Don't break things is a usually pretty good rule of thumb. Don't let yourself get killed. I wouldn't stay in Agent Washington's room if you end up there. And if you do end up there, I'd say come here after if you don't die.
Have a pretty good track record of exhausting people who manage to survive that room because surviving is still a terrible mental and emotional strain.
Being a good person is generally a good idea unless you find Epsilon's room. That one you try to leave as quick as possible. Don't know what's in there, don't remember why, but it's probably terrible, and very dangerous. I'm pretty sure the one memory I was actually guarding last time involved him.
Looking around is generally fine as long as you're prepared for me to not be as nice as I am on the train.
The only ones who can travel between rooms is the True Heart and Anomalies. It's very bad if I or another part started traveling between rooms. That means the walls are breaking and that means how we cope is breaking and that is all bad.
The room you came through connects to several rooms, the primary 'faces' more or less.
[The left table has an assortment of items. It has a pistol, a keychain version of the laser sword, a hospital band, a dog collar, a rock, a piece of obsidian, a piece of mirror, a red crystal, and a pin for a military captain.]
[He's tired. He is exhausted in his soul and he is so close. He is so very close to just getting away from the shitshow that is his life. No more being taken advantage of, no more lying, no more getting shot in the back, no more being left for dead.]
[He is tired, but there is a way to get AWAY and he will not let anything get in the way of that.]
[Seeing the Meta is like a shock of ice through his veins and he's fighting the urge to hope. He can see that Maine is distant, cold, this isn't his friend, he's too damaged, and he asserts his dominance in the mission because while he trusted Maine, he does not trust the Meta.]
[Maybe there will be something-]
[No, don't focus on that, focus on the mission.]
[So he does, he gets to the valley, he looks for them, he hears the explosion, and he stops the fight to demand the Epsilon unit.]
[Simmons is confused.]
[Of course he is.]
[Doesn't matter.]
[It doesn't matter it doesn't matter it doesn't matter.]
[They're not ANSWERING HIS QUESTION and he wants the answer and instead they're just talking, demanding questions, and he's not playing this game with them, not again, he needs Simmons to understand he is NOT fucking around because they're idiots.]
[(Idiots who helped him.)]
[Idiots who fucked him over.]
[(It wasn't likely on purpose, they wouldn't have helped if it was.)]
[It doesn't matter.]
[He shoots the robot.]
[But that's not enough, is it? No, it's a robot, they can fix a robot, but the pink one....]
[The pink one is new, one of their teammates, he thinks. It doesn't matter, he's useless and in the way alive, but maybe useful if he's not.]
[He can't shoot Simmons, he needs what he knows. (Would he feel guilt since he knew him?) But he doesn't need this pink one.]
[And he shoots Donut.]
[Maybe that will be enough to get through their thick skulls how very serious their situation actually is.]
[Talking about training and morale boosting plans, Sarge and Donut being ridiculous for the most part, and Wash being both put upon, but also affectionately amused.]
[Then alarms and suspicions and then voices through a door.]
[And then]
[There's Tucker. There's Caboose. There's Grif and Simmons. Talking about saving them and catching up and he's keeping it together, serious because there sure is a whole complicated war situation to deal with.]
[But]
[They came.]
[They came for him. They came for HIM, it wasn't even a question to them. They joined an army on the chance of getting resources to save him. Sarge, Donut, and Lopez too, sure, but him too.]
[They]
[They actually want him around. They'd risk their lives for him. They tried so hard for him.]
[It finally clicks, he's not just someone they keep around because he's good at what he does or out of pity.]
[He Matters To Them.]
[Not even the dread of why the alarms stopped can't take away from that.]
[But now you see it from his eyes, instead of what was visually shown.]
[Three years where your mind comes and goes. Sometimes you're you. Sometimes you're someone else. Sometimes you're a third guy. It's hard to remember being the other two, it comes in bursts. You speak different, you think different, but it's all a fuzzed out filter, and then there's horror when you learn of it later.]
