https://i.imgur.com/Fe9yilS.gif

[blyat]

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.]

Comments

[retravel]

[ We weren’t demanding trust of you, he says, when his partner uttered the words, You have to trust us but moments ago. It marks an uneasy dissonance, putting Fitz on edge, when he prefers to know where he stands, always. Ultimately, Fitz won’t disregard being spoken down to, or having a potential shortcut to his friends ignored by someone overly cautious — and doubts the other will forget his defiance in turn. That’s only fair. They work and prioritise differently.

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. ]

[saviorexe]

[Whenever they reach their destination, however the door deposits them, they find the soles of their shoes pressed upon mounds and mounds of ash.

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.]

[inherited]

["I know how to act on a mission." Is that how this should be viewed? Riku's not so sure. He's done that himself: when it came to saving Sora when his memories were lost, he did everything in his power to approach things without too much care. He told Xion that she had stolen her memories. He convinced her to go back to Roxas, and even took the latter down. All of it felt justified: or rather, was justified, in part by thoughts and in part by actions. DiZ had convinced him that that was the way to go about it. But as it went on, Riku felt like his heart disagreed. He could see that what he did to bring Sora back was cruel.

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.

[retravel]

[ The second a figure comes into view, he takes off. Riku’s words are almost lost to the wind, when Leopold James Fitz waits for no man, already dropping into a kneel beside Markus by the time he says backup (field mission terminology, at least, something Fitz can abide). Riku’s strange mix of forward (touching Fitz) and awkward (standing back) may merit thought later, but for now — there’s no room in Fitz’s heart for anything beyond the rescue mission. (It’s a trait even those closest to him have found charming and frustrating in turn, that he can blur entire worlds to focus on a person). A good thing, too, when this moment threatens to send him back to an aching wasteland and a lifeless android.

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. ]

[inherited]

[Once upon a time, there was a scientist named Ansem the Wise. He still lives now, but his history is what matters here. Ansem got tricked into researching the qualities of the heart. He hoped that he could find answers, could break down the heart into numbers and pieces of information. Sharply defined qualities. In the process, his apprentices were lost, and Ansem himself had to leave behind his life in shame. He let his stark, simple way of viewing matters of the heart lead him to being blind.

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.]

[saviorexe]

[It’s Fitz who works to fix his physical body, or some nebulous manifestation of it, planted into the ash of this wasteland. An engineer’s hands lain on a broken machine, imploring plastic casing to slide away in white planes and revealing the workings beneath; the electric blue of Thirium, stilled into dullness in its tubing. An android’s infrastructure built upon a synthetic skeleton. Actuators designed down to the most precise degree of efficiency. Wires that all feed into critical components (biocomponents, Markus had labeled them before), each failed connection being connected again. Readjusted and prepped for reset, anything gone ajar made stable by Fitz’s touch, wrongness turned right, correct. Pieces slowly back where they belong, like a jigsaw puzzle sliding into place, and with a snap here and an adjustment there, forcing organization back into his frame, Markus becomes whole again.

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.]

[retravel]

[ The details of it don't matter to Fitz, not now, when magic is just science yet to be explained and understood (multitool pocketed, coin weighty in his coat, the potential of losing Markus heavy on his weakened frame). When Markus jolts, he leans back instinctively, trained to expect a hand at his throat or knee to the gut — but it's just his friend, awake. Whatever Riku did helped break through the haze of undeath; and that's enough. ]

Hey, hey, s'okay. [ his hand has remained tight on the wrist of Markus' exposed arm throughout the process, unwilling to let him slip through his shaky fingers. As soon as his friend speaks, he leans forward again, unafraid. His mouth quirks, an attempted reassurance. ] Markus, Markus, we're here to help you.

[ Closing the panelling of Markus' arm with his free hand, he keeps their taction constant, blue glow illuminating the ashy space between them, even in this other world, as the synthetic skin reforms over white casing. The waves of calm he'd intended to pass through their link are overridden by relief, surging in tandem with the electric spark. If fresh pain and confusion threaten to drown Markus, Fitz won't let it. They share what comes.

And for this moment alone, there's a clarity to his touch: A keen determination that cuts through volatile waters. ]

Carter and Cain are waiting for us. [ said with absolute conviction, never a doubt in his mind that the others will triumph. ] Take a breath, okay. [ Fitz brings up his hand, fingers gliding over Markus' cheek and settle low on his jaw, like Jemma and Mack always do for him — like he did for Markus in the quiet of his flat before all this nonsense. Touch has power, especially here. ] Recalibrate. We've got you.

[ At least for a minute before this reality, too, must go.

