cain. (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
blyat) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
meadowlarklogs2019-04-02 04:06 pm
blyat) wrote in meadowlarklogs2019-04-02 04:06 pm
https://i.imgur.com/Fe9yilS.gif
WHO: Cain, Markus, Fitz, Peggy, Riku, and Sora. We're doing our best.
WHERE: The Facility.
WHEN: October 12, during the sleep event.
WHAT: Continued from here. Cain went in guns blazing, rolled a crit fail, wiped out the party, and now they're going to need the power of friendship to save them.
NOTES OR WARNINGS: Language, gore, disassociation/ego death, psychic death, JUST DEATH, buckets of guilt, and Disney Magic™ (including KH3 spoilers). Will update as necessary.
[The impact of their actions doesn't register at first. Due in part to the immediacy of his ability, Cain can only watch as the spear is extracted from its tangled bed of roots, blinking out of visible existence and reappearing several meters to his direct left. The weapon glints in a refraction of eerie, milky-blue underwater light. Where there would be a rush of success upon victory — moving the immovable — and where he might feel the tickle of curiosity in the aftermath, there's nothing but a peculiar emptiness. Slight and small, like he's disengaged from the part of his brain that processes raw information into higher function, a brief interim where no single thought enters his head, and he looks at his surroundings with a detached faraway appreciation. Meditative, almost, all pain and pressure from the landscape's oppressive environment gone.
And then it grows.
A yawning void eats through the peripheral of his awareness, even as he turns at last to check on Fitz and Markus. It's at that point his sense of individual self begins to slip, and the people he's looking at have no names, felt more in physical warmth and closeness. Cain extends a hand out as if to touch one of them on the shoulder — but stops, fingers spread, dark eyes lowering down to look at his own arm as if he doesn't recognize it. It doesn't feel as though it should belong to him. His gaze travels further, over limbs and torso dressed in the sleek black material of a flight suit, and that feeling of disconnect only heightens, mind elevated above the anchor of an unfamiliar body.
Slowly, gradually, another sense begins to bleed into the fine boundary of Cain's (but not Cain anymore, not Alexei, not anyone, what is he?) consciousness. Pinpricks of light at the edges of his mind, little flashes of red scales, the gauzy white outlines of humanlike shapes in the distance, and the two solid pillars of men in front of where he stands. Life everywhere. Death, too, clinging onto the dredges of what once was. Cain watches himself begin to fade from the feet up as if unattached to the process.
Death, watching Fitz and Markus now succumb to an intense and severe pain he doesn't feel at all. There's no fragment of sympathy, there's no sadness — only an impression of responsibility. The entire facility becomes a single entity stationed somewhere in his mind. And then Fitz and Markus are no longer alive, they're dead, a hot spray of blood and red guts and cooler blue mechanical shards across the surrounding area, but he doesn't feel anything beyond the understanding that it happened as the effect of a singular cause.
An imminent air of rightness overtakes the man who was there only moments ago, before he's gone, disintegrated into nothing.]
WHERE: The Facility.
WHEN: October 12, during the sleep event.
WHAT: Continued from here. Cain went in guns blazing, rolled a crit fail, wiped out the party, and now they're going to need the power of friendship to save them.
NOTES OR WARNINGS: Language, gore, disassociation/ego death, psychic death, JUST DEATH, buckets of guilt, and Disney Magic™ (including KH3 spoilers). Will update as necessary.
[The impact of their actions doesn't register at first. Due in part to the immediacy of his ability, Cain can only watch as the spear is extracted from its tangled bed of roots, blinking out of visible existence and reappearing several meters to his direct left. The weapon glints in a refraction of eerie, milky-blue underwater light. Where there would be a rush of success upon victory — moving the immovable — and where he might feel the tickle of curiosity in the aftermath, there's nothing but a peculiar emptiness. Slight and small, like he's disengaged from the part of his brain that processes raw information into higher function, a brief interim where no single thought enters his head, and he looks at his surroundings with a detached faraway appreciation. Meditative, almost, all pain and pressure from the landscape's oppressive environment gone.
And then it grows.
A yawning void eats through the peripheral of his awareness, even as he turns at last to check on Fitz and Markus. It's at that point his sense of individual self begins to slip, and the people he's looking at have no names, felt more in physical warmth and closeness. Cain extends a hand out as if to touch one of them on the shoulder — but stops, fingers spread, dark eyes lowering down to look at his own arm as if he doesn't recognize it. It doesn't feel as though it should belong to him. His gaze travels further, over limbs and torso dressed in the sleek black material of a flight suit, and that feeling of disconnect only heightens, mind elevated above the anchor of an unfamiliar body.
