#kadethedoublefacedmuse

Entry Fees (Have I mentioned that I love entry fees??)

Pidge’s entry fee is Matt. They died together, in a car crash, but Pidge is playing for both of them.

Shiro thinkshis entry fee is his memories, but that’s actually Keith’s fee; Shiro’s is his autonomy (Reapers can’t directly take control, but certain Noise can, the Composer (Alfor) and Conductor (Zarkon) can, and sometimes his partner has to)

Keith’sentry fee is Shiro’s memories of him.

Lance’s entry fee is his home – even though they’re playing the Game in his neighborhood, he’s barred from going to his house/street and can’t see/hear his family

Hunk’s entry fee is his safety – normally Noise will only attack Players without a partner (or if they’re directed to attack by a Reaper), but all Noise around Hung are aggro

Allura used to be a a Reaper, but she died in the RG and got stuck in the game. Her entry fee is her father. He doesn’t remember her and so can’t help her, and Zarkon even persuades him to turn against her

Psychs

Pidge initially uses a small subset of pins to turn tech into weapons (e.g. self-driving cars, vending machines that launch soda cans at the Noise, power cords strangling and electrocuting Noise). Eventually gets a hold of Noise pins (the kind Reapers use to summon Noise). Pidge can’t summon Noise, but can take control of Noise that already exist.

Shiro had a regular, unremarkable prosthetic arm when he was alive. His psych turns that prosthetic into a weapon (works basically like it does in the show)

Keith is a pin prodigy, like Neku in TWEWY, and can use basically any pin. Especially likes melee pins and fire pins, but rotates as the situation demands.

Lance can only use a few ranged pins and ice pins, but views Keith as his rival and wants to master all pins. Not exactly a pin prodigy, but more skilled than most Players.

Hunk specializes in Velocity Attack/Velocity Crash pins (pins activated by dashing into enemies to knock them down or to toss them in the air. Basically a body slam) [Side note: Hunk is really good at modifying food to give more bonuses]

Allura doesn’t actually use regular pins, though she pretends to. Because she used to be a Reaper, she can summon and control Noise with Noise pins

Partnerships

Pidge and Shiro (Pidge finds Shiro, recognizes him as one of Matt’s friends, figures he’ll help get Matt back, they form a pact, then Pidge realizes Shiro doesn’t remember anything from the last couple years)

Hunk and Lance (they knew each other before the Game, maybe even died together, so they latch onto each other as partners)

Keith and Allura (Allura chooses Keith more or less at random, because he’s the first Player she finds, and Keith reluctantly accepts. Both of them are keeping secrets–Allura that she was a Reaper, Keith that he’s always been able to see the UG (Keith doesn’t know this, but one of his parents was a Player when Keith was a baby, and Keith was their entry fee–which did weird things to baby Keith, like change his perception of the world.) Keith has actually seen Allura in action as a Reaper, so he doesn’t trust her at first, but eventually they come to rely on each other and metagame the shit out of everything.)

The Game (kind of spoilers for TWEWY? Not plot spoilers, exactly, but mechanics of the Reapers’ Game that the characters don’t know from the start)

((Okay, there’s one or two plot-related spoilers, but if you can pick them out of all the rest, then you’d probably have figured them out before the game told you, anyway.))

Week 1

Sendak is GM. Our six heroes are the only Players who survive to Day 7. (Which is,,, SUPER impressive for Lance and Hunk?? Given that they’re being constantly attacked at all times. It actually makes them some of the best fighters in the Game by the end of the week, not that anyone realizes that. It’s not like anyone’s going head to head.)

They’ve all run into each other a couple times (enough that Lance and Keith have struck up a rivalry) but no one trusts the others enough to actively work together. (Especially Keith and Allura, who know that there’s a limited number of people who can actually *win* the Game, even if multiple pairs survive.)

On Day 7, Hunk and Lance are the first pair to figure out the clue to Sendak’s whereabouts, but when they get there it’s a trap.

Lance is erased.

The others arrive right about then, and Allura tells Hunk he has seven minutes to live. Tells him to get to Coran, promising that he can help.

Hunk goes, and Coran introduces him to Shay.

Fun story: Shay and Rax were Players in a previous session. They won, but were denied the right to come back to life. Welllllll okay. The two of them beat the GM of their week and are the only Players to survive. Zarkon comes to them and says, oh, btw, no more than one Player per Game actually gets that second chance, sorry did he forget to mention that? Shay scored higher than Rax.

Rax is presented with three options: die, re-enter the game, or become a Reaper. Rax, angry, convinced Zarkon will just cheat him again, elects to become a Reaper. (At least that way he can still visit Shay in the RG.) He’s immediately promoted to Harrier Reper because Zarkon is a dick.

