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Post by Azoth on Aug 2, 2016 0:03:36 GMT -7
After a good bit of searching, asking, and digging, Azoth had at last found someone who had some names of politicians who might be willing to work with her. Or, as would be the case, for her and a very large pay check. It was a long shot and a risk she still wasn’t sure she wanted to take, but she figured she may as well research her options before making any hard decision. The only snag was the person she was getting the information from. The man himself was not a threat, per say; more, he had a very large ego and thought himself very strong and important for making deals with a Keeper. The last time they had met, bragging rights to his fellows had apparently not been enough, and he had attempted to intimidate Azoth by bringing along five heavily armed associates. Such forces were of little threat to her and thus she had hardly batted an eye. In face of the failure, she feared he would try to ‘up his game’ this time, and as such, she felt the need to show him that his endeavors of intimidation were of little use and would not gain him anything but a lighter wallet. Perhaps scare him back a bit, without actually causing him any harm. The simplest way to make informants sweat in the face of a super, Azoth had found, was to bring along a second super. Of her contacts, Geata was the one she deemed least likely to be too put out by such a request, and thus had asked him to come with her. The chance of conflict was low, she had said. It would only be an hour, two at most, including travel. All he’d have to do is stand beside her and glare at them. They had arrived at the old factory just a few minutes prior. Most of the buildings in this area were decrepit beyond operation or chance of restoration, but this one was in particularly bad shape. Only about a fourth of the old roof remained, and there were more holes than windows in the wooden walls. The equipment had been so thoroughly scavenged that only the most twisted and unuseful chunks of machinery remained, or those that were too heavy or secured to the ground to be moved. The park this property bordered had begun to absorb the land into its own. Cracks in the pavement were stuffed with plant life and the large swath of dirt that came far into the center of the factory was rife with grass and flowers. Ivy had claimed the entirety of one of the walls. It was peaceful, perhaps even beautiful; sunlight shining through the broken roof upon the plant life, a view of the calm ocean over a short cliff visible through one of the larger holes in the building’s back. Azoth paced over to one of the old conveyor belts and lifted herself up to sit on it. As always, they were thirty minutes early to the time the informant had agreed to meet. All that was left to do was wait. An0nymou5 Geata |
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Post by Geata on Aug 2, 2016 0:30:31 GMT -7
When Azoth asked for a little help with making sure an informant behaved, Geata's only issue was that he didn't really see himself as the intimidating type. Still, he kept this to himself and agreed. After all, he had given his word to be there when she asked. And the fact that she had come to him for the help was all the more reason to assist.
Once actually there, he settled in and relaxed. He had a job that would probably go smoothly, he was helping out a friend, and, wouldn't you know it, it just so happened to be a lovely day out. The sights inside the house lent for a perfectly cheery atmosphere. Geata had taken one look at the place and decided that he would be coming back the next full moon, simply to see it all in another light and have a quiet place to think.
Whereas Azoth sat herself on a conveyer belt, Geata was sitting in a corner, back against the wall. He had chosen this spot for various reasons, most notably so that he would be able to see almost the entire room at all times. If anything unexpected were to happen, he wanted to be able to prepare at a moment's notice. Of course, on a day as lovely as it was, what could possibly go wrong?
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Unaligned
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Post by An0nymou5 on Aug 2, 2016 1:21:49 GMT -7
The slum: the most crime-infested area in all of Emerald City. This is where the Pandaemonium usually hang around and either stirring some trouble or doing their shady business. Of course ever since the dragon attack, some of the Pandaemonium appeared to be fixing up the place. At the very least, the place looked better than it used to be only slightly, but an improvement is still an improvement nonetheless. It was such a nice day outside too, so Anonymous thought he can walk around to ensure no one is causing any problem around here, especially to the homeless network that he’s so proud of. Who know, these homeless people might have something nice for him today.
After some time asking around these homeless people, he came across one that is quite interesting. According to a bearded man sitting in front of the small convenient store, a while back when he was taking shelter in front of an abandon factory, he saw what looked like two figures walking inside. When asked for their description, the man described one female dressed in black hoodie with a man walking next to her dressing in a long-sleeve violet shirt. Their description managed to match the two familiar supers that he knew well: Azoth and Geata.
