Ceasefire - The Way Out

[mockmods]

[And then you wake up.]

[The room is dimly lit and made of pitted, industrial metals. You sit up abruptly on- some sort of padded table or cart? There’s a caged structure of metal piping surrounding you like a low barrier, but it’s open on top. You might similarly have a moment of panic about the straps holding you down or the electrodes on your head, but they’re just velcro and lightly tacked on, respectively, and in no significant way prevent you from sitting bolt upright and getting onto your feet. A series of twenty one such tables ring the room at even intervals. All but one has an occupant.]

[However long it takes you to notice, there a twenty of you again. Patches, the Trusty, and Yaiba, the Legendary Bassist, are back among your number. Penny, unfortunately, seems to be missing. Whatever you were wearing to the trial, or at the time of your death, you are back in the clothing you wore when you initially arrived. If anyone checks, CAREFULLY PLEASE, they will find that any powers they may have been missing are back.]

[The room is lit well enough, and there are computer banks and monitors around all the walls, which look to have been monitoring your vitals until just this second. Wires and tubes lead from each table to the center of the room, where a low pool is filled with a thick, milky-looking liquid that looks incredibly disinviting to touch.]

[A door rests on each side of the room, a glowing hand-sized pad beside each.]

[Welcome back, Participants.]

[Now, what do you do?]

((One clarification - any active powers that require some kind of power source or connection from your home worlds will either be not active or severely weakened.))

Comments

[windowsexplorer]

[Meredith tears off the Velcro and sits up. What the fuck just happened? Where are they? She glances around...

...and suddenly becomes a bit more mechanical-looking, seams appearing to form on her skin at her joints.]

Where's Penny?

[hyaku]

[As soon as they're back into the real world, the velcro restraints and electrodes connected to Shigeo's head illuminate with a blue-ish hue. They suddenly burst off of him with a power.. perhaps a little too forceful and the teenager sits himself up slowly, looking around at the room calmly, wondering what the hell was happening now.]

...hello?

[He calls out first, to see if anyone else is awake.]

[deathroadtocanada]

[Kara doesn't bolt straight up, but when her system snaps back into reality, she sits up pretty fast. The velcro straps require only a moment's distraction, and then she's on her feet, mentally counting off the number of people in the room. Until...]

Penny.

[Ah. That might be an issue.]

If she's not here, then where could she be?

[mockmods]

[As best you can tell? Not here.]

[But, as mentioned, you've got two bigass metal doors on either side of the room.]

[mockmods]

[You're not the only one asking, at least.]

[canbebeautiful]

I vote we go through the doors and see if she's out there.

[windowsexplorer]

[There's a lot of other stuff to look at in here, and it takes some effort not to get distracted looking at all of it. But Penny is important and she can force herself to focus on that question for now.

She heads straight for whichever door is closest and tries poking at the pad.]

[mockmods]

[A bold choice, Veronica! Which door are you trying here, let's call them north and south. NEVERMIND, Meredith is going North, that leaves the South door.]

[You going cautiously or just smacking that pad next to it?]

1/2

[mockmods]

[Let's call this the North door because RNG says so. As Meredith approaches she might here some kind of faint, high pitched noise coming from the other side?]

[But let's be real, she's probably not letting that stop her for more than a second, right?]

[As she touches the pad, there's a brief pause and then a chirp as the door slowly groans upward.]

[canbebeautiful]

[Does Veronica Sawyer look like a) she does anything with caution or b) knows how to use a keypad properly? We're just smacking the keypad and Hoping.]

2/2

[in4apounding]

-AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-!

[Yeah, that high pitched sound? It's not faint anymore. It's also very obviously the scream of a robot who does not need to stop for breath and just had a friend explode in her arms.]

[Penny is kneeling next to and mostly IN a large puddle of liquid where Neku was moments before.]

[There's a lot of big puddles and splash-points all over the trial room now, actually. Eighteen of them, mingled with any clothes that had been changed into during the week and everything you all brought with you to the trial.]

[windowsexplorer]

Penny!

[This is extremely WTF but also there's an upset Penny here who needs hugging so it's time to hug the Penny.]

[maxout]

[Checking carefully? You clearly don't know Electro.

Might wanna, uh... give him some space right now? Because the second he's awake, guess what. There's electricity just arcing off of him.

Please do not get yourself electrocuted.]

[in4apounding]

AAAAAAAAAAAAAA-

[Yeah, it- takes a second here. But when Meredith calls out Penny freezes, looking between her backlit in the door and the dim red aftermath of the trial room.]

M- wh- h- but- you-

[She looks on the verge of blanking out and resetting again, but gets up and runs over, slipping and skidding slightly in some of the pale white ooze coating everything, and slams into the hug.]

MEREDITH-!

[...There's almost certainly Neku-ooze all over both of you now, sorry.]

[Nekooze.]

[But at least it already seems to be beginning to fade and evaporate.]

[mockmods]

[Well, good news, it's just a button, basically. It blinks green, and the door slides open, more smoothly than the one to the trial room did.]

[It's... another room, with the same basic aesthetic as the other. No tables and harnesses here, but a large, industrial-looking computer station, a series of shelves holding some labeled cardboard boxes, and another door at the opposite end.]

[And... a whole lot of empty space? There's a large square spot on the floor that's slightly different than the flooring around it, like something big was removed recently.]

[windowsexplorer]

[It's fine. Being covered in Nekooze is a new experience!]

It's okay. We're all in here, all of us. Even Mr. Patches and Mr. Yaiba.

[mockmods]

[RIP, at least a few computer stations.]

[And a few of those arcs hit that pool of... liquidy stuff in the center of the room, causing an indignant, viscous bubbling for a second.]

[As it does, one of the surviving computer lets out an angry warning tone and the screen flashes red.]

[canbebeautiful]

[Veronica has used a computer like (2) times prior to arriving here, so she leaves that to someone more tech-y and immediately goes over to the cardboard boxes. Is there food in here?

I mean, also what's in these boxes, but realistically nobody's eaten and they apparently found Penny so food is concern #2.]

[in4apounding]

...How?!

[Sounds fake but wonderful.]

You just- you were- there was that NOISE and thrn you all just-

[She gestures desperately at the slowly-drying trial room. You saw it too, right?]

[maxout]

[Yeah those computers are hella dead huh.

...I'm very sorry he might blast one computer with electricity on purpose because he's Like That. What the fuck is a chill, because Electro's never heard of it.]

I'm not gonna lie.

That felt pretty good.

[mockmods]

[Well, first thing she'll probably notice is that those labels are all names.]

[Including one labeled Sawyer, Veronica.]

[mockmods]

[It explodes pretty spectacularly, not gonna lie.]

[windowsexplorer]

I don't know, but--I think maybe that wasn't really us all along. We woke up connected to some kind of machines.

[Meredith has now, incidentally, gone back to looking human.]

There's so much weird stuff. You have to see!

[eudaimonikos]

Wooooo!

[Michael claps a few times, cackling. Because it also feels good vicariously!]

[canbebeautiful]

[Cool, well. We're opening that one first because if her name is on it then it's obviously fair game.

How many boxes are there, though. Are there 22 or 20.]