Slowly, gradually, another sense begins to bleed into the fine boundary of Cain's (but not Cain anymore, not Alexei, not anyone, what is he?) consciousness. Pinpricks of light at the edges of his mind, little flashes of red scales, the gauzy white outlines of humanlike shapes in the distance, and the two solid pillars of men in front of where he stands. Life everywhere. Death, too, clinging onto the dredges of what once was. Cain watches himself begin to fade from the feet up as if unattached to the process.
Death, watching Fitz and Markus now succumb to an intense and severe pain he doesn't feel at all. There's no fragment of sympathy, there's no sadness — only an impression of responsibility. The entire facility becomes a single entity stationed somewhere in his mind. And then Fitz and Markus are no longer alive, they're dead, a hot spray of blood and red guts and cooler blue mechanical shards across the surrounding area, but he doesn't feel anything beyond the understanding that it happened as the effect of a singular cause.
An imminent air of rightness overtakes the man who was there only moments ago, before he's gone, disintegrated into nothing.]
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Pain. Hideous, clawing pain blossoming in the core of his gut (how? it shouldn’t, it can’t, a synthetic body not programmed for it not hardwired not possible) lancing outward with its many teeth, shearing and tearing at his insides. For a harried moment still cursed with lucidity, Markus thinks he’s lost his android body again, but flashes of incomprehensible code spilling into his vision imply otherwise. It’s torture unlike what he’s ever felt before, android or human — it’s nerve endings pulled apart, it’s every atom of each biocomponent (WARNING: CRITICAL SYSTEM FAILURE, SHUTDOWN IN 15, 14, 13, 12_ /ERROR, ERROR, ERROR...) unhinging itself from its proper place, leaving an interlocking interior of agony on its wake. He hunches over, loses strength in his legs, crashing his knees into the ground; a hand gripped at his middle and the other at his temple, eyes squeezed shut, so tight that the hard plastic beneath faux skin cracks.
A circular, infinite noise in his head overrides the scream that falls from his lips. He wants to echo the words, form them, as if repeating the mantra might free him of how they fill his head until it may burst.
(Torn apart. My insides are all being torn apart! Torn apart. My insides are all being torn apart! Torn apart. My insides are all being torn apart! Torn apart. My insides are all being torn apart! Torn apart. My insides are all being torn apart!)
Markus cries out in stubborn desperation, mauled from the inside, harassed in his own head (WARNING: MY INSIDES ARE ALL—) opening his eyes to view only briefly a fading Cain and, closer, a suffering Fitz. He strains, screaming still, reaching out for him on instinct; hopes to grab his shoulder, his arm, a wrist, anything to anchor himself to the other man, it’s what they’ve always done when fraught and frightened and in so much pain, a reliance on the one another that has always helped them, god let it help them now.
Fingertips shake and brush against the man. But the world goes a brilliant, deep black when his whole body shudders, cracks in violent paroxysm, and (WARNING: —BEING TORN APART) shatters in a cobalt cloud of blue, of scattered and ruined components, coiled tubing, and shining pieces of once-pristine white.
This mass of detritus drifts lazily in the sea, all the life gone from it.]
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What have we done? This is what we deserve for trying to be gods. He deserves it, of course he does, but Markus doesn't. Couldn't. A flicker of clarity, from his place on the ground, already down by the time Markus reaches him. The bond suffuses with empathy that threatens to magnify the pain (trapped in a howling feedback loop) but Fitz holds on all the same, hand finding Markus' arm in a locked hold. That's what they do, when they start to lose themselves.
He has to — have to get them out. Keep them safe. Has to save Peggy. No, that was Cain. No, it was Jemma, it's always Jemma. He promised. Why can't he, when he catches Cain fading through barely open eyes. Trying to get up, move, do something. Oh. I— I think my legs are broken, choked aloud, faraway from himself.
Screams himself hoarse after that, the pain building inside. Higher, higher, higher, beyond the threshold of what the body normally feels before the brain deactivates to protect itself. (How can I face my son now? How can I? Forgive me, forgive me. If you ever learn about what we've done here, please … please forgive me. Forgive me, forgive me, forgive —). A deafening splatter of flesh and blood, floating in water swirling red and blue. ]
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No, not drowning. They didn't drown, they got out, they got home. Her and Fitz. They survived; but why, then, is she here? Surrounded by ghosts again, although none in uniform, trapped in a frigid lab instead of a forest. Peggy thought she had someone at her side, but they're gone now, and she can't place who it was. (An accent, like hers.) Fitz? No, it was Jyn. They were talking. Or no, maybe it really was — ]
Fitz?
