Fearfest 2k15

[anxiogenic]

WHO: YOU!
WHERE: De Chima University; exhibition center and campus grounds.
WHEN: Saturday August 15th, 4.45pm start.
WHAT: A registration at the annual technology fair, with a fireworks display!
WARNINGS: Non-consensual use of fear toxin, disturbing mental images, cannibalism and violence. Characters are going to be a psychological mess.

"A kind of light spread out from her. And everything changed color. And the world opened out. And a day was good to awaken to. And there were no limits to anything. And the people of the world were good and handsome. And I was not afraid any more."
- John Steinbeck, East of Eden.


Disunity had been the aim of last month's game. Secrets and lies and truths in fiction. Suspicions in minds. Doubts on tongues. Gossip block-printed in rags. Newspapers, from tabloids to broadsheets, had carried the news; some left-leaning publications had made a greater dinner of the expose than others. Scandalous magazines and imPort celebrity weeklies showed versions of the same 'exclusive', and many daytime shows pandered to the demographic who believed there was nothing to worry about if you had nothing to hide.

The last swearing-in of the summer has people gathering in the Exhibition Center of De Chima University, where certain imPorts have worked before. Spread out over the campus, every imPort will rub shoulders with the local students and faculty of the School of Applied Technology. Inside they will see a staircase with an events banner strung over the atrium. Outside there are modern interpretations of classical statues, on square plinths, and inside there's metal sculptures of scientific and technological principles. Rules discovered by those who studied the world they lived in; procedures and concepts of both organic and inorganic forces. Next to them are standing banners flapping in the breeze, tied to weights, to which blue, purple and silver balloons have been tied with thin string.

The Exhibition Center, located next to the park, is hosting the annual highlights of scientific progress this Saturday evening. The spacious Exhibition Hall that occupies most of the interior space serves as the focal point for the annual technology fair, and expects a smart-casual dress code. The focus of this evening is on medical technology and the benefits imPort involvement can bring. People are free to wander in and out of the building as they wish. The forecast is for a warm, clear evening, with no coastal wind or rain to bring cool relief. People are also free to wander around the center to explore rooms and corridors not locked and bolted to the crowd. Everyone is free to investigate for troublemakers or to cut through the crowd - or to see what isn't locked down and there for thieving. But try not to be caught by the security cameras!

If you climb upstairs or catch a lift to the upper levels of the Center, you will be able to access the grand and expansive glass floor that gives you a bird's eye view of the Exhibition Hall far below - if you've got the guts! There's a stack of supplies stored behind a large exhibition banner attached to the far wall, and you may peek inside to check them out. There's nothing that seems suspicious. A couple of anti-flammable canisters, containing nothing more suspicious than foam. Just try to enjoy the sights beneath your feet.

MEDTEC - the National Exhibition for AMERICAN Medical Technology

With the minutes passing by, with hundreds of figures in the crowd moving between the Exhibition Hall and the various function rooms, the event seems to pass without celebration or accident. That is no promise the evening will be uneventful.


REGISTRATION - 4.45PM - 8PM

The doors are thrown open to the crowd, who are free to collect their passes in advance from any available kiosk, or by digital means; electronic tickets on their phones to hard passes collected from the mailman or the University's box office. For those last-minute registrations, passes are available just inside the doors. Feel free to arrive early or wander in ten minutes before closing. It's all good!


MEDTEC - 4.45PM - 8PM

Get out on the floor. You are free to watch any of the displays local companies and R+D have to offer. This is a good time to watch the crowds or to slip out for a visit to the rest of the center. If you wander upstairs, you'll find locked corridors and rooms. But feel free to wander towards the glass ceiling that's above the Exhibition Hall.

Companies who provide to both civilians and the military are here - though you'll notice a lack of high-level technology for the latter. There's a hexagonal stage at the back of the Exhibition Hall that's standing ready for the imPort displays coming later. Please do not touch the tech if signs say not to. But don't think that means you can't try.


IMPORT DISPLAYS - 6.30PM - 8PM

The stage is lit. You may want to head over if you wish to see what your fellow imPorts have cooked up - or even to put on your own show! You'll get an explanation about the cash prizes on offer, and the scholarships. Or you'll wonder why you're watching this ass-patting when there's hardly an inch of space anywhere around the stage.


DRINKS AND NETWORKING - 8PM - 9PM

The Exhibition Hall is closed. The function room next door is thrown open for imPort milling. Make friends around the tables and order free food and drinks from the bar. Sit back, throw your feet up and take a load off. Lighten up! You're here to let your hair down. Please listen out for the public address that announces the upcoming awards show in Conference Room 2, and the fireworks display that's scheduled at 9:10pm outside. You'll get a good view of it from the park.


UNIVERSITY GROUNDS - 8PM

To those exploring the grounds outside the center. Have fun. The balmy night is perfect for walking around without a jacket. Feel free to sling it over your shoulder and enjoy the hot summer air. How the hell is it this warm, anyway? Don't jump in the fountain by the park, kids. Don't put bubble-bath or soap in it, either. Go past it and check out the park, or not. 7You may like to step back into the city. Just be careful of the traffic.