[And there's a man, a smarmy man who is trying to convince you that you should hate your friends. That you should be bitter and angry at them, they're why you're here, they're why you're trapped. And if it's not them, it's because of you. It's because you weren't good enough. You couldn't take the AI, you weren't strong enough.]
[That doesn't work because you know the Truth.]
[If you give away how much Washington remembers, you will be killed. You have to keep a lid on it. Whenever you're Church, you never remember the project, you have to fight back on that. When you're Epsilon, you're confused, shouldn't you have a partner, scream before you say what they did. Washington has just enough influence to gag the things that will kill you.]
[You're too potentially useful to waste. You're too dangerous to let go free. So you play the game. You pretend you're angry at your friends, but you're not. You love them. You don't let bitterness sink in. If they didn't come, it's because they can't, it's because they don't think they can do it, they don't know you're here. It's not their fault it's not their fault it's not their fault. Because they were your family and you love them. They just don't believe they can get to you and they're all too hurt to ask for help. You know this.]
[The Counselor drops hints of the war effort, see if you still care and you pretend you do. But you don't. You can't anymore. You're too hurt to care about anything so big. You pretend you do, pretend you want a purpose, but you just want to destroy them for what they did.]
[You're stuck in your brain, it's too much silence, there's too many voices. You lose track of time. You scream, you try to claw them out with your bare hands, you barely sleep because the nightmares don't stop.]
[You focus on revenge, you focus on the game, you focus on being Agent Washington, only Agent Washington, you are No One Else because if you let your mind wander past these things, you begin to lose it, you can't stay in here, you will die if you stay forever, you will die and you won't even know as who.]
[The only relief comes at the prospect of a job.]
[You'll get out of here.]
[And you're going to burn Freelancer to the ground.]
[Here's yet more whiplash. Well, kinda. You're in handcuffs, you're going to prison, but it's so much EASIER to ignore that possibility while Sarge and Donut are at his back. Though he wishes they'd be quiet because he wants to think of a way OUT before they're properly locked up. It's easier to escape during transport then in a cell, but his head still aches something fierce, and memories are clawing at his head.]
[But then General Doyle shows up and everything is so ridiculous, it kicks all the dark thoughts out of his head because what the fuck even.]
[He wants his men back, there's a war, he'll make a deal because he wants them back. He doesn't care for the war, but he doesn't know what's being done to the others, if the other army is really merciless terrorists or rebels trying to make a better place.]
[Get Lopez back and there is LOCUS.]
[Locus who is talking and everything about this guy rubs him the wrong way. Always asking questions, trying to understand what Washington was trying to accomplish, trying to intimidate him, and he wants none of it.]
[Doesn't like how familiar it is.]
[Even if he's glad to have Freackles back. It's....only his chip, but it's better than NOTHING. He has something for Caboose.]
[He puts meaning in meaningless people and meaningless things, but...]
[But they're not meaningless. Not to him.]
[And really, that's all the meaning he needs to put down his life to protect them.]
[And if that means making sure he's always in between them and Locus, then he'll do it because honestly, FUCK this guy.]
[It's a fight. There's a second Spanish speaking robot who attacks them, and there's teleportation grenades, and things happen. There is Locus and he wants them to surrender. Does not believe surrendering to Locus will end well, so screw that. He will fight to keep his men and himself free and he ain't afraid to take the first shot.]
[There's fighting, they're doing well, stupidity happens with a computer file that he STILL doesn't understand, but Tucker is awesome. You think you can win.]
[Until something hits you in the head and you go down.]
[But you come to. And someone is calling your name. Tucker. You see Tucker, he wants you to come, he wants to come get you.]
[You look around.]
[You don't see any of your men. Did they all get away? You saw Donut go down, is he safe too?]
[But people are dying. Your back up is going down like flies. It won't take long to be overwhelmed. Felix is yelling the tunnel needs to be sealed. That will take time.]
[Time they don't have.]
[Time they won't have if they come to you, and you can barely remain upright. You can't get to them. There is no time. There is no time for you.]
[But there is time if there's no you.]
[You hope everyone else is on the other side with Tucker. If you keep them all safe, then you will take death, you will take prison again, you will take every hell there is.]