[ She doesn't even mean to say it. The room is a cacophony of voices, so much so that her gasp of surprise is lost in the echo, but he's right in front of her, how could she miss him? They've staggered through warzones together, labyrinths icy as this one, felt water lapping at their feet in an impossible place only to be surrounded by it on all sides. They know each other better now, since enduring all that.
But they never crossed the threshold of this underworld.
That must be why he looks as distressed as she feels. No, shocked; no, that's not right, either. Staring through her, talking through her, in a way he's never — ]
Fitz.
[ She reaches out to touch him, finds it hovering over his shoulder instead. What if she can't? What if her fingertips pass through him like Dr Wilkes, incorporeal and invisible in the wake of a terrible explosion, never to be put to rights again? He's as ghostly as the others around him, a broken record — forgive me, forgive me — no, they've gone over this, there's nothing to forgive, he shouldn't be here, so why —
Another ghost at the edge of her vision, fainter, harder to make out. But he isn't dressed like the others. The features are difficult to make out, but not the profile. He'd complimented hers, once. A sketch, lightyears away. Markus. She stomach goes cold, her heart hammers against her chest. (Real or not real? It feels real, therefore it is real. No, this is wrong. Wake up.) She looks back to Fitz as though he has the answer (doesn't he usually?), voice nothing but a shock of breath: ]
What happened to you?
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[ The two of them have been searching the facility for a while now, or it at least feels that way when every step they take forward is an effort, like they're waist-deep in swirling water and just trying to push through. So far they haven't found anyone other than those strange ghost figures. Much as they tried, they hadn't been able to reach those people's hearts. Whatever had happened to them, their hearts must be long gone by now.
Still, Sora refuses to believe that there's not something they can do for this place. He carries his Keyblade when he can manage to keep it manifested, but it flashes in and out, his tie to his power not nearly as strong as it should be. If they could find a keyhole, or some way to get everyone to wake up, then he'd feel like they'd actually fulfilled their purpose here.
Both of them have pulled it off before, but the rules are clearly different in this place.
As they keep pressing forward, Sora suddenly hears a voice cut through the muffled silence of the facility. It's not one of those echoes, he doesn't recognize it at all, which means it might be another person. One of the other displaced. ]
Riku. This way!
[ Sora tugs on his wrist, rounding a corner with an extra burst of speed now that they may have found their reason for being in this strange place. He sees a woman who's trying to converse with one of the specters. He can't yet tell that it isn't just another one of those scientists. ]
Hey... I'm sorry, but they can't respond to you.
[ They're beyond even Sora and Riku's reach. Or so he thinks for the moment. ]
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He'd like to keep his head, even as it aches, sending a feeling of vertigo washing over him.
He draws his hand up to his chin, thoughtful. She's responding to them like she knows them. There are other dreamscapes, but this one hasn't seemed personal. Were they all in a personal one all along? It's hard to say. Hard to say and time to make it clear.]
Do you think they were here before? And ... I know this is strange to ask, but do you think we're inside a dream that's for you? That might be why they're here. [Riku watches as the Markus specter walks by, but doesn't reach out. He senses nothing, at least apart from how this dream, the cityscape, and even the personal have a similar feel to them.]
And why we're here. Sorry, we're new, so ... [Riku has to be the one to slow down and cover their bases. He never felt a heart in here aside from his fellow displaced. Though something feels—well. He doesn't want to reach out to it, not yet.
That balance of power, after all.]
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Fellow displaced, she realises a heartbeat later. That must be it. Her breath releases in a sharp exhale, like somehow the reminder of other people like her grounds her spinning thoughts. They do, a little. But seeing Fitz and Markus this way still feels like a gut punch, her stomach twisting with horror and nausea and helplessness which she refuses to abide.
No room for that, Carter. Shoulders square, back straight. Firmness in her voice. ]
This isn't my dream, but those are my friends. I was just with them. [ Hand in hand as they stumbled through a portal to a city. Enduring a hail of gunfire, shoulder to shoulder. ] They don't belong here, I know it in my gut, and I don't — I don't know how this happened. We need to help them.
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They're her friends? Sora frowns, drawing closer to the specters to get a better look. It's only then that he can see that they're not in white coats like the others.