And then they can get home, not just to the underworld but to New Amsterdam proper — a place where Sora and Riku can reunite, where he himself can return to Peggy as promised, and they can know their team is safe (insomuch as they can ever be, at their unstable corner of the multiverse). ]

[inherited]

[Markus' initial words concern him. Riku had come across the specters before Fitz and Markus seemed to join their ranks, at least as far as he could tell. (It's hard for him to really know, considering the circumstances. These dreams don't act like any dream he's ever seen, so every second he spends in them involves him trying to perceive the changes, the differences.)

Unlike before, Riku knows not to voice his concern. Instead, he closes his eyes, reaching out for Markus' heart. Even if he speaks those words, it's obvious to Riku that the core of Markus has returned. It might take time for everything to shift into focus, shift into how it's supposed to be. But that doesn't matter. He's back. So, there wasn't a need to voice it in the first place. (Which is a relief. Riku's gotten the impression that Fitz likes to do things his way.)

He reopens his eyes and watches, eyes passing between Markus and Fitz. No need to interrupt, even if he's right there.

Well, at first.

But eventually he does, tipping his head forward in recognition.] Hi. I'm Riku. [His words feel deceptively simple, which isn't a bad thing by his estiamtion.] Let me know when you feel ready to go. I'll make sure we get out without any additional scratches.

[Because they were already lost, weren't they?]

[saviorexe]

[The world takes its time to reform along its edges. Even being ripped from a spirit state, caught in the grasp of the facility, reality snapping back to an ashen world does little for his understanding. He’s jumped from too many extremes — pain, detachment and dysphoria, to an awakened jolt — without enough breathing room in-between. His systems are all tumbling over each other in their own respective start-up sequences, his body registering with the sudden heaviness of solidity, and confusion is the first emotion to balloon in his mind. It leaves room for little else.

He registers a sensation at his arm, exposed, open. An expert touch slotting plastic-white back into place, illusory skin crawling back into place. And then Fitz, there in his sight, leaning forward with fingertips brushing beneath his chin — and in droves comes the feeling of relief, an emotion far kinder than what he’s so recently experienced.

Eyes snap up to meet him. Recalibrate. Carter and Cain, waiting. The earth grounds itself, steadies on its axis.]

Right, I— [Recalibrate. Programs settling into normalcy. Breathe. He does, even if he doesn’t have to, lungs filling.] Peggy and Cain…. Cain, he’s all right?

[And then, stepping into view, a stranger. Markus’ eyes trail from his boots sunken into ash, up to his face.]

I’m… [It’s hard to understand what’s exactly happening, but he knows that this place — dry and grey and dead — is not where he belongs. Not where any of them belong. Markus nods, pushing his weight into the sand, trying to heft himself up on his own.] Right. I’ll follow both of you. Wherever you need me to go. Thank you for... for helping me.

[Because there's one truth he knows for certain, despite the nebulous nature of a decaying dream: if not for their intervention, he'd still be stuck in that place, a ghost haunting the remnants of a ruinous facility.]

[retravel]

[ Fingertips brush from Markus’ jaw to his neck, lingering — reassuring — so Markus can feel his certainty. ]

Cain’s with Sora and Peggy, so he’s going to be.

[ There’s little doubt in his mind that damage was done before Peggy and the boys arrived to help them. The head and the heart can only take so much, if they’re lost in another world. But it’s a problem for later, when they can privately note the damage, both internal and external.

For the moment, he stands (chest smarting, pain rising) and offers his arm for Markus to grab on the way up or after, should it be needed. Once he’s standing, Fitz nods to Riku. In normal circumstances, Fitz would portal his way where he wanted, ask for clarification or propose a plan, but Riku and Sora were immovable in their belief that their path was the only one — it’s up to them now. No time for anything else, when the others are waiting for them.

The parameters of the mission were set when he awoke, and he’d really, really, really like to get this over with so he can succumb to the ache all over his body (from this dream and all prior to it) and see that every one of his friends is safe. ]

Ready.

[inherited]

[A sound of affirmation bubbles low in Riku's throat. He stands straight up, and then he summons his keyblade, pointing it off in the distance. A keyhole appears, bright and ready, and then a golden door shows up around that hole. It illuminates Riku for a moment, sending bright light through his silver hair. He's confident and ready.

He turns back ever so slightly, extending and open palm to them. Riku offers an encouraging smile.]

Let's get you both back.

[Back to where they can't risk being lost. Riku worries that for however long they're in the dream, it may mean they can be. He doubts that it could happen under his watch, but ... well. No point in being sorry.

Soon after, they dive up and out. Riku will reach out to them later to check on them.]