You are free to avoid the main roads for smaller side-streets, but that won't help you. The trash bins hold too much litter. You may wish to investigate them, but will find nothing. But much of the urban area and parkland is turned to a new, sinister purpose. There are minute bombs hidden in drains, or in flower baskets. In every miniscule place in the corner of your eye that escapes your notice. Timed devices primed to detonate in sync with the green and yellow fireworks overhead.

At 9.30PM, the earth will seem to split open and rumble. People screech and shriek about a range of hallucinations; from finding their loved one's body in the city morgue, to being the meal for a pack of monsters, to a flock of crows diving from the railings and rooftops to rip them apart. Those terrified of spiders see nothing but; on the floor, in windows, crawling up the walls. Some folk cough and splutter. Unable to breathe, they suffer a heart attack and can die on the spot. Others are given to a frenzy by the gas, and some experience flashbacks to hideous crimes - except they are the lunatic responsible for murdering children, or the killer stalking people through the streets at night.

It smells of pollution. It smells of fireworks. It smells of street food. There's the sound of blaring horns due to the traffic. There's the smell of fire, caused by the delirious rioting, and blood spilled by those around them, whom they cannot see. The gas enters cars, apartments and buildings with their windows open; the chaos echoes indoors as much as out. Those driven to a murderous lunacy pursue other victims of the gas through a twisted, nightmare version of their neighborhood, and violently resist any calls to cease and desist.

The gas hangs heavy on the air and fills the campus, engulfing the streets, entering the university buildings and student apartments. People around you are panicking, violent, delirious. You might experience what they do. You might hear the screaming, the illegible yelling and see cowering people talking of spiders, ghosts and scarecrows. You might rush indoors to help. You might meet friends who you wish to kill. Or you might run off in a manic state - unable to realize you're running into open traffic. Oh dear.


AWARDS - 9PM

Celebration time. The University has arranged a judging panel that has deliberated on the technology imPorts put on offer - this is the hour where your contributions to local society are being noticed and celebrated. Between the floor and stage, to the assembled chairs and technological displays dotted around the vacant exhibition hall, there's little standing room. You're free to stare down from the glass ceiling high above, or to stand at the back of the crowd below, but don't crowd the doors.

At 9.30PM, with the judges leaving the hexagonal stage so the Head of Applied Technology can present the first award, you might hear a loud hiss of air. A gas leak! The particles are colorless till they meet the oxygen in the room and form a grey cloud that fills every inch of space, from the upper echelons of the ceiling above the glass, to the chairs and the floor down below.

It doesn't smell, and the effects are instantaneous. All noises and images will twist and warp. You might find the neon lights burn as hot as sun-fire. You might see the room on fire and hear the horrific screaming of those trapped and dying in the ruined building you now find yourself in. Perhaps you smell ashes. Or perhaps you smell saltwater and brine - you're drowning! Or you might be one of the few. The brave. The unaffected. Look around and you will see some in the crowd clawing their faces to oust whatever they think is wriggling beneath their skin. They scream and they cry. Others devour their own skin, suffering from hunger - or they eat the flesh of others. They turn on each other. They turn on you.

If that's not enough there's a different show in store. You might be unfortunate enough to be on the glass floor when it kicks off. Enjoy it or don't. It's all the same.

GOGO - 9.30PM - 10PM

At 9.30PM, you may think the metal warping around you is just another part of the hallucination. But it's real. The expo hall groans as the walls react to another power, and the displays twist as if a greater force is squeezing them and pulling.

Before too long, the smaller things rattle and jump back and forth across the room. Pens, instruments, small change, etc; even piercings will tug at the skin with increasing force until they may just rip out to join the rising storm of metal. You can stay and test your luck, dodging unpredictable attacks, or you can risk escaping into the night, out from underneath an increasingly unstable roof. Just pray the decoration in the hall doesn't crash into you as you flee.

At 10PM, the stress of the chaos is finally too much for the expo hall. The supports have twisted beyond recognition, the walls damaged by their own warping and displays crashing into them at force. There's a loud crack as one of the supports snaps under the weight of the glass ceiling and with a heavy shudder the whole network starts to unravel and sends the ceiling crashing down. Anyone on the second floor may be lucky enough to get out of the way before it drops, or perhaps they can grab hold of a railing that will creak under their weight.

Or maybe you are one of the unlucky ones who rides the glass from above, all the way to where it shatters across the floor.

FIREWORKS - 9PM

Ten minutes past the hour, as a loud bang echoes for each firework shot into the night, the sky over the park is filled with the sort of brilliance one would only see on the Fourth of July. You might ask what's a nighttime event without fireworks, anyway?

