TDM 009: I'M IN LIKE WITH YOU

[erkumods]

TDM 009: I'M IN LIKE WITH YOU

00. Arrival This time, you come out of the water, the Nameless Island's own inherent energy drawing people in. It's like being suspended between realities and abruptly pushed from behind through a rift in dimensions. It may make you sick, or that might be the motion of the ocean, lifting you to the surface and carrying you to shore. Waterlogged and covered in sand, new arrivals will be greeted by robots who welcome them with towels and bracelet devices. The A5 card is already loaded up. Feel free to explore the Island, though there isn’t much to see. Most of the buildings are abandoned and in dire need of repair, and beyond the city lingers a thick fog that obscures much of the wilderness from view. Wander too far into this fog, and you will find yourself mysteriously looping back to where you began, your memories of what you were doing and how you got there erased. With that in mind, it may be wise to stake your claim on a rundown apartment, a tent on the beach, or a bed in the “comfortable” new barracks. Your inventory will be found a day later, wrapped up haphazardly and delivered to each person's makeshift home. ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● I. STARGAZER On the first night that new arrivals wash ashore, the moon rises. It's full and beautiful and surrounded by stars. The robots quickly bring old, dusty telescopes out of storage and line them up on the beach to help people get a truly spectacular view. "Look to the heavens! Behold, the chicken, the cat, the owl, the donkey!" It's... the cock, the pussy, the hooters, and the ass. For the rest of the night, characters will become fixated on the specific asset associated with the constellation they've gotten an eyeful of. Whether this leads to some body worship or just casual appreciation is up to you. You can learn about the stars and constellations later this month in some of the rare, non-pornographic books in the library. (More info will go up soon, so please be patient!) ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● II. STIMULATING CONVERSATION An ancient courting ritual has been announced! It involves the give-and-take of candy hearts with slogans printed on them. Of course, since these hearts are being manufactured by robots, their sense of taste is a little... off? Or perhaps off-putting? "You'll do." "5/10." "Acceptable." "Sloppy Seconds." Receiving a negative heart makes one feel insecure, jealous, and submissive. "Be mine." "Nicest ass." "Swell bulge." "They're good lays, Bront." Receiving a positive heart will make one feel confident, boastful, and dominant. Your friendly neighborhood 'bots will give them out to anyone who asks - and maybe even those who don't. ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● III. Eat Or Dare The robots have set up a stall by the beach with a banner that reads: Eat Or Dare. They have procured bigger candy hearts than ever before -- fist-sized and larger -- with actions written on them instead of derogatory slogans. "Take a dive." "Lick me." "Get handsy." The name of the game is to follow the instructions or forfeit the challenge by making the evidence disappear into your mouth. Delicious! Those who eat the candy hearts will feel themselves getting giddy and unreasonably invested in the love affairs of others. They will feel compelled to play matchmaker to spread the cheer. ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● N A V I G A T I O N

Comments

[zechs_isonfire]

Zechs nodded his head, looking thoughtful. “The same year as it’s been, for myself. Yet, I wonder. If the terrible and vile Milliardo Peacecraft had vanished from Mars months ago - no matter what Noin might say of my character, the job performance of Zechs Merquise within the terraforming project ...”

“... you, as a Preventer, would’ve heard if I’ve been missing for all this time,” Zechs surmised. Perhaps fishing a little, part of him wondering if his absence had been noted. Wondered what people would’ve assumed.

He would speak of the others who’d been abducted in a moment. Time travel was enough of a thing to swallow - one revelation at a time.

[zerofive]

It was too much to hear this justification, he had to object, "Do you refuse to acknowledge the possibility that you are a liar?"

The entirety of the solar system would have heard of it, if Zechs had gone missing. Even if Noin would have given him cover to do so, even if she would not have followed him like a simpering puppy, in neither case could his absence have gone without note for long. And yet... Even as Wu Fei glared up at him (and up, and up, damn his height and the breadth of his shoulders) he still wasn't convinced of the veracity of his own suppositions.

Preventer or not, he had not made a particularly reliable series of judgement calls himself, of late. Nothing near as hideous as the 'terrible and vile' Milliardo Peacecraft, but if those were the standards, there was no hope for the human race.

"The entire Earth Sphere would have been in an uproar," He snapped, and could not quite manage to quash the little spurt of bitterness at the idea, "Of course you have not been reported as missing!"

[zechs_isonfire]

Zechs bore Wu Fei's suspicion and fury without any surprise, without batting an eye. Not just because he would've expected it from this pilot in particular - but because he would've expected it of anyone from his world. Why would someone trust him?

"I could be a liar. I've been far worse," Zechs said bluntly, straightforward. "But I can't fabricate my presence here before you. I can't fabricate the fact that Heero Yuy had met me when I first was abducted. And I have little reason, in an alien world with ridiculous requirements heaped upon us, to construct purposeless lies."

[zerofive]

"He's here too?"

