The Fifteen Strangers Mods (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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15strangers2019-05-22 09:23 pm
strangerpeople) wrote in 15strangers2019-05-22 09:23 pm
Entry tags:
FINAL INVESTIGATION
[The morning of the last day-the day of the deadline promised by the Elder Steward--there is a loud CRACK that echoes through the Mansion. It comes above, over, and around them.
Indeed, it seems to originate from outside.
Those who go outside will find themselves staring at a sky that is cracking everywhere. The cracks Osomatsu had seen before had somehow spread over the days unchecked. Now, the cracks become larger and larger, until finally, the sky itself breaks.
Glass-like pieces fall downwards as it shatters, dissipating lone before they hit the ground into sparkles. A cool breeze suddenly blows through the garden, while the sun suddenly appears for the first time, shining high in the sky. A...slightly creeping-looking, laughing sun, but that doesn't seem to be an illusion, unfortunately. Also it doesn't look ready to swoop down to attack them, which might be a small comfort.
The hole in the wall that had been made earlier is still there, large enough to crawl through. And when they do, the Strangers will find themselves in a more open grassy field, with a beach to the south.
The nice weather and grass, however, is not all that is there. It's clear there are other places in this complex to explore.]
[Before anyone can react, there is the sudden telltale ticking that begins in their heads, and their investigation scrolls appear. It's clear that the Stewards have started a countdown for them to get to the Temple, which sits beyond their immediate area, within a forest of trees that the grass transforms into. But, perhaps, the Strangers can use this to their advantage. Now, they know they have a time limit to search these places for more information about just why they are there.
Perhaps, now, they might have a chance to find something useful.
There are six strangers left. Best get to work.]
EVIDENCE
He will, however, notice that as he gets close enough, he will start to get a headache.]
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You know what, before going any further, he should probably see if his power can give him anything.... He doesn't have any particular time to try to focus on.
But hey, maybe looking at the future will tell him if they get out of here or not.]
EVIDENCE-An undignified end
Then--
is suddenly plunged into pain.
He--no, it’s a woman, so she falls against a column, gasping for air, as she holds her arm. Not that it will make any difference, and she knows it. She is mortally wounded. If she doesn’t do something soon, she knows will die.
Nearby, there is an incredible power that Arthur doesn’t need any extra power or ability to feel what is nearby, stalking her with a quiet, deep fury. Of course. She did betray those who had thought her to be their friend. And the one hunting her--well, he had been angriest of all when he realized what she had done. She had underestimated just how powerful he truly was-even without the tools, he crushed her like a hammer does a pebble.
But she doesn’t regret what she’s done. All she feels is anger-her own sister had dared to betray her to him, of all people-but, as the power stalks further away through the trees, she also sees, and feels, something else.
She feels an opportunity.]
Ha…
[She stumbles forward, pain wracking her body as it tries to betray her with its mortality, towards the figure of the giant golem that was hidden behind another column. She’d come to this town for a reason. Her henchman was here, and he had skills. Special skills, that would help her to survive.
And of course, she was more than just a mere Witch. She had her own special skills. Now, it was time to utilize them.
Ha ha...you...will not end...me...Death...will not find me…
As she finally comes up to the golem, Arthur will realize that it is, indeed, the same golem that the Younger Steward had patrolling the bedroom on the fourth floor. She places a bloody hand on it, and begins to mumble.]
Kumo, kumo, spider, spider…
[She begins to glow purple, as does the golem.]
Thread, thread, weave…!
[A flash of spider threads, before suddenly, Arthur’s vision suddenly changes. He is suddenly a spider, a small one, staring upwards at a woman with a massive aura around her. The aura flares, and then suddenly vanishes, as a soul pops out of her with a strangely squishy sound, before being sucked into the golem. As this happens, the body starts to disintegrate into pieces. No-other spiders. Hundreds. Thousands.
And like that, she is dead. But she, unlike so many of her victims whose images flash through her mind-the Witches who trusted her, countless innocent lives who had been infected by her madness, the humans who were lucky enough to have become weapons, even many of the fifteen themselves-unlike them, when she dies, she made sure she would find a way back. Her body is broken, but she herself is still aware. Thousands upon thousands of her eyes begin to scatter with their orders from her spell.
Gather information. Watch. Wait.
And one day, she may yet return in whole. It is just a matter of time.
Her madness must be inevitable.
As is the sudden jolt back to the present, for once more Arthur is back where he’s been the past month. As if he had never been a spider, or dying. Again.]
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Was that her? The Lady? She was hurt. Dying. And that- was that really the future? She turned into spiders. Had to be the Lady. Ohhh, this is good info. And maybe he can use this. Tell them their precious Lady is doomed.
He....needs to catch his breath, though. He should probably be concerned that the sensation of dying is bothering him less and less, but he isn't. Is that alongside the lack of fear? It doesn't exactly get easier, but....he can keep going.
In fact, he will keep going. Alright future, what else do you got?]
