come_sailaway | JUNE EVENT: CAMP

JUNE EVENT: CAMP

early on June 10th, Friday's morning announcements end with a request for everyone going on the latest excursion to meet her in the atrium. she seems in noticeably better spirits than she had been last time, and she leads them cheerfully to the tender. once they are all aboard, and the door is securely shut, the interior fills with gas, and, perhaps, their last thought before they slip into unconsciousness is "oh shit, not again."

passengers wake up on a rickety old school bus, driving down a dirt road surrounded by woods. what is it that they notice first? that, no matter what they were wearing before, they are now wearing a camp t-shirt and legitimately horrifyingly short shorts? the overstuffed backpack between their knees? the words "take one down and pass it around" dying on their lips? the fact that Friday is absolutely driving the bus?

or, maybe the fact that it's already slowing down, pulling up in front of a massive wooden sign, saying:

CAMP AION

when they get out of the bus, Friday is the one to divide them up into their cabin groups, and she is the one to give the counselors their very official-looking clipboards and whistles. she explains that they are in charge, and that she will be back to pick them up in a week, and... very little else. she responds to nothing outside of whatever is on her unseen little script, and she gets back on the bus shortly after, leaving them there.

welcome to camp. let's make some summer memories!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Natsuno just keeps looking at him flatly. This is his default expression, but it's probably not reassuring.]

No. Just trying to make sure no one hunts me.

You think they will? There's, like, no point of it, right? Unless it's part of the whole "red versus blue" thing?

[ Camp competitions are a thing, probably. But it doesn't HAVE to end in murder ]

[This is new, right? Probably missed the memo then. Or the reruns.]

Last "camping" excursion turned out to be a fight to the death, which is just as pointless because we get revived anyway.

[He's trying to figure out the "rules" this time, so he can make sure EVERYONE loses if necessary. He's not gonna be the last one standing this time, it sucks.]

Yeah, I wouldn't count on that.

[ Not because he disbelieves the people saying as such— can't, considering his own situation— but it's not a promise he'd like to rely on if he can help it. ]

But there's nothing saying we have to do anything like that this time, though, right? Like, it looks like they just dropped us off and left, no one telling us what to do. We could, like, walk off into the forest and not come back.

[Natsuno nods at his first point. That's fair. It'd be really nice if they could count on death being permanent instead, rather than being stuck in this dreadful limbo.]

For all we know, the captain's lulling us into a false sense of security and a Friday will appear in three days to tell us only one can go back on that bus.

[But walking off into the forest...]

Hm. Wonder what happens if someone just hides in the woods and refuses to get in the bus.

Given the choice, would you want to fight to get back on the bus? It should be the opposite, right?

[ Freedom to him seems to be the great outdoors, not a ...luxury cruise ship with top of the line entertainment and unlimited buffet. Damn, actually, yeah, he might just choose the ship over dirt and mosquitoes. ]

But hey, speaking of Friday, you know what her deal is? Like, I wanted to ask about her face, but I'm too scared to.

Given the choice, I wouldn't. Other passengers were keen enough.

[He still climbed into the tender when Friday picked him up last time. Natsuno didn't even think about staying on that island - he wanted to see that his friends were back, too...]

Friday doesn't have a face because the captain didn't give her one. He created her to serve, but I think she can act beyond his directive sometimes.

...What is Friday?

[ A robot? he's making her sound like a robot, which... would maybe make sense? there are a lot of them. Kano maybe spent a lot of time on the ship making it look like he wasn't staring the entire time. ]

She calls herself a "viral servitor."

[He shrugs. What she does matters more than what she is.]

She has infinite copies, which is why she seems to be in several places at the same time. Original Friday has some personality of her own, [Enough to keep love letters and a gun with a single bullet in her desk drawer] but the ones you see on excursions don't think beyond what the captain tells them.

Hm.

[ What else is there to say about all of that but "hm"? That bit about being viral is somewhat concerning, but he figures it would be even more so if he knew exactly what that entailed, so he puts that off to the side for now. ]

Huh. Okay. I guess I can't really hold it against her then, huh?