For that charming couple on their date, to the curious student, an extravagant display comes on the rocket-propelled tails of rockets and bombs and flares. Look to the sky and lose yourselves in the colors as they appear - crimson stars and butterflies, and the pink crackling comets that leave behind a tail of effects. A red geometric circle of lines and dots glitter and break apart into smaller circles, then scatter and disappear, their fuel and powder spent. Memories of the sight are left behind; the smoke barely visible overhead; the smoldering gunpowder - and the warm company of whoever you're with. Perhaps you're one of those unafraid to visit such events alone. Perhaps you have a brilliant memory and the sight has burned itself into your eyes. One display follows another till the last; the end of a 25 minute display mentioned over the public address and published in the brochure.

At 9.30PM, the fireworks fizzle out. The display is over. It should be over. Then there's one more show - a collection of rockets and flares colored in yellows and greens, the colors one associates with poison and sees in cornfields. The colors are sickly and nausea-inducing as they explode in the night sky. It's just another display, right? Then cracks appear in the sky itself! All the yellows and greens, blacks and blues run into the white, hollow emptiness.

Perhaps you believe those eyes in the firmament are real. Or you're part of the crowd who believes the entire sky is falling down. A stampede breaks out. The slow are trampled underfoot. Students, faculty and guests stand shock-still. Some are clawing at their eyes. Others cannot contain themselves and empty their lungs with unfocused wailing. From the sky fall shards of glass. A flood of color threatens a deluge, even as the smoke and particles of the toxic gas contained in those green and yellow fireworks are carried by the wind over the locality.


AFTERMATH - 12:30AM AND ON

There's a collection of police, emergency services and reporters in a boundary around the university area and affected streets. Safe on the edge of the gas cloud, they are evacuating the surrounding areas. Ambulances and stretchers are ready for the wounded; RISE and any relevant factions may be helping with the chaos - or caught up in it themselves.

You might be trapped within the gas, cowering in fear. You might irrationally run into the lights you see in the haze, not knowing what you are seeing or the faces that watch you scramble by, screaming illegibly. You might be directing others in the chaos. You might be one of the people driven manic by it all. You might emerge from the mist with blood on your hands. You might recall how it got there. You might not. But you won't forget this night, will you?

Comments

Thomas & The Telepathic Arena of Terror | OTA

[shuckit]

PRE-INSANITY: SUPPLYING YOU WITH SOME TELEPATHIC CHILL, THOMAS IS HERE TO HELP;

[ thomas had thankfully been a bit out of range of the gas when it first dispersed, and managed to get a cloth wrapped around his face before it set in. the cloth probably won’t last him that long, as he already has things popping up around the edges of his vision. grotesque monsters, humans twisted and sick, familiar things that he knows aren’t there, but that rationality won’t last for long. what he’s doing with the time he has is trying to get others out. thomas will be hiding out somewhere, waiting for someone totally bonkers to come running past, before he jumps out, puts a hand over their eyes, and the other at the side of their head, while projecting an aggressive wave of telepathic calm at them, trying to quiet out all of what the gas is doing. ]

Slim it, slim it!

[ it’s not easy summoning up calm when things are anything but. thomas is putting all his effort into it, though, and as the person starts to slack some, flail less, it gets easier. ]

Niiiiice and calm. You’re okay.

TELEPATHIC ORB OF TERROR: THOMAS CAN NO LONGER HELP YOU;

[[ CONTENT WARNING: some stuff in the links are really gorey, so read at your own risk. also, feel free to use any of this stuff in your other threads. you dont have to run into thomas to catch some of his broadcasted nightmare stuff. ]]

[ as expected, the cloth attempt at a gas mask didn’t last him long. it happened faster than he could gather good sense enough to get off of the campus. it was his own fault, thinking he could push through it and keep helping others to get out of the area. too late now.

now, every horrid, chilling, nightmarish thing thomas has every experienced or feared is being telepathically broadcast to a varying radius around him, fluctuating as his fear rises, levels, drops, and rises again. entering this sphere of nightmares will have the world shifting and warping around you to either resemble the Maze, the Scorch or the WICKED labs. regardless of which setting you find, there’ll be a mixture of monsters and twisted, ravenous humans lurking around corners and in the shadows, waiting to rip you limb from limb, feast on you. or maybe you’re becoming one of them. a Crank - pulling out your hair, biting your own fingers off, scratching your skin off of your arms, looking at anyone who wanders too close like they’re sustenance you desperately need.

maybe it’s neither. maybe it’s nature itself. thunder cracks from above, and the wind picks up to hurricane speeds, picking up debris and dust that flies chaotically around you, making it so you can’t even see three feet ahead of you. and then, the lightening starts. as if a electric cloud has descended to envelope your entire world, blazing bolts of white cracking down just in front of you, leaving craters, searing skin, blowing people limb from limb, leaving them unrecognizable.

