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diatu2019-05-03 01:19 pm
magicademymods) wrote in diatu2019-05-03 01:19 pm
May Event and Intro Log
It is entirely possible the Twilight Ball is beloved because the general student body is aggressively amorous, but no one admits that out loud. With the dance on the horizon, the mission of the day becomes finding a partner -- or asking the prettiest or nicest or most tsundere to the ball before anyone else does. The Sundered are particularly popular by virtue of being new, so students may find themselves fending off invitations or even crowds of people interested in being seen on their arms. Even the younger Sundered have a few people in their age group who'd like to pretend they're just as adult as the older students. To avoid the mob, one strategy is to find someone else in dire straits and agree to be their date, thus giving both of you protection now and then. Another, stranger, vastly more unorthodox strategy is to actually ask someone out legitimately... if you've got the guts. (The third strategy is to go with Headmaster Birony, who has been occasionally heard to bemoan loudly and publicly that she has nobody, HINT HINT. But who could possibly be THAT desperate?)
So, yes, there's love potion in the water. Someone spilled an entire bucket in the river. These things happen. Luckily, as diluted as it is, the potion doesn't reach the levels of obsessive compulsion that the worst of them can; a person drinking a unfortunate draught instead simply finds themselves attracted in a weird and sharp sort of way to the first person they lay their eyes on, for a period of about thirty minutes. Diatu Magicademy is an inclusive and progressive institution, and consequently these potions affect and can target all manner of beings, from ducks and wolf-shifters to robots and dragons. They are pretty convenient about failing to bring about really skeevy pairings, though, so don't worry about being Hot For Professor.
An enterprising student who adds their own spin to this hallowed ceremony of delivery can make bank; singing and performance are popular ways to enhance a message among Valhudor students, and a recent trend finds quartets delivering acapella harmonies to the recipients of love notes. But simple note hauling can still be worth your while... so long as you don't find yourself delivering a creepy confession from a weirdo to one of your dear friends. What are the odds of that happening, though?
This month, however, the research team informs its applicants that there is no magic being performed. Instead, they ask you to participate in partnered interviews, in which two Sundered compare their worlds and ask each other questions while the researchers take notes. They explain that they wish to find commonalities and differences between worlds, in the hopes that this will help them identify a larger pattern in how the Sundered were brought here. How is this bad enough to merit earning a reward this month? As it happens, the researchers who sit with the pair have an Intimation Crystal, which shines red every time someone speaks to deceive in its presence. Lie or omit information or cover with half-truths and the interviewer will ask you to go back and try again -- and they encourage you to speak on everything you can. You might end up venturing into dark or unpleasant territory in these interviews...
With a tumultuous shuddering and an eerie, whistling roar, the first tendril of a far mightier being surges out of a wall on campus, venturing into the cloud-shadowed outdoors for the first time in its existence in this plane. Then, like a cloak shrugged off, the outbuilding it emerged from rises up only to crash to the ground as the Sundered creature rises up to claim it glory. It is a nightmare, a horror. A terrible, indescribable thing as large as a small building —a shapeless agglutination of protoplasmic bubbles, faintly self-luminous, and with myriads of temporary eyes forming and un-forming as pustules of light. For some inexplicable reason, it is colored in bands of purple, black, and gold, and several parts of it sprout white feathers. That's the bad news. The bad news is that this existential threat to reality does not go unnoticed, nor unchallenged. Mere moment after the Sundered creature makes it presence known, a cold wind begins to blow. The temperature abruptly drops thirty degrees, leaving those around in a clammy and miserable chill that feels like they've passed their whole body through one of the ghosts of Makerion Keep. This estimation is not too far wrong, for the pale off-white dragon that emerges from the clouds above is translucent and ethereal, save for the shining eyes of coldest blue that fix on the beast like pinpoints of fire. What a ghost dragon is doing here is anyone's guess, but when it opens its jaw to unleash a withering cone of necrotic energy at the Sundered creature, it demonstrates plainly that it will not brook this interloper on its domain. In other words, Diatu Magicademy is now home to a kaiju fight. That's the bad news. The BAD news is that both these creatures are, by their very nature, incredibly resistant to magic. So even as the professors spill out and split duties of getting students to safety and fending them off, the two beasts barely notice the arcane energy flashing through the air as they begin vigorously brawling. Thank goodness this is a weekend, or else you'd all have some serious trouble getting to class on time.
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Xemnas was making an example out of me for poking my nose where it didn't belong.
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[Somehow, the sigh isn't very condescending. In fact it's the opposite- he's never received a strike himself, but having dug through his stepbrother's mind, the knowledge of the sorts of scars that can be borne for punishment- more importantly, the attitudes that result- runs deep.
It was easier to be casual when it seemed like the blow from someone with a sensitive ego, rather than a reason more close to 'home'.
The staring stops.] ...I suppose I can't be surprised then, that however you seem here is so different from how Xion experienced you 'there', [He notes quietly.]
