EVENT: HERE THERE BE MONSTERS

[initiatesnpc]

Date & Time: October 24 - October 31
Location: Throughout Exsilium
Characters: ALL; tag yourselves in
Summary: The Transports return from their mission to find the island crawling with monsters.
Warnings: Violence, possibly injuries (notify a mod if there's cause to add a particular warning!)

The Transports return from their mission to Medieval Russia, but the Initiative Hold is eerily deserted. Normally, their would be a number of Initiative personnel prepared to meet the Transports at the end of their mission for debriefing.

Instead, there is only silence.

That is, until a distant thumping sound can be heard. It is growing closer, and suddenly the beast is bursting into the room. It lets out a roar and charges. Within minutes, it is easily defeated, but damage has already been done -- it collided with the Transporter machine, which is now making a low fizzling sound and lets off a couple sparks. The commotion is enough to draw the attention of the few remaining Initiative personnel who still inhabit the Hold, who arrive immediately afterwards. They are able to tell the Transports two things: that the machine is broken and currently unable to sent anyone back in time, and that the island has been overrun with aggressive, mutated beasts sent by the United Earth. They have been under siege for months, with the island's population reduced to a mere fraction of what it had once been.

Comments

[caligulas_aquarium]

This ain't the first time we'we gone on a mission an' come back to find ewerythin' is fucked up cause of their inability to think shit through.

At this stage I'm just so fuckin' tired of cleanin' up their messes that I'm done. Just...completely. Fight wars kill humans? No problem.

Deal with shit they caused, no thanks. Eweryone else can handle it.

[speakveryclearly]

[Kanaya's crossing her arms and looking a little less intently at Eridan now. At first she had thought her undeath was saved by the Initiative, but now things are a lot more complicated. They're always complicated for trolls, huh. Once Alternia blew up catching a break officially went from "difficult" to "beyond impossible".]

Well, the monsters do pose a threat to the entire Hold. We would likely be rendered baked grubloaf were the city to fall entirely, along with everyone else.

[caligulas_aquarium]

I don't giwe a shit if the city falls. I'll just leawe an' find somewhere else to stay.

[After all, it'd just mean he could stay here for the rest of his natural lifespan. Granted he's not taking a lot of other stuff into consideration but right now it seems like a good plan.]

[speakveryclearly]

The fact that you haven't done this after several months here, in spite of your low opinion of the Initiative's competence, would rather strongly imply the alternatives to this city are so terrible you know you're not going to actually go through with that.

[Take that. Logic. Will Eridan ever recover?]

[caligulas_aquarium]

[Eridan Ampora does not recover, he flounders and thrashes about needlessly in denial.]

Well I'd do it if I had to! Obwiously there ain't no worse alternatiwe than a monster infested hellhole like this.

[...wait.]

Excludin' back home. Speakin' in regards to all possible locations on this planet, nothin' else.

[speakveryclearly]

[Home is PRETTY FUCKED UP YEAH and oh right he died there at her hands dammit, why does that have to be something she's screwed if she doesn't repeatedly remember?!]

Okay. Then name one possible alternative location that would be better. I'll wait.

[caligulas_aquarium]

[uhhhhhhhhhhh]

The Ocean.

[He figures it doesn't have to be somewhere he'd actually stay, just somewhere that he could theoretically stay in and it would be better.

Except it wouldn't cause it's polluted as shit. But hopefully she doesn't know that yet...]

[speakveryclearly]

[...Eridan, really. She's trusting and unaware of the pollution it's got going on, but still sees the gaping holes in that theory. Like a bunch of people who got on the wrong side of the red miles or white science.]

Is there some kind of seadweller colony here?

[caligulas_aquarium]

What? No, just...in terms a' seadwellin' folk there's just me an' Fef. Not that I'd say she'd take up any kinda offer like that anyway so it'd probably just be me.

[He doesn't know about that one mermaid, yet.]

Would he have tried to get her to come to LOWAA???

[speakveryclearly]

So it'd probably be pretty lonely in the ocean, then. In a wide expanse with nothing but yourself and whatever hideous creatures happen to get in the way.

[Land of wrath and angels. Oh yeah. LOGIC.]

he probably asked everyone well mostly everyone not sollux fuck that guy

[caligulas_aquarium]

[Ahah! But he doesn't have to out-logic this time, because he has found an opening.]

No different from how it usually is then, so why the fuck would it matter.

[SELFPITYSELFPITYSELFPITYSELFPITY]

Though obviously they all said no because Eridan is just worse than all the bodies

[speakveryclearly]

[...OH, she sees how she is. Apparently she is ONE OF THE HIDEOUS CREATURES. Being a sunlit monstrosity and crime against nature and so on. Ouch. Ouch. Ouch. She is visibly hurt. She has earned that gray heart she received a while back. She has been hurt physically or emotionally. Obviously emotionally. But still. Hurt.]