But, heh. Zarkon never *technically* said Shay won, just that she had the higher score. So she gets the same choice as Rax–except it’s not really a choice at all, is it? She wants to play again, but if she does, Rax will be required to try to erase her.

Shay becomes a Reaper, too (but Support, not Harrier). She regrets it almost immediately.

So when Lance dies and Hunk goes to Coran, and Coran takes Hunk to Shay, Shay agrees to re-enter the Game almost immediately, knowing there’s no way either of them will come out on top. They agree to choose to become Players again next week, and to go from there.

Meanwhile the others have defeated Sendak, and the Game ends. Zarkon comes to them to congratulate them and discuss the matter of rewards.

Keith is declared the winner for killing Sendak (he knows as well as anyone that’s a BS reason, but he doesn’t complain. He and Allura have a Plan.)

Allura is utterly unsurprised when Zarkon calls her an illegal entrant (Reapers don’t really die, so she should have simply ceased to exist, not been entered in the Game. Clearly Alfor was playing favorites, but when Zarkon gives Alfor the chance to intervene, he doesn’t, surprise surprise.) Zarkon, in his great mercy, proposes a compromise: Allura may rejoin the ranks of the Reapers, but she must forfeit her entry fee because she broke the rules.

Allura had always planned to rejoin the Reapers. It’s where she can do the most good. But this was a higher cost than she expected.

She agrees anyway, knowing it means she’s just lost her father in every way that matters. Forever.

Shiro, Pidge, Hunk, and Shay reenter the Game as Players for a second round. Their entry fees are returned, then the entry fees for week 2 are collected:

Pidge once again loses Matt. They had approximately thirty seconds of reunion before he disappeared again. Shiro’s fee (autonomy) also stays the same.

Hunk’s new fee is Lance. This surprises him–isn’t Lance dead? Zarkon just smiles. (It’s not comforting.)

Shay, who never gave up an entry fee for this week, is penalized: she doesn’t get to know what her entry fee for week 2 is.

Week 2

Haggar is GM.

Hunk partners with Shay, Pidge with Shiro. Since Keith won the last Game, Shiro has his memories back.

On Day 2, Haggar pretty much just throws the rules out the window. She takes control of Shiro and tries to make him kill Pidge. Pidge only survives because Hunk and Shay show up.

Shiro is completely MIA for the rest of the week, which means Pidge can’t fight Noise, which is… kind of a problem, considering Haggar is having the Reapers sic Noise on the Players at every turn. Pidge pretty much becomes the third Player on Hunk and Shay’s team. This is when Pidge figures out how to use Reaper pins (courtesy of Allura) to hack Noise, pretty much circumventing half the battles the three of them otherwise would have had to fight.

By Day 3, the Noise are attacking without provocation. Shay had thought her entry fee was Rax, but she saw him among the Reapers on Day 2, and he apologized, which means he still remembers her. Wonders now if her fee is safety, as Hunk’s was last week.

(Meanwhile in the background this whole week, Allura and Keith are devoting every moment of every day to searching for Alfor. As the Composer, he’s the only one who can overrule Zarkon’s decisions.)

Hunk, Shay, and Pidge make it to Day 7, and get their mission: Erase the Game Master. An address is given, which is weird, because usually it’s harder than that.

They find Haggar there with Shiro. Pidge hacks Noise to keep Shiro busy while they fight Haggar. She has a lot of fun with the fight, expecting to beat them easily. She’s surprised when they win, but dies laughing.

Their timers don’t disappear.

That means they haven’t completed the mission.

(Keith and Allura finally manage to break their way into the Composer’s hideout on Day 7, only to find Alfor missing. Coran has only just learned of this, and fills them in on what he knows–which is not nearly enough as far as Alfor is concerned, but points to a very big problem for the Players in this Game. Allura stays to look for clues to her father’s whereabouts with Coran, while Keith goes to the others. Before he goes, Coran gives him two special pins–pins that can be used by anyone, even the living. Keith asks where he got them, but Coran says there’s no time to explain.)

Keith arrives just after the Players defeat Haggar and tells them what Coran just told him:

Haggar abdicated her role as GM for the week.

Shiro is the Game Master now. His run at the Game was ruled a loss, so he forfeited his autonomy, and Zarkon took control. The reason the Noise kept attacking is because Pidge doesn’t have a partner. Hasn’t had a partner since Day 2.

The mission is to erase Shiro. To kill Shiro. If they don’t, Pidge, Hunk, and Shay lose. They die, which means Lance’s and Matt’s lives are forfeit, too, along with whatever Shay sacrificed.

No one moves.

Shiro is a friend. They can’t kill him.

Keith tells them it’s just numbers. One life against five. (No one’s fooled. They know Shiro was Keith’s original entry fee.)

Keith tells them Shiro wouldn’t want them to die for him.

They still can’t kill him.