Oh, it was just too much. Far be it from an unworthy fool like Wu Fei to determine truth from falsehood, but reality itself? If Heero Yuy couldn't be trusted to know what was happening, then there was nothing higher to rely on. Even so, Zechs could be lying about Heero even being here, about all of it!

If he had had anywhere to go, Wu Fei would have turned on his heel and went. But if Yuy were present, finding him would mean finding the truth, one way or another. He didn't have to doubt Heero's intentions, or his integrity; both were better than his own, in all cases.

"What. Requirements."

[zechs_isonfire]

Using Heero as a sort of moral trump card was entirely Zechs' intentions. Surely, a warrior like Wu Fei would respect his comrade at least half as much as Zechs did. There were few others that he trusted so highly; the fact they had been enemies for most of the war was ... it wasn't even irrelevant. The fact Heero opposed him when he joined White Fang meant he trusted him more.

"He is. Among others. We can discuss that in a moment."

Zechs visibly hesitated, his expression flattening into something more unreadable as he debated how to answer Wu Fei. "Our purpose for being kidnapped to this place is ... to rebuild this world, generating an energy as demanded by our captors - those robots you have seen thus far. Any one of them will corroborate what I'll say to you, or even the Augur itself, if you should ask it. The nature of their requests, this energy they seek, is ... we've endured worse, but it might be shocking to contemplate."

[zerofive]

Don't they have enough to rebuild, that someone else wants to steal them away from their work and ask them to do yet more? The gall!

"Those machines are in charge here?" That was almost plausible compared to the rest, honestly. It still didn't seem particularly likely, of course, but appearances could deceive, "Well? Spit it out."

Honestly, Zechs, you're not helping your case, here.

[zechs_isonfire]

"For some metric of 'in charge'. They certainly don't do much more than try to encourage us to partake in the things which will help rebuild this place," Zechs said wryly, and then sighed.

Well.

"We're intended to perform sexual tasks to rebuild their world, and they reward us for it," Zechs said, blunt and straightforward. And yes, he understood exactly how that sounded. "And it gets worse."

"They will transform us, drug us, manipulate our mental state, and provide any of a number of things that are a corruption of our original intentions to meet that goal," Zechs informed him. "This is to insure even the most recalcitrant of individuals comply."

There were likely gentler ways Zechs could've told him this; but Zechs was not a good candidate for delicate tasks.

[zerofive]

Wu Fei stared at Zechs for a few minutes, ire fading into a vague, uneasy sense of... pity. He knew what it was to be extended beyond his limits, and to be there for long enough that even the worst pain simply became another background. He knew what it was to break. And this? This was beyond the pale. He couldn't believe he'd bought it, even in part, even for a moment.

"I am leaving now," He said, calmly, and turned away, "Do not follow me."

[zechs_isonfire]

Zechs sighed. He wouldn't follow him, just as requested. However;

"You should seek out Heero Yuy," Zechs advised. "Or perhaps Treize Kushrenada."

All right, perhaps he'd respect his wish not to be followed - but he also knew there was far, far too much about this place that Wu Fei didn't know. And, Zechs would not let an ally or opponent enter a dangerous situation unarmed.

[zerofive]

That brought him up short. It seemed perfectly plausible that Zechs would lie about their abduction, the point of it all, and to emphasize the ridiculousness of the lie, as if for effect...

But not Treize. That was no longer a joke, practical, spiteful, or otherwise.

"...Kushrenada is dead," He says quietly, not turning. As if there was any doubt; as if Zechs somehow did not know. And then; "I killed him."

[zechs_isonfire]

“He is dead in the place we had been abducted from,” Zechs agreed, quiet and serious. “This place was able to abduct him, as it had done so for us. He remembers all that happened to him, including how he had chosen to die.”

Perhaps Wu Fei would be surprised there was no blame, no anger in Zechs’ voice. Instead, if the younger man could hear it, there was an odd sort of regret, rather faint.

“I would understand you might neither trust nor respect me,” Zechs told him. “But Treize believed that you understood him. And he respected you.”

[zerofive]

All his objections crowd the door at once and stick there in his throat, unvoiced. 'How he had chosen to die', such a bloodless phrase for what had happened. Wu Fei had gone into that battlefield duel not knowing what he hoped for; victory, or death, or some speech that might change everything somehow. It was anything but bloodless, horribly so.

He wanted to rage, to threaten Zech's life, to physically attack him just for persisting in this unwelcome line of conversation. For a moment, one fraught heartbeat, a lifetime of training was all that kept his composure in place.

"We shall see," He choked out, finally, and then sought only to put some distance between himself and the past, as well as Zechs himself.

[zechs_isonfire]

How else was he to say it? The role that the young pilot had played was the one Zechs himself should’ve taken. And still in many ways, it felt more accurate to say that Zechs had killed Treize, not Wu Fei, looking at the path that they’d taken.

It was himself who he blamed even still.

And that was not a conversation he wanted to have with Chang Wu Fei.

“Be careful,” Zechs told his retreating back. “This place can change and manipulate people. Be on your guard.”

And the warning might fall on deaf ears, but he had tried. Zechs considered as 05 left if he should contact Treize and warn him.