03 ▒ EVENT: STRELA OUTPOST ▒ ASSIMILATION

[ataraxites]

CHARACTERS: Ensemble production!
LOCATION: Strela Outpost.
WARNINGS: Mind horror, hivemindery, etc.
SUMMARY: Communal brainwashing.
NOTES: Divided by locations; players are free to indicate which day/stage, and to begin new subthreads wherever they'd like!

Looks like the authorities have apprehended you and have brought you in for processing. After being forced to wait in the waiting room, you're brought to the assimilation room - a terrible white cell, where you're trapped for hours, sentenced to be slowly stripped of your individuality.

Comments

[amethysts]

Fuck.

[She squeezes her eyes shut again.]

The battery in my ear bud fucking--blew up. And it's leaking. Batteries--aren't a good fucking thing to have leak into your bloodstream, and if you get it out maybe I won't puke to death on this fucking floor.

[jurisimpudent]

It -

[He swallows hard, his stomach lurching at the mere thought of it. Oh, God, it's - What if she's just delusional? What if she doesn't know what's happening, if she's just ill - he should wait for a doctor, he should wait for someone who knows what they're doing. He shouldn't be doing this, his hands are huge and clumsy and he spent half his adolescence tripping over his own feet and he's never won a single fencing match, and if he does it wrong he could make her deaf - he's a lawyer, lawyers don't do this. They just argue. He just argues. That's all.

He really doesn't want to hurt her.]

Okay.

[He takes a deep breath, closes his eyes a moment, and then angles her head so that it catches the light as much as it can. He grips it there, holds it there, because if she jerks around this could get even worse -

He slides that prong into her ear canal as gently as possible.]

[amethysts]

[She's already deaf in that ear, she knows. The battery blew out her ear drum and she's just lucky she hasn't noticed brain damage yet. She might be, still, but if she survives this she'll just--cope.

The beginning of a clot comes out first. Then battery components, bits of metal, splayed wire. She shakes until nothing but blood comes out, pressing against his hand like a kitten needing to be petted.]

[jurisimpudent]

[Horror makes his stomach twist. He's seen corpses before, corpses torn to pieces and tortured or just shot or just stabbed or that had been floating in stagnant water for a week, and he'd faced down all of them and watched the autopsies with equanimity until he'd gotten used to it all. He'd even participated in some of the autopsies, to learn how the data that would eventually win him cases was acquired. All of that, though, was so different from this - different from this girl shaking and hurting under his hand.

His eyes well up just once before he clamps down on his misery. He doesn't cry. Not when he's awake.

Somehow he gets out the metal. Somehow he succeeds. And he thinks that's the last of it - hopes fervently that's the last of it; he sits back and touches her forehead and tries not to retch in turn.]

It's all right. That's it. No more.

[amethysts]

[Libby rolls onto her other side and lets herself bleed. The more she does the less is in her, and she thinks he's right. So more. She smiles up at him, crooked and impossibly pale.]

Thanks, fuckface.

[See? She's fine. (Not even slightly.) She retches again, shaking her whole body.]

So what'd--what'd you do?

[jurisimpudent]

I - What?

[He's distracted, his mind scattered; after a moment, he shakes his head.]

I...nothing. I was just reading. They might have mistaken me for someone else...Should you be speaking?

[His hand is still on her shoulder.]

[amethysts]

If I stop talking I might pass out.

[And die. That's why she's keeping her eyes open. She laughs a little and--his hand on her shoulder isn't so bad, actually.]

If they got you I figure--it's not criminals. Nah. We're all fucked.

Tell me--if you see any of my crew. Jesse or Nikolai or Syg or--Mouse. [She notices her speech is slurring. That's not good.]

[jurisimpudent]

[He notices it too; his face becomes even more pinched, even more worried. He looks up to the guard and then back down at her. He swallows.]

They're most likely just assuming that I'm one of the new arrivals, and no doubt some of the new arrivals have engaged in illegal activity. It'll be cleared up soon enough.

[He presses at her shoulder. He knows that it's...not likely. He's seen their eyes, their faces...They don't assume things. That takes a capacity for thought.