[As long as they're safe. That's all that matters.]
[You tell Freckles to Shake. You collapse the tunnel thanks to the Mantis' strength, relieved as you see the rockslide. You sigh.]
[You're just a child, on a drive with your mother. It's a normal day. Until you see a ship and your mother is suddenly very scared.]
[An alien ship, you know now.]
[She tells you to close your eyes and drives. (Because she was going to protect you with all she had and if that meant running people down, she would, you understand that now.)]
[But she could only get so far from the shockwave and you crash. (And maybe that's where cars started to hate you.)]
[Everything hurts, and your mother is pinned, and she wants you to leave. You don't want to leave, you don't want to leave her, just need a doctor, there has to be a way to save her-!]
[(She knew there wasn't. She knew she was dead. All she could do was send you away and pray you made it, that her efforts weren't in vain.)]
[She teaches you then, to take your feelings and bury them away. Teaches you how to survive even as your heart is ripped out, even as everything important around you burns. Take those emotions and bury them away, focus on the solution you can achieve, you keep going until the problem is Solved.]
[Only then can you feel again.]
[You always did listen to her. You left the car. And you run. You run and run until you find the soldiers, until you're on a transport, until you're in the ship. Until other people are on the ship.]
[Your planet is being glassed.]
[But for now, you are safe.]
[Only then do you left yourself feel the loss and cry like the child you were.]
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schrodingerscockroach) wrote2020-02-06 10:15 am
Re: TRAINING ROOM
Have a pretty good track record of exhausting people who manage to survive that room because surviving is still a terrible mental and emotional strain.
Being a good person is generally a good idea unless you find Epsilon's room. That one you try to leave as quick as possible. Don't know what's in there, don't remember why, but it's probably terrible, and very dangerous. I'm pretty sure the one memory I was actually guarding last time involved him.
Looking around is generally fine as long as you're prepared for me to not be as nice as I am on the train.
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I think I'm prepared for whatever. I know you're not a saint.
[Is anyone really?]
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But what do you do here? Aside from being, well, a soldier.
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Sometimes give people fights for stress or for existential questions because hearts are like that.
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[He's going to examine those platforms then, while they talk.]
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Basically the idea.
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Do you go to other areas a lot?
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The only ones who can travel between rooms is the True Heart and Anomalies. It's very bad if I or another part started traveling between rooms. That means the walls are breaking and that means how we cope is breaking and that is all bad.
The room you came through connects to several rooms, the primary 'faces' more or less.
[The left table has an assortment of items. It has a pistol, a keychain version of the laser sword, a hospital band, a dog collar, a rock, a piece of obsidian, a piece of mirror, a red crystal, and a pin for a military captain.]
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[He touches the pistol, curiously.]
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[And he's very much not kidding when he says he's not a saint.]
[He's tired. He is exhausted in his soul and he is so close. He is so very close to just getting away from the shitshow that is his life. No more being taken advantage of, no more lying, no more getting shot in the back, no more being left for dead.]
[He is tired, but there is a way to get AWAY and he will not let anything get in the way of that.]
[Seeing the Meta is like a shock of ice through his veins and he's fighting the urge to hope. He can see that Maine is distant, cold, this isn't his friend, he's too damaged, and he asserts his dominance in the mission because while he trusted Maine, he does not trust the Meta.]
[Maybe there will be something-]
[No, don't focus on that, focus on the mission.]
[So he does, he gets to the valley, he looks for them, he hears the explosion, and he stops the fight to demand the Epsilon unit.]
[Simmons is confused.]
[Of course he is.]
[Doesn't matter.]
[It doesn't matter it doesn't matter it doesn't matter.]
[They're not ANSWERING HIS QUESTION and he wants the answer and instead they're just talking, demanding questions, and he's not playing this game with them, not again, he needs Simmons to understand he is NOT fucking around because they're idiots.]
[(Idiots who helped him.)]
[Idiots who fucked him over.]
[(It wasn't likely on purpose, they wouldn't have helped if it was.)]
[It doesn't matter.]
[He shoots the robot.]
