[After a moment of hesitation - unless Medb moves to stop her, Endorsi moves to touch the option on the touchscreen that says yes, keeping her other hand on the handprint panel.]
all at once, you are changing. a horn bursts from your forehead, sharp and twisted. two more, on either side, curl out and then crumble to dust, grow again, and again. a tail winds around your ankle, the spade cutting into your skin; your back aches as bones crack and expand out from your shoulder blades, fluttering weakly. they twist, turn crystalline, and then holographic, rainbow, and then white, fluffy, angelic. your skin splits along your arms as pink and green eyes blink into existence, and you feel every one keenly. fire roars around your feet, burning and angry, extinguished immediately by freezing spiderweb veins that gather up and down your body. a splitting headache causes glittering black tears to drip down your face as a thorned, bony crown grows like vines from your skull. you bring your hands up as if to stop it from happening, only to find claws, your hands ruined, and --
it's so much. you didn't know what you were agreeing to, and you just have to suffer through, but that's not important - that isn't the point.
time unfreezes.
all four of them find themselves in that same room, as the monster shrieks and finally wriggles free of the doors.
their bodies are normal, not transformed. the alien drops to the floor, and slowly slinks over to them.
it's also the worst? it's absolutely the worst. shi qingxuan grits her teeth and struggles to stay upright, and as that alien slinks closer to them and purrs, she turns her head toward it with a horrified look on her face.
[ familiar...? it's not familiar at all for aoi. aoi has been created and recreated countless times, dissolved into data and absorbed into God. she's had everything that makes her her torn apart like scraps, like building blocks to be used again. being created, uncreated, recreated - it's never been like this. it's never hurt so much.
she sinks down to the ground now that she doesn't need to keep her hand on the panel anymore and just - stares at the furby monster. ]
[as that finishes, endorsi leans against the panel and closes her eyes. to her, none of it is familiar: not the way her body shifts and changes, nor the incredible pain, nor the complete powerlessness. for just a second once it’s over, she puts her face in her hands, not paying attention to the way her hand spreads blood there.
since the monster is purring now, she doesn’t attack quite yet, looking at it instead.]
[ This kind of transformation isn't familiar at all. Medb has died more than once, and this kind of pain is different than what she's experienced before. It's searing in a way she doesn't know, but the magnitude of pain is perhaps not too unfamiliar.
It doesn't mean it doesn't hit her hard or that she doesn't sink to the floor to grapple with it as she regains her bearings.
Why is the monster purring?
She, too, watches carefully but is ready to leap at it the moment it looks like it'll attack.
[the monster comes closer, close to the floor. the tail sways back and forth as the dead furby eyes stare at them, and it opens its beak...
and then sqx kicks it. and it squeals, skittering backwards, bringing a hand up to its face. for a moment, it's just there, holding its face like it doesn't know what to do?
and then it lets out another one of those horrifyingly loud and painful roars, the whole room shaking. no, no, no, it does not like being hurt. it throws itself forward at the four of them, and they all instinctively understand - this is a punishment, this is their punishment.
it hits endorsi first - knocks her to the floor, forcing its claws into her mouth and ripping out her tongue, brutal and quick. its whiplike scorpion tail jabs out and slams down into sqx's leg, the one she kicked it with. it leaves a nasty, messy hole behind, almost severing the leg completely. with that, it whirls on the other two.
the mouth opens, and a second beak screams out from inside of it, latching onto aoi's hair. it rips out a huge chunk of it and spits it to the floor before using her body as a spring board to get to medb, leaving claw gouges in her torso. medb sees it gurgle out a terrible uhuhu sound before to brings a claw up to drag a heart symbol on her face, off center, ripping through skin and her right eye, leaving her blind on that side.
and then it hisses, and launches itself off of medb to squeeze off through the door and into the rest of station.
a few feet in front of them, a multicolored portal appears.
she doesn't even seem to notice the portal. she's just. lying here and bleeding out from her nearly-severed leg. it's fine? just leave her hear to die. if this is punishment, that's fine. she can die here. she's tired.
[ aoi is knocked over - whether it was from having a chunk of her bit off or from being spring boarded off of. one more time, she curls up in the fetal position, hugging herself and shuddering in pain and exhaustion. just for a moment. she gives herself a second.
and then, for however pathetically shaky she is, for however slowly she moves, she gets back up. she grabs sqx under her arms, ready to drag her through the portal. ]
Help Aoi with her leg if you can.
