END GAME: THE COUNTDOWN STARTS

[sailmods]

[the prisoners wake up on cold, hard floors.

the lights are bright, glaring, a sterile cell with sterile bars facing a sterile hall. the prisoners with you, across from you, and no one else. no rocking of a ship in waves, nothing. just the prisoner and their prison.

time passes, one assumes. the rhythmic click of Friday’s heels down the hall. it’s almost like the ticking of a clock.]

Comments

[yourexoduslaughing]

O-oh Rita, s-say hi to her for me. You're uh- you're beside Skulduggery on this side.

[She sniffles and scoots a little closer to the middle of the room, but she's still crying even as she works really hard to calm herself down.] Sorry about t-this, it's uh. I've... I haven't been without, y'know. Uh. My powers. Not since I was a kid. A-and it's fucking me up big time that I can't j-just run away...

B-but yeah, yeah, we'll- if anyone can g-get out, it's us. We're pains in the ass. Just gotta... f-figure this shit out...

[tempingainteasy]

So, what is April without their strange familiarity and the stranger inability for their memory to stick? What does the manifestation of that creepy feeling looking at a photography that developed wrong look like?

Apparently, like a life-sized papercraft person. A very basic person shape, with features printed in a terribly low resolution, a deep crease across the arm they had reattached over a year ago now, and various unbent folds from when they had been briefly reshaped back in December.

And despite how they had never once in their 200 years outright looked like this, this is unmistakably - to anyone looking at them - April, the person who'd been day drinking regularly on this ship, part-time podcast host, co-manager of Flan's artifact storage, and that guy who by proximity alone was almost certainly responsible for the Serena Eterna Year-end popularity vote.

Oh, and most pertinently, Cassandra's roommate.

"Hey, can I ask you a few things?" they say, their moiréd newsprint eyes fixed on Cassandra. Their mouth, looking like it was pasted in from a separate picture, does not move. "How good are you at folding paper, and: how squeamish are you?"

[makesomedeals]

"From what I can tell the only remaining one is Bastion. Who's from my world actually." Not that they'd ever met beforehand, something he always found odd that of anyone in his entire world to be brought here it would be another Omnic that he'd never heard of.

"Having been in prison before, I greatly disliked being walked to my cell in handcuffs, but I now find it preferable to waking up here with no memory of how I arrived."

[saltwaterlungs]

"There you go."

They need everyone operational for this break-out to work, they can't afford to have anyone be freaking out. Even the annoying ones.

"Nimona, right? I'm going to give you some good news. I know how our powers are locked. Friday runs that. When we get her back on our side, she'll be able to turn them back on. But we need you to keep your head for now until we can."

[neverleave]

[For a while Natsuno merely sits there, with his back against the cold wall and his knees pulled up. He stares at the screaming Steve in total silence. His own expression is blank and it doesn't seem like he's bothered by the noise. In fact, he can't bring himself to feel anything at all.

After a while, he remarks flatly:]

You'll just tire yourself out.

[prince_of_beasts]

Dimitri's on his feet, pacing behind the bars of his own cage, but he looks up at Maxwell's shout. "Higgsbury ... you mean Wilson?"

[yournewsidekick]

"Waxwell, your boyfriend says he's glad you're not dead and he loves you sooooo much and wants to kiss you on the mouth, like, seventy-five times."

...looks like someone's calmed down enough to rejoin the I ♥ BEING ANNOYING club.

[takethatnature]

"Thanks Darcy," Wilson says, flat except for the strainedness of his tone.

[blindwatchersees]

"Kolchak is to your immediate right, Jack and Venom are to your immediate left. And my name is Macaelius. I'm... not supposed to be Macaelius."

[freedomsuitsme]

"He absolutely did not say that! And if he did, tell him that the next time we do kiss I'm going to bite that lower lip of his much harder than he'd like!"

[professionalriot]

Sitting in the center of his cell on the floor Ashley picks at the hem of the scratchy, striped pants. Upon waking he is alone, again. In a cell. Valdis had still been unconscious on the bridge when this happened. He looks calm because he feels empty.

His gifts, his power, his very being is connected to his soul. The soul of a wolf blessed by Luna. For the first time in his life he can't feel it. He doesn't even bother trying to change forms or use his gifts, he knows he can't. That empty, lonely feeling has the power to crush him and he can already feel the cracks forming.

Lifting his eyes from where they were focused intently on the stitching of his pants he looks out across the hall. A pair of cat-eyes catch his attention and he gives a slight flick of his hand, a pathetic attempt at a wave.

Fingers scratch through the overgrowth of facial hair and he realizes he hasn't shaved since before the Village. His hair hasn't been cut for months. He doesn't even look like himself. It's fitting, really, because he doesn't feel like himself.

[freedomsuitsme]

"Yes. Good, you know him. Can you see him, perchance?"

