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Survival is the exception
"living is an act of courage."
THROUGH THE INGRESSThe Ingress has pulled you in. Your body experiences several sensations at once: being pushed forward as if a hand is resting on your back, momentary and startling blindness, a gentle ringing in your head. You have difficulty discerning whether it is hot or cold, but where you have been prodded is noticeably warmer than the rest of you. Some may suffer from dizziness while others are perfectly fine. Once equilibrium has been reestablished, you will notice you are standing on a rocky planet. Former crew of the Moira are there to greet you, and it’s a grim message they have to share. The Moira has crashed and is beyond repair, but there’s good news... the destination the crew has been heading towards for over a year? You’re standing on it. But before you get into exploration and survival, it’s best to deal with the effects of coming through a broken Ingress. ☄ slip and tripfind your footing fastComing through the Ingress has left your character with one of three changes - an age slip, a form of body horror, or an extreme weakness. The first, the age slip, will mean that the character is either older or younger and this change can’t be rectified during their first month in game. The second, body horror, comes in the form of an alteration to the character's body due to whatever they were carrying at the time they came through. If they were wearing a watch, it’s now fused to their wrist, clothes are permanent, knifes replace fingers, and many other alterations (anything goes) and it lasts the first month as well. The third, extreme weakness, can be a mental or physical decrease - weaker arms, legs, or the weaker ability to talk or do math.
ooc: the choice of change is up to each player and this prompt can be game canon.
☄ introductions aren’t awkwardas long as you don’t shake their hand too longA new planet. Physical and mental changes. Talk of a ship that crashed and a Hub that is home to the ‘creators’ of a technology you’ve never heard of. A lot is happening and the best way to sort through it is by getting to know the Moira’s crew. They’ll help you settle in and get you any care you might need, all the while informing you that the group is on its way to the center of the hub. Something that might seem mundane is an absolute necessity for survival. Ask a seasoned space traveling veteran for answers and guidance.
ooc: this prompt can be game canon.
☄ dealer's choicejust make the right oneCharacters have the option of coming through an Ingress that is any possible location on this planet. It can be inside a cave, at the top of a rock formation, etc. This means you can have your character have to climb or slide down, have them yelling for help, and have other characters see them and come to their aid. Your character's arrival is completely up to you, and since this is a unique situation that hasn't happened before, go nuts with it!
ooc: this prompt can be game canon.
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thisavrou_ooc2016-12-02 06:24 pm
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The pupils of their eyes dilate abruptly until there might as well be twin pits of blackness stamped onto their face, great dark voids drooling a rotting liquid bilaterally from the places where their eyes once were.
"I think I have every right to judge you." If he wishes to truly carry them like some discarded thing, like the sack of garbage they are, then he will have to tolerate this every. Step. Of the way.
"You throw away a Mystery Key to pursue your dreams," says the child, their tone conversational, offhand. "You abandon your family in their time of need. I'm not sure why anyone would expect anything approaching loyalty from you."
When Asriel's statue was an afterthought, something to be thrown out into Waterfall like yesterday's trash, so that something new and shiny could be put up in its place.
Loyalty, it seems, is not Mettaton's specialty.
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He's grinding his teeth, trying not to lose his temper further.
"My family wanted for nothing when I left. Everything was fine. Do not talk to me about things you do not understand, much less what you have no right to judge me on--you don't. Because look at you--you don't even want to see your family, you're running from it and directly into death."
Little fucking shit, he wanted to say, but he bit his tongue on that.
Even still, Chara had found the weakness they claimed to have been searching for. One of many, though it's fortunate that they didn't seem to have knowledge of anything that had happened on the Moira. Not even the reason why Mettaton was wearing that tattered red scarf like it was his.
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They're still laughing, even as their fingernails scrape across his metallic exterior, the equivalent of fingers being dug into unresisting flesh. They cough, and something dark and crimson chokes its way out of their throat, smelling of blood and poison and rot. Something truly despicable, truly disgusting, as befits the shell from which it is generated.
"I'm sure they wanted for nothing," they say softly, the words burning a searing trail down their throat - or perhaps that is simply the poison, settling in. Either way. "They wanted for nothing so badly that they cried into the ground, alone and abandoned. They cried and cried for help."
Pathetic, they hissed in another time, in a snowy backdrop with a monster pressing its belly to the slushy dirt, utterly defeated. No one will ever love you the way you are.
But perhaps someone can LOVE you instead.
"Nobody came for them, of course," says the child, dismissively. "Nobody ever comes."
That's the first lesson you learn.
Nobody comes, and nobody ever will come.
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What, agonize over it? Like he's still doing? God, he really is a hypocrite, isn't he? But they don't know what he's thinking, they can't.
Oh, but of course they can. He knows who they are. He knows what they are, if only because he had watched and seen the world he loved unraveled before him, reduced to little more than numbers and values which he couldn't understand.
"..Why are you doing this?" he finally asks, not even bothering to finish his sentence. "What have I done to you to warrant such...vileness?!"