[But that's not enough, is it? No, it's a robot, they can fix a robot, but the pink one....]
[The pink one is new, one of their teammates, he thinks. It doesn't matter, he's useless and in the way alive, but maybe useful if he's not.]
[He can't shoot Simmons, he needs what he knows. (Would he feel guilt since he knew him?) But he doesn't need this pink one.]
[And he shoots Donut.]
[Maybe that will be enough to get through their thick skulls how very serious their situation actually is.]
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He exhales slowly and rubs his temples. It hurts to see but he's also not surprised.]
...
[Nothing really on his face though, he just touches the keychain next.]
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[Talking about training and morale boosting plans, Sarge and Donut being ridiculous for the most part, and Wash being both put upon, but also affectionately amused.]
[Then alarms and suspicions and then voices through a door.]
[And then]
[There's Tucker. There's Caboose. There's Grif and Simmons. Talking about saving them and catching up and he's keeping it together, serious because there sure is a whole complicated war situation to deal with.]
[But]
[They came.]
[They came for him. They came for HIM, it wasn't even a question to them. They joined an army on the chance of getting resources to save him. Sarge, Donut, and Lopez too, sure, but him too.]
[They]
[They actually want him around. They'd risk their lives for him. They tried so hard for him.]
[It finally clicks, he's not just someone they keep around because he's good at what he does or out of pity.]
[He Matters To Them.]
[Not even the dread of why the alarms stopped can't take away from that.]
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[Rean don't call the kettle black when you're a pot.]
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I trusted the wrong people.
Intergalactic war with extinction as a goal.
Bad decisions on my part.
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[Smiling a little.]
You're a tenacious guy though.
[And touching the hospital band.]
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[You've seen this memory before.]
[But now you see it from his eyes, instead of what was visually shown.]
[Three years where your mind comes and goes. Sometimes you're you. Sometimes you're someone else. Sometimes you're a third guy. It's hard to remember being the other two, it comes in bursts. You speak different, you think different, but it's all a fuzzed out filter, and then there's horror when you learn of it later.]
[And there's a man, a smarmy man who is trying to convince you that you should hate your friends. That you should be bitter and angry at them, they're why you're here, they're why you're trapped. And if it's not them, it's because of you. It's because you weren't good enough. You couldn't take the AI, you weren't strong enough.]
[That doesn't work because you know the Truth.]
[If you give away how much Washington remembers, you will be killed. You have to keep a lid on it. Whenever you're Church, you never remember the project, you have to fight back on that. When you're Epsilon, you're confused, shouldn't you have a partner, scream before you say what they did. Washington has just enough influence to gag the things that will kill you.]
[You're too potentially useful to waste. You're too dangerous to let go free. So you play the game. You pretend you're angry at your friends, but you're not. You love them. You don't let bitterness sink in. If they didn't come, it's because they can't, it's because they don't think they can do it, they don't know you're here. It's not their fault it's not their fault it's not their fault. Because they were your family and you love them. They just don't believe they can get to you and they're all too hurt to ask for help. You know this.]
[The Counselor drops hints of the war effort, see if you still care and you pretend you do. But you don't. You can't anymore. You're too hurt to care about anything so big. You pretend you do, pretend you want a purpose, but you just want to destroy them for what they did.]
[You're stuck in your brain, it's too much silence, there's too many voices. You lose track of time. You scream, you try to claw them out with your bare hands, you barely sleep because the nightmares don't stop.]
[You focus on revenge, you focus on the game, you focus on being Agent Washington, only Agent Washington, you are No One Else because if you let your mind wander past these things, you begin to lose it, you can't stay in here, you will die if you stay forever, you will die and you won't even know as who.]
[The only relief comes at the prospect of a job.]
[You'll get out of here.]
[And you're going to burn Freelancer to the ground.]
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Who needs a sense of identity.
He hasn't noticed he's started crying.]
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[Here's yet more whiplash. Well, kinda. You're in handcuffs, you're going to prison, but it's so much EASIER to ignore that possibility while Sarge and Donut are at his back. Though he wishes they'd be quiet because he wants to think of a way OUT before they're properly locked up. It's easier to escape during transport then in a cell, but his head still aches something fierce, and memories are clawing at his head.]