[ dragging someone with their leg nearly severed is likely to do even more damage, if she does it without help. but aoi won't blame anyone if they can't help, given everyone's own stages of Also Fucked Up Real Bad.
as long as everyone makes it out of the portal. she'll drag sqx herself if she has to. aoi is tired, but aoi is persistent. maybe for once in this cyoa, she can be useful to someone. ]
[from her space on the floor, she curls up herself for a second, letting out a noise of pain as she brings her hands to her mouth, feeling the blood pouring out, the incredible pain from what remains of her tongue. there’s just shreds in the back of her mouth.
but after a moment or two, she pushes herself up. she wants to lay back down. she wants to let her wounds take their course. for someone like her, always so driven and motivated to live - it’s an unfamiliar enough feeling that, combined with aoi's words, she’s able to at least try and push past it. it’s so hard. but she staggers to her feet, incredibly off balance thanks to the blood loss, and she’ll move to help aoi.
she’s keeping an eye on medb, too, determined to help the other woman as well if she needs a hand to make it out. they aren’t leaving anyone behind.]
She falls to ground after being gouged and clawed. Medb is tired, so tired, and so in pain. She hasn't been this hurt or injured since before the last time she died. She tries to lift herself up, brings herself up to her knees, and lifts a hand to her face.
She can't see in one eye. Her breathing is hard and shallow.
She's so tired, but she's also so furious.
She lurches to her feet. She is still beautiful even without her physical beauty, but it is her defining feature, and how dare some ugly creature come and wreck it, wreck her, wreck all of them?
She can't forgive it. She can't forgive it. She can't forgive it.
It's a good thing someone is keeping an eye on her because she barely notices the portal and moves, however slowly but spurned by her spite and her rage, towards the door to hit the button, so she can go after the monster and fucking murder it for all it's done to her (and them) today.
She may bleed out while she does, but that doesn't take away her desire to trample all over it.
[Endorsi is moving slowly as well, but it’s directly towards Medb. She tries to say something and can’t, blood spilling from her mouth instead, but she tries to at least make a sound to get the other woman’s attention.
As she reaches close enough, she’ll put a hand on her shoulder, a pleading look on her face, and try to reach for her hand to take her towards the portal.]
[ It's the sound and the hand on her shoulder that makes her pause, and she looks at the pleading expression on Endorsi's face, and some of her fury drains.
She looks at the door and then the portal and lets out a soft sigh.
She lets Endorsi take her hand and also support her so they can leave this hellhole. ]
they head through, and are immediately dumped into the hallway outside the cargo room. the outfits come through with them, as well as four items: knitting needles, a bottle of gold liquid, a fancy red umbrella, and a stiff jacket. anything else they may have picked up does not come through.
additionally, once they're out, they'll find that every time they touch the in-game CR they connected to, that person will feel a rush of extra energy and focus, for one week starting thursday icly. on the opposite side of this, every time they try to remember the CR from home, their faces are fuzzy.
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Please let this be the option for all of them being half-dead. ]
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time freezes.
and the pain is excruciating.
all at once, you are changing. a horn bursts from your forehead, sharp and twisted. two more, on either side, curl out and then crumble to dust, grow again, and again. a tail winds around your ankle, the spade cutting into your skin; your back aches as bones crack and expand out from your shoulder blades, fluttering weakly. they twist, turn crystalline, and then holographic, rainbow, and then white, fluffy, angelic. your skin splits along your arms as pink and green eyes blink into existence, and you feel every one keenly. fire roars around your feet, burning and angry, extinguished immediately by freezing spiderweb veins that gather up and down your body. a splitting headache causes glittering black tears to drip down your face as a thorned, bony crown grows like vines from your skull. you bring your hands up as if to stop it from happening, only to find claws, your hands ruined, and --
it's so much. you didn't know what you were agreeing to, and you just have to suffer through, but that's not important - that isn't the point.
time unfreezes.
all four of them find themselves in that same room, as the monster shrieks and finally wriggles free of the doors.
their bodies are normal, not transformed. the alien drops to the floor, and slowly slinks over to them.
it's... purring? it's purring.]
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this is unpleasantly familiar.
it's also the worst? it's absolutely the worst. shi qingxuan grits her teeth and struggles to stay upright, and as that alien slinks closer to them and purrs, she turns her head toward it with a horrified look on her face.
if it gets close enough she kicks at it.]
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she sinks down to the ground now that she doesn't need to keep her hand on the panel anymore and just - stares at the furby monster. ]
Boop boop... Did we finish the checklist?
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since the monster is purring now, she doesn’t attack quite yet, looking at it instead.]