or perhaps you’re unfortunate enough to find yourself inside with none of these things present. only a darkness that seems to engulf the entire ceiling. you’ll be walking, all is quiet and peaceful - eerily so. and then it’ll drop - an orb of boiling hot liquid metal that melts into your skin as it starts to creep over your head, down over your eyes, ears, nose and mouth, until your head is completely enveloped. that’s when it melts straight through your neck, and the screams go silent. maybe you’re watching it happen to someone else. if you find yourself in the labs, it might be strapped down to an operating table, too bright lights focused on you, and your body paralyzed, unable to fight back, as men in operating masks hover over you with scalpels and a mask that looks like a torture device. sometimes, they’re cutting into your brain, slicing pieces out and removing them. sometimes, that mask is lowering onto your face, and you can’t open your mouth to protest or scream. the wires on it writhe and flick, reaching towards your face like vipers. the mask covers your face, and you can feel the wires pushing into your head through your ears, your nose, pressing against your eyes. the pain is excruciating, and you feel like your mind itself is being seared.

if you happen to find thomas in all this mess, you’re not likely to find someone paralyzed with fear. that’d be too convenient. he’s scared, of course, out of his damn mind, but thomas does as he always has when faced with all of this - fight. almost a beserker kind of fighting, filled with rage, hate, disgust and a want to hurt. to thomas, you did all of this to him, and to his closest friends. near all of them gone now. ] They were kids… They were just kids! [ he’ll scream at you, voice broken, before coming at you with any weapon he finds - knives, a metal pipe, a wooden spear with barbwire wrapped around the end. his cheeks are streaked with tears, and his hands are soaked with blood, dirt and something probably seeped from those monsters with the saws and drills protruding from them. ]

AFTERMATH: THOMAS IS CATATONIC;

[ if it’d just been the monsters, the scorch, and wicked, thomas might have been okay. it wasn’t.

it was newt.

standing there, in the middle of the university campus, the world all warped back to normal, looking like he’d looked in Denver. scabs over his skin, hair nearly all pulled from his scalp, skin sickly, clothes dirty and tattered, and such a craze in his eyes. so much hate, as he’s screamed the same things to thomas, across the manicured lawn. I hate you! I always hated you! the things newt had told him, things that weren’t just crazed rambling. you could’ve stopped it!. and last, the part he fears so much more than all of the vitriolic screeching. just the broken, pleading sob - please, tommy, please.

thomas will be found on the campus lawn, after the gas has dissipated, lying on his side, looking dead to the world. ]

Pre-Insanity

[superposition]

[... or pre- for Thomas, at least. Qubit's already there.

"Tony" has by now taken off to God knows where - not far, he can still feel the shockwaves from his rampage, the screaming, the smell of burnt human flesh - leaving Qubit running desperately, trying not to flee but to reach him. The only person with the slightest chance of talking Tony down is him. He already knows he won't succeed, but he has to try.]

TONY!! Tony, please, you don't have to do this! You can still start over! No one has to know!!

[He knows Tony can hear him. Tony would hear him if he whispered from the other side of the planet. But there's no sign that he's listening. "Why should he listen to you?" one of Modeus' bodies taunts him from nearby, and another, "You did murder him, after all."]

Shut up! Shut up! [If he could just think...! There has to be something he can do, some way he can fix this, but his mind's gone blank, as if all it's capable of anymore is white-hot hatred turned in upon itself. You idiot. Look what you've done. This whole planet is going to burn and it's all your fault!

And then, one Modeus gets the jump on him. This is actually Thomas. Qubit's caught off guard, and cries out in surprise and pain as he's grappled (it burns) and then he feels it, the mental attack trying to spear through his brain. It glances harmlessly off his psionic shielding, though, so it has the opposite effect from what was intended - all it does is make him mad. He pries at the hand over his eyes, claws at it like a wounded animal.]

Don't touch me, you degenerate-

[shuckit]

[ it's almost immediate that he feels that psionic shielding blocking him out, like slamming straight into a wall, and thomas instantly regrets this. ]

Shit!

[ he hisses. it's not often that an actual, real curse comes out of his mouth, rather than the Glader versions of curses, but typically at moments like this. where he's realizing he's super screwed.

in a jerk, thomas is snapping his arms back, and actually moving his hands to qubit's back to give him a shove away. go on, dude. hopefully he'll just run and thomas won't have to get into an actual fight with him.

the teenager is rapidly stepping backwards, hands held up at his sides in a placating gesture. go. be gone. he's not messing with you. ]

[superposition]

[Qubit stumbles forward from the shove, but the second he has his balance back he turns on Thomas, eyes full of rage. He runs, yes, but toward him, putting his full weight behind a fist aimed at his attacker's face. Well. he is now the attacker, but shh.]

Telepathy? Really? You of all people should know better!

[shuckit]

[ well darn. this was a bad idea.

thankfully, thomas is pretty spry, and has a lot of experience in dodging things that want to murder him with like five billion saw blade arms, so a bunch isn't terribly hard to jerk back and away from, still moving backwards, trying to gain some space. come on, dude, he doesn't want to fight you. ]

I'm not who you think I am, okay? Someone let out a toxin, and it's making everyone hallucinate - I was just trying to help. I don't wanna hurt you.

