i'm the one getting owned, aren't i.

@heirinherent

For the moment, Maria is content to bottle it all up. Worry. Fear. Distress.

The child has found herself robbed of home and family, of a Mama that has finally released her stress. A true and loving mama to this strange area. But the small child can put that aside, to bask in the magic of the area. The place she is in is the sort of place any witch can find themselves adoring, and so for the moment? Maria will allow herself to assume a new and amazing game has begun.

Maria has her beloved lion with her, and for that she is grateful.

For the moment she is lounging in the lobby, smiling at all the thing surrounding her. A moment to perk at the sight of a strange person and she waves! After all, the golden land was wonderful.. But new faces are even better!

“Hello! Would you like to join me for tea?”

John is patting his pockets, making sure he has all his stuff - which is mostly just his holophone, but he still needs it - when he hears a small voice. Not small like, in volume, because it’s loud enough he can hear it in the lobby, but small as in, it sounds like it belongs to a little kid? When he turns, he realizes it does, in fact, belong to a little kid, jeez. What’s she doing here?

“Uh, hey,” he says, with a small wave. He was mostly just taking a walk around one of the Seas, so it’s not like he’s busy, but... “Tea? Here?” He’s still kind of disoriented by the fact that there’s just this little girl here. Is that fair? He hadn’t really thought about the people who took him, but he mostly has met adults, and this is just... A kid.

Reed hears him speaking, but doesn’t respond. She’s already starting to feel like his voice is far away as she slips into thoughts of what could have possibly happened to Alucard. The young man is offering a possible explanation, she can tell, but whatever it is, it isn’t going to convince her that this isn’t a bad sign.

“Hmm, yeah,” she mumbles after a moment. She blinks, shakes her head. “I mean, yeah, baking a pie sounds great. I can’t shake the feeling that something’s wrong, though,” she adds. “I mean, we all arrived here suddenly, without explanation…if that can happen, then I guess people can disappear suddenly, too?”

Ideas are forming in her mind, rapidly, too rapidly almost. She’s feeling dizzy. It reminds her a bit of how she felt with the scan - the failed scan, where she had the seizure. Now isn’t the time to be stubborn, she thinks.

“I think maybe I should sit down,” she says. “Is there a bench near here?”

“Oh, uh, yeah.” John says, looking around. Hidden in a little grassy alcove is a bench, and he walks over to it with her.

John isn’t the best person at reading the room. He gets that. The woman seems upset about this guy, her friend. Of course she would be upset, jeez, what was he doing? Why wasn’t he upset about this, anyway?

heirinherent‌:

Reassured by the fact that this guy wasn’t gonna go for his throat, John relaxes. As he rounds the counter, John takes a bite of his apple, chewing thoughtfully. He was older than him, like most of the people he’d met here. Human-like, but something about him seemed weird. John can’t really place it, and it’s not like he doesn’t have experience with people who aren’t human.

Placing a hand on the counter, John pulls himself up off the floor, so he doesn’t have to look up quite as much. “You kind of do? Live here now, I mean. I woke up in a room too, in this creepy mansion, and so did everyone else here pretty much. The Protocols - these AI guys, they live in your phone and answer your questions and stuff. I think they were born here?”

The stranger looks more confused than dangerous, so John feels kind of bad for him. “I’m John. What’s your name? Were you looking for something? There’s food and stuff if you’re hungry.”

Every artificial muscle fibre that can tense does. “Did you say… AI?” Raiden asks tersely. “Artificial intelligence? There are AIs, here?”

This changes - everything. His initial assumptions of being taken here by a PMC, a foreign government, a very stupid private citizen, might still be true, but if there are AIs behind his kidnapping… It can’t be the Patriots. Despite the similar name. It can’t be. Sunny destroyed them years ago, has been tracking any attempts to create artificial intelligences more powerful or non-corporeal than Wolf. I think they were born here. Where is here? Where-

His system informs him that his adrenaline levels are rising above acceptable at-rest parameters. Raiden turns his next question into a sigh, unzips his jacket to get proper airflow to his vents. “Don’t worry about this,” he says to John, meaning the several inches of silver-and-black torso he’s just exposed. “I won’t hurt you. My name’s Raiden. I was looking for someone who could tell me where we are, but…”

Multiple people from different locales corralled in a sealed location, controlled by AI. It makes what’s left of his skin crawl. “Well, where are you from originally? Are you American?”

Raiden looks like he might freak out, then catches himself. Again, pretty impressive, considering John wouldn’t blame him for freaking out. It’s that kind of situation!

“Oh, I can tell you where we are.” John says, waving his hand holding the apple, “It’s called the “Ark”, and it’s run by the Protocols I think? You can check your phone for more details, I’ve been told I’m really bad at explaining anything.”