[ He knows what it's like to work under somebody disgustingly evil and feeling as if you have no choice or way around it. ]

Actually, I'm kinda surprised the Captain isn't here with us. This seems like a place he'd find interesting. Don'tcha think he'd get bored just watching all the time?

Seems like watching is the one thing he enjoys.

[Natsuno had the misfortune to sit next to him at his "victory" party. The captain looked positively giddy as fights broke in the dining hall, climbing on his chair to get a better look at a particularly good stabbing. He was oh-so-amused when Clarke smashed those lobster crackers into his skull.]

We're like rats in a maze. He likes to put people in bad situations and see how they act. Once he's bored, he just gets new people with new reactions, so he's never sick of watching.

All he has to do is get distracted once, and even rats can climb over the walls and escape the cage...

[ He's sympathetic, but also... he knows what it's like to put people in bad situations and see how they act just because he was bored... He'd apologized for it, but you know, still. ]

...I heard the Captain likes games. Think he'd be interested in playing with us? Then we're all bound by the same rules.

Maybe. He's capricious and childish, so it can go either way.

[Jenny Storm got her game of blackjack by bringing him the souls of every other passengers, but Natsuno isn't going to share that with a newcomers he doesn't know.]

He probably cheats, though.

As long as you don't get caught, it's not cheating. That's just how you play games.

[ That's how he plays games, in the very rare instance where he actually needs to win— which this whole situation probably counts. ]

That's the sorta thing that makes games fun: people who bend, stretch, and ignore the rules. Extra layers to the game, that sorta thing... it'd be boring to just watch, so why not play, right?

[Hmm.]

...I don't know about agreeing to play with "us". You may have a chance.

[His tone is still completely flat, so it's hard to tell whether it's a compliment or not.]

Hey, I'll put in a good word for you guys too! It's more fun playing with more people, right?

[ It'd be nice to have allies, but he's used to going without, so it's fine, really. ]

I get it, though. Nobody wants to play with a cheat and a liar... Don't worry, I'll leave all the good boys and girls out of it.

I doubt you'd find many "good boys and girls" around here.

[Whether they played the battle royale, had blood on their hands back in their worlds or hid other dark secrets, most passengers can be called questionable at best.

Natsuno wouldn't call himself "good", either. And he's not sure if Kano is the kind of cheat and a liar he can trust, or the kind who would buy his own freedom at the cost of everyone else's souls.]

...If you're serious about playing with him, you should talk to Clarke Griffin. Blonde hair, about your age. Got stuck as the Aries cabin "counselor."

[Maybe Clarke can get a better read on this guy. Or at least figure out how to use his desire to play.]

Clarke Griffin, huh...

[ He knows her. ]

I dunno who that is. What's she like? Does she have dirt on the captain or something?

[What's she like? Stubborn and reckless, ruthless and kind, a hurricane in human form. Hard to keep up with sometimes, but still the best ally he has here. His best friend.

When it comes to the captain, though, it can be summed up in:]

She split his head open with lobster crackers.

Can he... not eat gluten or something?

[ You know, this entire time people were talking about lobster crackers I was thinking lobster flavored crackers but then I realized something and things made a whole lot more sense ]

[Lobster flavored crackers would've been funny tbh, maybe the captain has secret allergies]

...metal crackers.

You know. What people use to crack lobsters.

Oh. Never had 'em before!

[ It's a little disappointing to hear otherwise, though, especially when he's been hyped up with stories of exploding heads and everything. Assault by gluten intolerance just seemed par for the course. ]

His head looked fine to me, though, so I'm guessing he got put back together again?

Unfortunately -

[Wait. "Looked fine to me"?]

You mean you already talked to him?

Hm? Yeah. Anyways,

[ ANYWAYS ]

That's pretty impressive! Sure takes guts to do something like that, doesn't it? So, like, you guys got plan B in the works already?

[Yes Clarke is very ~~unhinged~~ impressive and all but DON'T "ANYWAYS" HIM]

Working on it -

[Spoilers, they have "get the captain angry enough to forget he has magic" and "kill the captain" with no idea how to do either]

But we could always use more information. So what did you talk about?

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