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open log » ❝ The VR Program ❞

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.

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One of them had died that day. She couldn't even give him the proper legacy he deserved because of his super secret identity. Sometimes Alisha hates Simon's obsession with superhero stories, where the misunderstood ends up saving the world while hiding behind a stupid mask.

Upon reflection, the cat did sound robotic. But, still, Alisha had many questions in regards to what just went down between him and that cat. She isn't even sure if this is a scenario that's happened in his life before. Considering she holds the Superhoodie memories so close to her, it makes sense that that would be used against her in a situation like this. What was the significance of the cat?

"When did you get a cat?"

"I'm fine," Anders answers, hastily, defensively. "I'm just ... ugh. If I never see another broodmother again it will be too soon."

As if they haven't just faced one another in battle. As if they haven't just faced themselves. As if darkspawn are the worst they've seen or will ever see.

Corosa's still trying to come to terms with the fact that he can both breathe and speak underwater. And trying to get away from the tentacle. And still trying to wrestle his gun out of its holster. He's finding it very hard to do all of these things at once.

He stares up at Feferi in something very close to fear.

"Where-- where am I? I was just--" He doesn't even remember anymore. Not here, at least.

Nathaniel has been pointedly ignoring the broken and blodied body of his lover's doppleganger lying on the floor. He tries in vain to shut out the voice whispering in his mind that it could have easily been the real Anders who had been attacked and killed.

"It's over now," he says quietly, reassuring himself more than anyone else. "We're all safe."

"I do not think they're real," he was saying, before he quietly picked up the sword and laughed softly—still with an expression of self-deprecation. It was not that hard, not really, when he pressed his fingers to his temple and worked to attempt to freeze their aggressors—in any other scenario, he could usually manage one or two.

He was successful, but he wasn't certain how long it would last.

"...I'm not certain I can use it—"

How long has it been since she's fought beside these two men? It's so hard to look at them like this, the both of them older and hardened and she... She's too damn young in comparison. She always had been; she was younger than most when she was made Warden-Commanders and she'd never thought of the age difference. But now the two of them are four years older still, on top of their age gap. She feels like she's lost something she can't get back.

But it doesn't change who they are or what they mean to her. She reaches over to put a hand on Nate's arm and she squeezes them both. Her throat closes on the words she wants to say.

That tentacle doesn't want Corosa going anywhere, apparently, since it starts to curl around his waist as he tries to get away...

"You're in one of Alternia's oceans!" Feferi explains cheerfully, treading water in front of him. "And this is my lusus! Say hello to Gl'bgolyb!"

"I didn't think we'd win." Anders confesses this in a small voice. "Not this time. And if we die here, or if we get lost here ..."

Like dying in the Fade. He'd be made Tranquil. Or getting lost in the Fade and leaving the physical body behind to starve and wither away.

"...well, you can use it or you can pass it over to me and I can try. Either way, it's better than us not having anything to use against them except your mind and my -- uh, dashing good looks."

She bites her lip, glancing over to the frozen people and then back to Charles. She holds her hand open for the sword, eyebrow raised.

Nathaniel reaches out and strokes Anders' hair softly, figuring that he should be able to show a bit of tenderness in his own dream.

"We won't," he says firmly, confidently. "We'll... find a way out." Though he has no idea how.

Explosions? Great. Dodging debris was even pretty awesome as long as he was seated in a chair, behind a console and piloting a ship. Keeping the Normandy in one piece was just one more challenge, it kept him on his toes.

Now when he was literally on his toes? Not so much fun.

The door went sailing by as he clutched at his leg, taking out a few of those troublesome classmates with ease and propelling the chair off to the side. Joker mentally cringed as he stared on in disbelief, suddenly glad he'd been used as target practice and had been knocked into a nearby desk. This had to be a VR sim but that didn't make the ache in his hip any less painful. 'Your mind makes it real.' Well, he for one wasn't willing to test how far into reality this Matrix BS went.

"What the shit."

Not even a question. That really did just happen, right? Some kind of medieval bone weapon shot out of that kid's hand. Throwing around objects with super mind powers wasn't exactly uncommon where he was from but this was nothing like even the angriest biotic he knew punching through a mech. Even seeing that guy summon Sauron's ripoff cousin wasn't enough to prepare him for that. His gaze turned away from the carnage to give his savior a bewildered stare, his grip on his gun going slack.

"You couldn't just knock?"