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They'd choke the life out of him if they could. They'd strangle him into emptiness, watch their LOVE tick upwards consequently, and they might lack a weapon but they don't require a Knife to hurt, to dig into those still-ripe wounds.
He is having trouble categorizing them. They are not normal people, surely. They are something else, something lesser.
"Or perhaps," they say, their smile widening so that the whites of their teeth are clearly visible, streaked with yellow and red and black, "I am doing it simply because I can."
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But the words remind him of something else. God, everything was a stark reminder to something, and he hated it so much, it was all still fresh in his mind, and why wouldn't it be? He'd been driven mad by it already, perhaps more as a side-effect of traveling by manipulating time, but there was still damage.
He still knew more than he should.
He still knew...that because they can...they have to.
"The point is...you don't have to remind me what I have done incorrectly. I remind myself of that every single day. But if you insist...I cannot stop you."
Mettaton can't shut them up, and he's not going to drop them. But he knows they are right, and as soon as that thought settles in, well. He doesn't want to argue. Maybe in another time, he would have wanted to defend himself. But after one token attempt, what's the point?
He is a terrible person. Hell, he could tell Chara how awful he is if they got him started.
A quiet sigh escapes him. Maybe that was how he could get back at them. Make them listen.
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Six letters. That is all they are. Six letters. Easy to change, isn't it?
"Because I can, I 'have' to."
There is a certain poetic nature to it, a certain maudlin appeal. A good thing, then, that they are not a sentimental creature by nature.
"Well, Mettaton?" the child whispers, their smile glinting in the cave's half-light. "Are you feeling your sins weighing on your neck?"
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Then...he recalls the scarf he's wearing. He grits his teeth. No, they can't be talking about that. Papyrus wasn't tied into his sin, he wasn't...he...
He was. It was Mettaton's fault, wasn't it? He had wasted his opportunity again. Of course. Selfish Mettaton.
But as it is a painful subject, he simply jostles Chara for now.
"I'm sure you, the omnipotent one, probably know what sins I bear," he mutters. It's the simplest bluff, of course. So transparent.
They couldn't know. This was beyond the confines of their world.
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Go on. Exert your control. They have never had control, and even in those moments when they do - it is always, always stolen away from under them.
"You may find yourself surprised," Chara says amiably.
That is the only warning he gets before they detonate.
They contort wildly in his grasp, an adrenalized burst of energy lending strength to their struggles as they seek to tear themself away, rip out from his grasp, from the fingers that burn and will reach up and hold them down and hold them down and hold them down while it all comes to a head in an inflorescence of bruises and scars from "the cat" and "the stairs" and "the door" - and he won't hold them any longer.
He will not touch them again.
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Mettaton fumbles the child momentarily, but before they can struggle completely free, he takes better hold of them. Unfortunately, passing through one of the Ingresses had stolen much of his strength, and although Chara is only a kid, he can't keep hold of them forever.
When a flailing limb--he doesn't even see which--clocks him across the hidden side of his face, his arms release entirely and he puts a hand to his eye. If Chara struck too close to the socket, they would probably have come away with a few cuts from the shattered edges of the incomplete eye, where a stray bullet had passed cleanly through his head and he'd simply never had the time to get it repaired.
"What are you--stop it, you...!!!"
He can't think of a way to finish the sentence that isn't derogatory, but he at least keeps from saying little hellion out loud.
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They do not go out. They never go out.
Some sharpened edge of the metal scratches their hands. Inconsequential. Easily overlooked. They might not have their 92 HP - trapped with 20, just as their vessel had been - but this is easily remedied.
He might not have finished his sentence, but he doesn't need to. It is simple enough to fill in the blanks for him. Demon. Abomination. Creature. Thing.
They take advantage of his lapsing grip, of his alarm, to rip themself free, if clumsily - they land heavily on the ground and roll until they are partially on their knees, but they still manage to jerk their head up to stare at him and smile.
"Do you call all children such awful names?"
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Mettaton reaches a hand up, to rub at his neck and remind himself that he knows what's going on, what the situation really is
(that he isn't being controlled)
and realizes with no shortage of alarm that Papyrus' scarf had tumbled to the ground. That fucking human...they must have entangled themselves in it and now it was on the ground, getting filthy and he never wanted that, never wanted to have to wash it but now he can see it's dirty and dusty. He stoops to pick it up, glaring at Chara because all of this was their fault, he'd just happened across them on a walk, dammit!
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They lever themself upright slowly with the fluid press of a palm to the ground. The poison is still setting int their system, scratching the inside of their stomach. Possibly they have not ingested enough. Entirely probable, in fact. It had taken several trips. Several requests for "cups of water" that were not 'cups of water at all.
They've got plenty of poison to supplement the toxins coursing through their system. The Ingress has kindly ensured that.
