Re: The Grand Battle S2G1! [Round Four: New Battleopolis!]
08-15-2011, 12:38 PM
Originally posted on MSPA by Lord Paradise.
”tnoc lliw I tuB .sseccus sti ees ot evivrus ton lliw uoy fo ynam taht ylekil si ti dna ,elggurts tluciffid a eb lliw s”
“Well this isn’t helpful,” said Jen. There was something blurry and emerald-tinted hovering above the orb. If she had to guess, she would say it was a human, but she wouldn’t put money on it. “I think he’s talking backwards now.”
”Damn!” grunted Tor, slamming a palm against the bars. ”The only person who was able to get the even slightest measurable response from it was Greyve. A half-breed, with human blood. I figured you could do better.”
This was one of those situations where careful wording was required. Jen vaguely recalled having been good at diplomacy, once. She tried to put herself in that mental place again. “Look, I’m a human by birth, yes. But I’ve done things—been places—that have… altered me. Back home, I once had Loch and Qi take out all the blood in my body and replace it with freshwater for a week. I’ve had my eyes removed and reinserted into my head by an inside-out woman using nothing but a needle and thread. No less than three magical duplicates of myself have died believing themselves to be the real me. One time I flew faster than the speed of magic and passed an event horizon beyond which everything was perfectly logical, and now possess only secondhand memories of what measures I took to get out. “Human” has been a questionable adjective to describe me since before I died and was inhabited by a parasitic wyrm. Who, by the way, keeps trying to get me to break out and eat you.” Halfway through that last sentence, she remembered about diplomacy. Ah, well.
Tor, seemingly unfazed by the threats of cannibalism, considered this. ”Your hal is a bit green about the edges,” he admitted, ”But if I recognize it as human, the orb should be able to, too. It’s the wyrm jamming the signal. She needs to be cut out.”
Cut out!?
”Cut out?”
”I can’t guarantee it’ll be painless, but once we get you back to a state of independent humanity, you’ll survive long enough to use the orb. Perhaps longer… probably longer, if you cooperate fully.” A twinge of regret crossed Tor’s face. What’s your read on this guy, Fantha?
He has some sort of sixth sense. If I ate someone of his species, I could give you that and you’d be able to get a much better ‘read on him’ than me.
Call that a last resort. “Look, if some surgeon is going to be removing the thing that is singlehandedly responsible for my homeostasis, it’s not going to be one specializing in non-human biology. You people are half likely to cut into my liver thinking it’s my purse and then tell my next-of-kin you were looking for Altoids.”
Did you just call the anti-human zealot “you people?”
Shut uuuuuuuuup
I’m a non-human myself, you know. Maybe I should take them up on their offer and get myself excised. Start leeching off of someone who appreciates me for all my squiggly bits.
”Our… veterinarian, for lack of a more degrading word… is more than well enough versed with all those foul-smelling sacs you humans use to convert alcohol into backtalk. And you’re in no condition to negotiate. Red.”
At Tor’s gesture, the lobster opened up the cell and grabbed Jen roughly by the arm. A brief scenario flashed through her head in which she attempted to resist and got her head smushed and immolated. Then a second scenario ran through her head in which she went along quietly and maybe found a way to escape before she got veterinarian’d and lost the only friend she had kicking around anymore, and she went with that one.
They put the bag over her head anyway, probably because they were just sick of looking at her face. It certainly didn’t stop her from charting their course through the museum—ten paces, left, twelve paces, left, eight paces, down stairs—when she nearly twisted her ankle on the steps, Red decided to pick her up in his suit’s arms and carry her the rest of the way to their destination.
Being carried like a bride on her wedding night, Jen lost track of the paces and turns almost immediately.
After a few minutes, she found herself lowered onto a cold metal table. Red tore the bag off ofher head on his way out. Above her there was nothing but a ceiling, a light, and a pervasive damp feeling.
Then a floating bubble of water passed over Jen, and she was drowning.