...Did you get very far? [Up the ranks, into the secrets...Isa can decide what he's asking.]
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[Isa pauses.]
I was the second-in-command...
[Remember that comment about the "higher-ups"]
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Should I 'subtly' explain the idea of a double agent to her some day, perhaps?
[Really his only hang-up is how hard it was to explain dancing, but apparently protecting friends makes sense to Xion so! Maybe this will...now that it's not 100% theory, anyway.
Now it's more like. 50% theory.
He hasn't ruled out brainwashing, not with his own world's track record.]no subject
[He laces his fingers together and leans forward.]
I don't think I could really be called a "double agent" back then, even if I was never truly on Xemnas's side. The only side I was ever on was my own, and I treated Xion horribly for entirely personal reasons.
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...That will certainly be a fun word to explain.
[Not. And speaking of self-preservation-] I'm still getting used to having a living body- and call it a hunch, but I suspect you're not going to try to throw me off a cliff for no reason, [Noa hums, shrugging.]
But computers are made of perception after all, and human curiosity combines poorly with it. [Which is his way of saying he was a computer at one point, basically. (And also that he's probably going to end up in trouble. Oh Well.)]
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[His lack of reaction to that concept almost says more than a reaction would.]
And I suppose we're in similar circumstances, I'm still getting used to having a whole heart...
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...Technically, this body is mine. I don't know how, since it should be crushed, but it is, [He answers softly.] ...My mind was preserved in a machine however.
...And machines don't have hearts, [he notes grimly.] ...I'd tried explaining the situation to Xion, while telling her she did obviously have a 'heart' as she defined it...she decided I must have been some sort of 'Nobody', [Noa sighs, a bit exasperated by the matter.] Somehow, knowing there were more of you, in close enough quarters to interact, I probably would have fared better if that had been the case.
[He was quite isolated as a computer after all.] ...But I digress... ...Yes. ...I would say we're in similar circumstances, at least if genuine experience following years of nothing was as much a shock for you as it was me.
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[Normally, he wouldn't bring that up, but it's relevant to a certain topic.]
Machines, toys, Nobodies. Hearts are too complicated to simply be a binary thing.
But it's all too easy for people to be convinced that the inklings of emotions they're feeling are nothing more than their memories tricking them. Especially when they're scared, vulnerable children.
[Is he talking about Xion, or is he talking about someone else?]
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...children, hmn. ...We've more in common than I thought I guess.
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The whole of the Organization was being manipulated. Xemnas convinced us all that the only way to get our hearts back was by furthering his goals and helping him complete Kingdom Hearts-- heart of all worlds, a source of great power.
[Isa crosses his arms close to his chest, closing in on himself, his tone of voice becomes carefully controlled.]
He took everything from us, our home, or families, our hearts. Changed our names. Told us weren't meant to exist, that we were literally nothing, nobody.
All we had left was each other...
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...Xion claimed memories were what allowed others to 'act' as if they had emotions- I want to assume the emotions were real, but even without that, memories would have been the last thing between hope, and the sort of resignation she seemed to have...
[A poor situation for those who didn't have memories to begin with, then.] ...Well.
...You're here now- a number of you, anyway, hmn?
...I certainly don't intend to return to any 'homeworld' at this point... [He's half wondering if Isa, and Lea, would consider that themselves now. It helps that he doesn't know there's a proper 'good ending' to be had.]
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So of course the emotions were real. Nevermind that Xion was never even a Nobody to begin with.
[Noa's next suggestion gives Isa pause.]
Lea has several friends he left behind in our world, so we don't intend to stay here, if that's what you're implying...
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[There's so much more good in his world than bad.]
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I also didn't leave it, I was killed...
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...I suppose we'll have to see if they find a way to revive people like that then- at the very least, 'this' is probably better than 'death'. [He'd hope so anyway.]
...Was there anything left behind that could stop those plans? [He finds himself asking, despite himself.]
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[Sorry, man. Maybe there's a way to revive you too.]
Of course, there's no shortage of heroes in my world. "Guardians of Light", as it were. Lea's one of them.
I believe they'll defeat Xehanort, the man Xemnas was working for.
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[Geeze. Anyway, he shrugs.] Well, if you're sure enough you won't end up back under 'Xehanort's thumb again, then who am I to argue- not that I would've had that right anyway.
[............] ...Does he have a plan? [He did kind of have an entire chat with him about practical versus theory lessons, so he's not entirely sure if Lea's the type to...have a plan.]
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[...]
But they made it to the endgame. I don't think any of them are they type to fail once they make it that far.
[Isa has faith that they'll win, basically.]
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[Protagonists, man.] ...Maybe while you're here you can even dream about the 'After' plan.
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[He crosses his arms, closing in on himself.]
But I'm no fool, I know that's impossible.
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...You could aim beyond, however. [Make it Better than it was.]