maskormenacelogs | Pestilence: Horsemen of the Apocalypse Log #1

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Pestilence: Horsemen of the Apocalypse Log #1 - 1st to 3rd of June

WHO: Pestilence AND YOU
WHERE: All around MoM's America and beyond
WHEN: 1st to 3rd of June
WHAT: Part One of the Horsemen Plot, this is the time for Pestilence to take hold. Pestilence will spread randomly, like an illness born by thought, as well as pass by direct proximity with the ring, held by Frederick Chilton, and those who become affected will swiftly fall into a death-like sleep. After that, characters will find themselves in a shared Dreamscape (see text of this post) populated by their own and other people's psyches, dreams and nightmares. Outside of this Dreamscape, others will try to wake them - but short of waiting for the illness to subside, there's really only one cure: sharing their true feelings about the affected person.
WARNINGS: Warning for everything here in advance, sex, violence, death, gruesome images, etc. If you have any specific warnings for your thread please add them to the comment headers.

When you do succumb to sleep, whether violently, immediately, or beneath the slower snowdrift duress of cognitive slurring, you will soon wakened to an onyx dark landscape. Bright, searing lights above will pinprick as you look upwards, even while the darkness disorientates you. This is the Dreamscape. Intuitively, some small part of you will know that you've been brought here because of a disease. Some part of you might ever vibrate with the whisper of Pestilence.

As you think within this atmosphere, your thoughts conceive manifestation -- the environment you witness swirls and shifts to your subconscious. You build your setting, and your setting may clash with other dreamers. This Dreamscape was born from the inclinations of Frederick Chilton, and the subconscious is its crowned king. That conceptional influence gives you a mountain of power, along with a corrosive fault line of responsibility. Every passing idea in your brain serves to flesh out the Dreamscape of Pestilence. It is highly likely that your darker fears and cruelties will find their opportunity to breathe, and they are just as "physical" in this astral plane as you are.

Because your environment is ultimately the subconscious creation of a pestilence Chilton, there are three stages that the Dreamscape can become -- though it's all according to your emotional and mental state. Morpheus is the mildest of the three. This level concerns the people in your life, and their cruelty or kindness you interpret. Phantasos is the middling range. The victim will suffer surrealistic fantasy dreams that are weird and absurd. This is the strangest of sleep, the unnerving nature of your mind. It can go dark, or funny, and the setting of a Phantasos level will involve woods, caverns, mountains, and other natural settings. And Phoebetor serves as the nightmare level. This is where catastrophe comes true. Everything you most dread, every little horrific whisper in the back of your mind, that's going to happen with a Phoebeter severity.

Sweet dreams.

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[The pain was the kind she'd never felt before, even with the accident that put her in the hospital; The kind that left her skin tingling and muscles twitching. Her throat dry and voice hoarse. The pod felt too tight, tighter even than it looked, and for a horrifying moment she couldn't even breathe with it.

And then she was stumbling, skin crawling with a phantom itch of pain. She looks around, blinking tears out of her eyes, and opens her mouth to say something but the words rasp and burn and never make it out.

Someone shouts from outside and she jerks, legs finally giving up and sending her sitting promptly on the floor with a harsh cry.

The feeling of being trapped doesn't go away.]

[It's the cry that gets Bart's attention. That has his fingers loosening their death grip on his hair, that has his eyes dragging up from where they'd been fixated on the floor. He stares at Gogo for a good half a minute before there's any recognition in his eyes, before there's anything other than blankness. It takes maybe twice that time for life to really return to his expression, and when it does?

Well, he looks a little wrecked.]

Gogo? [As if it wasn't her. Wasn't the girl with the crash tech, the same girl who carried him halfway around the swear-in when the after effects of a flower induced adrenaline rush hit him and hit him hard.] ... Sorry. You- I don't think you should be here.

[None of them should be here. Bart, Gar, Jaime- the three of them should be back in the cave, safe and sound and out of the Reach's hands. If Bart hadn't come back, if he hadn't been such an idiot, fallen so far into his role he'd forgotten to think...

The ship lurches, its sides creaking, and out of one of the small, strangely shaped windows up near the top of the room Gogo might see a shape flit by, one that looks strangely like a fish. As if they were miles and miles underwater.]

