Would any of you be open to trying out beta-ing? I don't have one of those, never had. I'm unsure of how to go about it.
I'd be willing to give it a shot, if you're interested in having me.
"You got a name?" you ask it. It shakes its head. Guess that's a yes?
Ayam looks sheepish.
"All right, I'll call you Joe." you say.
It looks scandalized.
He'll never escape that name, not until the end of time. Joe it is, now and forevermore.
It feels… you have felt like this before.
Like you're swimming in the Great Lake. It is clear, and yet… it is as clingy and choking as the muddy, rotten water of the U-Corp Backstreets.
Your tail- did you ever have a tail- sways slowly behind you. Your muscles contract even further. Your mouths- now two- open involuntarily, and words spill out of it, your long tongue drinking greedily of the wind.
"What a rainbow." you whisper softly, as the world gleams. Your senses become slurred, confused, and you barely hold back a giggle. "What colors…"
The power-up sequence was
exactly as cool as I'd hoped.
"Succumb ... to the Weight ... of the Dreaming Current."
You punch clear through the storm- your entire body a fishy battering ram- and you see someone.
That someone screams in surprise, eyes wide in shock behind the veil that covers their face. They try to bring out something, a few feathers coalescing into a black staff, but you're having none of that.
You slam into Adam's body, seeming untouchability completely forgotten. Your head collides directly with his stomach, and all air is pushed out of his lungs. He wheezes- for a second.
AHAHAHA! This went so much better than I possibly could've hoped. I didn't even consider the possibility the book would allow us to attack Adam, although it's certainly appreciated.
You sidestep the crushing blow and duck past the gale's forceful grasp. The second mouth on your neck is beginning the process of closing up into a simple patch of skin and your sight stopped being blurry. The Dreaming Current's immaterial presence giggles with approval, slithering back into the book. Your tail twitches. It feels like the Abnormality has given you something, but you can't pin down what.
No matter.
Hmm, so it seems that the more dramatic physical transformations faded as we got more control over the Abnormality, and it's granted us an EGO gift, implied to be Sieg's new tail - presumably that of a shark's. Well, it'll make blending in with the Terran locals easier, even if we're likely to get pulled over in Iberia.
He can't realign the trajectory of his bullets while they are flying. He can only decide their initial path- with what you suspect is an extremely advanced sense of timing- and their post-ricochet path.
In addition to this, he cannot control bullets you have ricocheted, for reasons unknown to you. If you hit one with your sword, it will not immediately realign to pierce your heart.
You suspect he can, and is deliberately not using this power. Adam has not noticed- he doesn't seem to find the behavior of the bullets strange, and the look on his eyes is strained. Disloyalty?
Ergo, if you simply ricochet them into the air you should be safe. Back in that alley, that was very risky- you could have hit someone and that would be a real pain in your side.
So we know IC that Ado is sandbagging, which is useful. If Adam doesn't know he can do something, he can't order him to do it - gives us more info on how the control works. A more immediate utility for this information isn't obvious, but it's a nugget to tuck away.
"Jamie." says Adam. "Sunder the arena."
The man gasps.
"...sunder the arena?"
The fragment shakes his head.
"We can't win. You're strong, but going up against everyone here is suicide. You're already struggling with the Color." he says.
Alright, it seems like their current plan is to escape. Our goal is to stop them, with whatever means needed, since Adam and co. on the loose can cause all kinds of havoc.
"...you might be thinking of Abel. I say he is a fool who mistook implanted memories for his own. We are not Ayin. We have identities of our own!" he says. "While I hid from Angela's gaze, I started to think, you see. I had been blind. I grew drunk on power, you see. I grew too convinced that what we did was for a higher cause, his higher cause and that all of my actions would thus be justified. I followed a path without knowing what it was. I believed in a revelation without true conviction. Releasing the Abnormalities! What a pedestrian plan."
Well, this feels like an obvious psychological button to hit when engaging in banter with Adam. He says he's his own person, that he has his own fabulous new plan - but does he really
believe it? When somebody's got something to prove, it makes them predictable.