[ring_for_giles]

That earns a head tilt, which is probably progress. Curiosity has always been one of his vices.

Before Giles follows that curiousity though, he has a bargain to fulfil. He stands, moves closer to the bars to see what he can of this sterile prison.

"You have-" he stops, expecting his tongue to be silenced, but it's not. Strange. Worrying in it's convenience. "Phil Connors to your left, and to your right another man who was aboard the Serena Eterna. Tall, brown hair, bearded. I'm afraid I don't know his name."

He steps back again once his account is finished, falling into a formal posture with hands behind his back as he does. It's comfortable. Safe.

"Who are you meant to be, if not Macaelius?"

[freedomsuitsme]

"The loud pink person is to your left, and Dimitri and a child are to your right."

He didn't even know there was a small child on board. The idea gives him an unpleasantly familiar pang of guilt as he thinks about the spider child.

[blindwatchersees]

"I was... or I suppose, I was the host for... or rather, I lent my existence to... no, that still isn't right. Sheogorath, the Prince of Madness, is supposed to be here, not me. I remember and know most everything he knew, but I'm not him."

cw for self harm for this whole back half, oops

[goodweather]

"No, not like it used to. Think of it like scratching an itch."

Nothing hurts as much as it used to since the Village. Nothing compares. Yanking out his quills barely even registers, even though he's sure that he's drawn blood with one or two of these by now. But that's the point, isn't it? It's...

... he can't remember what he was trying to think. Phil closes teeth around the knuckle of his thumb, crushing the joint and squeezing his eyes shut for just a moment before letting go. At least in a situation like this, he can multitask; he's being productive, not just seeing how slowly he can paper-shred himself.

He looks up at Karkat. "We haven't met, right? I'm Phil. Sorry it has to be like this."

[thismaskismybadge]

Gwen glances back at Darcy, "Wait, it's Friday? Huh. Okay. I was expecting like... a big red button or something. Villains love their big red buttons. I think the Village had a big red button."

Shakes her head, "Anyway, yeah, point is, we'll get our powers back and then this Malin woman won't know what hit her."

[goodweather]

Phil looks like he's dragging a thousand pounds of dead weight behind him when he draws up towards the bars of his cell. The only reason he's standing is because the concrete is hell on his knees

"... Giles, right?" he... to say he "calls out" would be too generous to the volume. "You're Ossie's man."

[yournewsidekick]

Oh, no, Nimona played herself.

"Ew," she says, succinct, and absolutely refuses to pass that along to Wilson. Time for a topic change! "So who can you see? Anyone?"

Crichton | OTA technically??

[ss_buttcrack]

The last thing he remembers is taking out his gun and trying to shoot Malin. He knew that wasn't going to work. Or should have known. Yet, he still can't squash the disappointment he feels upon waking up in yet another shitty prison. That's before he notices he's not alone in there.

"All these cells to choose from and we still ended up in the same one, huh?" Good morning Arthur, welcome to hell. Party of two.

"Wow," he looks down at the garment he's in and snorts. "Prison bars and black and white stripes, how original. You'd think that Malibu Barbie Bitch would be a little more creative." Yes, apparently, his method of coping is comparing this jailed experience to all the other ones. How many nickels is this now?

He stands and sticks his face as far between the bars as he can, which isn't much more than his nose. "All right," he calls out, "Who has a plan to try? Don't all speak up at once."

[yournewsidekick]

Nimona nods, without much feeling behind it. Eventually is a long, long time to wait; even now, she keeps thoughtlessly pushing at the boundaries of her own skin, begging it to move, and every time it doesn't it makes her feel sick.

She sinks to the floor of the cell, rubbing her eyes as they well up. She wraps her arms around herself. "Can either of you see Ed?" she asks, hoarse. "Edgar. He's skinny and he's got big ears. Says 'fuck' a lot."

Most of her other friends -- Karkat, Nepeta, Flan, Bastion -- she spotted at some point during the fight. They've gotta be around here somewhere. But she never saw Ed, and if he's gone like so many other people vanished right before Malin found them --

Oh, crap. She never saw Siffleur, either, did she?

Nimona hugs herself tighter.

[hate_gettin_older]

"Just you, Dedue, and whatsisname, Crichton. And someone else in with Crichton, I dunno him."

He frowns at the last question, concentrates for a moment, shakes his head. "Not anymore, looks like. Could start fires, but it's not happening now."

[not_the_last]

"Thank you. Yakko," she relays dutifully to Dedue.

[not_the_last]

Cassandra ... stares.

"You're April," she says eventually, in a faint voice that's almost a croak. "I know you. How..."

And she shakes her head sharply. "I'm sorry. Folding -- I can do that. Squeamish?"

[freedomsuitsme]

"There's a curly-haired blond woman to your right who seems very intent on threatening my life and limbs. Beside her cell, I can see Dimitri and a child. You said the 'Murder Man' is next to me?"