We'll get out, though. [Bart's murmuring now, more to himself than to Gogo, and his voice sounds distant, as if he's not quite all there.] We'll all almost die, but... they'll get us out.

[Even if the Reach have already gotten what they wanted.]

[She looks a little younger than she should, maybe a year or two. Less settled in herself and lost. But there's still fire in her and the more time passes the more she can get control over herself. She forces herself back to her feet before she replies, clutching tight at her own arms as she stares out one of the windows. The lurch almost sends her crashing back down but she grabs onto the wall. A wall that creaks and clicks and for a moment shifts underneath her palm like a carpet of tiny bots shifting tighter but is only a wall when she pulls away.

It takes her two tries to get the words out, stubbornly forcing herself to be heard.]

What is this? W-where am I?

A ship.

[Bart drops his hands from his head entirely here, taking in a deep breath before getting to his feet, walking over to the door and reaching for a panel at its side, about to put his hand against the read out before drawing it back, his shoulders drawing up in sudden tension and fear. Somewhere beyond the door come screams, screams of people that are familiar, be they from his memories or Gogo's, the dream doesn't seem to care.]

It's- we're their test subjects. Their meat. [He spits out the word] Good meat. And good meat gets preserved. The bad meat gets... gets disposed of.

[There's a moment of complete disbelief and horror, before the anger crashes down on her shoulders.]

Right, like I'm going to...to stand here and just let them- [She breaks off into a short cough, frustration making her shake. Those screams sounded almost familiar, nagging on the edge of her mind.]

I'm not going to be some helpless science experiment.

[Bart turns, looking at Gogo with his eyebrows knit together in something akin to confusion.

Or at least it would be if he didn't feel so overloaded he was defaulting to a blank slate.]

We're not, it's- [His words die in his throat, and suddenly he feels like he's swallowing around ash, like his words have just dried up, that if he opens his mouth to speak again he'll just cough out the same stuff that fell from the sky for thirteen years of his life.]

Look you can- if you go, you might make it. I think they make it, but I-

[His hand shoots up, fingertips touching against his throat as if he expected something to be there, and he lets out a breath when they come into contact with nothing but his uniform.]

... I have to stay, there's something-- I can't go through that door. [There's another pause before he adds on, quietly.] Maybe you shouldn't, either.

Why not? Whatever is doing that...they're going to come for us, aren't they?

[She whirls towards him, her feigned confidence held in tatters around her confusion. She reaches forward to grip his arms.]

Come on, kid. You know what's going on, don't you? I don't even know where I am. I don't know how I got here, I don't know- [Anything. She shakes her head. There was no way out, no way. The walls were pressing down on her.]

Get yourself together. We can't go through that door, right? There has to be another way.

[Bart lets himself be grabbed, lets himself turn to face the angry, slightly different version of the girl he's becoming friends with outside of this world. A place that seems a million miles and a hundred lifetimes away. Almost like that was the dream and this... this is the reality.]

That's the point. They take people off the streets, check them for the metagene, and if you have it they put you in pods and hurt you until something happens. They'll try everything they can think of, watch how your body responds to it, see how much you can take before everything breaks down, and then they give you more. They push you to the edge and then force your body to develop something new so you don't die from it.

[There's something jagged and bitter rising in Bart, something that curls his lip and puts an edge to his voice, something that has him pushing away from Gogo, shaking his head and reaching up to press the heel of his hand against his forehead, his eyes screwing shut.]

No it- there is no other way, I was the other way. And now it's- none of it mattered. That's what this- that's what this is, it's proof. I wasn't coming back to save anyone, I was coming back to make sure everything happened.

[The walls are creaking again, the red lights flashing brighter and brighter, and those strange, alien voices are close on the other side of the door, the scrape of metal against metal, like someone's dragging armored fingertips down the outside of the door, scratching away echoes through the room.]

What is a metagene? [She understands the rest of it, for the most part. Her body still shaking a little from being inside that pod. Whatever it was, that meant she had it, and she's not dead so...what does she have?

She turns to face the door, the rest of his words lost on her without context. He was answering a question different than what she asked, something clearly bigger picture.