”Relax, girl. No need to fear.” A mechanical arm appeared in Jen’s field of vision holding a syringe. A blue fluid went into her collarbone, and within seconds Jen was breathing again. Or rather, she wasn’t so conspicuously not breathing. ”There. That’ll keep you from having respiration issues around me. Sorry, I don’t… operate well without water.” The voice was feminine and kindly, but definitely not human. ”Don’t get up,” she cautioned. "I need to operate. I don’t sympathize with Kajan’s aims, but sending you to me was a kindness, of sorts. The wyrm is wreaking havoc on your body and your mind.”
Jen shook her head, and experimented with talking through the water bubble. “Her name’s—“ well, that worked, “—Her name’s Fanthalion. We have an understanding.”
”Oh, I don’t doubt it,” the doctor said, warmly. ”Such creatures often work telepathically, through promises and compromises, insinuating themselves into the brain. She placed herself in your memories, didn’t she?”
Jen frowned and nodded. “She was my friend. Or, I remember her being my friend.”
”So, hearing that a parasite has infected your body and your mind was more like… learning that your friend had a secret she’d been keeping. Even if the friendship is founded on a lie, you still feel that bond, she’s still your friend, right?”
Jen decided to dodge that particular loaded question. ”Tell it to me straight, doc. If you cut her out, will I survive?”
”Probably. My primary field is in cybernetics. So worst case scenario, I screw up your body, I build you a new one. The mental shock is going to be more pressing. Being separated from your ‘friend’ is going to feel like a very powerful drug withdrawal. The more you try to rationalize what she’s done with you, the more you try to avoid the subject, the harder it’s going to be to overcome that."
Jen craned her neck, trying to get a look at the face of her doctor, but a cybernetic arm grabbed her forehead and pushed it down. “Look,” she said. “I accept that I haven’t actually known Fantha my whole life, but I’ve still known her longer than I’ve known you. You’re working for Tor. Why should I trust you?”
Silence for a second. Then: ”Good question. I was in the same battle with Tor, you know. He was different, then. He had some trust issues, especially when it came to humans, but this anger of his was directed towards one human in particular… one who we can safely say deserved it. Becoming… awakened... in New BatTLe0p0L(is) has different effects on different people." A syringe slid into Jen’s arm, another in her chest. Once more, she tried to project what would happen if she resisted. It would get messy. “Being a contestant in a Grand Battle ends up instilling you with a sort of confidence, I think. Yes, you’re at the mercy of the Grandmasters, but you also know that they chose you, out of everyone, and that they expect there’s a chance you can win, that you can make it through all this. I think that’s something that Tor really needed, and it was starting to help him come into his own as a person. Being... copied here.... discovering that we're just an obstacle to you people, the real battlers… it has the opposite effect. We’re nothing more than paper plates, now. We’re disposable, impermanent.” Jen felt a numbness spreading over her, and found herself unable to respond. ”Even in peace times—and these are not peace times, with you here and war on the way—there’s this loss of self, this nearness to death. Some of us are simply depressed and resigned to our fates--like me, for one--but too many of us have reacted by becoming fanatics. Whatever they wanted in their real lives, they're now missing the superego, the caution, the regard for life that was holding them back from trying to reach out and take it.” Jen couldn’t hear Fantha anymore. There was something floating in the water. She saw a tail hovering over her head. Then it was gone, too quickly for her to register. ”The unawakened citizens feel it too. There’s this cult that’s sort of prophecizing the coming of a fascist leader. A conqueror. A couple people here have met this guy, he was a contestant. He might actually show up.” There was something else floating in the water. Drifting up and out of her like red ribbons. She reached an arm out to grab the blood and swirl it around on her fingertips, but her arms just weren’t moving. ”Listen, Jen, listen to me very carefully. Tor doesn’t want to kill you because he thinks if your battle is here, he might have a real purpose other than this idiotic war he’s been waging. But he’s running out of ways to demean you and hurt you, and on a psychological level he can only let himself keep you alive for so long. After the surgery I’m going to try and get you to TinTen. TinTen’s a friend of mine with a line to the human camp. You can trust him, can you still hear me under there? You can trust TinTen.” Jen wished Kath were here. Kath would have gotten a kick out of seeing her bleed so much, and all in the water.
The doctor came into view; or she passed, at least, through Jen’s increasingly narrow and bloody field of vision. There was a lot of her, serpentine and graceful, with three cold, metal eyes looking down on Jen. She was blue. Jen felt safe with her doctor. Safe enough to close her eyes, just for a little.