The thought of these two going inside an abandon factory brought up a lot of interesting question, and all of them only feed his curiosity even more. He thanked the homeless man for this information and began to make his way to this abandon factory. The factory has surely seen a better day, seeing how this whole place is only a feather away from falling apart. Standing outside the building, he concentrated in order to latch on any thought coming from inside. The two brain-wave that he picked up was quite exactly who he thought they would be. It’s seems that they’re waiting for someone here, Azoth’s informant perhaps.
Speaking of the devil, he heard sound of cars coming down the street and headed their way. Looking at the amount of car approaching, Anonymous could only guess there’s going to be about 15 people at least. He quickly and silently get inside the building, going up to the second floor of the factory. It didn’t take long for him to find Azoth and Geata minding their own business near the conveyor belt at the back. Staying out of their sight, he can see the informant along with his…body guards, perhaps, going inside.
It is then that Anonymous have a little idea for a little experiment of his. To make sure he won’t be interrupting in this little experiment, Anonymous caused all of the unpowered people that just got in the building to suddenly fall unconscious by increasing their melatonin level rapidly. Looking at both Azoth and Geata, cracked his knuckle slightly and latched onto their brain pattern, completely obtain total control over all their senses. Now, once he got himself in a position far away from them while maintaining line of sight to them, Anonymous smiled:
“Let have the party started”
First, with some understanding of how Azoth using her power, he began to create his own misty fog coming out of her and began to envelop both her and Geata. If Azoth would try to see if this is her own doing, she could tell from her analyzing brain of her will be unable to tell the different by mimicking the dot codes running through her brain. As for Geata, he would easily see the fog started to block his line of sight completely.
Next, he simply created a strange fantastical world they’ll find themselves in once all the fog started to clear away. Before their very eyes, they would find a huge life-size black and white chessboard place in the clearing. On top of the chessboard there would only be all the black pieces set up in the correct positions, standing as high as they are. With all that set up nicely, Anonymous cleared his throat before making his present known to them:
“Good morning little Misty,” his voice echoing through their mind, “I hope you don’t mind me dropping by. I’m sure you remember me scheduling an appointment to chat with you; since you didn’t tell me the date, I figured I would stop by today. You see, I’ve find myself rather bored lately, and since I heard a small rumor on the grapevine that you like playing chess, I figured we could perhaps play a little game. Your boyfriend over there, Geata is it, is welcome to join us. It’ll be so fun, so what do you say? Are you ready for my little challenge?”
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(OOC: I would like to have you two describe your character's train of thought throughout this thread. The more detail their inner thought are, the better I can write something fun to response. In case you haven't notice, Anonymous can read your mind, so no point of hiding your inner monologue, okay? Thanks)
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The Keepers
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Post by Azoth on Aug 2, 2016 2:07:35 GMT -7
Azoth had been expecting him to be late. People like him always were; showing up when they wanted because they could, sometimes just to annoy the other person. She bet it made them feel powerful. Her internal clock said he was at least five minutes late, probably more. But it seemed her guest today would be an unexpected one.
Fog began to swarm around them. This in itself was concerning, considering Azoth had done no such thing, but it was not this which froze her stiff. Something- some kind of strange something rushed through her head. It looked like what ran through her head when she was shaping objects, specifically, she noted, fog. But it was wrong. Terribly, unnervingly wrong; at the surface, it seemed the same. The large details were correct, ish. Even those were off, on another look. The positioning of the ‘fog’ was wrong. Very, very wrong, with the way it was swarming. The temperature was different than she would have allowed it. The quantity was off. The density was incorrect. All of it it was wrong.
The details were even worse. The surface looked decently correct, but just a few steps into the finities it all became blurred. Nothing, absolutely nothing, was correct. Nothing was there to be correct. It was as though she had zoomed into a picture down to the pixels, but there was supposed to be further pictures within each pixel that were… simply missing. It was blurry like she was looking through strong prescription glasses. It was disorienting, sickening, wrong.
Azoth felt violated. She felt sick, seeing data so useless and incorrect and incomplete and- not hers. There was no way she would make something like this. Certainly not on something as simple as fog. If her mind was this distracted, she would’ve long cut her powers before the fog had become so much as noticeable. The fog was not real; she didn’t even need to test it to know. Her powers would not work with information as incomplete as what had been in her head.
