...And also these.

[thespaceopera]

[ Calibration Rooms ]
( for N-Z characters )

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ROOMS BY CHARACTER

N - Q Nami Natasha Romanoff Nelkeila Tarid Nux Nyssa al Ghul Octavia Blake One Peggy Carter Phèdre nó Delaunay de Montrève

R - U R. Daneel Olivaw Rapunzel Remy LeBeau Riku Robin Redbreast Rogue Santanico Pandemonium Shawn Hunter Stefan (Alesci) Salvatore Steve "Orion" Rogers Steven Quartz Universe Souji Seta Stiles Stilinski Syeira Tadashi Hamada Tekhetsio

V - Z Vash the Stampede Vima Sunrider Vision (The) Wanda Maximoff Wrath Yamanaka Ino

Comments

[mortalcoil]

Another frown, and he flips the marker between his fingers like a knife. He doesn't like any of this, but being bossed around by a doll-sized girl gets under his skin.

Fine, if she wants him to write all over her walls so badly... he uncaps the marker and steps over to scrawl out in neat, bold letters, 'I don't perform for strangers.'

[child_of_bhaal]

[Well that's nicely creepy. She actually stops what she's doing to listen. The voice might tell give some kind of information.

And then suddenly there's a thud and a leg and a far more recognizable voice.]

Robin?

[She shoves the curtain away, very concerned. After all he's dressed and wet, and that is usually not normal.]

Are you all right?

[Need a hand? Because she's offering one.]

[grounds]

[You leave the camp, and suddenly find yourself in a small group. There's a clearing up ahead. Signaled to be quiet, you crouch and move closer.

It's a deer! The excitement is almost palpable. It's your first day on Earth, and you're seeing a real, live deer! A friend moves closer, and a stick snaps. The deer turns, and all of you recoil in shock. That's not what you were expecting at all.]

[grounds]

[There is no way out, not that you can find yourself. You know what happened when you screamed. Will you do that again, or simply wait?]

[ino]

You could go with the chrysanthemum, I guess.

[ She points towards where there's a big vase of them, bright and yellow. ]

A yellow chrysanthemum represents a slighted or neglected love.

[grounds]

[No matter how fast or how far you think you're going, you end up losing the two. If you look around, nothing seems to have changed much. In fact, it looks exactly like the place where you exited the hiding spot, only that's nowhere to be found.

Strange.]

[grounds]

[The voices suddenly stop, just alerted to your presence. Muttering begins again, and you hear the woman's muffled sobs begin. Another voice-- a younger male-- begins to yell in protest. 'Stop. No, don't.'

Above you, scraping sounds are heard, and the voices grow nearer. They're right above you. A creaking sound begins, and suddenly you're blinded by bright light. Your vision clears. You get a look at your surroundings.

All of the men, save the younger one, are wearing a black uniform. One of them, face indistinguishable from the others, hauls you out of your hiding place. He's gripping you tightly by the shoulder. It hurts, his fingers pressing into your muscles, almost like claws.

The woman's crying now, appearing terrified, despite the defiant look on her face. The other male-- Bellamy, you realize-- is being restrained by two of the uniform clad men. He's yelling louder, fighting to get to you or the woman...

Your mother. Your veins suddenly turn to ice. What have you done? She'll be floated, released from the Ark's airlock, into space. Execution. All for what? Having a second child?

All of this hits you at once. A scream erupts from you, silent until now. There are no words, just fear in the form of a throat burning scream.

The man drags you away, claws tearing into your flesh, your protests brushed aside like a light breeze. You mean nothing. You can do nothing. Everyone you love will die, and it's all your fault. He drags you to the doorway, and as you go through, you black out.

---

Darkness. Silence. Fear.

Then voices. Again. What do you do?]

[ino]

They represent thoughts of absent friends, so in a way, it kinda works.

[grounds]

[Eventually, you feel a tug towards a tent, so you go inside. The interior of the tent isn't as bad as you'd expect. Assembled from all sort of mismatched items, the inside is fairly spacious.

Beside the pile of furs and leaves that serves as a bad, there are three different, objects: a book, a sword, and a mask. Since you're here, you might as well take a look at something.]

[grounds]

I know what it is, Shawn! [Octavia rolls her eyes, sighing.]

Fine, can we go back? Or home? I like home. [While being difficult, she starts to investigate, beginning with the glove compartment.]

[digthefuzz]

[Oh. It's her. She's back! Kurt is at a loss of words and waves meekly at her.]

Hey. Hi... Do you see me? [He sets down the sword and steps towards her in concern.]

You okay?

IM SORRY this took so long...

[heresyandlace]

[you know... after that little experience, he isn't so much in the mood for a show, anymore. between the snakes and these men, there's too much hunger out here.

so, very ready to kick more snakes out of the way if he has to, he decides to try making his way backstage.]

[dancingmd]

[She chuckles.] Fair enough.

[Then she sighs wistfully, resting her chin in her hands.]

I was rather enjoying the music.

[truthvalue]

I know.

[He smiles sadly at her, and stretches out his hand, an offering of shared understanding, if she wishes to accept.]