[1/2]
No.
Instead, he finds himself in the past.
Its--]
EVIDENCE: Beyond fifteen ((CW: allusions to skinning someone alive, body horror))
Arthur will know this figure he is in. It is the girl with the pigtails, and she is panting, blood on her face as she looks down at the swirling floor filled with gaping teeth and staring eyes. She looks up, frenzied, at the figures in front of her. She is hurt. Badly. If she survives it will be a miracle.
She knows there is no miracle coming, not for her, or for her partner. They failed. Now, after days of torture, of being strapped down and ripped apart for answers by their captors, they are going to die; it’s just a question of when, now.
Arthur would know the man with the third eye all too well; he stares at her, a smile on her face, as the Elder Steward strides forward, irises multiplying and contracting like a fly’s, towards the rotator.]
Hmmm.
[The girl’s voice chokes as the Elder Steward pulls up the head of the boy tied to the rotator. He gives the Elder Steward a glare, before spitting on him. The Elder Steward responds by stepping back, allowing the figure to lash forward, plunge his fist into the boy’s chest, and then-
The boy shatters into hundreds of fleshy pieces, bouncing on the ground like glassy gumballs all around the girl, before melting into a puddle of flesh-colored water. The girl’s screams are cut off, when the water suddenly leaps up and grabs her by the throat.]
HNNNGH--
[The three eyes are suddenly on her an instant later. They grow to immeasurable size, as the figures voice speaks.]
So...these two say, in that happy future you strive for...I was skinned alive.
[Her eyes widen, and her heart beats ever faster. They read her mind. That machine they had strapped her to--they knew, they knew--]
Put in a body of my oWn skIN…i woNdEr wHat woUld hapPen to YoU…
[The girl screams, but it is too late. Unbelievable pain shoots through her skin, and thank god she is plagued by the nightmares, because seeing this girl as she was put through this special kind of hellish end would have been unbearable. Instead, she simply becomes a her-shaped vegetable, as her skin is hacked, then boiled, then at last slowly and methodically peeled from her in one piece. Then, without ceremony, her body becomes mashed potatoes, and in her last moments, she sees her soul float from her, then grabbed by the laughing toothy Weapon, and then shoved into the new bag that was her skin and--
And then Arthur is back. Oh god. Oh god.
What did that girl go through?]
Oh sweet jesus
None Arthur is aware of, at any rate - he's screaming long before he comes back to himself. His cry is loud and long and pained, and he's crumpled to the ground, hands clutching at his head.
If anyone comes to investigate his screams, that's how they'll find Arthur. A mess on the grass, eyes wide and unseeing, gripped in some unimaginable horror. This is the cost of being the Approach. He can see things no one else can - and he'll carry them with him for the rest of his life.]
this will end well, i'm sure
It's too much time - if Arthur's having some kind of fit, if he's bleeding, it's too much time - he can't panic once he's there, can't let himself - can't see anyone but Arthur, no matter what his eyes are telling him.
He kneels, breathing ragged, and for a moment freezes with his hand at Arthur's shoulder, Arthur who is staring at nothing, still screaming - it may mean getting attacked or thrown up on when the boy comes back to himself, but the best (the only) thing Eric can think of for a night terror in the middle of the day is to ignore the screams and pull Arthur into a rough sort-of hug.]
You're not alone. Can you hear me? You're not alone, you're not there.
Emeto cw
...well, it would be both, if there were anything for him to throw up. He hasn't eaten in three weeks now. There's water to spit up alongside bile, but it's hardly as foul as it could be.
He's stopped screaming now, and if Eric is determined to hold him Arthur comes back to the present a bit more. He's still shaking violently, though.
Several gasps of breath later - some deep, some shallow - his voice is hoarse from the abuse, and cracking. Quiet.]
...Eric...?
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Yes, I'm right here. I'm real, at least I think I am.
[There are boys this young dying in trenches, a world away. Perhaps not so many now as a few years ago, but nevertheless, it strikes him how damned stupid he's been to think his own world any better than this one.]
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It was-- I was her again. The pigtailed girl. [He swallows hard, trying to keep more bile down.] The one whose partner is on the wheel. The skeleton.
[He's seen the remains of explorers who met gruesome, awful fates. And he's seen worse - not all the people of Gotham died in the blast. Some went slow in the days after, of injury or infection. The first world Arthur knew was hell on earth.
And yet this was worse. Perhaps because it was precise, targeted torture. Perhaps because the girl did die. He's died several times now...
Tears are budding at his eyes, but they go unnoticed. Eric asked him, back at the investigation of Akko's death, how his visions work. Whether he was reliving the events. If he remembers the answer, that may well explain Arthur's state now.]
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[That Arthur has to live through what he sees has not been something abstract for Eric since what Franciscus had seen came out into the open. It was worse, after. Now it's just wrenching, like a hook in his chest being twisted around, seeking to pull forth his wriggling red soul.