It was not her making this information or this fog. Someone else was in her head. Attempting to mimic her powers, both visually and in her mind.
And that someone made his presence known. Azoth’s breath caught in her throat. She recognized the voice immediately, as though the illusions had not been clue enough. Anger, mixed with panic, brought motion back into her body. Azoth jumped from the conveyor belt, landing a little harder on her feet than she had intended on the ground.
Anonymous. Why he insisted on bothering her, doing that to her, she didn’t know and after the fact she did not care. She wanted him gone. She had business to take care of and she did not appreciate that he thought he could just come into her mind like that.
It also meant he knew what her power looked like in her head. Somewhat, at least, but far more than she was comfortable with. That he thought he could try to mimic it sent shivers down her spine. If he was going to try to mess with that, what else might he consider attempting? Her shoulders tensed.
She cared not for this game. She gave the chess board only a moment’s glance before Azoth stared directly ahead, scanning the corners of her vision for signs of Anonymous. She wanted eyes to meet. “Geata, stand next to me. Anonymous, don’t EVER do that to me again. Go. Immediately. You have ten seconds to release this illusion and leave before I blast your head off.”
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Unaligned
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Post by An0nymou5 on Aug 2, 2016 3:00:32 GMT -7
As soon as he saw Azoth jumped down from the conveyor belt and scream on the top of her lung, Anonymous chuckled from the attempt on threatening him.
“Aw, how adorable,” he thought to himself, “little Misty wants her shining knight to protect her from little ol’ me.”
He turned to where Geata stood on the corner of the building and began to twist what he heard from Azoth. In his point of view this is what he saw and hear:
Azoth suddenly jumped from the conveyor belt and began to look around in frustration, just as she was doing right now. However, she then shouted to Geata:
“We’re under attack,” she shouted with a panic and anger tone in her voice, “It Anonymous; he’s messing with us with his power. We need to find him quickly to stop him from continuing this; you go over there” she pointed to her left, “we need to survey the area if we’re going to find him and surround the bastard. Watch your back; he can be quite clever with his power.”
With that, she slowly moved to the right, maintaining her angry expression and panic tone in her voice.
“Show yourself,” she shouted, "and get the hell out of our mind. I am not in the mood for your fun and game right now!”
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The Keepers
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Post by Geata on Aug 2, 2016 10:25:42 GMT -7
When fog began to swarm around, Geata shot a curious glance at Azoth. He didn't say anything, though, because, as she said, he was not interrupt her. When the fog fell away, though, he could instantly tell that it wasn't the small girl's doing. A life sized chess set lay before them, but only half the pieces were there. Geata knew enough to see where the situation was going. "If I'm told I'm a fucking pawn, I'm going to be pissed," he sighed as he climbed to his feet. He leaned back against the wall, taking a moment to survey the scene. That was when the voice started speaking.
Geata knew the voice well enough. It was the faceless super, Anonymous, the one responsible for making him go blind. That had been a bad day for the masked super. Still, he was now provided with an opportunity to pay Faceless back, which made him grin underneath his mask. The grin fell almost instantly at the other super's words. Geata didn't appreciate being dragged into something only to receive passing mention. And he especially didn't care to be referred to as Azoth's boyfriend, not in peculiar circumstances like the ones he found himself in. It wasn't a matter of if it was true or not, or if he wanted it to be true or not. It was the fact of how nervous she had gotten when he had spoke of being friends. If she was going to react like that to that, he could only imagine how she would react to hearing that.
When Azoth told him to start looking around, Geata started forward before stopping almost immediately and leaning back against the wall. Doing his best to not concern himself with how his previous worries were unfounded, he stared ahead at the chess board. "You know, if he's that clever with his powers, and he's already making us see this," he thought aloud, "what are the odds that we'll just stumble onto him? It might be best if we just play along for now." He took a step forward, towards the oversized game, before shouting, "well, you faceless bastard? What're the rules? Let's get this thing done and over with." He took a look around while he waited for a response. If he was lucky, Anonymous would give away his general location with his voice. If he wasn't lucky, then oh well.
He took a sideways glance at Azoth. If she got hurt, especially during a stupid stunt like this, he wouldn't be able to forgive himself. It was his job as a friend to protect her, and if he were to mess that up...