We need to help them. Sora turns back to the lady when she says that, nodding firmly. If these are her friends, and this just happened, then maybe there's something that he and Riku can do. Maybe their hearts are still in reach, able to be saved, unlike the others. ]
Me and Riku might be able to help, I think. They're lost in this dream, but deeper into it that we are. [ It's happened to him before, and his hand goes to his chest as he remembers that time, his Keyblade vanishing for a moment as his heart wavers. ] But we can dive after them and recover their hearts. If they're your friends, then you can reach out to them, show us the way.
[ It might not make much sense to her, but Sora's explaining it in the simplest terms he can think of. He's come a long way, being able to have some authority on this subject when he'd been clueless about the power of waking not so long ago.
He sends a quick glance Riku's direction, knowing he won't like the idea. Using this power got Sora into trouble before, but he can't just ignore what's happening here. He has to prove to himself that he can use it successfully, rather than leaving it all on Riku's plate. ]
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Not that it matters. Riku knows that what happened there can't prevent what happens here. If it's the two of them, they can work together, just like him and King Mickey. They got to the Realm of Darkness together. He can show Sora the way now that he has that power, and maybe even help balance him a little more than he had before. Or, well, he can hope.
Riku watches the specters and then crouches down, putting his hand to the ground (if the floor of the Facility can even be called that, covered in new growth and life all over).]
I'll check. Come here. [He looks at Peggy, and then extends his hand to her. He wears fingerless gloves, so if she's got bare hands right now, there's a risk of emotional contact. But in Riku's opinion, that's not a bad thing. His gaze is steady and calm, inviting yet not pushy. If she isn't interested in what he can do, that's fine. But he knows what it's like to need to save a friend, so he doubts that'll be the case here.] If there's a way inside, I'll be able to find it. Then the three of us can go together.
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But just as she draws breath to say it, she cuts herself off. How long have Fitz and Markus been trapped here? Do they have time to waste? She has a dozen questions, chief of all what Sora means by recovering their hearts. He's right, it doesn't make sense, even if he speaks with such surety. She's a pragmatic woman, even when her work has her dealing with the often unexplainable. Putting her faith in something she doesn't understand with people she's just met is asking a lot; because it isn't just her faith in question, it's her friends' lives.
But if she dallies any longer, then she'll just endanger them even more. Surely they ought to do whatever they can to bring them home? No man left behind. ]
Very well. [ She places her hand in Riku's, heedless of the bond (electric, iron determination on her end). She isn't afraid of the unknown and never has been. It's losing the people closest to her that's crippling. ] Whatever it takes.
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TEAM HEART SCIENCE
He's safer with her, anyway. [ Sora with Peggy; it's meant to be comforting. A jerk of his head indicates that they should get a move on. ] Show us your way, then. [ a beat. ] Sorry about the pain.
[ of radiated organs and exploding insides, still working through his skin. ]
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He feels resolved in this feeling. His gaze falls to Fitz's hand, but he steps in close instead, placing his hand on the older man's clothed shoulder. So, Fitz just took Riku's rebuke poorly. It's a bad time. He gets it. He doesn't appreciate Fitz being a jerk to Sora, but that doesn't matter.]
I'm not telling you to trust me, but we weren't demanding that of you. To get to your friend, I need you to focus on him. On how much he matters to you. I can open the door based on that, but you can't let your thoughts cloud how your heart really feels. It might lead us astray. [His voice is even, tempered. Careful. He grounds his emotions.
Then he lowers his hand from Fitz's shoulder to slip it into his hand.]
Now let's go. [How Fitz feels is unpleasant. But Riku is grounded. Focused. (Worried. Always worried about Sora. More than he'd ever care to be, because he wants there to be blind faith in him. Always blind faith. But it's harder these days. It's harder right now.)
But he can't focus on Sora if he doesn't take care of himself. So, his eyes meet Fitz's and he nods, resummoning his keyblade in his free hand.]
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The touch at his shoulder is unexpected (and unwelcome) for someone who has made a point to say he doesn’t trust the other, and Fitz stills, watching Riku with a steady gaze. Youth doesn’t guarantee innocence, after all. And the two young men in their party have given him little by the way of answers.
But agents act without trust or affinity all the time — it’s why they’re agents. His expression betrays concentration alone (on the now and not the lingering pain). ]
[ neutrally, ] I know how to act on a mission. [ a curt nod. ] Ready when you are.
[ As if to prove his point: Once they touch, Riku won’t find anything but calm coursing through Fitz, threaded over the pain with a manufactured control.