[But then General Doyle shows up and everything is so ridiculous, it kicks all the dark thoughts out of his head because what the fuck even.]
[He wants his men back, there's a war, he'll make a deal because he wants them back. He doesn't care for the war, but he doesn't know what's being done to the others, if the other army is really merciless terrorists or rebels trying to make a better place.]
[Get Lopez back and there is LOCUS.]
[Locus who is talking and everything about this guy rubs him the wrong way. Always asking questions, trying to understand what Washington was trying to accomplish, trying to intimidate him, and he wants none of it.]
[Doesn't like how familiar it is.]
[Even if he's glad to have Freackles back. It's....only his chip, but it's better than NOTHING. He has something for Caboose.]
[He puts meaning in meaningless people and meaningless things, but...]
[But they're not meaningless. Not to him.]
[And really, that's all the meaning he needs to put down his life to protect them.]
[And if that means making sure he's always in between them and Locus, then he'll do it because honestly, FUCK this guy.]
Re: TRAINING ROOM
[Next is the rock. We're just gonna shotgun shit I guess.]
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[You know, he probably would have been more prepared for shooting Donut if Caboose hadn't been so flippant in his mentioning of it.]
[It's a fight. There's a second Spanish speaking robot who attacks them, and there's teleportation grenades, and things happen. There is Locus and he wants them to surrender. Does not believe surrendering to Locus will end well, so screw that. He will fight to keep his men and himself free and he ain't afraid to take the first shot.]
[There's fighting, they're doing well, stupidity happens with a computer file that he STILL doesn't understand, but Tucker is awesome. You think you can win.]
[Until something hits you in the head and you go down.]
[But you come to. And someone is calling your name. Tucker. You see Tucker, he wants you to come, he wants to come get you.]
[You look around.]
[You don't see any of your men. Did they all get away? You saw Donut go down, is he safe too?]
[But people are dying. Your back up is going down like flies. It won't take long to be overwhelmed. Felix is yelling the tunnel needs to be sealed. That will take time.]
[Time they don't have.]
[Time they won't have if they come to you, and you can barely remain upright. You can't get to them. There is no time. There is no time for you.]
[But there is time if there's no you.]
[You hope everyone else is on the other side with Tucker. If you keep them all safe, then you will take death, you will take prison again, you will take every hell there is.]
[As long as they're safe. That's all that matters.]
[You tell Freckles to Shake. You collapse the tunnel thanks to the Mantis' strength, relieved as you see the rockslide. You sigh.]
[And another sharp pain as you go down again.]
Re: TRAINING ROOM
If I ever do anything self-sacrificing I don't want to be criticized for it.
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[Also REAN LOVE YOURSELF PLS.]
[There is a reason Dusk has always been kind of fucked up even before Freelancer got to him.]
[You're just a child, on a drive with your mother. It's a normal day. Until you see a ship and your mother is suddenly very scared.]
[An alien ship, you know now.]
[She tells you to close your eyes and drives. (Because she was going to protect you with all she had and if that meant running people down, she would, you understand that now.)]
[But she could only get so far from the shockwave and you crash. (And maybe that's where cars started to hate you.)]
[Everything hurts, and your mother is pinned, and she wants you to leave. You don't want to leave, you don't want to leave her, just need a doctor, there has to be a way to save her-!]
[(She knew there wasn't. She knew she was dead. All she could do was send you away and pray you made it, that her efforts weren't in vain.)]
[She teaches you then, to take your feelings and bury them away. Teaches you how to survive even as your heart is ripped out, even as everything important around you burns. Take those emotions and bury them away, focus on the solution you can achieve, you keep going until the problem is Solved.]
[Only then can you feel again.]
[You always did listen to her. You left the car. And you run. You run and run until you find the soldiers, until you're on a transport, until you're in the ship. Until other people are on the ship.]
[Your planet is being glassed.]
[But for now, you are safe.]
[Only then do you left yourself feel the loss and cry like the child you were.]
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