Well, it wouldn't end well for the unlucky soul that dared to hurt a person that Geata cared about.
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Unaligned
Aw, what's wrong? Don't you trust me?
Posts 235
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Post by An0nymou5 on Aug 2, 2016 13:10:19 GMT -7
Anonymous smiled when Geata was so eager to join his little game, even when Azoth doesn’t seem to be. He turned to Azoth to shift what she heard from her “friend” here slightly:
Geata made his way to her before heading to the giant chess board. He then turned to her:
“Azoth, I don’t know what he’s doing to us right now, but I don’t think threatening him would make him stop doing it. I have an idea; you might not like it, but I think we should humor him. I would like to see where he’s going with this. Once he reveal himself, then we can give what had coming for him.”
He then gave her a reassuring, yet unnerving smile, “If he does anything that would hurt you, I’ll make him pay for what he did to my friend.”
Anonymous then started speaking to both of them through their mind, making it so that they heard his voice from all over the area and unable to pin down his location:
“Don’t you worry about a little thing, I promise I won’t hurt either of you; I’m a man of my word.”
He then let out a cruel, unnerving laugh that echoing through their mind.
“Now, as you can clearly see, Geata, that half of the chess pieces is mission. Before we can play, I would like to know you both better.”
He snapped his finger, then six different pedestal rise from beneath the board out of six squares of the chess board: the first one in the position of B3 with a “pawn” label, the next is the king label in the D4 position. Then it’s the knight, bishop, rook and queen label coming out of F3, D2, G5 and A5 respectively. Each pedestal has a small red button sitting on top of them, giving off an eerie red glow.
“Pick the piece, pick the trial, answer my riddle and stay for awhile. Once all pieces are found and return, we can start playing with you start a turn.”
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Post by Azoth on Aug 3, 2016 2:27:21 GMT -7
Of course Azoth was suspicious. If Anonymous already had them in his illusion, nothing could be trusted. As such, as soon as Geata began moving and speaking, she took a peice of air beside him.
The heat and sound waves she read from it did not match what should’ve been Geata’s body heat or the vibrations that should’ve been present from his words. She hadn’t gotten enough to know what he was saying, but she’d read a “cl” sound while hearing a vowel.
This reading took only a moment; the information had been grabbed and ran through her head in hardly enough time to react. With it, she knew whatever Geata said or did was not what the real Geata was doing or saying. Azoth scanned the room around her, surveying what Anonymous had changed, while taking more air in search of Geata’s actual location. She found him near instantly; as it turned out, he hadn’t moved. Stood up, but he was still against that wall. Losing his location would be dangerous, and so she began taking a piece of air beside him every few seconds to make sure he was still there.
The visual Geata could be ignored, and indeed she did. She gave no response to False Geata’s statement. She turned away from him, furrowing her brow as she attempted to figure out how she was going to deal with this.
Azoth wanted to sit there, cross, immobile in her stance. She wanted to light this whole place on fire, and now that she knew the location of Geata, she could with some degree of safety do so. With some degree; she could not guarantee he would not get injured, especially if there came a point where she needed to look out for herself. But she was not going to be intimidated by Anonymous, and she was certainly not going to play into one of his games. She did not want to humor him, as there was absolutely nothing funny about this, but… Doing so would get her nowhere, and it wasn’t just her here today.
Azoth sighed. Her shoulders and back were still stiff, but she allowed her brow to relax. “Very well, Anonymous. I propose to you a deal: I will play along with your game until its conclusion. On one condition. You will not use your powers to mask anything of what Geata is doing, saying, or anything of the sort from me. Do not pretend like you aren’t; I know for a fact that you have already altered my perception of him. You will not use your powers to affect any of my perception of him at all. Nor will you mask any of the same of me to him.
“If you agree and I find you have broken your end of the deal at any point during the match, I will cease playing immediately. If you decline, I will not play. You may have a way to force me, but this is simpler for all of us, is it not?”
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Unaligned
Aw, what's wrong? Don't you trust me?
Posts 235
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Post by An0nymou5 on Aug 3, 2016 2:57:41 GMT -7
Anonymous simply laugh at Azoth’s request; he didn’t expect anything less from her. After all, she was the first one to ever see through his illusion. He simply let out the sound of clapping in her head while the “illusion” Geata slowly faded away as the real Geata appeared leaning against the wall behind her.
