain way she holds herself as she looks him over, searching for details that'll help confirm or deny her thoughts. ]

You were very kind to me before, too.

[ anakin blinks in surprise. before? he doesn't remember… when she looks at him, he looks down at himself too. as a jedi, he owns little and less. the robes that mark one of his order; tools and rations clipped to his belt; the black-and-silver lightsaber he found. he still does not know whom it belongs to, though something about it feels like his…

the biggest difference is the skinny braid over his right ear, the one that marks him for a padawan not-yet-a-knight. but as far as anakin knows, this is the first he's seen her. the first he has been on this planet. the mysteries of the force, however, elude him still as his masters are wont to remind him. maybe this is one more time. ]

I'm sorry. I've never seen you before. [ he smiles at her, a little uncertain. ] But I'm glad you're all right. Now and before. [ he stumbles over the words a little in his awkwardness. ]

[ she simply nods, not pressing a point that ultimately only matters to her. ]

You're right.

[ and he is. seeing her as an adult means he hadn't seen or met her as a younger man. she straightens the edge of her shirt, setting her shoulders back. she appreciates his kindness all the more for the lack of recognition. he's a good person. she feels that through to her core.

so she smiles, unfettered, and nods her head. ]

I'm glad you're all right too. Thank you again. Though... it might be better if we get out of here for now.

[ and in the end, outside of a trapped room with simulation settings that aren't respecting sensible or logical limitations, choosing to tangle with the angry insects outside its walls may very well be the better plan of action. for whatever else it may bring. ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

EVENT ★ BACK TO THE FUTURE

anakin | simulator woes (let me know if this needs tweaking!)

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject