1st Team Meeting

[makeadragonwannaretire]

WHO: Azula and any vault dwellers who show up.
WHERE: The Rec Room
WHEN: Three hours after her annoucement.
WHAT: Azula's "War Council" to disseminate information and introductions...also snacks.
WARNINGS: Possible discussions of violence and/or dark backstories.

Azula had attended a number of war meetings growing up as well as social affairs for meeting with important members of the public or military. This was different for a number of reasons, the largest being that this was a place no one seemed to have any respect for her title.

But she could handle that. It had taken her half a month to come to terms with it but here the title "Princess" was only as important as she made it.

Unfortunately that meant having to play "Nice" having to bite her tongue and not get frustrated when she wasn't catered to. That would have been harder for her two years ago, and impossible a year ago.

But here we were, with her waiting patiently near the entrance to the Rec Room to greet people as they came in. Oh how far she'd fallen.

"Come in, help yourself to some snacks. We'll get started soon."

Comments

[cicadashell]

"Sounds to me like they were experimenting on whoever was in there, not trying to cure them. Acclimation to host."

Jiro doesn't understand some of those words in the write-up, and he's not very smart, but that phrase doesn't sound benign to him. Nor does referring to whatever it was as a 'subject'.

"And they did it to others first if they're comparing it with previous attempts. We're fucking lab rats, that's what happening here."

[justoutrunyou]

"Oh..." Sandy looks at her screen again re-reading it.

"See I was going off the part where it said he was still coherent. I don't know what ambulation means though." She shrugged.

"I saw some other computers back that way, we could go see if they have anything useful on them. Maybe Saya can help..." She mused already thinking she wouldn't get lucky enough to find two passwords let alone three the same way.

"But why would they want to turn us into...whatever that thing is?"

[cicadashell]

"Ambulation means walking or something."

Moving? It's close enough. He nods at the suggestion of Saya, she's apparently been designated the computer person and he has no problem with that. They need someone who can pull information out of the system since that's where they've been keeping records, it looks like.

"Probably to survive outside. Gradual radiation exposure so they wouldn't die in the new atmosphere up there?"

Fuck. If they even get out of here, they might not be able to survive anywhere but the vault anyway.

[justoutrunyou]

Sandy hadn't even considered that the world outside might be too irradiated to survive in. She suddenly found herself wishing she'd found more Radaway.

"I'll take a look at the suits they used to fix the power. Maybe we can make them better at keeping out radiation somehow. I don't wanna have to glow in the dark to survive outside of here."

[cicadashell]

"It might not be a problem anymore."

He's at least trying to spur hope to some degree.

"Everything's old down here. Radiation dissipates, right? It may be fine up there by now..."

It's not fine.

[justoutrunyou]

Sandy shrugged, she really didn't know how radiation worked. By the end of this though they might all be unfortunate experts in the effects of it on humans.

"Maybe. Or maybe the roaches up there are ten times bigger."

Just how she wanted to die. under the grossest Kaiju ever.

[cicadashell]

That's another possibility. Worse monstrosities up there.

"I've seen a lot of weird shit; I'm sure we can deal with bigger roaches. At least they don't fly... much."

[justoutrunyou]

"If they did maybe we could tame them and ride them."

A disgusting idea but also kind of fun in a way. Beats her current mental image of whatever wasteland waited for them up on the surface.

"I'm starting to wish I'd watched more zombie movies. Do they ever end well? With like people rebuilding the world?"

[cicadashell]

"That's not a bad idea."

He's all for using giant roaches as transportation if it's viable. As for zombie movies, he shrugs.

"I dunno. I don't watch that shit. But I killed a cannibal demon who wanted to take over the world? Sometimes things end well."

The ending is a guess, though. He doesn't know what happened after that, because he blacked out and then he was here.

[justoutrunyou]

"Wait so...was he a cannibal because he ate humans, or a cannibal because he ate other demons?" She got stuck on that part because clearly that's the most important part of the sentence. Not the fact that he saved the world.

[cicadashell]

"He ate other demons." Jiro expected that question, because it's also the first thing he would have asked if someone told him that story.

"He ate humans too, souls and whatever, but also his own. He wanted to eat one particular demon, whose life-force was self sustaining. Then Amagi, the cannibal, would be all powerful and take over the human world because... he was pissed off he lost when he tried to do it before back in the Edo period? I'm not real clear on the whys and whatever. Power-hungry psycho demon."

[justoutrunyou]

"OK that just sounds like a super villain. I mean yeah demons can be super villains but like...holding a grudge that long? Wanting to take over the world with no real plans for how to rule it afterwards? Totally super villainy."