Of course it's loaded. Energy weapon, cartridge, pulled part of it from - I don't know, somebody over there. It'll work fine, just ready and shoot. Aim if you feel like it.

Holy shit.

[He manages to steady himself thanks to a nearby desk, looking up when he hears Anora's voice. They've only spoken a few times but it's one he's familiar enough to distinguish from the stream of threats - and miscellaneous school supplies - coming from the other students around them.

If he were as realistic as he says he is, Joker would make a run for it. Face-to-face, hand-to-hand, whatever this mess is supposed to be, isn't exactly his forte and with a reason. Instead, he makes a lunge for his gun, using the butt to bunt the student pulling the woman's hair in the head.

Yeah, okay. He may have a few hangups about casually gunning down people he knows, even if they are fake, but this? This he's okay with.]

I think they've got a crush on you.

[ She follows, not quite as headlong, and even as she yanks the door closed behind them her gun is centered on the --

There is no way her gun is going to make anything of an effect on that. ]

Stark? Tell me that thing has weak spots.

[ Easier, and she pulls the last officer out of his range just after Takegami finishes striking out at him, finishing him off with a precision nerve pinch. ]

I wouldn't know. It's yours.

[ With her glance around the room, it's obvious that that's really a question. ]

[ He's taking a moment, because, okay, he needs a moment there, he wasn't prepared for that, those were all just lackeys and people he didn't know - this shit here, this is just rubbing it in. He's already had to kill a friend - effectively a father - who turned on him. Doing it twice, salt in the wound.

But it's just a moment. ]

I know how to take it down. Can you distract it?

Fantastic, so you're already used to this crap. I'm pretty sure we're in a virtual reality. Think, pong, but if both sides had guns and decided to shoot the crap out of the little square and then each other. That's about as much reason as I can assign. Was pong after you?

Well that's just twelve different shades of totally fucking helpful, isn't it.

'Are you serious? This is - there's jack here, and you're going to take offense to the most, potentially only, interesting thing nearby?'

She grabs a chair, takes the moment she needs to wedge it under the handle, and then grabs him and pulls him after her.

"Be quiet. I know how to get us out of here without running into anyone else."

If this is Arthur's nightmare, it is somewhere equivalent to the apocalypse for Merlin. Not because of people trying to kill them - this is a normal Tuesday in Camelot - more the inability to use spells thanks to his magic-fearing friend. He ducks as Arthur drags him to the safety of the counter, trying to avoid being cursed with boils or flung halfway across the room by any wayward hexes. Even in safety he's bending to keep his head down, his hair flame free

The look he gives Arthur says it all. That doesn't stop him from saying it, either.

"Somehow, I think the 'I told you sos' can wait!"

[ooc; sorry this is late 8(]

[ Easy targets indeed, and she lets herself fall into a zone. Not faces, just targets, and the gun cracks out again and again and they're going to make it, the faint tremor in her hands from repeated firing not important yet.

They're going to make it, until Bariyan says just that one word and she stiffens, reaching for him with her free hand. ]

Tell me. What just happened?

So suspicious.

[ A slight pout, and he worked the baton free of the downed officer's belt, testing it against the palm of his hand. They had dragged him into the lower level through the basement, using the police entrance to the squad cars and the elevators up.

There had been cameras and press shouting words like mad, but he remembered the layout well enough. The only problem was the exact same reason why he had never tried breaking out in the first place - the building was a hive of officers, some of whom were authorized to use firearms. ]

In the course of my career as a host, I had been arrested six times.

[ If the police had thought to dig deeper, if they actually looked at younger files, they might have had his real name. ]

All the rooms look the same here.

[Pong? What?]

Unless you're talking about ping pong, I have no idea what you're talking about.

But virtual reality, I don't think I know exactly what that is but that's what the white lady with the creepy mind powers called all this.

The exploding glass from the window makes Merlin jolt, shielding his face on reflex. The fact that someone's speaking into his head is only a minor factor - someone else who has magic? - compared to the fact that it is a very large bird shouting at him and flapping around the room. He peers up at it from behind his cover, baffled.

What are- Can you hear me?

Watch out Collette, Gaius is preparing to take aim and fire some of those bottles!

Yeah, ping pong, just with guns instead of paddles and random paranoia instead of a ball. There you go. Totally explained.

[ Excuse him for a moment he has some shooting to do, because some of them are way too close. ]

Did you just get here or something?

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