She claps her hands together, looking pleased. “Oh, great!” She says with a grin. “It does look like one of those kinds of movies, doesn’t it? And the character on the poster looks really cool!”

She gestures for John to follow her, and she tosses another grin over her shoulder at him. “I’ll buy the tickets, you buy the popcorn!” And as they get inside, she runs up to the counter to buy two tickets to the next showing, in a brighter mood than she was before, if possible. When she walks back over to John, she hands him his ticket.

“Do you think it’s weird that I kind of wish Dave or Rose or someone else would show up here too? I mean, it could be dangerous here, but at least we’d all be in danger together, right?” She smiles. “Haha… Just like old times, I guess?”

As Jade buys the ticket, John goes to the snack counter as commanded. He gets popcorn, and some red licorice, since everything seems to cost monopoly money here. He’s debating going back and getting an icee too when Jade comes back.

John takes the ticket, kind of surprised they got a physical one. This place has so many little futuristic trappings, you’d think they’d just zap the ticket to the phone, and you scan it or something.

“Oh, yeah,” Reed says, “I’d appreciate extra advice. Pie might be too hard – I haven’t had a pie in a while, but if the texture isn’t right…” She shrugs. “If I messed up a pie, I don’t know if I could make myself eat it. Depending on how I messed it up. I’m a little particular about food, I guess.”

She pulls out her holophone and starts looking through her contacts. “If you do want to help me become less of a disaster in the kitchen, I don’t think Alucard would mind. I can ask him, though…”

Reed frowns.

“Huh.” She double checks that she’s in the right section, then scrolls through the list of names starting with A again. “That’s weird. I thought he was in my phone. I thought everyone was in my phone,” she adds, looking at the young man as if to ask him if he knows what’s going on.

John frowns. He pulls out his own holophone, saying, “Alucard, right?” Scrolling through the list of names, he doesn’t see anyone. He even checks E, cause maybe his name is just pronounced weird? Nope.

“You did!” Hilda says, chuckling again. “You’re a prankster, then? Or were you trying something new?”

She realises she’s been standing all this time, so she sits back down on the bench. Then she gets an idea.

“If you know good pranks — preferably less explosive ones, just to make sure nobody overreacts in self-defence — I have half a mind to help you set them up. I know a few folks here who could use a funny little surprise. Maybe something like…” Hilda frowns trying to come up with an idea. “They find a strange package… and I say, watch out, it might be a trap… and we open it and it’s a note that says ‘THANKS FOR BEING MY FRIEND’?” She raises her arms up in frustration. “Ugh, I’m no good at this. I want to make it a nice prank, but everything like this I’ve done before was aimed at our enemies. I reckon those ideas are no good here lest we invoke the Protocols’ wrath. And I don’t imagine I could find blades small enough.” She smiles apologetically. “Most of my old pranks involved hidden blades. Come to think of it, they weren’t pranks as much as, er, traps. But I promise Baronet de Foinine didn’t need all those fingers.”

John grins. “I will admit to doing a prank or two in my time.”

He nods, listening to her story. "Pranks and traps are pretty different,” he says. “Like, when you’re pranking someone, it’s kind of like. Oh, I got you! But not in a mean way, or in a losing-fingers way. Just, you know. Flexing your tricky muscles at someone.”

That wasn’t what he was expecting. “No,” Raiden says, almost indignant. He blinks rapidly. Upside down isn’t the best position to be meeting someone new in, so he straightens up and rounds the counter, tries to slump his shoulders so he isn’t looming over the guy so much. It’s not as if he’s extraordinarily tall, but this kid - he must be just out of his teens. Black hair, wide eyes, a passing resemblance to Hal in the glasses area.

He narrows his eyes. Definitely just a passing resemblance, right? Yeah. “No, I don’t - live here. I woke up upstairs in a room, but I don’t know how I got here. Was it the same for you, or were you here before?” Oh, and- “What’s your name?”

Reassured by the fact that this guy wasn’t gonna go for his throat, John relaxes. As he rounds the counter, John takes a bite of his apple, chewing thoughtfully. He was older than him, like most of the people he’d met here. Human-like, but something about him seemed weird. John can’t really place it, and it’s not like he doesn’t have experience with people who aren’t human.

Placing a hand on the counter, John pulls himself up off the floor, so he doesn’t have to look up quite as much. “You kind of do? Live here now, I mean. I woke up in a room too, in this creepy mansion, and so did everyone else here pretty much. The Protocols - these AI guys, they live in your phone and answer your questions and stuff. I think they were born here?”