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It doesn't mean it doesn't hit her hard or that she doesn't sink to the floor to grapple with it as she regains her bearings.
Why is the monster purring?
She, too, watches carefully but is ready to leap at it the moment it looks like it'll attack.
To answer Aoi: ]
I don't know.
[ Very helpful. ]
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and then sqx kicks it. and it squeals, skittering backwards, bringing a hand up to its face. for a moment, it's just there, holding its face like it doesn't know what to do?
and then it lets out another one of those horrifyingly loud and painful roars, the whole room shaking. no, no, no, it does not like being hurt. it throws itself forward at the four of them, and they all instinctively understand - this is a punishment, this is their punishment.
it hits endorsi first - knocks her to the floor, forcing its claws into her mouth and ripping out her tongue, brutal and quick. its whiplike scorpion tail jabs out and slams down into sqx's leg, the one she kicked it with. it leaves a nasty, messy hole behind, almost severing the leg completely. with that, it whirls on the other two.
the mouth opens, and a second beak screams out from inside of it, latching onto aoi's hair. it rips out a huge chunk of it and spits it to the floor before using her body as a spring board to get to medb, leaving claw gouges in her torso. medb sees it gurgle out a terrible uhuhu sound before to brings a claw up to drag a heart symbol on her face, off center, ripping through skin and her right eye, leaving her blind on that side.
and then it hisses, and launches itself off of medb to squeeze off through the door and into the rest of station.
a few feet in front of them, a multicolored portal appears.
you're tired. you're so tired.]
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she doesn't even seem to notice the portal. she's just. lying here and bleeding out from her nearly-severed leg. it's fine? just leave her hear to die. if this is punishment, that's fine. she can die here. she's tired.
maybe she'll just close her eyes and rest...]
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and then, for however pathetically shaky she is, for however slowly she moves, she gets back up. she grabs sqx under her arms, ready to drag her through the portal. ]
Help Aoi with her leg if you can.
[ dragging someone with their leg nearly severed is likely to do even more damage, if she does it without help. but aoi won't blame anyone if they can't help, given everyone's own stages of Also Fucked Up Real Bad.
as long as everyone makes it out of the portal. she'll drag sqx herself if she has to. aoi is tired, but aoi is persistent. maybe for once in this cyoa, she can be useful to someone. ]
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but after a moment or two, she pushes herself up. she wants to lay back down. she wants to let her wounds take their course. for someone like her, always so driven and motivated to live - it’s an unfamiliar enough feeling that, combined with aoi's words, she’s able to at least try and push past it. it’s so hard. but she staggers to her feet, incredibly off balance thanks to the blood loss, and she’ll move to help aoi.
she’s keeping an eye on medb, too, determined to help the other woman as well if she needs a hand to make it out. they aren’t leaving anyone behind.]
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She falls to ground after being gouged and clawed. Medb is tired, so tired, and so in pain. She hasn't been this hurt or injured since before the last time she died. She tries to lift herself up, brings herself up to her knees, and lifts a hand to her face.
She can't see in one eye. Her breathing is hard and shallow.
She's so tired, but she's also so furious.
She lurches to her feet. She is still beautiful even without her physical beauty, but it is her defining feature, and how dare some ugly creature come and wreck it, wreck her, wreck all of them?
She can't forgive it. She can't forgive it. She can't forgive it.
It's a good thing someone is keeping an eye on her because she barely notices the portal and moves, however slowly but spurned by her spite and her rage, towards the door to hit the button, so she can go after the monster and fucking murder it for all it's done to her (and them) today.
She may bleed out while she does, but that doesn't take away her desire to trample all over it.
Someone, please talk her down. ]
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also she's unconscious so you can skip her until we're all through the portal.]
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As she reaches close enough, she’ll put a hand on her shoulder, a pleading look on her face, and try to reach for her hand to take her towards the portal.]
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She looks at the door and then the portal and lets out a soft sigh.
She lets Endorsi take her hand and also support her so they can leave this hellhole. ]
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they head through, and are immediately dumped into the hallway outside the cargo room. the outfits come through with them, as well as four items: knitting needles, a bottle of gold liquid, a fancy red umbrella, and a stiff jacket. anything else they may have picked up does not come through.
additionally, once they're out, they'll find that every time they touch the in-game CR they connected to, that person will feel a rush of extra energy and focus, for one week starting thursday icly. on the opposite side of this, every time they try to remember the CR from home, their faces are fuzzy.
time to scare the shit out of everybody!]