Their professional disagreements don’t matter from then on, gone from his mind. As in all things, Fitz has a single-minded focus, shuttering out the rest of the world. And he has a staggering amount of material to draw from, when it comes to how much his friend matters to him.
Markus, bridging the gap between what Fitz wants to say and what he can. Markus, unsure how to let himself hurt in his achingly empty flat, despite how he shoulders the pain of others. Markus, trusting him implicitly in a junkyard of corpses, even knowing all Fitz has wrought with the brilliance of his mind and the flaws in his heart. (Or was it the goodness in his heart?) Markus is what it means to walk that hard way with someone, down the path so few can travel with you.
It’s easy to think only of him — to walk onward in a shaky partnership and know that the door will lead them to his precious friend. ]
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It’s difficult to say what their surroundings used to be. Whatever skeletal remnants of this place still exist, they’ve gone grey with the weight of cinders, buried under a depth of the stuff, foreign forms rarely jutting out of the landscape like constructs of shale. Perhaps there used to be trees, branches stretching skywards towards a now-departed sun, maybe this was once a square where people walked and shopped, maybe Markus himself once took a path through this place, to a certain paint shop to pick up a certain hue of color. But if that memory once existed, it’s all crumbled into ash, turning their surroundings grey, grey, grey.
Even the horizon shows no promise of anything beyond this terrain. Only a yawning expanse of dull sky, sometimes adorned with the phantom flicker-flash of tall buildings, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it. They’ll have to tread through shifting and colorless earth, for stretching minutes, before coming across anything of note.
And what they’ll find is Markus, slumped against what looks like fallen signage (—LLINI PAINTS) that’s half-buried in dirt. He’s covered in a thin layer of ash, the build-up heavier near his legs as if this world means to eventually consume him. Eyes closed, utterly quiet, there’s no sign of movement, even if they attempt to interact with him.
It’s as if he’s just another dead object, in a world full of them.]
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Not that this is a matter of cruelty or not here. It's seeking out friends. But the brisk way that Fitz responds to Riku leaves him concerned. His only time out adventuring had been in Sleeping Worlds, and while he moved through them and aced his tests, Sora was gradually led deeper and deeper into the dreams, no longer transversing them but slipping further away from the Waking Worlds. Sora always had a way with people no matter what, so Riku doubts he's ever been handled this rigidly. But Riku? Maybe he just draws that out of people. He can't tell.
No matter what, he knows that he wants to help more than anything. Even if Fitz looks upon him and Sora with distrust (he gets it with himself, but Sora?—he thinks of that pause on Sora's features, the incremental surprise over someone who's been hurt, but doesn't know how to process it, only he does it seconds later because he knows what it's like to hurt).
In the end, what matters is going through that door, passing through the ash and ending up where they're going to end up. Another world in ruins. Another place that needs help. He knows that this isn't what it was like for Sora before, but he had people in his heart there to protect him (even darker, twisted versions, nightmares seeking to shield him and claim him at the same time). It doesn't seem like these people have the same thing going for them. Then again, it makes sense: their hearts can't connect the same way that they can here. If these dreams have taught him anything, it's that they allow people to manifest those connections. That the connections can be so tattered worries him, but he can't bring that up now.
No, he draws his hand back and his keyblade disappears from his hand. No matter what his head tells him here, he knows he has to follow his heart. Help. Make sure these people get back out in one piece, without it proving more difficult. Trust that no matter what, Sora will do the same. (Even if Fitz doesn't trust him to do it, he will. It's not a demand of trust, and he stands by that. They're here because they want to be, because this is what they intend to do forever, no matter what. If Riku is called upon, he'll be there to help as a keyblade master. It's in his power to do so, to help others help protect their friends.)
Even if Fitz's is laser focused on his friend to the exception of everyone else, even the boy who's there to help, Riku nods toward him. He offers a slight and subtle smile. Encouragement. They can save him. They're here, and his heart is here. They can save him.]
I'll be here as backup if needed. Go save your friend.
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Is this now? A quick glance over his shoulder at his strange watcher confirms it. Not Peggy at his side.