"Not enough. What scant fragments are enough to Distort a few, but I want magnitude. I believe- I sincerely, truly believe- that giving the power to every single person on this planet is the correct path."
…so.
"To make…"
"Everyone into an E.G.O user or Distortion, yes. I don't mind what the proportion ends up being. I'll welcome it all with open arms."
How charming. Transformation and revolution for its own sake, since
clearly life is so awful whatever this would entail must be better!
Adam flinches for a second. Jamie doesn't see it. He's looking at you.
Aha! What an amateur mistake - we were right, Adam's control over Jaime must be compromised at the very least.
"If you are referring to the attempt to speak to my friends in Pinus Sylvestris, it was not intent to be a kidnapping. I do believe that I can convince Sona to take the mark." he says. "And… this power. It might be our only chance. Competing in the Majors did nothing. For all the respect I can give to the Blood Knight, I might say his efforts made our situation worse. He is defending those under him, but the rest? We gained the privilege of fighting- and dying- in their cage matches. Nothing more."
... Now, this isn't a useful as we might hope, since Jaime currently doesn't
need to be mind-controlled. Adam's not hiding anything;
he was the one behind the kidnapping attempt!
"What is the alternative? Sit there, watching them butcher us freely? The Armorless Union had plans to kill us all in this very Major! Area 0 is a slaughterhouse!" he roars. "With this power- we can flip the chessboard. With this power, we can upend their order. What else can we do? Revolt? We would be crushed! The campaign knights would never fight by our side, they would massacre us! The Silverlance are the enforcers of Kazimierz's military might, of the noble houses, of the tyrants of this nation! They would destroy us."
You…
You have the feeling you're not exactly qualified for this. There's just too much context you're missing.
And this the crux of the matter - Jaime's viewpoint is flawed, but Sieg simply doesn't have the context to properly engage with his argument, nor an emotional connection to call upon. He's not even a native of Terra, for crying out loud, Sieg doesn't understand the emotional and historical context behind Oripathy. All of this means that even as we know that talking Jaime down is possible, it doesn't seem
plausible for Sieg to do it. My best current guess would be to invoke his faith in another figure, such as Nearl (although that could easily backfire) or to point out that the rest of Pinus Sylvestris is currently against him, and ask if he's willing to kill his brothers and sisters to save them.
You could go for the Current again- it seems that it can hit him, for some strange reason. But he isn't even wounded. That impact would have tore clean through the body of even a Grade 1 Fixer.
Hm. It seems the Current's ability to actually damage Adam is limited, unfortunately.
Jamie grabs your arm with renewed strength. Grappling? The fog is dissipating.
"Again." you say.
Joe spits another jet of blood, directly on the eyeslit of his helmet. He screams, and your leg rises to kick him in the chin.
Jump, dodge a sweeping kick. Take the sword out of his stomach.
Jesus, Sieg is absolutely dismantling Jaime in combat. I don't think we've inflicted anything lasting so far, but surely he can only take so much of this punishment.
Kal'tsit is smashing Andoain to pieces repeatedly, but he just keeps getting back up. And you can't afford to grab the book and concentrate for another charge to disrupt Adam's healing.
This is the current situation - Sieg and Kal can individually beat out Andoian and Jaime, but not hard enough to get to Adam who's providing power-boosting and healing. We need some way to disrupt this paradigm.
"Abel relayed their position and Mon3tr made do. Amiya is doing the same right now. Though the storm is blocking communications, he managed to get through with some effort. That will not occur again until the wind ceases, unfortunately." she answers. "And I do not have much of a plan, lacking in information as I am. Do you?
Well, that's the question, ain't it? Amiya's about to bust in, which means this turns into a 3v3 and they lose.
"Jamie-" screams Adam. "We don't have much more time. They'll win. Sunder the arena!"
The knight's hand moves. Before anything can happen, time slows down to a crawl.
Adam knows this and is hitting the panic button to GTFO. Our wincon is just to pin them down and prevent Jaime from "sundering" the arena, which is a great deal more doable than trying to outright win the fight.
Now, how to pull that off ...?