Weren't you the one trying to convince me the last time we spoke that humans weren't by nature hideous creatures? And that some were in fact [a slight cynicism for these last four words] worthy of your companionship?

accurate

[caligulas_aquarium]

I just mean I'm used to it. I'd know what to expect.

But you said it yourself, I only meant some. I don't think those exceptions suddenly mean humanity ain't the gigantic fuckup it always has been.

Considering he made about half of them bodies...

[speakveryclearly]

[Leaning back on her heels a little as she gets more comfortable with this change of topic.]

There's something we can agree on.

If Only Someone Was There To Stop Him yes i went there

[caligulas_aquarium]

[what]

Since when?

Commas, angsty emotes, typical emotional theatrics

[speakveryclearly]

[She's kind of surprised to realize that this is... kind of something that developed quite a bit of time after she left the veil, and thereby he wouldn't know about it if he hadn't seen her since then. The point about them not really knowing each other anymore is driven home that little bit more. It takes her a few minutes to figure out how to describe how she actually thinks here.] ...Since I actually developed any more meaningful acquaintance with humanity as a whole? Of course the heroes of SBURB were a different class: They were groomed for their roles, and in that process gained the modicum of morality and competence that humanity overall almost universally lacks. The entire "Earth human model" is so fucked up that it goes beyond any of the riddles that characterized our native universe's mythology. As well as the related jokes or punchlines.

I mean, in their civilization two reproductive progenitors raise offspring to maturity. Come on.

[caligulas_aquarium]

[He's happy enough to listen until she mentions those four.]

You honestly think those four humans from back in that fucked up doomed uniwerse a' theirs were competent?

I can name at least four here who blow them outta the water in terms of ewerythin' you mentioned. They were just as bad as the rest of 'em, Kan. If you can't see that then you really are as outta the loop as you said.

[speakveryclearly]

I said a modicum of competence. Not necessarily competent in their own right. Considering what they did to their session and ours, [WHICH SHE SURE STILL THINKS IS THE FAULT OF SOMEONE BESIDES GAMZEE OR VRISKA] competent isn't exactly the descriptor that leaps horns-first into one's think pan when describing them. Not necessarily more competent than any other humans who were ever "born", either. [Incredibly disgusted enclosure talons.] But they had at least some basic things going for them. They had actual strife specibi. And sylladices. And practiced if not hemotyping then iridotyping, like civilized beings.

[caligulas_aquarium]

They were still a bunch of unlikeable assholes.

[Complete with a little flick/wave of his hand as if dismissing the idea they had anything going for them ever.]

At the wery least I can admit Lalonde's offspring ain't half bad. Just a shame her ancestor was such a bitch.

[speakveryclearly]

...

[She's supposed to have faith in Rose Lalonde not being a no-good backstabbing Dersite bitch. That is what she is supposed to remember. Her elaborate meteor schemes and shit that resulted in... something or another. They somehow absolve her of responsibility for the drastic failure of multiple sessions, even though before finding out the full truth her idolization of the Tentacle Therapist had been based primarily in admiration of her leadership. Right. She was her patron troll. This is something she shouldn't compromise on. Ri...gh...t...]

Do you know her given name? Not Rose's, of course. The girl related to her is who I mean.

[caligulas_aquarium]

[WAIT SHIT HE WASN'T SUPPOSED TO ACKNOWLEDGE THEY KNOW EACH OTHER...fuck.........

No this has to be salvageable somehow.]

No. We...spoke once. Day she got here. Aside that I got nothin' to do with her.

[speakveryclearly]

Why would you trust she's any nicer than her "mother", then? I mean, I do in fact believe that. But that's because of a long conversation we had some time after I arrived. Where she implied you had quite a bit to do with each other, actually.

[Is he trying to make this something like a case of consorting with landdwellers before committing genocide being dignified and historically compliant? Because that's actually an adorable and familiar sort of Eridanesque practice, and one more familiar to her.]

[caligulas_aquarium]

[Wait, she what?]

...

Exactly how much she did imply.

[speakveryclearly]

That you hung out on a regular basis, with some kind of teaching involved. Enough that she felt qualified to speak on the topic of bifurcation prevention, which she had already developed a concern about.

[If Eridan really told her about the rainbow drinker who killed him in their first conversation...]

[caligulas_aquarium]

...oh my god.

I fuckin' told her not to say a' word about anythin' an' she goes ahead an' done it anyway!

[His expression can only be described as dbsyhigvbl;dsiv.

Basically super fucking pissed off.]

First Fef' an' now Rox'! Is there some sorta don't do a thing Eridan asks you to law I'm missin' out on or somethin'!? Cause it sure as fuck feels like there is at this point!