”tnoc lliw I tuB .sseccus sti ees ot evivrus ton lliw uoy fo ynam taht ylekil si ti dna ,elggurts tluciffid a eb lliw s”
“Well this isn’t helpful,” said Jen. There was something blurry and emerald-tinted hovering above the orb. If she had to guess, she would say it was a human, but she wouldn’t put money on it. “I think he’s talking backwards now.”
”Damn!” grunted Tor, slamming a palm against the bars. ”The only person who was able to get the even slightest measurable response from it was Greyve. A half-breed, with human blood. I figured you could do better.”
This was one of those situations where careful wording was required. Jen vaguely recalled having been good at diplomacy, once. She tried to put herself in that mental place again. “Look, I’m a human by birth, yes. But I’ve done things—been places—that have… altered me. Back home, I once had Loch and Qi take out all the blood in my body and replace it with freshwater for a week. I’ve had my eyes removed and reinserted into my head by an inside-out woman using nothing but a needle and thread. No less than three magical duplicates of myself have died believing themselves to be the real me. One time I flew faster than the speed of magic and passed an event horizon beyond which everything was perfectly logical, and now possess only secondhand memories of what measures I took to get out. “Human” has been a questionable adjective to describe me since before I died and was inhabited by a parasitic wyrm. Who, by the way, keeps trying to get me to break out and eat you.” Halfway through that last sentence, she remembered about diplomacy. Ah, well.
Tor, seemingly unfazed by the threats of cannibalism, considered this. ”Your hal is a bit green about the edges,” he admitted, ”But if I recognize it as human, the orb should be able to, too. It’s the wyrm jamming the signal. She needs to be cut out.”
Cut out!?
”Cut out?”
”I can’t guarantee it’ll be painless, but once we get you back to a state of independent humanity, you’ll survive long enough to use the orb. Perhaps longer… probably longer, if you cooperate fully.” A twinge of regret crossed Tor’s face. What’s your read on this guy, Fantha?
He has some sort of sixth sense. If I ate someone of his species, I could give you that and you’d be able to get a much better ‘read on him’ than me.
Call that a last resort. “Look, if some surgeon is going to be removing the thing that is singlehandedly responsible for my homeostasis, it’s not going to be one specializing in non-human biology. You people are half likely to cut into my liver thinking it’s my purse and then tell my next-of-kin you were looking for Altoids.”
Did you just call the anti-human zealot “you people?”
Shut uuuuuuuuup
I’m a non-human myself, you know. Maybe I should take them up on their offer and get myself excised. Start leeching off of someone who appreciates me for all my squiggly bits.
”Our… veterinarian, for lack of a more degrading word… is more than well enough versed with all those foul-smelling sacs you humans use to convert alcohol into backtalk. And you’re in no condition to negotiate. Red.”
At Tor’s gesture, the lobster opened up the cell and grabbed Jen roughly by the arm. A brief scenario flashed through her head in which she attempted to resist and got her head smushed and immolated. Then a second scenario ran through her head in which she went along quietly and maybe found a way to escape before she got veterinarian’d and lost the only friend she had kicking around anymore, and she went with that one.
They put the bag over her head anyway, probably because they were just sick of looking at her face. It certainly didn’t stop her from charting their course through the museum—ten paces, left, twelve paces, left, eight paces, down stairs—when she nearly twisted her ankle on the steps, Red decided to pick her up in his suit’s arms and carry her the rest of the way to their destination.
Being carried like a bride on her wedding night, Jen lost track of the paces and turns almost immediately.
After a few minutes, she found herself lowered onto a cold metal table. Red tore the bag off ofher head on his way out. Above her there was nothing but a ceiling, a light, and a pervasive damp feeling.
Then a floating bubble of water passed over Jen, and she was drowning.
”Relax, girl. No need to fear.” A mechanical arm appeared in Jen’s field of vision holding a syringe. A blue fluid went into her collarbone, and within seconds Jen was breathing again. Or rather, she wasn’t so conspicuously not breathing. ”There. That’ll keep you from having respiration issues around me. Sorry, I don’t… operate well without water.” The voice was feminine and kindly, but definitely not human. ”Don’t get up,” she cautioned. "I need to operate. I don’t sympathize with Kajan’s aims, but sending you to me was a kindness, of sorts. The wyrm is wreaking havoc on your body and your mind.”