I lost someone too. I miss her every day. I think ... that's how you know they were important, maybe. Because you can't forget them.

[ino]

[ Fortunately, she won't really be thrown -- more of a soft fade, as the scenery around her changes into a forest, the trees around them massive and ancient. Ino is younger, here, and she's accompanied by two boys, who are both hiding with her behind some bushes.

What they're watching in the clearing ahead is something of a gruesome sight -- another younger girl who's tackled an older boy on the ground. She's bloody, beaten and bruised, but she has a knife stabbed into his arm. She's biting down hard on his other arm as he keeps punching her in the head with the arm that has a knife in it ... until he finally frees himself, tossing her to the side.

Sakura ...

The dark-haired boy next to her whispers urgently: "Ino? What are we gonna do?" While the other lets out a more frightened: "Ohhh ... this is gonna be bad ... "

Ino is frozen, watching Sakura pull herself up into a sitting position, a clear black eye forming where she was being punched.

"Ino, if we don't do something, she's gonna be toast!" The dark-haired boy whispers again.

The older boy that Sakura had on the ground gets up, looking furious. He holds his hands out, preparing for some type of attack -- "Now you're really gonna pay--!"

Before he can do whatever it is he was planning to do, though, Ino makes the split second decision to jump out of the bushes with her teammates, standing in front of Sakura to protect her.

The older boy is momentarily shocked, along with his other teammates -- but after a moment he laughs. "So what's this? The second string?"

From behind her, the pink-haired girl also sounds shocked: "... Ino?"

Ino lets out a bit of a huff. ]

Surprised? I swore I'd never let you show me up, didn't I?

[ One of the enemy team seems irritated by their intrusion. "These Leaf village worms will regret squirming their way into something that doesn't concern them."

That sends a shiver down the spine of the boy with the spiral on his cheeks, and he finally speaks up, his voice cracking in fear: "Are you two crazy? What are we doing here?! These guys are bad news!"

The dark-haired boy doesn't seem too thrilled, either: "Don't look at me, it was Ino's idea! But what are we supposed to do, just sit back and let a girl do all the fighting?"

Ino laughs a little. It's a nervous laugh, but she's doing her best to look brave and cool. ]

Sorry for dragging you all into this, but we are a three-man squad, aren't we? One for all, and all for one!

[ And with that, the memory fades into nothing, and Beverly is back in the flower shop. ]

[grounds]

[Now, it's as if someone hits a play button, unpausing the weirdness that had been Octavia. She enters the tent with her usual purposeful walk, snort at Kurt as she passes him, soon dropping on to the bed made up of blankets and furs. Turning to face him, the girl offers a sort of grin.]

Guess you saw that, huh?

[birdsbirdsbirds]

Because I'm still trying to clean up after the last time you went in there...

[he groans, remembering those first couple of weeks...]

I'm not that tall...

[unfulfilledpotential]

Uh-huh. Me and Cory, back in the 6th grade.

[At some point, he should probably figure out if this guy's from Earth or not, because a lot of his dreams have involved explanations and a ton of exposition - but he's too amused to care.]

We weren't the greatest students then, but a lesson like that... well, it taught us to take our work more seriously.

[killedwithlove]

[Cole takes a steadying breath and starts to climb up himself, confident and smoothly and reaching to grasp the hat.]

[touchofrogue]

Kinda out of my purview right now.

[A bit of a shrug, because yes, fire people can apparently shrug.]

But you feel free ta take what ya like.

[tothefly]

And why not? She had to start somewhere, leaning how to make her muscles move without thought. How to respond to orders. Did it have to start with violence? the two were closer than she might think. With the sight comes the impression of effort, exertion, exhaustion...and pride. Not a little of the latter.

The doll waits for Wanda to open her eyes again, toe shoes still tapping, though the sound grows quieter as the memory fades.

[digthefuzz]

[He blinks and scratches at his neck, sheepishly.]

Um... Yeah. I saw... a bunch of things.

[Then he adds, as if it's his fault.] Sorry...

[tothefly]

She nods at that, finally. Something they can agree on. What's worse? To be broken, but to know that it was your choices that made you that way, or to be whole and unaware?

"It's better when you can do your own forgetting. But if you can't forget, how do you carry it?"

[birdsbirdsbirds]

Yeah I am.

[he won't argue that first part. that second part, though...]

Why do they smell like honey, though? There's got to be a bottom...

[tothefly]

She could always say no. Instead, she picks up the slippers. The scent comes first. Sawdust. Sweat. Faint hint of mothballs. A second later, the sound of thuds on a wooden floor, hollow, rhythmic. The rhythmic sounds deepen, becoming less hollow. More solid. Louder. After a moment, the scent of other things. Blood. Gunpowder. The sounds of a struggle. Heavy breathing. A fight. A battle. A loud bang, a cry of pain, a startled female voice--and then as quickly as it started, the sounds and smells all fade back in reverse order. The scent of blood becomes sweat again. The sound of gunfire is nothing but a pair of toe shoes, quietly tapping together at the end of swaying ribbons.

She waits, to see what Beverly does.