“Oh very well, fair enough,” his voice rang through their head again,“ I would prefer giving you a fair fighting chance anyway. Since you tend to be a party pooper, little Misty, I thought a little “encouragement” might be needed; but I guess it won’t be necessary since your boyfriend over there volunteer to play.”
Soon enough, Azoth can see that beside the life-size chess game, the pedestals, the button and the scenery around them, everything should be the real thing if she decided to test it with her little reading-molecule power.
“Now then, I’m sure I don’t have to repeat myself to you, Misty, if you actually paid attention. So go ahead, chose your trial, and chose carefully.”
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The Keepers
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Post by Geata on Aug 3, 2016 3:58:34 GMT -7
Geata sighed at the faceless super's words. Every word the super said made his skin crawl, and it started to irritate him. Everything from the promise not to hurt them to explaining how to go about getting the pieces was just noise at this point. The only thing that wasn't sufficiently self explanatory was the thing about riddles, but it was obvious that something would be caused by pressing the buttons that just screamed "do not push".
Suddenly, Azoth faded away and was replaced by another Azoth. Geata blinked in response, listening to Anonymous speak some more. The super's love for his own voice notwithstanding, Geata debated on whether or not he could trust that the new Azoth was the real Azoth. He didn't think of any reason why Anonymous would reveal that he could make him see an Azoth that wasn't there just to keep with the trick, but he wasn't about to completely forgo the possibility. Either way, it would be best to just go along with it.
He walked up to Azoth and put an arm around her shoulders, a blush rising to his cheeks that was thankfully hidden by his mask. "Leave this to me," he said calmly as he gave her a quick, one-armed hug, even though his heart was suddenly going at what felt like twice its normal speed. "I'm an unknown entity, he won't be expecting my every move. You two have history though, he's likely prepared for most everything you would do." He winked at her before walking towards the chess board.
The pedestal that caught his eye was the one for the king piece. "Five bucks says this one's the worst, whatever he has planned. Better to get it over with first, it'll make everything else easier." After speaking, he pressed the button gently. Time to get the party started, he mused.
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Unaligned
Aw, what's wrong? Don't you trust me?
Posts 235
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Post by An0nymou5 on Aug 3, 2016 4:05:31 GMT -7
“Aw, aren’t the two of you adorable,” Anonymous said as he saw Geata wrapped his hand around her shoulder, “Have fun, you two, and enjoy the ride.”
As soon as Geata pressed the button with the king label, the room suddenly went black. After some seconds spending in the dark, the area suddenly lit up with a bright light, almost disorientating to see out of the blackness. Once their vision finally regain focus, they’ll see a white king piece trapped inside a small transparent cube. Above the box are the six different black pieces: knight, pawn, queen, bishop, king and rook. In front of the box is a small pedestal with six rectangular bars, arrange in increasing order like the signal bar on the phone, with the shortest one on the left and the tallest one on the right.
The room they found themselves in is a big cube made of the same transparent material as the cube. The wall, ceiling and floor tiles are patterned to look like a 3-dimensional chess board: eights squares across, eight squares high and eight squares wide, with the more transparent tiles act as white while the cloudier tiles are black. The dimension of the entire room is at least about 20 ft by 20 ft. Anonymous’ voice goes through both their head once again:
“To free your king, remove the guards; then place them there, it’s not so hard. Arranged them all and arrange them well, from the weakest to most powerful, that’s all I will tell. Remember me well, dear little Misty, or you find your endeavor to be quite risky.”
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The Keepers
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Post by Azoth on Aug 4, 2016 1:15:01 GMT -7
Azoth was still suspicious of new Geata. She watched him carefully as he neared, taking small bits of air beside him. Body heat checked out, proportional to Geata’s size and estimated average temperature. Sound waves from his voice matched when he spoke. His clothes were indeed clothes, and made of the expected material. His actions were - unexpected in the way she’d since expected Geata’s actions to be. It seemed he had had the same mind as her, or perhaps was just now acting on her previous request now that the illusion was lifted. It was dangerous for them to be separated; the farther he was from her, the less she’d be able to protect him should the need arise. Indeed, this suited her just fine. Azoth grabbed Geata’s hand on her shoulder with her own. Her grip was tight.