Jen shook her head, and experimented with talking through the water bubble. “Her name’s—“ well, that worked, “—Her name’s Fanthalion. We have an understanding.”
”Oh, I don’t doubt it,” the doctor said, warmly. ”Such creatures often work telepathically, through promises and compromises, insinuating themselves into the brain. She placed herself in your memories, didn’t she?”
Jen frowned and nodded. “She was my friend. Or, I remember her being my friend.”
”So, hearing that a parasite has infected your body and your mind was more like… learning that your friend had a secret she’d been keeping. Even if the friendship is founded on a lie, you still feel that bond, she’s still your friend, right?”
Jen decided to dodge that particular loaded question. ”Tell it to me straight, doc. If you cut her out, will I survive?”
”Probably. My primary field is in cybernetics. So worst case scenario, I screw up your body, I build you a new one. The mental shock is going to be more pressing. Being separated from your ‘friend’ is going to feel like a very powerful drug withdrawal. The more you try to rationalize what she’s done with you, the more you try to avoid the subject, the harder it’s going to be to overcome that."
Jen craned her neck, trying to get a look at the face of her doctor, but a cybernetic arm grabbed her forehead and pushed it down. “Look,” she said. “I accept that I haven’t actually known Fantha my whole life, but I’ve still known her longer than I’ve known you. You’re working for Tor. Why should I trust you?”
Silence for a second. Then: ”Good question. I was in the same battle with Tor, you know. He was different, then. He had some trust issues, especially when it came to humans, but this anger of his was directed towards one human in particular… one who we can safely say deserved it. Becoming… awakened... in New BatTLe0p0L(is) has different effects on different people." A syringe slid into Jen’s arm, another in her chest. Once more, she tried to project what would happen if she resisted. It would get messy. “Being a contestant in a Grand Battle ends up instilling you with a sort of confidence, I think. Yes, you’re at the mercy of the Grandmasters, but you also know that they chose you, out of everyone, and that they expect there’s a chance you can win, that you can make it through all this. I think that’s something that Tor really needed, and it was starting to help him come into his own as a person. Being... copied here.... discovering that we're just an obstacle to you people, the real battlers… it has the opposite effect. We’re nothing more than paper plates, now. We’re disposable, impermanent.” Jen felt a numbness spreading over her, and found herself unable to respond. ”Even in peace times—and these are not peace times, with you here and war on the way—there’s this loss of self, this nearness to death. Some of us are simply depressed and resigned to our fates--like me, for one--but too many of us have reacted by becoming fanatics. Whatever they wanted in their real lives, they're now missing the superego, the caution, the regard for life that was holding them back from trying to reach out and take it.” Jen couldn’t hear Fantha anymore. There was something floating in the water. She saw a tail hovering over her head. Then it was gone, too quickly for her to register. ”The unawakened citizens feel it too. There’s this cult that’s sort of prophecizing the coming of a fascist leader. A conqueror. A couple people here have met this guy, he was a contestant. He might actually show up.” There was something else floating in the water. Drifting up and out of her like red ribbons. She reached an arm out to grab the blood and swirl it around on her fingertips, but her arms just weren’t moving. ”Listen, Jen, listen to me very carefully. Tor doesn’t want to kill you because he thinks if your battle is here, he might have a real purpose other than this idiotic war he’s been waging. But he’s running out of ways to demean you and hurt you, and on a psychological level he can only let himself keep you alive for so long. After the surgery I’m going to try and get you to TinTen. TinTen’s a friend of mine with a line to the human camp. You can trust him, can you still hear me under there? You can trust TinTen.” Jen wished Kath were here. Kath would have gotten a kick out of seeing her bleed so much, and all in the water.
The doctor came into view; or she passed, at least, through Jen’s increasingly narrow and bloody field of vision. There was a lot of her, serpentine and graceful, with three cold, metal eyes looking down on Jen. She was blue. Jen felt safe with her doctor. Safe enough to close her eyes, just for a little.