And now she was wondering if Spider-man would have beaten the guy better then Jiro.

"How'd you kill him?"

[cicadashell]

He laughs at the supervillain comparison.

"He did have a couple of those supervillain speeches."

The killing part; there's a lot to explain, so initially, Jiro's just going with the basics.

"I punched him."

Which does not explain anything at all.

[justoutrunyou]

Sandy blinked slowly and stared waiting for him to expand on that. When he didn't she pressed on.

"Like...once? Where? How freaking strong were you in your world if you killed a guy with your fist?!"

[cicadashell]

"Once. Through the heart."

He's exaggerating a little, because there was certainly more of a battle before round two and that punch. The last question gets an annoyed sigh, not because she asked, but because it requires a lot of talking.

"Okay. It's a long story, so I'm gonna make it short...er. First, I got possessed by a demon. That's where the power came from. His name's Rago and he's kind of this... He's a cat, and he's that demon with the infinite power that Amagi wanted."

It's already a long story.

"I got kidnapped by the government because they wanted that power too, and I worked for them while we looked for Amagi. Another demon, I forgot her name, exorcised Rago, but he left his aura inside me, so I had all his power. Then I went to the demon realm to get Rago back. Amagi killed me first, so Rago possessed me again to bring me back, and then I punched the cannibal demon through the heart."

[justoutrunyou]

Sandy listens intently and has a hard time not getting caught up in the story. She may still be bitter about their interaction earlier but this whole story sounds...pretty epic.

"So you've died...come back AND killed the biggest bad with one punch. No wonder your such an asshat! You used to be so cool and now you're stuck here."

[cicadashell]

"Died and came back twice." For clarification, and maybe a little bragging. He's ignoring the asshat comment, because he deserves it for being a dick earlier.

"I wasn't, though. Cool. I'm not like a superhero or anything. It wasn't my power, it was Rago's. I didn't want it."

He was a prisoner and considered a monster.

[justoutrunyou]

Sandy looked a little confused at his deflection but shrugged it off.

"You saved the world using super powers. Even if it was only the one time, or an accident I think you still qualify as a hero."

She wouldn't have guessed it but she also has no reason to think he's lying about this.

[cicadashell]

"Yeah, I guess I do."

He just didn't do it alone, and he likes for Rago to be recognized.

"So what do you really think about this memories thing? What I just told you is pretty out there, right?"

Everything felt real, and he had been certain it was, but now that he's talked about it again; compared to their current reality, it's a little fantastical. Nuclear war and science experiments are one thing, but cannibal demons and possession seem less likely.

[justoutrunyou]

Sandy nodded as she considered it some more.

"It can't be fake. It feels too real to be a dream. And all the stuff you talked about just sounds like the sort of stuff my Dad would tell me stories about. Demons and angels and heroes and villains. World ending disasters and people pulling some kind of magical who-knows-what out of their butts to save everyone."

It was amazing how often a last minute surprise saved the day.

"And even if our memories were lies...we can't remember anything else."

[cicadashell]

"Then we all got here somehow from different worlds."

Which is possible where he's from. Maybe not to an extent like this, but he'd only just learned about demons and other realms himself. He probably didn't know everything they'd kept hidden.

"Think it's... what's it called... temporal something, like portals and shit. That they have something to breach barriers in... space time?"

This is beyond him to explain succinctly, but he had portals, and he knows Elizabeth did too.

[justoutrunyou]

"Magic...Science, could even just be dumb luck I guess."

The dumbest of luck. Absolutely the most ignorant of luck.

"Elizabeth said something like that. And my dad used to talk about stuff like that, heroes who came from other worlds. I always wanted to meet someone like that but now...well it doesn't feel how I'd expected."

[cicadashell]

"She told me about her portals too, and that they brought people and things from different universes. I never thought about that stuff, other worlds. Even after I found out about demons, I didn't think about the portals going anywhere but their realm."

He wasn't the type of kid who fantasized about grand adventures and magic; he just liked to climb trees and hang out in the woods with the local wildlife.

[justoutrunyou]

"I guess it's not for everyone." Sandy had always wanted to see more and the idea of portals appealed to her, especially after being stuck down in this vault for so long.

"Have you ever met any nice demons? Or are they all the kind that would ya know...eat us or whatever?"

[cicadashell]

"Well, yeah. They're just like humans. Some of them suck and some of them don't."

He shrugs. He liked Rago, and there were a couple others on their 'side'.

"Some of them took human or animal forms to blend in, to be part of the world with us. That's why I didn't know about them. I could have met demons before and had no idea."