God, if only she had some tools, and some time.

She places herself between Bart and the door, as whoever on the other side scraped it. The echoes chased the creaking, and she tried to ignore how the room seemed to be closing in, even though she didn't think the walls were moving.]

It's not over yet. [Her voice broke halfway through the sentence and she cursed herself for feeling so weak.]

[Bart shrugs at Gogo's question, anything but his normally helpful self. The kid who will grin and launch into a thousand word explanation when a five word answer would have sufficed. He just doesn't feel like talking, doesn't feel like putting on that false cheer.

Honestly, right now? Right now Bart doesn't feel like doing much other than going down with this ship. Because if he really didn't change the future, then what's the point? What's the point of fighting, what's the point of anything when it's just going to end up with everyone dying and the world turning to ash?]

It's what makes people able to have powers. Though it could just be picking up on the Porter, for you. [He's finally saying, if just because he has a feeling Gogo won't actually let him get away without answering.

His response to the second thing Gogo said, however, is dying on his lips just a moment after he opens his mouth to respond. His eyes glance upward, widen, and that's the only warning Gogo will have before the doors blast open, before that creaking, echoing laugh fills the room and the hulking figure of Black Beetle steps through the wreckage of the doors.]

No, girl. [He says reaching out and pressing his hand against the wall, machinery reacting to his armor and causing the electric fields in the pods around them to activate.] It was over the second you decided to act.

Try not to spoil the meat. [Comes a disdainful voice from just behind the hulking figure, and there's the Scientist, unflappable as ever as she makes a few notations on a digital pad she's holding.] I wasn't finished studying them.

[Gogo stumbles back as the doors blast open, arm flung out wide to keep Bart behind her.

As if she would do any good against what came in. She shook, nearly losing feeling in her legs, and took another step back.

What good was she going to do against a monster like that? She was helpless.

Except when did she accept that helplessly, she asked herself bitterly. If this was over the second she decided to act, then it would have been over long before. She'd gotten out of that tube once, somehow. She could do it again.

Powers. She had a power, didn't she? The Porter gave it to her.]

You won't get your hands on him! [Strength was returning to her legs as she drew herself up to her full height, unimpressive it may have been.

She was Gogo Tomago and giving up wasn't in her vocabulary.]

[The Scientist doesn't even look up from her digital clipboard, doesn't even look bothered, and the Beetle in front of them laughs, raising his arm, the armor on it shifting and growing, his hand breaking apart and shifting into some sort of canon, the center of it beginning to glow, a high-pitched whine filling the room.

For a moment, everything goes silent, ash falls from ceiling, the walls and tubes vanish and are replaced by a gray expanse, and Gogo might feel like she's layered over, like she's inside a suit of some sort, like she's wearing someone else, filling in another role in a vision that's not quite a vision. The black armor ripples to blue, the sneer flattens out to something more blank, more robotic than psychotic and--]

NO!

[Bart's cry is hoarse and real. It's terror and desperation cracking his voice, burning through his throat as he runs forward, as he moves between Gogo and the blast of light, as he realizes there's no choice-- he can't lift her, he can't even push them both down since he's moving so fast. So he stops, he takes a breath, and he lets himself get hit with the full force of a sonic canon at short range.

The pods snap back, the last of the ash drifts to the ground, and Bart is propelled forward into Gogo, feeling his uniform tear under the force of the blast, feeling his skin blister and burn. They slam into the pods behind them, and he's left pushing himself up to his knees, braced forward on one hand, the other moving to his side, where he'd been hit. He can feel blood soaking through his gloves, dampening the seared bit of his uniform. He bites his lip so hard against the urge to cry out his teeth cut into it.

From the doorway, the Scientist looks up, making a disgusted noise as she takes in the scene.]

I said not to spoil the meat. Get them in pods, he'll heal during processing.

IMPULSE!

[She scrambles to hold him up, one hand moving to press against the wound. Trying to stop the bleeding. There are tears on her face without her even realizing it, the shock of seeing him get hit cutting right through any wall she might have had up.]

I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. It's gonna be okay.