It isn't mechanical, the way he rubs Arthur's back. It's methodical. He's trying to give some point of reference to the here-and-now to both of them, something that isn't torture that apparently didn't even leave a skeleton behind. Gentle pressure and the heavy fabric of a sturdy coat are hopefully equally removed from it.
He doesn't care about being splashed with spit and bile. He'd ended up in the same state just thinking what Jun's last moments must have been like, nothing close to actually experiencing it - they've counted on Arthur to die again and again and again. Even Elizabeth Bartley's magnificent war didn't kill men more than one time apiece.]
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It probably isn't comforting that Arthur's head continues to loll forward and back. His shaking won't stop, either. The deaths he's gone through have gotten worse and worse.
Akko - a hit on the head, not even the killing blow. She was unconscious before she was strangled.
Franciscus - a single stab straight to the heart. He bled out quickly and his suffering wasn't long.
Jun - stabbed, and then crushed, dying far more slowly. Arthur saw this vision three times.
Pigtails - far worse than he could have imagined. Slow and tormented. Every second of it, every excruciating sensation, burned into his mind and memory.]
Mm....ash... Mashed... [He struggles to find words. He'll have to report this, he knows. Even if he doesn't manage to put it in the scrolls, he has to be able to tell them....
A picture is worth a thousand words, but there's no way. He won't show that one to anyone. Never, ever, ever. He'll review it himself if he absolutely has to, but...he couldn't inflict that on any of the others. They don't deserve that. No one deserves that.]
.....potatoes.
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[Krone crests a hill. In one hand she's holding two large sandwiches. The jar of two souls is under her other arm.]
I got you a sand-wich... This one is no strings attached... But you might not to eat first... There's something you might want to look at... It won't be pret-ty...!
[Finally close enough to almost touch, Krone looks down at the tableau and peers into Eric's troubled face, the protective position he's taken.]
...That bad?
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[The cello is not snapping a string again, but it's being played roughly, with fingers far up the neck - Eric's voice is soft and low instead of being high and strident, but the speed and cadence of his speech betray his feelings. He hates whoever did that, but he doesn't know who it is. He feels trapped, helpless, and he hates not being able to do anything to help anyone, it's enough to make him want to weep....
He reaches up, trying to still the way Arthur's head is rocking. He's moving like that, he's still shaking - is he having a fit? He spoke, he can't be, but - ]
It's either that or the vision he... experienced has put him into some sort of state of seizure.
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Food grabs his attention fairly quickly. And Eric can still his head. Reeling still, still feeling - or imagining he's feeling - his own skin--
No
Focus.]
He- he was there. The one that killed Emma.
[Food. Starved though he is, right now the thought of eating turns his stomach. But not as much as what Krone brings with the food. His eyes snap to and lock on the jar.]
Th-That.... It's hers. The angel soul. Why do you have it...?
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Arthur is remembering a young witch's death, though, and this also isn't even what Krone actually expected, so she's very serious and attentive, not interrupting for a second.]
...they and that thing were working together so closely? Giriko had these in his house... [She jerks her head back. You know. Yonder. And yet there is a tightness in her fingers, a hardness in her eyes. Almost like she refuses to hear any shit talked about Giriko just yet?]
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[He forces a swallow, and another shuddering breath. Come on. Pull it together.]
They.....they boiled and skinned her alive...
[So now they know. Exactly what Arthur just went through. The worst of it, anyway...]
There was.....another too, spiders, but they- she-- later, details later, I can't right now... There's gotta....be more to find, right? Find it....please....
[He has no idea what the weird headache machine thingy is but he bets it's important, and gets the feeling they're not done yet. He's useless right now, though, he'll be lucky if he's functioning halfway decently by....whatever comes next.]
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[She puts down the plate of sandwiches - mouths at Eric that the other one is for him - and??? Okay here we go to the headache machine???]
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GATHER THE SCRAPS, PUT THEM IN HER REPAIR SLOT, AND THEN THEY'RE BACK TOGETHER!
WASSIT SAY]
EVIDENCE
Neither are looking at the camera, instead looking at each other, inside what looks like a courtyard.]
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I know it's probably the last thing in the world you want to do and I understand why, but we don't know what's to come and you'll need your strength. Please eat something? I can't feed you like a bird.
[Surprisingly reasonable words from a man who keeps seeing dark hair where there is plainly blond if he turns his head away. At least he isn't seeing glasses, too. Though that might be better, honestly....]
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[He's struggling not to get caught in it again. The first was so tame. Despite the death, despite the spiders. By comparison it was nothing.
Food. Sandwiches.... It's strange, to be both starving and repulsed at the sand time.]
I don't....think I can... [He wants to but god, could he even keep it down? He can smell the Hollows again, and the stench of burning human flesh.]
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[If he focuses on acting like "a father" he won't so desperately miss his own. If he focuses on making sure Arthur is stable he will be himself. Those who carry the spear support those who are bound by the whip, this is how it has been for a century....]
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