[superposition]

[Only a couple of words make it through the haze unaltered - toxin, hurt you - enough for him to draw a somewhat different idea about what's being said. He doesn't swing again yet, but he's still advancing, relentless.]

Oh, I haven't forgotten. "Until I forget my own name," wasn't that it?

[munies]

[ she feels the change before she actually sees anything. well, she sees it all around her, but that mental ping, it's more than just people thinking too loudly. it's familiar. it sets her off running before she even really knows where she's supposed to be going. it's weird to think that their telepathic link also serves as a kind of GPS, but despite the insanity all around them, the path ( the pull ) is clear. she thinks it's just her own panicking that's making her brain feel foggy, but it's probably a number of things. the people all around her, the gas, the train of thought she's actively following to try and get to Tom. she's learned to stop trying to break everything down into logical little parts during situations like this - all that matters is finding Thomas, making sure he's not-

oh. ]

--No!

[ so somewhere in the back of her mind she knows it's not amazingly smart to run at someone who's taking a swing at someone else with something that looks uh, heavy. but she can feel the way his mind is warped right now, what he's seeing, what he thinks is going on, and she knows whoever's at the other end of that pipe isn't who he thinks it is. so she runs at him from the side, aims to grab at his arm just to hold him back. and she doesn't like using her strength when she's physically holding onto a person, but she puts the extra effort into it, carefulcarefulcareful just to stop his momentum and not pull him back. she holds on tight and moves with him once she catches him short, ready to stop him from attacking again if she can. ] Go! Run! [ she only spares the other person a harsh look, like she's not totally sure she'll be able to stop him for very long, then she's turning to look at Tom again ]

We need to get out of here. Hey! Look at me! Thomas-!

[ What you're seeing isn't real! Fight this! Listen to my voice and focus on what's real! ]

[shuckit]

[ he's been too long in the gas, head too lost to the drug, and the pull from teresa gets lost in the torrent of it all. all thomas knows is fear; such intense, visceral fear that he's practically choking on it. it's his first night in the Maze with the Grievers, it's running through the lightning storm, it's freaking denver all over again, and no one's left to tell him to keep going. just the corpses of his friends, eyes lifeless and yet always pointed at him, somehow. they knew, it's his fault. all of it.

no. not his. theirs. the man he's seeing directly ahead of him. jansen, rat man, the one who stuck them through trial after trail, didn't even blink when he told newt he'd die, just wanted to save his own skin. that's who he's running at with a metal pipe swung like a bat--

until someone with an iron grip stops him. his mind immediately goes to the underground, and to the crank without the nose who brenda had to stab with a knife to get him to let go of thomas. he starts to scream, struggling, jerking against the force with a panicked frenzy of adrenaline. until another voice comes, and thomas could nearly sob. no. not her. not again. the actual words are lost on him, but the voice he knows. (it's progress) ]

Teresa, run! You can't stay here! Run, before they find you!

[ his mind screams back at her, still unable to see the same person restraining him is the one he's afraid for, through the hallucinations and panic. ]

[munies]

I'm not going anywhere without you.

[ which is the plain and simple truth, whether or not she's talking about here, right now, or whatever he's seeing. it's something she would have said to him back home, too. her grip eases as he struggles, but she doesn't let go of him, not wanting to give him the chance to take off like she knows he can. like they all learned to do, back in the Scorch, in the Maze. but she's trying to think fast ( even as the fog makes it impossible to do so, makes things so damn hazy ), trying to think of how to get through to him. what do you do when someone's stuck in their own head? she can guess what he's seeing, what he's experiencing, but she doesn't know for sure.

so she'll just have to wing it. ]

Tom, I need your help. Please. We have to stick together, and you have to trust me. Just come with me!

[shuckit]

Where--

[ where are you, he wants to ask, but her hair whips in the struggle, smacking against his cheek, and as sound, scent, the feel of her pressed against his back starts to filter in, some of the haze clears, thomas blinking rapidly. she's here, she's been here - what had he been struggling against? his head's a mess, and somewhere, he knows something's wrong. not all of this is real - he was fighting it earlier, but he can't quite reach that part of his sanity yet.

but it's teresa, and teresa's always been the one to help him, even when it hurt. even when she wouldn't survive it. he trusts him implicitly, here, and thomas swears he'll never make the mistake of forgetting who and what she is to him again. ] I trust you. I do. [ reaching out, his hand grips hers, fingers weaving together and giving a tight squeeze at first (scared, he's scared), before he starts to tug her along, running. ]

We need to get out of this place. Something... something happened. We just need to get as far away as we can.

[munies]

Yes. Yes, we do.

