open log » ❝ The VR Program ❞

[initiatesnpc]

Date & Time: August 5th, mid morning.
Location: Anywhere characters happen to be/the VR.
Characters: Everyone.
Summary: From August 5th to August 8th, characters are plunged involuntarily into the VR Program.
Warnings: Potential violence within the threads.

When the chance arises, she's quick to take it. The programming is incomplete, she knows; the simulation isn't ready — but she's not likely to get another shot at it. And so she moves, slipping through security codes to input the command. The machines hum to life with nothing but a flicker of a green light in a dark room, and it takes only seconds to establish connections. The signal is sent out; the weapons respond.

In a single pulse, reality drops away.

There will be darkness at first as the mind realigns itself to the signals being sent it. Slowly, the darkness fades, forms take shape. People take shape. The setting is terribly familiar, plucked from the user's own mind. It might feel like a dream at first, with events playing out as if predestined, the would-be dreamer moving through a familiar and unalterable route in them. But as things begin to feel more and more realistic, as more senses more fully connect to the simulation, awareness will change. This is not a dream. This is more than a memory.

Welcome to the VR.

Only 20 minutes later, in some underground quarters, Doctor Sponde is roused from an undignified sprawl. He's hastily briefed and shuttled toward the command center, looking grim. He knows the problem demands an immediate fix, but… well, this is some complex machinery. It could take some time. It could take days. He gets to work.

Comments

sry your train won't be arriving on schedule cause it fell off a bridge

[asinine]

[ the chicago fraternity hq was fucked up beyond repair by yours truly. he knows he killed sloan, somewhere in the back of his mind, and he knows that cross is just as dead -- it's not what he's thinking, though, as the train is knocked off the tracks, metal screeching and groaning and twisting, and goes over the edge of the fucking bridge. he's thinking that he's not gonna lose his footing, then his grip, and he's not gonna fall to his fucking death but even as he scrambles for something to hold onto, he's violently ripped away from it as the train car smacks into the mountainside, windows cracking from the impact and spitting glass everywhere.

he turns his face reflexively, but shards still cut his face and just like that he's slipping, falling, barely managing to grab the frame of the door to keep himself from being plunged down into whateverthefuck is at the bottom of the canyon. he's not looking down to find out, not when he's busy trying to pull himself back inside, conjure up the strength to heave his own body back up. trying being the key word, because as the train shakes particularly forcefully he loses his grip, and he thinks, somehow, that he's prepared to just be thrown downwards --

but fingers close around his wrist.

this is where he knows he's supposed to be reaching back for his backup gun, shove it in cross' face and pull the trigger even as he's dragging wesley into the wreckage again and attempting to save his damn life, but he doesn't, not this time, not for this weird fucking do-over -- because this is cross, this is his father, so he uses his last bit of energy and adrenaline to climb through the door he's fallen through with cross' assistance and pushes himself towards something that looks like it's nailed to the wall this time. his heart pounds and his muscles scream in protest as he tries to catch his breath, and he thinks this didn't fucking happen and this isn't real, laughs because it can't be and because he knows it isn't, but it doesn't matter, because he doesn't get the opportunity for father and son bonding time anyway.

(isn't that fucking typical.)

thanks to his quick reflexes and just a dash of skepticism, paranoia, he avoids a bullet to the face and a knife to the throat as cross lunges at him. ]

[studieswaitressing]

[For a brief, horrific moment when she finds herself in this new memory she thinks that she sees Charles. She lunges forward before she can really think about it, grabbing for the hand that's holding that knife and trying to squeeze the bones together.

By the time she pieces together that this man isn't her brother, she's already involved in the scenario and she knows it.]

Mind telling me what's --

[She doesn't have much time for more chit-chat, since Cross is apparently pretty spry for his age.]

-- you know what? Tell me later.

[asinine]

[ the only one he wouldn't kill -- bullshit, and even if wesley is confused over the fact that cross is trying to stab him in the face or splatter his brains all over the wreckage fucking nothing makes sense, so instead of trying to figure it out, he's just rolling with it, acting on instinct and impulse rather than careful thought or any kind of planning. because this is all wrong. he knows how cross works, has studied his work like a manual, and he's pretty damn close to having the knife driven in between his ribs -- but his father is stopped short by someone else grabbing a hold of him. someone who's pretty unforgettable, what with her blue skin and fiery red hair, but it takes a second for him to realize that she's really there, because she doesn't belong in this memory and where did she even come from -- ]

You -- [ a breath, correcting himself, because he knows who she is. likes her enough to give a fuck about what her name is. ] Raven?

[ it hits him like a slap to the face -- the initiative -- and yeah, he's pissed, because they should stay the hell out of his head. this isn't real bleeds into move disarm kill survive, and it's with less hesitation that he draws the flyswatter pistol given to him by sloan, aims and fires. less fatal areas, because he's least likely to expect that - a set of bullets bury themselves right below cross' both knees, meant to slow him down, but his attention seems to have shifted completely to raven.

wesley doesn't waste that opportunity. a kick to cross' side to knock him off balance, and he's locking his arm around his neck, pressing tight against his windpipe - hopefully it saves raven from getting stabbed, because he's not apologizing for his dad's horrible manners. ]

Fuck if I know.

[studieswaitressing]

[Wesley's timing is impeccable, dragging Cross away from her while a swipe from his knife narrowly grazes her shoulder instead of penetrating deeply like it would've a split-second earlier. She grimaces, annoyed, but at least he isn't accusing her of being part of whatever the hell this is that brought him here. Telepathy's her brother's speciality, not hers.

She works at first at disarming Cross, because she's still not 100% on whether they can actually be injured in reality if they get themselves hurt here -- and once the knife is pried reluctantly from his hands, she holds it in one of hers -- just in case.]

--Yeah, got it in one. The last thing I remember, I was making a break for it after my supposed friends started turning their powers on me. It seems like this is some sort of stupid -- training exercise.

[Points for creativity, but negative points for annoyance and mind invasion.]