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

[scintillates]

For a moment the only person Snow wants to kill is Finnick, but then she realises that Talia is dead and that - well, quite frankly, that's ridiculous. It would take far more than some un-magicked man with a trident to take her down.

At least, that's the hope that Snow is going to cling to now. She hisses as the ice and mirror continue to cut her.

"Mirror, mirrors, small and near
Get this demon out of my hair!"

Not her finest creation, but it did the job. Focussing her magic through the mirrors, their reflective powers worked to bounce the demon's weapons away from her. She spun in a circle to face the demon, flinging two of her snowflake blades at it. "Get out of my body!"

[insecrets]

She's impressive, Finnick will give her that. Except for the rhyme that brings a smile to his lips despite the situation. It's truly awful, as far as any poetry goes, and he's received dozens of poems from love struck girls.

Still, Snow. Powerful and beautiful, and something he'd rather see right now than the memory of Annie he had just gone through. Angry, violent, ready to kill him. That wasn't his Annie, but she was leaving a bitter taste in his mouth regardless.

He holds tight to his trident, idly watching the blood slip down its points. "Need help?"

[scintillates]

Snow catches that smile out of the corner of her eye. "Don't laugh!" Her fingers work to disconnect a few of her mirrors from the necklace; they skitter across the ground on gold wire legs, one heading to Gerta and two more to the demon. "I'd like to see you come up with rhymes on the fly!"

Danielle continues to yell things that don't mean all that much at her as Gerta sets her sight on Finnick. And while Snow knows she made the girl a little slower than her, she didn't make her that slow. In fact none of the women are attacking like they should. Talia barely even speaks to the people she targets, let alone yells.

Spoke, she reminds herself, and her jaw tightens. "I wouldn't mind it!" she yells at her companion instead. Her mirrors attach themselves to her targets, and she breathes in, trying to focus.

"Mirror magic learnt from mother,
Make these assholes attack each other."

It's ridiculous and petty and technically she hadn't even learnt magic from her mother, but it works. Gerta abruptly diverts towards the demon, and the masses or ice and glass shards stop pinging off Snow and veer towards the girl.

Meanwhile, Snow's head practically erupts with pain. She staggers, one hand pressing to her forehead before she manages to drag herself up. She doesn't look please with her spell though, even though it's left another enemy wide open for Finnick's attacked. "That...shouldn't have worked. Not like that, at least."

[insecrets]

"I like to take my time constructing poetry," Finnick throws back at her, chuckling under his breath. He catches the one girl -- the red head -- turning towards him. There's nothing in his demeanor but determination at this. No fear, no thrill.

This time at her rhymes, he buries the smile that threatens to take over his face. This is a serious situation, or at least it should be serious enough and handled seriously.

The woman changes course and attacks the more mutt-like creature. He follows after, pulling his arm back, the trident in hand. It's not like spearing a fish or a shark. The target's larger and distracted. The throw is perfect, though, hitting the poor girl in the back of the shoulders and piercing through her neck. He only then remembers that this isn't like Beetee's weapon for him. It's not going to come back because he wants it to.

His gaze flicks back to Snow. "What do you mean?"

[scintillates]

She winces when the trident sinks between Gerta's shoulders, but it's nothing like the scream that tore through her before. She tries not to focus on that as she eyes the demon, her nemesis.

"I mean that I'm not strong enough to control the demon that pushed me out of my body to begin with," she says. The demon, now bereft of its target in Gerta, turns back to her. "--Whoops."

Her reflective shield, thankfully, is still working. She glances over at Finnick. "What are your feelings on running?"

[insecrets]

I'm not strong enough to control the demon.

Finnick has been wondering about these dream sequences, how easy it is to win these fights with little damage to themselves, but he doesn't say a word. Running? He can deal with that.

His eyes slide to the poor, dead girl where his trident is sticking out of her. It stands straight and proud. "I need my weapon back first." He should just leave it behind, he figures, but he can't. It's his.