@heirinherent

The good news is, whoever built this hotel-cum-prison has included all the amenities you’d find in the former with few, if any of the restrictions applicable to the latter. Raiden can roam freely and poke his head into all of the libraries - there are a lot of libraries - and lounge areas he passes. There’s even a kitchen on every floor. “So I can make myself a sandwich whenever I want,” he says under his breath. “Generous of them.”

He’s about to close the unsettlingly ornate wooden door to this particular kitchen when he realises that his optic sensors are picking up a heat signature. Strange. He doesn’t see anyone in here, but there’s a cluster of red-to-yellow behind the counter.

Raiden goes over to the counter. He peers over the edge, unsheathing the steel clawtips at the ends of his fingers just in case, and is met by the startled face of a very young man wearing square thick-rimmed glasses slouched up against the counter. His hand is frozen halfway to his mouth; it holds an apple with a few bites taken out of it.

Whoops. “Hey,” Raiden says, sheathing his clawtips and shoving his hands back in his pockets. “Hi. Sorry to interrupt. Do you live here?”

Look. Sometimes you just have to sit on the floor and eat an apple.

John hasn’t met many residents of the Palilicium, and he certainly hasn’t met any of his floormates. He keeps to himself, mostly, and nobody bothers him. Which is kind of nice. So he doesn’t feel like he’ll be bothered if he makes use of the kitchen to enjoy a fruit like a normal person.

Unfortunately, that hope is dashed when he hears someone clanging around the kitchen and muttering to themselves. He hopes they’ll leave him alone, mostly, and doesn’t bother making himself known.

Until a sort of gaunt face pops over the counter and dude are those claws?!

@heirinherent

Ankh is hungry. Not in the actual sense, he doesn’t have a stomach that needs feeding. That would just be silly. But he’s hungry in the… soul sense. He wants ice cream, and even though he knows that it won’t taste right, he wants it all the same.

It will be… nostalgic, maybe he can just think about the memory of it while he eats. And he likes what he can feel of the texture, anyways.

He’s perched in a tree, staring out at the people below. Bored. And still hungry. Then, something catches his eye. A boy, popsicle in hand, walking over to a bench and sitting down. There.

He jumps down and he moves to the back of the bench. There’s a low fence that’s just perfect to perch on, putting him just at the right angle, and he hops up onto it.

It’s easier than taking candy from a baby to reach over and brazenly pluck the ice cream from the boy’s hand. Uncaring. Unyielding. He takes a vicious bite out of the popsicle. Tastes like… nothing. Well, it was too much to let himself hope, he guesses.

He puts the rest of the popsicle into his mouth anyways, staring straight at the boy.

John is distracted. Which isn’t strange - he’s easily distractable. Like, clinically, probably? The point is, he’s not really paying attention to his surroundings.

He sets himself on the bench while unwrapping his popsicle (which looks like a recolored Pikachu, which rules), to continue his line of thought, on the way weather works here. He’s pretty sure - not 100%, just like, 80 - that this isn’t a collection of planets or anything. So, what would be the point of even changing the weather all the oh jesus christ who is that.

Whoever it is looms above him imperiously before leaning over to take his popsicle, like some kind of garish schoolyard bully. And then eat it basically whole.

Estinien regarded John with what he hoped was a haughty look but came off a little more like a wet cat. “When the tide goes, it is not so hard to walk between. Many are close enough to jump from shore to shore as well.” Well, for him. He imagined John leaping into the surf, and a little humor returned to his face.

He sighed, irritation assuaged enough not to just walk off. “I see. In the nations of Eorzea we are known as elezen.” He looked John over. “And I suppose you are not called hyur, where you come from?” 

John nearly bursts out laughing thinking about this guy jumping from island to island. Like Mario. Or a rabbit. As it is, he doesn’t want to make him even more annoyed with him. He can’t quite keep the smile off his face, though. “Where I come from, you’d just swim, I think. And no, I’m not a... Hyur? I’m a human.”

Jade contemplates the titles. She thinks about it. She’s seen a lot of movies by this point, enough to know that these are maybe weird titles. “So,” she says after a bit, “what do you think looks good?”

She turns to look at him, crossing her arms and cocking her head in thought. “Maximum Blood sounds kind of fun. Hmm. Or… what about this one? Quadruple Retribution?”

She has to think about it a little longer. “You’re the expert, though,” she says with a grin. “What do you think? What’s your movie connoisseur gut instinct telling you?”

If John was being completely honest, he kind of wants to know why those Scorpion-Women are going to Mars. But more than that, he wants to do whatever Jade wants to do, really. She’s always coming over to his house and asking what he wants to do. Now it’s Jade’s turn to get Sibling Time!!

He studies the poster for Maximum Blood. The poster has what he assumes is the protagonist in cool spy gear and cool spy pose, with their sharp fangs on prominent display. Vampire spy movie.

Okay, that does kind of rule.