His voice was reassuring, but his heart was beating fast. She could understand his fear, but she could not afford to feel it herself. She needed to keep her head, and she would. Azoth walked with Geata to the button, and as reluctant as she was to do any of this at all, she couldn’t disagree with his decision.
Her eyes adjusted quickly to the swift change in lights, being accustomed to such flashes. She gazed blankly at the setup before her for several moments in silence before beginning quietly and emotionlessly.
“To ‘remove the guards’ is to remove the pieces protecting a piece you would like to take yourself. As only the king remains, I see little reason or means by which we may do so.”
Azoth walked towards the pedestals and pieces. If Geata did not go with her, she would tug him after her by his hand. Reaching out, she took the pawn in her hand, but hesitated.
“Geata, I wish to confirm something. My first question to you when we played chess was an inquiry as to why you have not joined any factions. What was your first question to me?”
As she spoke, she placed first the pawn on the lowest pedestal, then picked up and set the knight on the next higher. She followed with the bishop, tower, queen, then, on the highest, the king.
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The Keepers
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Post by Geata on Aug 4, 2016 2:49:34 GMT -7
When Geata felt Azoth's hand on his own, his already increased heartbeat seemed to double. Again. It was a good thing Sin Eater had went ahead and took his 'genetic predisposition to heart disease', otherwise he would be even more worried about it suddenly stopping on him. He was barely able to focus on what was going on. Anonymous's words were noted, but otherwise Geata couldn't actually put thought behind figuring out the riddle. The same applied to Azoth's response to the faceless super. He didn't even realize she started walking on her own until she pulled him along by his hand. Luckily for her, that was enough to jar him back into the present situation.
"My first question was a joke about how rich you were, I believe," he said with a shaky chuckle. "But the first one I asked in regards to the game was about why you joined the Keepers." He watched as Azoth placed the pieces on the pedestals, not commenting on it. At the very least, he could stand to wait to see how the Anonymous reacted to her answer. Still, something bothered the masked super.
"You know," he spoke aloud, "a riddle with a set answer doesn't seem like the sort of thing you could learn a lot about us from, Anonymous." It was enough to make Geata wonder what the game truly was. It obviously wasn't this, he was certain of that.
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Unaligned
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Post by An0nymou5 on Aug 4, 2016 10:36:56 GMT -7
Seeing these two clinging on each other is so entertaining. Not only does Azoth actually seem like she finally open up to someone, but to think all it take is a boy is just priceless. Of course her expression is as bland and cold as it usually is, but deep down, Anonymous could tell there’s something hiding underneath that cold exterior. As for Geata, his feeling is so obvious a blind person can see it; to think he has a crush on her after just one day is rather hilarious. Is this what people referred to as “love at first sight”?
Once Azoth finished placing all the pieces on the pedestals, Anonymous laughed. His laugh was echoing through the small room that they’re in, and it’s enough to send chill down their spine.
“It is quite simple Geata,” his voice came up in his head, “because I’m saving those questions for our chess game later. This is simply a little game I came up with to see if you all can think “outside the box”, as it were.
And dear little Misty, to embody a famous line: You have chosen…poorly.”
With a snap of his finger, the room they found themselves in started to spin. The light then started to flash over and over again, disorientating them with each flash. For their penalty of answering the question wrong, Anonymous have a fun little idea in his head.
Anonymous began to overload the junk information into Azoth’s little head using the same code that she had, repeating the same pattern of the fog situation. With a little twist, he started to mess with what she saw before her: a member of the Keeper with a dagger in their hand, hiding in the shadow and suddenly charge forward to stab her right in her chest from behind. The vision isn’t real, but Anonymous make sure she feel all the pain of that dagger went straight through her heart as if it was real. Soon enough, more of the Keeper arrived into Azoth’s view and also began to stab her one at a time, twisting their knife with all their might. If she wasn’t able to know all of this isn’t real, she would have actually died from a heart attack.
For Geata, he saved something very special for him. Using his own feeling against him, he’ll see himself strapped on an operating table as Azoth started to dissect him alive. Each slashing of the scalpel going through his body is just as excruciating as he could ever imagine. He saw her removing his internal organ, one piece at a time, in a matter that similar to a mad scientist dissecting a cadaver. Each pull of his internal organ, Geaga will feel the sharp sudden pain from his inside, as if his whole inside is being pulled out forcefully. And as Geata witness all of this happen to him while still conscious, he could see his intestine is getting gnawed and eaten by some kind of monster in the shadow part of the room.