[scintillates]

"Here." She tosses a mirror at him. It doesn't matter if he catches it or not, because the gold wire wraps itself around his wrist.

"Mirror on a golden band,
Bring his trident to his hand."

She shakes her hair back out of her eyes and starts to hum. This magic isn't her strong point, but it'll give her an edge. Especially if she has more power over the demon now. At first Finnick might hear her song, urging him to calm down, stop fighting, but it disappears soon enough as she manages to focus it, directly at the demon.

Which is when Jakob stumbles into her line of sight.

"Aunt Snow!" he calls, and for a second Snow thinks things might actually be okay. But then his expression twists, and he throws one of the bloody shards in his hands at her. "Eat glass!"

Her spell had been directed at the demon only. Jakob's weapon cuts straight through her shield and buries itself in her upper arm. Snow hisses, and tries to pretend like those aren't tears stinging her eyes. "Okay, now! Now would be a good time to run, come on!"

[insecrets]

He takes a step back when the wire on the mirror wraps around his wrist. Part of him wants to rip it off of his body; it's something unfamiliar to him, but after a second, he calms down, breathes out. His trident moves and then is tugged out of the dead body, flying back to his hand. Now that's a little bit more familiar, more like Beetee's invention than this downgraded version given to him by the Initiative.

Finnick finds himself swaying somewhat to the tune after his weapon is returned, shoulders relaxing. He feels calm, soothed. Then the moment passes, and he's instantly on guard again, shooting a glare at Snow. He doesn't like that, having magic used on him. It's too much like Capitol manipulation.

His head snaps in the direction of the small voice, eyeing the young boy. A son. It's not the time to be thinking about his own life, but that's all he sees when he looks at Jakob.

"Run where?"

[scintillates]

Snow's head is pounding from the magic she's been expending, and she staggers, slips on the ice. It hurts when her knees hit the surface, but she grits her teeth and pulls herself grimly to her feet in time to catch that glare from Finnick.

"Sorry, sorry!" She tries for an apologetic grin and can only manage a tired grimace. If only the effects of her wound hadn't gone with the demon. "I don't have a lot of practice with that one."

Jakob is gearing up to throw another volley, and the demon is - well, being a demon. Slipping a little as she runs across the ice, Snow heads towards Finnick. "Away? Maybe if we run long enough, we can get out the same way you got in, I don't know."

For all that she's trying to put up a somewhat cheerful front, it's becoming increasingly obvious that Snow is able to deal with being in this place less and less.

[insecrets]

Snow's coming towards him, but his focus remains solely on Jakob and the way he does his best to attack the woman and the anger in his eyes that should seem so unnatural, but he's seen that look so many times in the arena. He's too young, of course, to be thrown into the Games, but it makes him think. If Snow hadn't been killed, if they hadn't rebelled against the Capitol, would this be what his son would have been like? Would Finnick have been stupid enough to have gotten Annie pregnant then?

His eyes flicker towards her for a moment, and he can see the tense look on her face. His hand shoots out when she's close enough, wrapping his fingers around her wrist and tugging hard. "Let's go."

[scintillates]

She can't keep the naked relief from her face, letting him tug her for a few steps before she gathers her reserves to run after him. She hasn't been training as much as she should have been, sticking to parlour tricks and magic charms. Nothing physical.

"If we get out of this, I'll leave the library, I swear," she pants. Her visions blurs, and she curses, rather inventively if she does say herself. "Finnick, just to check - there aren't currently two of you here, right?"

[insecrets]

Snow pants, but Finnick has been keeping himself in top shape, barely breaking a sweat as they run. After a moment, he lets go of her wrist, finding it easier to pull him own weight rather than dragging her along with him. The problem is that he just doesn't know where to go.

"I'm pretty sure I haven't been multiplying." He slows to a stop and glances at her. "Why?"