"Oh, I'm sorry," says Chara in a tone that implies they are not very sorry at all, folding their hands behind their back. "Did I assume there? That would have been horribly irresponsible of me, would it not? Please." They open a hand, the one scarred with its blossoming growths, in a condescending supination. "Continue. Do not let me interrupt you."
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Only once he has carefully wound it around his neck again does he pay Chara any mind. That's what they wanted, right, for him to fulfill that self-hatred of theirs.
"If you didn't want to interrupt me, you'd not have struggled," he says coldly. "Little hellion."
So much for not insulting them. He can't help it, they're really getting under his skin, and Mettaton is very weary of feeling vulnerable.
"So are you insistent on staying out here then? I'm not picking you up again, though I rather expect you find that to be an acceptable state of affairs."
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Little hellion.
Yes. That should do nicely. Should be an adequate moniker from his perspective. A pity "hellion" isn't six letters, but hey. We can't have everything.
They ignore the question. Press [x]. Skip dialogue. They've heard it before, or something near enough to it to steer on past it without fearing missing anything important. They cock their head to one side almost coyly, a mocking lift to their eyebrows.
"Perhaps," the child says, "I simply found it interesting that your first instinct was to strangle the strange preteen you found in a cave."
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There's no way he's taking the full blame for strangling them, even though, at the back of his mind, he knows he did it because it would satisfy him, and that prickling sensation to execute violence for the sake of it, because he didn't care.
He couldn't bring himself to care, because who was so important that he couldn't hurt or kill them if he had to?
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They were called, and so they came. That is what the rule is.
What was he to do, though, upon watching a child break themself into pieces like that, so callously? What kind of person would he be if he simply let it happen?
One far more common than he might think, for one.
It really is incredible, how no one thought to look for a child as they scaled a mountain. How they only elected to care when their body was settled upon a patch of golden flowers. How idly they all stood by while they committed that child, twice over, to the dirt.
And so they laugh.
"You are very much in the minority there, I assure you."
Though not, funnily enough, when it comes to inflicting violence upon the child that was vexing him so. No, that seems to be quite a familiar thread.
One might say they even have that in common.
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He rolls his eye, annoyed at the conversation entirely. All he wanted was for them to come with him, why was this such a difficult concept to grasp. They weren't stupid. There was no reason for them to die, no more than there was a reason for Asriel to die.
"Can we just get this over with? You're being an idiot, just come see your family."
It would be easier for him, and he's definitely tiring of the back and forth, the semantics and parts of conversation he didn't understand.
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"You would be surprised," they say, clearly amused. Perhaps that is why it was so easy for him to crave the surface's manifold promises, the alleged greener pastures. He never had to encounter humanity firsthand.
How terribly lucky for him.
"I am afraid that little family is already quite complete." They would turn on their heel to make a point, but they do not turn their back. This is one of their rules, and particularly now - they have a good reason for it. "Your concern has been noted."
It will be taken under consideration and processed accordingly before it will be filed, nice and neat.
(It will be filed in the trash, where it belongs.)
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Either way, Mettaton is far from ready to argue with Chara about the surface, its problems, or anything of the sort. Perhaps he'd have more sympathy if they weren't being a shit about it, because if there's one thing he can do, it's sympathize with terrible situations at this point.
"I'm afraid that is only your opinion, and my concern is rooted in actual facts. If the Dreemurr family felt complete, I do believe they would need two more components. The father, of course, and their beloved human child.
Because if they didn't want you, then Toriel would not have taken deep offenses to any harm that befell you on this ship, she would not have been upset at your departure, and neither Frisk nor Asriel would have been upset that someone they shared a deep bond with was no longer present. Asriel, especially, needs all the friends who can support him in a very trying situation, but by no fault of your own, you were not able to remain. I understand this. But don't try to downplay it.
You were not there to see how upset they were. I was. So if you could kindly consider the feelings of others?! That would be grand!"
File it in the bin if you like, Chara. He's going to get his piece out.
1/?? stay tuned
He speaks as though he has any leverage on them. As if his facts are absolute, and not marred by his own skewed priorities. Why it should matter to him, they do not rightly care.
It is immaterial.
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The name like a talisman. Like a curse.
A cruelty.
They will not fall for a trick such as that a second time. He can enunciate their alleged value to them all he wants.
"I'm afraid that is quite impossible," says Chara, with their rosy cheeks and their impenetrable smile.
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They know what MERCY gets them. They know what Sparing gets them. They do not fall for those tricks a second time. They've learned.
"Or perhaps," they continue, laughingly, "I simply learned from your fine example. That family you seem so intent on vaunting to me, perhaps they, too, want for nothing in my absence. Certainly nothing I can offer them."
Blood sores and cold words and the memory of a forgotten child, whose name was easily scratched out and inputted with another.
dONE
"If that is how you view your own family," the child says softly, "if you are so blind to the suffering you caused them - then why would I trust anything you have to say on the matter? You've proven quite clearly that family, it seems, is purely secondary."
And they smile, and they smile, and they smile.
They think they have made their point. Don't you?
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