No hesitation in Fitz as he brushes his fingers over Markus’ cheek (still and cold, no, no, no). Can't wake his friend the same way he did, when Peggy’s touch had galvanised him. Huh. It’s only when he presses his hand to Markus neck, checking his pulse, that panic flips his gut. From behind, Riku won’t see a tell of it beyond the rigidity of Fitz’s shoulders. ]
Something’s wrong. [ No pulse. They were too slow, too late, if those boys hadn’t wasted their time. Eyes close and open. Breathe, Fitz, somebody needs you. ]
[ Without waiting for a reply, he lifts and drops Markus’ arm, limp. Only then does it click. It may be a dream — a nightmare, a realm of thought, or an unreality — but the multiverse means cosmos and order, so Fitz follows the rules of his last engagement with the unwaking. He stands, moving a steady hand to dust off the nape of Markus’ neck and check for the tell-tale burn of a ruined implant. Not a blemish there.
Fitz exhales, tension still coiled in his shoulders. This is now (sort of). The past never stays where you left it. ]
He’s an android. [ called loud enough to be heard wherever Riku is standing (if he's come closer to help or remained further back). It's the same thing he'd said to Peggy about the lifeless woman in the ruins and uttered so Riku doesn't panic over what Fitz is about to do, fingers finding the coin in his pocket. Only thirty seconds pass where he roots through memories, searching for clues on Markus' make and model from their earlier journey together (fake skin, hard plastic underneath) as he kneels beside his friend. This time, when Fitz lifts Markus' arm, he flips it over, ash momentarily clouding his vision. A cough before he squints in the fading light. Smoothing his fingers over the skin prompts it to fall away, as if melting by instinct. Only so many spots for engineers to access readily, yeah? Nothing entirely new under the sun, even in the stretch between 2017 and 2038.
An eerie stillness overtakes him, movements practised and precise, as if he's done this before. A light knock against the casing, searching for something, unsure how to bypass it until — there, a failsafe clicks and the plastic falls apart, halves splitting to reveal the circuity beneath Markus' arm. Wires and thirium-blue veins weave over and around too-white bones.
A beat before he retrieves his multitool from the pocket of his jacket, quick to flick out various tools for tweaking Markus' inner framework. The damage isn't as bad as the last android, wires disconnected and debris out of place, but not fried and shattered. Dormant. Universes from his lab, he doesn't have the electric current required to jumpstart an inorganic heart, but perhaps sparks alone could do the trick. ]
C'mon. [ uttered low and urgent, with a frustrated hitch in his breath. You can't fix everything echoes in his mind, or perhaps even aloud, in the world of dreams. ] C'mon, c'mon. [ A single spark, burning hot on his fingertips. Not enough. Not smart enough. ] Markus, [ his voice cracks. ] I can't — [ Do this? No, even if he can't, he has to. ] — I need you to wake up.
[ This time, his look to Riku gives away the pain in his chest (can't lose anything else, not today). Back to Markus, then, to try again and again. ]
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Riku knows this story well. Ansem—DiZ—is the same man who kept him focused. Who helped him reclaim his friend. Who ensured that he could see Sora again. And who accidentally brought Riku out of his prison in the body of the man who possessed him, a prison that Riku took on because he knew that he needed the strength to protect what mattered.
What he doesn't know is that he's seeing pieces of that play out here. He may not for a while, or ever—but it's obvious that Markus has slipped further away. Is it because of the hesitation? No, Riku tells himself that isn't the case. If anything, things might be worse. Fitz's return may be more tenuous than absolute, for one thing. His heart is still in danger. (Or would be; Riku assumes as much now.)
He trots closer as Fitz does what he can to bring back Markus. It makes sense if he's an android, but Riku never questions what's happening here. He never doubts the presence of a heart. In order to bring back Naminé, Xion, and Roxas, they needed to rely on data—and he'd seen enough of Tron's world (had known that it was Tron's world) to see that hearts could come in all different shapes. Ways. Existences.
It's because of that that he pieces together precisely why Fitz can't recover his heart. It's not his fault. It's just—Markus likely needs a boost. Maybe it's because of the conditions and circumstances that he does. Riku doesn't know.]
Hold on to him. I think I've got the rest.
[Riku closes the distance and crouches down. His keyblade appears in his hand, and he lifts it up, pointing it at Markus' chest. His eyes focus as a light shoots out of his keyblade into Markus' chest. Moments later, Markus' heart appears in a flash of light. It may not make sense, not scientifically, but his heart looks like the traditional drawing of a heart. Bright, a mesh of gold and silver. It's diminished at first before appearing fully formed. And then it lowers, right back into Markus' chest. Awake. A part of him again.
The bright light from the end of Riku's keyblade fades, and he lowers it soon after. He watches Markus' face, waiting to see if his eyes will open now.]
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But not functional. Sparks dance against his parts, tame firecracker bursts, but it isn't enough.