Pidge says if Keith’s so damn sure of himself, why doesn’t he kill Shiro? Furious, Keith reminds Pidge that this is a mission. It only counts if one of the Players completes it.

So Keith uses the pins Coran gave him. With one, he takes control of Hunk and Shay and uses them to erase Shiro, which (understandably) makes everyone hate Keith.

Before they can do anything about it, though, the Game ends and Zarkon summons the three surviving Players for the final tally.

This time it’s Hunk who wins–but he doesn’t get to return to life. Turns out that was Shay’s entry fee–the possibility of a second shot at life. This week was essentially pointless, except to entertain Zarkon.

Rax was right, Shay says. The Game is rigged. There’s no way to win, not really.

Zarkon just shrugs and returns their entry fees. Matt reappears, and Pidge stands between him and Zarkon, as if that will stop Matt from being taken as Pidge’s entry fee for a third time. Hunk gets… a pin. A Noise pin, but not one any of them recognize.

“You said my entry fee was Lance!”

Zarkon smiles. “That is Lance.”

Before they can demand more of an explanation, before they can demand a third shot at the Game (because at this point it’s a matter of principle), before Zarkon can claim their new entry fees

the world goes dark.

They all wake up, alone, in the middle of a sea of Noise.

Week 3 (The Final Week)

At this point, all semblance of order is thrown completely by the wayside. There is no Game Master. There are no missions. If there were entry fees, no one can figure out what they were.

Hunk forms a pact with Shay.

Pidge forms a pact with Matt.

They’re not even playing to win at this point, they just want to destroy the whole freaking Game.

They run into Allura, Coran, and Keith on Day 2. Pidge has explained to Matt what happened–how Keith used Hunk and Shay to kill Shiro. So all four of them immediately attack Keith.

They’re stopped by a Noise unlike any they’ve seen before: a lion all in black except for the brilliant purple of its right foreleg. It doesn’t hurt any of them, but it refuses to let them get close to Keith.

It’s Matt, ironically, who figures it out first.

“Shiro?”

The Noise stares him straight in the eye and nods.

There’s a lot of confusion at that, but eventually Coran explains. The seven minute period after one partner is erased is as much a time limit for the victim as for their partner. For seven minutes after erasure, the soul is still near enough to the UG that it can be bound to a Noise pin, which is what Keith did after making Hunk and Shay erase Shiro. It fulfilled the terms of the mission without actually permanently killing Shiro.

It’s also what happened to Lance–though it would seem Zarkon is the one who bound Lance’s soul, probably because he knows Coran well enough to have expected some kind of trick that would let Hunk survive the week. Zarkon figured it would be good to have leverage.

Allura asks to see the Lance pin and summons his Noise. It’s a blue lion cub, half the size of Shiro’s Noise, and immediately jumps into Hunk’s arms to nuzzle his face.

Now that no one is trying to kill anyone else, and everyone knows that no one is 100% dead just yet, they get down to business:

How to fix everything Zarkon’s screwed up about the Game. Allura assures them all that this isn’t how her father intended the Game to go, but Zarkon has manipulated him to the point that Zarkon basically has free reign.

The only answer is to find Alfor and convince him that he needs to step in. If they can do that, he can basically snap his fingers and fix everything, up to and including bringing everyone back to life–Lance and Shiro included.

But Zarkon, it turns out, is also searching for Alfor, fully intent on killing him to take his place as Composer. Then he really would be in control of everything, and. Well, suffice it to say the last two weeks will look like a nice tropical vacation compared to what comes after.

The final week only actually lasts about three days before the Players (and their allies) find Alfor.

Zarkon has been watching them, and shows up about five seconds after they do, a literal army of Reapers behind him.

There’s a big melee, everyone fighting. Zarkon disappears into the chaos, but so do Allura and Coran.

Coran isn’t technically supposed to interfere in the Game directly. (But then, he’s not even sure this counts as a Game anymore, and Zarkon is so grossly out of line that Coran doesn’t care either way.) He distracts Zarkon long enough for Allura to go to her father.

But of course Alfor doesn’t know Allura, and Zarkon is, as far as Alfor knows, his only friend and ally. Alfor won’t listen to Allura, and Coran can’t hold Zarkon off forever.

Allura knows there’s only one option.

She kills her father, and so takes his place as Composer.

One week later, she comes to see her friends in the RG. She set everything right, of course. Shiro and Lance regained their human forms. All the Players returned to their ordinary lives in the RG, all entry fees returned to them. The Reapers who had been Players themselves were given the same option, though many of them declined. Too much time had passed, and they’d built a life for themselves as Reapers, coexisting in both realms at once. Rax takes Allura up on her offer, though, and Shay introduces him to her new friends.

Coran later asks Allura whether she regrets what she did.

“It had to be done,” she says.

“That wasn’t my question.”