[Gogo shifts him so he can lay more comfortable in her lap, looking up at the Beetle with rage in her eyes. She doesn't care how big he is. She doesn't care what they wanted to do.

Suddenly she could understand where Hiro had been coming from. Sitting here, with this boy bleeding in her arms... all she wanted was for his attacker to hurt.

The pods start to rattle. Anything metal that wasn't held down began to lift into the air.]

[Sound, for a moment, is nothing more than a high pitched whine. It's a buzzing inside his head, filling his ears to the point where he feels dizzy, can actually feel consciousness fighting to slip away.

His side is fire and pain, it's the burn of a plasma blast, it's the sensation of thousands upon thousands of nerve endings having been ripped apart before starting to surge back to life, his body trying to heal almost as fast as it had been injured. Already, the bleeding is slowing down, already the sheer force of the pain has faded back a little, but it still hurts. It still leaves him shivering and breathless, weak as he leans against Gogo, unaware of what's going on around them.

The Beetle's halted his progress towards him, the faceplate of the armor shifting as he raises his brow behind it. The Scientist pauses her notes, mirroring his action.]

Fascinating. [Is all she says, even as Black Beetle scoffs, raising the canon and charging it up again, drawing out the seconds far more than he has to, if just to make things interesting.]

Run. [Bart finally manages to gasp out, pushing himself up to his knees, his body still shaking from the hit, his skin a sickly sort of pale, one hand still clutching the stained and ripped fabric of his uniform.] Gogo- you've gotta run.

Only if you're coming with me!

[She's facing down death, she can tell, but damn her if she's just going to let him be hurt again protecting her.

Besides, there is nowhere to run. The door is behind their enemies, and they are under so much water. The only one who's fast enough to get to the other side is Impulse, and he isn't going to leave. She doesn't even suggest it.]

The only way we're getting out of here is together, you hear me?

[She wraps an arm around him, and the sight of him pale and shaking only serves to feed her emotions. Several of the pods start to crumple, and a few even begin to break away from the stands.

Gogo can't look away from the Beetle; can't look away from what was surely going to be a very painful end, but if they were going to die she can't let Bart face it alone.]

[It's funny, how different this dream is from the one he shared with Jaime. How dragging someone else into his own nightmare changes everything around. Where he's putting his foot down with Jaime, telling him that he's not going to go ahead without him, he's here telling Gogo to do exactly that.

No one ever said that teenagers were consistent creatures.]

I- [He shifts, flinching, before looking up, staring at the glowing end of Black Beetle's canon, at the metal floating in the air around them. His fingers dig into his side, pain lancing through him, but it's better than before. It's an ache, instead of unbearable fire.] ... Okay.

[And just like that, he's moving, pushing up and into a run, looping around once before picking up Gogo, clenching his jaw and pulling her in close as he runs, ignoring the way his arms start shaking, the way his run lists to the side as the weight and balance hits him. He's able to get past Black Beetle, manages to move past the energy blast and out through the door before the scarab can snap it shut.

His shoulder hits the wall, and he lets out a little cry of pain before his body gives out, before he's overbalancing and falling to the ground, unable to keep up the run while holding Gogo, ending up with both of them taking a tumble, skidding across the floor of the hallways of this ship. Halls that will ever so slightly begin to fill with water in the next few seconds.]

[Gogo can't help the undignified yelp she lets out as she's suddenly hauled out of the room. The metal crashes in the room as they leave it, pods abruptly tearing from their stands to fly towards the door; towards the danger that Beetle represents.

Her hold on the power dies as they fall, and it takes her--too long no time get up--longer than she would have liked to get her bearings back.

She shakes herself, feeling water soak into her clothes, and scrambles to her feet so she can run to him.]

Come on, Impulse. There's got to be some kind of escape hatch.

[That's how ships work, right? She lifts him back up, one arm over her shoulders, supporting his weight until he can stand on his own.]

[He's managed to push himself to his knees by the time Gogo's at his side, and just sort of... lets her haul him up, moves along beside her. His head is spinning, his vision swimming, everything seeming too far and too close all at the same time. It has something to do with the pain, the bleeding, and something else. Something completely separate.