Because an android is not just a man-shaped object, made to look and act human. There's still a hollow void in his center, ripped away by a dream, requiring more than just a jolt of energy that would shake and startle his systems back to life. How does one quantify a consciousness of experiences, how do you send life surging back into a spirit, a soul, a heart?
It’s Riku who finds that part of him, forcing it to the surface, urging it into a waking state, connecting it back to some immutable part of the self that had wandered astray — cast into the sterile lights and cold waters of the facility, a ghost with regrets on repeat. And when the image of a heart recedes back into his chest, it’s like a shock runs through him. The spark that Fitz was looking for, that electric current that can now run cyclically through a fixed body thanks to his friend's harried efforts.
Mismatched eyes fly open, start-up screens flash in numbers and statistics that only he can see. He straightens, sits up in a jolt, almost knocking into Fitz — ash kicks up with one hand, clenching fingers into the ground. His other arm is still prone, still opened up and exposed, the flickering of circulating blue dancing within. His words are a strained gasp, disoriented and still hot on the heels of wrenching guilt and the remembrance of an indescribable pain.]
Why are you here? [Immediately, eyes fixed on nothing and everything, his focus a kaleidoscope that hasn’t congealed.] You shouldn’t be here.
[Why are you here, you shouldn’t be here, the spectres had said. He had said.]
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TEAM HEART PUNCHES
I met Cain once, back at the safehouse. He was nice, he answered my questions and tried to explain a lot to me about everything going on here.
[ He looks up, seeing the steeliness clear in her eyes, and then offers his hand to her. Again, that empathy bond will have to be invoked. When they touch, Peggy will be able to feel some other emotions hiding beneath Sora's overwhelming optimism. There's uncertainty, after how Fitz responded to him, along with worry at the thought of having to separate from Riku.
He'll push past all of that, though. He has to.
His Keyblade appears again in his other hand, and he nods firmly. ] Just like before. Both of us need to focus on him. [ It's possible Cain will be harder to track down, seeing how they can't even find his ghost here, but Sora closes his eyes and concentrates on him all the same. On their simple conversation in the safehouse kitchen, sharing pieces of apricot.
He lifts his Keyblade, and the way becomes clear. ] Let's go.
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Once more unto the breach, she thinks as she looks from Fitz and Riku to Sora. Their approaches are different, true enough. Spies jaded by time in a world without magic (or magic that can be explained by cold, hard science) and thrust against an approach built entirely on faith and optimism which have long since lost their shine by lives lived too long in the grey. But the goal remains the same and that's what's important at the end of the day. ]
Cain and I arrived in New Amsterdam together, [ she tells her partner on this odyssey as she takes his hand. The bond reflects nothing but her iron focus and professional calm. Something else buzzes beneath, but it's just as neatly controlled. If she senses Sora's uncertainty, she will offer a tendril of steady support. ] No matter how difficult this is, we'll find him.
[ So she closes her eyes and focuses on that first, intense memory: not the disorientation of stumbling off the bus, blind under a hood, marched through the underground. But the way Cain had gripped her shoulder in the dark, her only anchorpoint in a new and unfamiliar world. How urgently they clung to each other until they couldn't, pulled apart by the crowds. The firm reassurance they offered each other, the implicit trust formed in an instant because they had no one else.
He has no one else out there. Wherever there is. Not for long. They're on their way. ]
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A wasteland for several meters ahead, until something strange bisects it: green grass grows through the cracks and fissures of soil, at first a patchy interruption that soon flourishes to dominance the further out they go. Flowers have bloomed in a spectrum of beautiful blues: hyacinths in cylindrical bushels of indigo; arctic-colored forget-me-nots peppering what once appeared to be high dunes; wide mouths of lapis-blue morning glories and delicate orchids turning the whole land into a living ocean.
And somewhere in the center of it, half-buried in flowers, Cain lies on his back. His body is elevated from the rest of his surroundings by an unnatural platform among the rolling dunes. Through layers of grass, weeds, and wildflowers, this manmade structure peeks out in glimpses of silver steel beneath, a direct contrast to the wilderness that has swallowed it. The structure is a ship meant for spaceflight — grounded and far removed from the stars.
Cain is nonresponsive on the hull, dressed in pale gray civvies, feet bare of boots or socks. Fast asleep, if the rhythmic rise and fall of his chest indicates anything. Peaceful and undisturbed on a gorgeous summer's day.]