He looks up at the guard. It's an absurd, foolish plea, because if the man didn't intervene when he was digging around in her ear he'd not do so now, but - ]

Please. She needs medical attention. Then we'll all stand trial as you wish.

[amethysts]

Buddha, fuck--they don't give a fuck, buddy. There isn't going to be a fucking trial. Or a fucking doctor. Do you see my people or not?

[He's so naive, she thinks. Naive and stupidly hopeful.]

[jurisimpudent]

I...No, I don't. But I don't know what the latter two look like...

[He thinks. He can't remember at the moment entirely. Nikolai he thinks is the damned criminal, and...

And damn it all. Why is that idiot Strider with his imbecilic magic herbs not here, or Black with his ability to conjure bandages - why couldn't someone useful be here?

He lowers his voice.]

Would you be able to run?

[amethysts]

Do I fucking look like it?

[He's still trying to save her, and she has to crush that right now before it gets worse. He'd just--die, and it'd be her fault.]

Don't fucking do anything. You don't know what this is. I do. So you don't fucking do anything. L--Lucas or somebody will get us.

[jurisimpudent]

[He shakes his head and swallows hard. He has to contend with his instinct - that if one is accused of a crime one must stand trial, that the process of justice cannot be circumvented - and his fear both. But he still shakes his head, because a trial is of no use if the accused criminal dies beforehand, and because Libby...]

I could occupy them. Long enough for you to run. Do you know where the dock is from here?

[amethysts]

I'm not fucking running.

[Because if none of her people are here--she can die like this. It's okay.]

I can't--they electrocute me again, something else probably blows. My arm or my shoulder or my ribs? I fucking die for sure in here. You want to kill me? Just smother me, you fucking asshole.

[jurisimpudent]

No, that's not what I want...

[For a moment his face is genuinely wounded before he looks away to hide it. But for all that sentimentality, his speech is blunt.]

Your condition is clearly poor. If you don't get medical attention, you may not make it through long enough even for a trial.

[amethysts]

There. Won't. Be. A fucking trial.

[She spits it and retches again, struggling to sit up and glare at him.]

This is a fucking stockyard. I know this fucking place, you stupid fuck. If we're lucky we die.

[jurisimpudent]

[He pushes her back down and glares at her.]

Or whatever it is! Whatever the endpoint of this is, you need attention before that.

But what's that supposed to mean, it's a stockyard?

[amethysts]

Don't fucking touch me!

[She all but screams it, bravado not hiding terror for a moment because she knows he can't and won't do that but it still--she always remembers and it's too close right now.]

[jurisimpudent]

[And he jerks back, stunned, hands coming away from her at once and horror written all over his face.]

[amethysts]

[Libby curls almost fetal and shakes.]

Don't--I can't do this again, just kill me.

[jurisimpudent]

I'm - sorry...

[He realizes - realizes and despises himself as a complete idiot. Slowly he sits back, swallowing, not knowing what to do - because he doesn't even know what to do ever when he himself is overcome. All he can do instead is mutter the words he always wants to hear after a dream - ]

It's...not real.

[But that's stupid, utterly stupid, because the situation they're in is real. Fatally so. And maybe that's what she means by do this again - maybe it's not some flashback. So all he can do is offer again:]

I'm sorry.

[amethysts]

[Libby won't cry. She cried for Loki and she cried for Jesse, but she won't do it for this. She looks at Edgeworth with bleak, merciless exhaustion instead.]

They'll just kill you. You'd be a shitty pet. But me--nah, this is what I'm for.

[She laughs hideously.]

You don't know a single fucking thing. Real. This is real.

[jurisimpudent]

[He swallows hard and shakes his head.]

No - Ms. Libby, it's not like that. That's not what this is.

[amethysts]

You--

[If she could stand now she would punch him. Probably break her hand, she's no fighter, but that's not the point.]

Then what is it, you stupid motherfucker?

[jurisimpudent]

It's - They see us as a threat of some sort. Look - we're not being brought in here based on qualities that would make us desirable. You pointed as much out yourself. It's just all of us who came here from the Tranquility. Not the people in the city who are the most attractive. Nothing like that.

[amethysts]

You think--you think I think that because I think I'm fucking pretty?