[ she's nodding along and confirming each of his thoughts as he processes sends them to her, like maybe that'll help it stick. she knows this isn't something she can just talk him out of - even the sound of his voice in her head is just off - but it's a start. he's hearing her, and even if the smoke or fog, whatever it is, is missing him up, at least he can see her. not that she's beyond picking him up over her head and carrying him out of there, but hey. this is way easier. she likes this better, knowing that hearing her helped shoved him back into reality a bit.

hearing him say he trusts her again after so long of hearing the opposite of that is also more than enough to make her feel confident that she could get them out of anything, and take out whoever gets in their way. y'know, if she has to. she could. she'd do it.

but he's pulling her along by the hand so she follows fast, watching out around them since he's taken the lead. everybody seems so stuck in their own heads that she's sure they're not about to run into trouble, but it's possible. ]

Everyone's acting crazy. It's like that what happened when I first got here - the people in the hospital going out of their minds? It's like these people don't even know where they are right now.

[ and of course she's wondering why she hasn't been hit with it either, but she's not about to stand around questioning it. ]

good thing meetra needs no help

[forcewound]

[ The visions are jarring, so much that Meetra finds them oddly familiar. Different, but similar in ways she's not quite willing to think about. Whoever is waving them sure has a bunch of problems on their own, and it also makes Meetra glad she didn't inhale the gas; nobody wants what she has to dish out.

So Meetra does the thing she does best and walks through the whole thing, semblance stoic as she lets whatever goes at her have their way- or at least for a second, before she waves it away with apparent ease, causing ripples on the illusion/telepathic whammy/whatever this is. She could break it down, but that would also probably burn the mind of whoever is doing it, and Meetra would prefer not to kill anyone unless she really has to.

By the time she finds Thomas, Meetra is so soaked with all his trauma that she actually has a good idea of what he's yelling about. Kinda, because learning the details would involve her scanning his brain. She doesn't like to pry.

Luckily for Thomas, Meetra is still pretty set on not killing the boy (despite the fact he's probably given her quite the dosage of nightmare fuel to add to her already wealthy stash), so the obvious attack is easily deflected by swatting his hands away. ]

Pull yourself together, Thomas.

[ She speaks to his mind, because it's easier like that when you're holding your breath. Maybe he can fight it off himself, but if he doesn't respond she'll have to heal him. Might need to restrain him first, though. ]

:'| bless you, meetra. also i'm sorry, thomas sucks rn

[shuckit]

[ of all that thomas has been through, all the growing up he'd had to do, all the pressing on despite horror, despite losses, despite hope being reduced to the smallest flicker, he is, still, just a sixteen year old boy. when he snaps, he snaps, and after coming back to heropa once everything came to a conclusion at home, after so many losses, sitting in a peaceful house with friendly people and no immediate threat had felt like a ticking bomb to him. all of that still sat in him, and he still couldn't figure out how to get it... out. if he even should.

the fear gas crisis seems to have managed that plenty well enough for him now, and a voice in his mind isn't quite enough to drag him out of it. maybe if it were a familiar one, and maybe if one of thomas's fear hadn't been the WICKED people doing more to screw with his mind, to monitor him, to control him. it's where they telepathy had came from in the first place - an operation he didn't ask for. ]

Get out! [ he screeches back, in his mind, and possibly outloud as well, control a fragile thing that's long broken at this point. physically, he's still lashing out against her, with the kind of mad desperation you see in people fighting to survive. easy for meetra to defend against - he has no training and he's a scrawny kid. ] You people did enough to our heads, what more do you want?!

[ he knows what more they want, and the mind theatre he's hallucinating shifts, becoming the labs at WICKED, and Jansen, but looking more like a Crank than he had when Thomas last saw him (killed him, when thomas killed him), half his face falling off and eyes gone bloodshot. there's one of those saws in his hand, buzzing to life, blood already smeared on his hands and shirt.

some distant part of his mind, something the swipe usually blocks, seems to supply that it's already been done. so many more, already cut into, carved up, in the name of this cure they'd never find. had he done it? did he know? more bones to add to the pile. ]

it's okay she knows how it feels q.q (also she might just adopt him now dammit)

[forcewound]

[ She really didn't want to get involved, the thought goes round and round in her head as she tries to figure how to best proceed. She needs to be careful not to accidentally do more harm than good. ]

Boy, are you going to feel so stupid after this.

[ A wave of her hands lift Thomas quickly, invisible bonds keeping him into place as she walks towards him. Extending her right hand, Meetra places two fingers on her chest, pressing lightly. A moment later Thomas will feel how the Force flows through him, in the form of a wave of warmth and calm as she cleans him of toxins in a matter of seconds. She then takes a step back and lowers him softly. ]

That will keep your system fighting off the toxins for half an hour or so. Try to calm down now.

fjkldsa he needs adopting, man ;; also fff sorry for the wait!