There's just something nagging at the back of his mind, some constant reminder that this isn't just a memory. That this isn't a retelling of something that happened in the past. He can't get rid of that bitter taste, that feeling of dread curled tight in his chest, that-

A splashing in the water up ahead, around the corner. Bart digs his heels in, forces them to a stop.]

No, it- We can't. We're under water. We'll get crushed if we go outside there's too much pressure. [He's saying it absently, weakly, just stating facts, his voice void of emotion. His eyes are fixed at a point ahead of them, color draining even further from his cheeks.] It... it doesn't matter, anyway.

[There are footsteps now, a pulsating red light. And Bart swallows, his fear coiling tighter and tighter, making it hard to breathe.]

It'd just be better to die here, wouldn't it?

[And around the corner steps a boy in a red suit, energy pulsating outwards in small circles. His eyes glow red, his skin nothing more than the outline of vaguely human shaped energy, all trapped up inside that special containment. He smiles, but the voice he speaks in is overlay-ed with one much older, one that doesn't fit the teenager in front of them.]

It would.

[She grits her teeth. Debating the entire time whether or not to just carry him. He's light enough, and she's not too hurt herself. He made sure of that.

Meanwhile her brain was running in circles. There's gotta be some way for people to get off this ship without it having to surface. It's something she would have added. A smaller expedition ship or something.

Except Bart isn't moving, and she turns to face him, scowling at his comment.]

Never, it-

[No, another enemy. Can't they just catch a single break?! She places herself between this new kid and Bart, one hand held up as if she had any idea how they were going to get out of here.]

Don't give up, okay? We've made it this far, and you're not alone. [She just needed a plan.]</small

[Nathaniel isn't moving forward. He's just standing there, staring Bart down. There's no immediate threat, no impending danger, no spark of fear pushing Bart forward anymore. No, the fear he feels now is something entirely different. It's heavy and jagged, gluing his feet to the ground and making everything just sort of snap into place.

He shakes his head at Gogo trying to get them moving, at the determination, the optimism she still has. Because she doesn't know- she doesn't know just how hopeless everything is.]

No. [He's still stuck there, his eyes locked back on Nathaniel, and he doesn't know it, doesn't realize it, but the corners of his mouth have turned up in a broken - so broken - smile, one that's offset by the tears running down his cheeks. His breath shudders, and he ends up laughing for it, the sound as hollow and broken as his expression.] No, I'm- I messed up.

This was all- this is all- [The pulsations from Neutron grow stronger, more frequent, the red energy dissipating just inches in front of them, now. But still Bart doesn't move, doesn't look away.

He's looking death and destruction in the face, and it looks like going home.] There are some things you can change but they're just little things. Anything big would have rewritten everything, it wouldn't keep mirroring. This- this never would have happened if I didn't bring the tech back. Blue would have gotten away, the cave would still be there, the Reach wouldn't have gotten the chance to figure out what's wrong with the scarab.

[He laughs, and it's practically hysterical. Anxiety is starting to rise up, fear taking a hold of him. This is the nightmare to end all nightmares. This is everything Bart's been refusing to think about for months and months.]

Over seven billion people in the world and I- I think I helped kill them.

[That's the thing with Bart's nightmares. Bad things happen in them, sure, but those aren't the truly terrifying things. After all, death and destruction loses some of its effect when you grow up with it rubbed in your face.]

[Gogo shouldn't turn her back on the person ahead of them, but something is happening with Bart and that feels far more important than the pulses creeping toward them steadily with every second. She stands in front of him and cups his face in her hands, leaning forward to press her forehead to his.]

I don't know what happened. I don't know who these people are, or what we're doing here. So I'm not going to lie and try to convince you otherwise.

But it's not over, okay? We're alive. Whatever happens in the future: we're alive now. And as long as we live: there's hope. You are incredible, Impulse. You can do amazing things. So don't give up. We may fall, we may make mistakes, but we're going to get back on our feet and try again. And we'll keep trying.

I'm going to help you. I'm going to face this, and I'm going to fight. I'm going to fight for you. For anyone else still out there. Will you fight by my side?

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Pestilence: Horsemen of the Apocalypse Log #1 - 1st to 3rd of June

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