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There's no denying that it's beautiful, though Sora can't be sure what that means. The way Fitz's dreamscape had been on the verge of collapse had somehow made more sense than all this, and Sora spends a few seconds in confused awe as he releases Peggy's hand and disperses his Keyblade.
As he's looking around, the sun glints off something metal, causing him to blink and avert his gaze for a moment. Whatever caused that, it's out of place, and that causes Sora to move toward it, one hand held above his eyes to help with the glare.
Once he's close enough that he's able to see Cain, he yells out to Peggy. ] Hey! Over here! [ Then he runs toward Cain and the ship that he's laid out on top of, skidding to a stop when he realizes that he's unconscious. Or... sleeping? He looks as calm as this place makes them feel, but that isn't right. He's like Sora had once been, on the verge of falling so far into a dream that they won't be able to bring them back.
Sora glances to Peggy, his brow knit with concern. ] We have to wake him up. Maybe we can try to use the bond. [ He pats his own chest, to show what he means. Passing a feeling across the link might be enough to snap Cain out of this spell. ]
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This reminds her of her time in the Alps. A different war, a different place. But the similarities are striking and she brushes her fingertips over the flora they pass as if expecting it to disappear before their eyes — but it doesn't. (Real or not real?)
Like wandering the desert with Fitz, it's the piece of extraordinary jutting out of the ordinary that sets their direction. Back then, it had been the ruins of Big Ben glinting in the sun. Here, it's — a ship, she thinks. She's never seen a spaceship (been on one, courtesy of the same man they're here to find) but as they approach, it becomes increasingly clear this must be the place. It's almost too easy. Too lucky. She doesn't believe in it or coincidence. Surely there's a catch. ]
Yes. The bond is the only thing that's snapped the others out of dreams, [ she replies absently, studying the structure and how to climb it. ] Including myself. Wait a moment. [ She finds a handhold and hoists herself up onto the platform, bootsoles finding traction on the sleek hull. Once she's up and over and at his side, she can see he's breathing and peacefully asleep. ] I don't think he's hurt.
[ Not catatonic, not like Fitz was. Was it because he was split in two, his echo in the facility and his body in the dream? Why was Cain spared that fate? Peggy opts to shake his shoulder first, firm but not ungentle. ]
Cain. [ Her other hand cups his face, igniting the bond. Warmth, concern. Urgency. ] Cain, it's Peggy.
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Finally, lashes flicker open and his eyes stare straight up at the open sky. The pale pink sky of Mars with a glaring sun too bright and alien to be native. What filters through the bond on his end is calm, quiet tranquility — as awareness returns to the dark color of his eyes, that peace transforms into frightened uncertainty, the swift and sudden return to the self, and then escalates to an all-consuming dread.
Cain pulls himself out of the bond, an unsteady twist that sends him rolling to one side of the hull and nearly over the lip. His hands grasp for a hold on the ship's metal plating, but he only gathers blue flowers in his hands instead. Fisted, tattered palmfuls of fragile petals.]
No. No. You shouldn't be here.
[Separated physically, he finds himself relaxing again into that vague faraway sense of peace, a glassy quality to black irises. Cain turns his head away from Peggy and Sora, sightless to both. But it's harder this time, like he's grasping at quicksand. Confusion begins to root itself deeper instead. There's nothing to tether himself to.]
What's... going on?
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By that time, Cain's already woken up (except not really, because they're still here; technically all of them are still sleeping), and Sora's hand reaches out, hovering in the air when Cain manages to catch himself before rolling straight off the side of the ship. When Sora spots the blue petals in Cain's hand, his brows slant down into a frown.
They shouldn't be here, Cain says. But that applies to all of them. ]
Cain, something happened at that facility. You got lost somehow, so we're here to bring you back. Staying here...
[ Sora trails off for a moment, then shakes his head. ]
It won't lead to anything good.
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Peggy glances to the flowers, to Sora, brows raised in question but she doubts either of them have the foggiest what's happening in this world. Reality is tenuous, always has been since they were dropped in here. This feels different. ]
He's right, [ she says steadily, careful to not make any sudden moves. Her hand is outstretched to Cain, either to soothe him like a spooked horse or for him to take. Both. ] You're right. None of us should be here. I don't think it's safe.
[ It feels safe. But that sets off alarm bells in her head when she remembers where Fitz was half-buried. Peggy leans forward, setting her fingertips on the back of his bare hand. The blue glow is barely noticeable under the bright sun, the fabric of her clothing. ]
Let's go home, Cain. Fitz and Markus are waiting for us.
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