After what feels like hours of torment, the vision and pain finally fade away slowly as the room stop spinning. The light returned back to normal, and all the black pieces that Azoth arranged on the pedestal are scattered around the room. Anonymous simply laugh at their ordeal:
“And you think of yourself as a genius, little Misty? How can you have the nerve to call yourself a smart person when you can’t even answer the simplest puzzle? You don't seem to see the answer was right before you already. I’ve told you before, and I tell you now, you better pay better attention next time.
Oh, and thank you for reminding me, Geata. I forgot to mention: for each time you fail to solve my puzzle and riddle, your chess pieces will be missing one of the piece, starting with one of the pawn. If you lose all the pieces, then you’re trap in this nightmare for as long as you live.
But hey, at least you have each other, right?”
Anonymous laughed again, even more twisted and terrifying than before.
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Post by Azoth on Aug 4, 2016 15:20:53 GMT -7
The fake information came faster than it had before. Anonymous thought he could flood her mind with that false guese, derivative information, did he? He didn’t know what he was messing with. Woefully slow, lacking in amount; this was fog for goodness sake, and rough sketches of fog at that. Azoth’s mind was built for handling such information. Anonymous’s had only caught rudimentary glimpses at something far too advanced for him to so much as comprehend.
But she had to process it. She had to practice letting her mind deal with the utter trash so it knew it could be processed and ignored with her power. She hated mixing this thing in with her actual power, but it was better than trying to make other parts of her mind deal with the already, at that level, complex and overwhelming information. She could not ignore it, just as she could not ignore the illusion of the Keeper.
When she saw the shadows shift, she knew it was an illusion. It was clearly so; there was no one else in the building and it was very unlikely anyone else would’ve arrived. She should’ve closed her eyes as she did with the initial flashes, go back to sorting through and mentally burning the false information, but then she saw who it was inhabiting those shadows. She recognized the all-black outfit, saw the flash of metal as she put a figure to a name, and found herself unable to turn away.
“Unhallow?” Her word, whispered, was cut short by the pain that flooded her chest. It was the shock and the blood more than the pain that collapsed Azoth to her knees. Her mind was a mix of anger, confusion, and pain as it took this Unhallow at first to be real. Her mouth hung wide, coughs of pain and surprise coming as she stared up at her friend. She knew they had to be fake. That was not Unhallow. Unhallow had not stabbed her, Unhallow wasn’t even here; this was Anonymous’s doing.
She yelled in pain as the stabbing did not stop there. She folded around her chest, trying to protect her already injured vitals from further damage. She had to remind herself this was fake; the knives, the hooded figures, the injuries and her blood flowing from them. Azoth did not let go of Geata’s hand. She squeezed it until her knuckles were white because she knew he, at least, was real, and he would not betray her.
… Would he?
Geata could teleport. He could use his powers and make his escape, leaving her alone with Anonymous. She bet the super would let him leave; she was likely far more interesting to Anonymous than he was. He could leave her and be free of this mess that didn’t have anything to do with him before he had anything to do with her. She dearly hoped he would chose to not.
Azoth remained on the ground when the illusion finally faded, clutching her chest. She would not let go of his hand unless he wrenched his away. Her arm was shaking like the rest of her body. Her breaths were shallow. Azoth wanted to blow this whole place up; light it on fire and show Anonymous she was not to be toyed with. But she didn’t know where Anonymous was, nor if destroying the factory would actually help them. Presently there was little point.
Azoth straightened slowly, attempting and failing both to sit upright and catch her breath. “Ge-Geata. Please buy- buy me some time.”
She needed to concentrate on things other than the ‘puzzle’. Her eyes dully focused on the ground in front of her, she began taking small bits of air in the area around them. Each took less than an instant to flash through her mind, and little time more for her to conclude if she’d found what she was looking for or not. That, being Anonymous. She was playing minesweeper again; searching for any signs of soundwaves, body heat, or changes in airflow that weren’t coming from the two of them. Once she found him, she could strike.
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