[shuckit]

[ even as invisible bonds restrain him, thomas still struggles like a panicked animal going into hysterics as it fights for its life. he's been in that frame of mind more times than anyone really should be, certainly not anyone his age. desperate, hanging on by a string, and viciously clawing at life to try to survive.

it isn't until the Force starts it's path through him like a soothing, serene wave of calm, warm in its security and reassurance, while sweeping the toxins from the gas from his system, that he starts to slow. it's gradual, like his nerves themselves are still wary, bracing for something worse to come, but thomas's heart beat slows, his muscles relaxing, and his mind begins to clear sluggishly. he's still a bit out of it when his feet touch the ground, and thomas bends over some, hands on his knees, as he breathes - inhale, exhale, think. put your mind back together.

there was someone here. it's after a moment that he starts to piece together what was reality and what was too extreme to have really been there. a voice in his head, and a hand on his chest, and the teenager lifts his head to blink up at her, wide-eyed and still a bit out of it. he tries to review what she'd said - toxins fought off for half an hour. try to calm down. slim it nice and calm, echoes in a familiar voice that only ever comes with a spike of pain these days. right. slim it. ]

How're you not going whacker too? [ of course the first thing that comes to his head is a question. thomas "the teenage inquisition" edison. ]

squishes his little face

[forcewound]

It helps that I'm not breathing.

[ Does she need to explain that there is a Jedi technique that allows one to hold their breath for hours on end? Probably. Is she going to? Not really. ]

And that I'm talking directly to your mind, of course. Trust me, you do not want to see me panicking and attacking people, I could seriously cause some damage.

[ She's too new to be leveling any buildings yet. ]

Cleared your mind some?

Telepathic Orb of Terror

[thelimitdoesnotexist]

[The world had not become chaos to Mewtwo. It had become order: tight, sterile, knifelike order. The world before his eyes became labcoats and tanks and dials. He had returned to memory that had transformed to more than memory. By all he sides he was beset by labcoats, formerly imports and citizens. He saw nothing but their emotionless faces and the cold environment that wanted to confine him.

And tonight he became a destructive animal who had been caged in for too long, lashing out to those that wanted to keep him in this lab. He wrecked displays, furniture, and even people. But he cared not, he didn't see them as the denizens of DeChima, they lacked any redeeming qualities.

So occupied by his own nightmare, he finds himself at a loss when his surroundings change. He sees a lab, one he's never been in...
His panic rises as he takes in his new surroundings. < What is this...? >

This change brings in no comfort. How can there be when he sees a new shabby form of human life? They're far worse than any he's seen before, full of sores and sickness. Who knew humans could be so hideous? Mewtwo thinks no further than to try and throw them aside like a disgusting spider. There's more of them and Mewtwo just wants them off. He hurls projections of his psychic energy, beating at these new horrors.

Worse, he stumbles into a familiar face. A shame they couldn't meet in better circumstances. For it seems Thomas is yelling something, his terror mutes it. All he knows it sounds unpleasant and accusatory. He would give his hellos, but his already fear-soaked mind makes him back away from the raging human. What else did he expect from humans? All they knew was pain and hatred and disease...He raises his hands as a warning.

< Stay away from me...don't touch me... > He doesn't even think what kind of unpleasant sight he casts on thomas.]

ffff sorry for the wait!

[shuckit]

[ mewtwo's actually very lucky in that the specific words he choice to send out are familiar enough to him that it doesn't bring on images of grievers, lab workers or cranks. what it sounds like is one of the gladers, or the immune. it sounds like something he's screamed at WICKED soldiers and doctors before, so that's what he sees - another glader. someone lost in the lab halls, dressed in the same blank white clothes they issue them, just trying to find somewhere safe.

thomas blinks rapidly, mind reeling as it tries to make sense of what's being precieved, through the mess of drugs distorting all of it. Rat Man had just been here, he'd thought. cranks too. cranks? they shouldn't be in the wicked compound, but-- whatever. doesn't matter. thomas drops whatever weapon he'd been wielding to his side, jerking his head around to examine the halls around him, and then take a step towards the other glader (who isn't a glader). ]

Come on, I know the halls. If we can get to the hanger bay, we can get out, but we gotta go. Now.

[ it's the escape, with brenda, newt and minho all over again, and his mind wants to replay the events. get to the berg, get the hell out of here. ] Don't stop to fight - just run.

no problem

[thelimitdoesnotexist]

[He sees something clattering to the floor, a weapon. And it brings a small comfort, but not too much comfort. Around him the hallucination imposed on him still reigns. It's all sensory stimulation, flashes of horrid things skittering and violently flashing.

But what is he to trust? Does he trust this human? Even after his weapon had been put to rest? It didn't become much a choice with the violence going on around them and his own blindness to this new situation. He hears key words out of the boy's mouth: hanger bay. What's there?

He hates this. He hates being lost and following that instinct of fleeing. < Where are we? > His voice is demanding, disoriented.]

[shuckit]

WICKED. [ thomas answers as he starts to taking a step down one of the imagined hallways, lights overhead flickering and sounds of nightmarish creatures and mechanical whirling just beyond the walls. thomas turns back, making sure the other is following him, before getting ready to start jogging. ] The people that've been doing all of this to us.

[ he explains quickly, and turns back to run, explaining in a hurried tone as he does. ]

We're just lab rats to them. Subjects. [ the last word spat out, thomas's lips twisting into something disdainful. ] We stay here, and we're dead. Or worse.

[ because there is worse. there is definitely worse. ]

[thelimitdoesnotexist]

[Lab rats. It feels sickeningly familiar, despite the changes in scenery and addition of nightmarish creatures.

He follows, though his pace slows. He can't shake the residue of his own nightmare, of entrapment. Escape is important yes...but...

< No. We can't just run. We need to destroy whatever's left. >

His own telekinetic energy shudders around him, invisible, not yet reaching out.]

Aftermath

[kendo_taisho]

[Thomas's orb of terror was the only thing to make Heiji's night anything resembling hell. Between vicious cat fights, and people attacking him, plus the gas itself taking out his hearing and flickering hallucinations over reality that he had to focus to stop seeing, Thomas's projections were the only things that truly got to him. They came the closest to making him give in to the terror.

Seeing his skin flaking off with disease, and reinforcing the image of the flare in everyone around him, and then being chased by the most horrifying thing he'd ever seen...? The monster he could hear. He couldn't figure out how. Reasoned later that maybe it was because it was all in his head. Allowed him to hear the buzzing and the endless agonized moaning over the ringing in his ears.

He never saw what caused the hallucination, just knew that after a certain point he must have gotten out of its field of influence. His awareness shifted back to reality and the monster stopped hunting him. He did not go back.

Now that it's all over, for the most part, he's wandering the grounds trying to find anyone else that needs attention. He'd gotten some minor field care already and insisted that the medics focus more on who really needs it, but there are so many victims...

He would have stepped on Thomas if he couldn't see in the dark. As it is, he notices him and runs over, crouching down to check for a pulse, then major injury.]

[shuckit]

[ thomas had been completely checked out for that, nearly. only after he's made it out of the gas, had the toxins clear his system some, had he realized that he'd possibly been broadcasting his own terror. he's not entirely sure, and really, at this point, not entirely mentally together enough to process that regardless. suffice to say, he isn't aware of any individuals that might have wandered into his sphere of influence either.

his head is just a tangled mess of memories, the gas having run it's course and now left him something like a husk. arrive in heropa just at the end of their struggles back home was taking him from the fire and into something like a bubble bath. jarring, disjointed, and difficult for him to really come to terms with all that he'd seen and done back home. it felt unreal, something far, far away from him.

the gas did a splendid job of slamming it all right back into the forefront of his mind, in vivid color, enough to completely fool his senses for hours on end. it was torture - that's the simple fact of it. mental torture.

so, when heiji comes running up, thomas hardly even registers the approach, or anything he might have said, eyes half lidded and unfocused, and mind more lost in murmurs and whispers of voices he knew once. screams, the sound of bones breaking, of blood hitting stone, weeping. it's when the hand actually comes in contact with him, touching his throat to find a pulse, that he jolts to life, jerking back and reaching up a hand to snatch the wrist, fingers gripping too tight at the limb and breathing ragged and worn. thomas squints at the man for a moment, not sure who he is or why he's here, or even where thomas himself is, before things start to set into place. teresa had helped drag him from the fog, he'd collapsed here. how long had be been lying down? ]

I'm alive. [ he eventually answers, breathing slowing some, and fingers loosening on the stranger's wrist. ]

[kendo_taisho]

[His reflexes had been stretched to the limit by the past several hours; his senses thrown off and abused. Thomas's reaction to his touch startles him bad, but the tight grip prevents Heiji from jerking his hand back and he ends up sitting on the grass, his heart pounding.]

Shit...

[He takes a few breaths when Thomas lets him go. At least he's alive. A blessing tonight, when bodies keep being found.]

It's okay. You're okay.

[Like he's trying to convince himself as much as Thomas.

Focus, Heiji. Check him for injury before trying to help him up. Get him talking, even if Heiji can't hear for anything.]

Thomas, right? Do ya know where ya are?

[shuckit]

I'm okay.

[ thomas croaks out, almost reluctant in how he begins to move and shift, turning onto his stomach so he can try to push himself up, a groan leaving his throat with the aches and pains in his limbs. he's okay, but that doesn't mean he's not sore, and covered in bumps and brusies.

reality is filtering back into his head, and he's somewhat loathe to return to it. some part of that misery had just been... easy. right. like if he just laid in the grass long enough, maybe he'd since back into the maze and the scorch and go be with the rest of the ones he couldn't save. ones he'd damned in the first place by designing it all for WICKED.

as much as he'd been willing to die for them, it never was him. always the others, so much less deserving. alby. chuck. newt. ]

De Chima. [ he mutters, after while, furrowing his brow as he tries to recall the rest of it. ] University. The... Swear-In.

[ it all starts to flood back in, like a dam broken, and he half wishes it wouldn't. right. he'd been in the exhibit hall, when... ] Gas. Someone let out a toxin. Someone... planned it.