driftfleet | Video/Action- First Pirate Transmission

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Video/Action- First Pirate Transmission

Who: Panem!Bucky
Broadcast: Yes
Action: The Bridge of the Wonderduck
When: Now

[The video opens with a view of Bucky's face, hair short, face scruffy and a steel determination in his expression as though challenging the very fleet to suddenly do something and prove all his paranoid assumptions correct.]

The last time I was on a show for other's entertainment, we were made to fight and kill each other until only one person was left. Supposedly that's not the case here. Yet.

I assume some of you have been making attempts to learn more about this place and the people behind it.

[A pause. 'What do you know' was on the tip of his tongue, but he was the offworlder now. He didn't hold a single damn card in his hand he knew it too well. He hated it. He'd have to change that.]

What do we know?

[Anyone on the ship itself for any reason will find Bucky at the comms station, waiting for responses and seeing exactly how far the system would allow him to hack until the firewalls caught him. Sometimes you had to test the strength of the bars when you were in a cage.]

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[Home? That might have made sense to her if he didn't also recognize the names she'd used. After all, she'd seen doppelgangers before with entirely different lives and identities. So, this was a version of a Bucky from a place that could draw people but also set people up to die? Stranger still because she knows Bucky is also from a version of her world. She may not know any Avengers and the ones here now may not know her, but the Hawkeye who had been here knew of a Kitty Pryde. The overlap was close. They were in some subsection of Earths less distantly separated than some.]

Versions even. One of them is still here last I checked unless he developed a sense of humor and this is his/your April Fool's joke.

I...[He peers at her, expression a mix of confused and reserved, like he was trying to figure out if she was making something up.]

So, logically, I can understand you mean pulling some kind of prank, but what is April Fool's?

[Is this a cultural thing? Sam had never mentioned it, maybe it was only on some worlds. It was definitely not important, but he was also super curious.]

[Definitely just made the different versions feel even further apart with that one.]

Um, it's a... holiday I guess? It's like a designated day for stupid pranks and tricking people in a "funny" way. [Definitely using the air quotes here and her tone reflects her skepticism of it too.] It's April 1st. Today.

Ah...

[...what? It must be nice to live in a world where things were light enough that such a holiday could exist and maintain. It sounded vaguely like something the Capitol would be interested in.]

I suppose there's no chance this is a stupid prank?

[They weren't really maintaining it, but she hadn't forgotten it?]

This being the part where you're kidnapped into space reality TV? No, that's legit.

Of course it is. Can't be that lucky.

[When has he ever been lucky? Well...Sam and Peg, but aside from that.]

Have we ever seen this audience that's watching us? Recieved anything from them? Anything like that?

You're in good company. I wouldn't call any of us lucky here.

[She shakes her head.] No one on the planets we visit have ever heard of the show or seem to recognize us. We do get sponsor drops sometimes. They're pretty much useless.

[It was like walking into a weird alternate version of The Games. They just lived, didn't kill each other. They received sponsor drops but 'useless' things instead of survival tools.]

Maybe the audience doesn't exist, then. Maybe it's all a sham.

[It's not groundbreaking, he's probably not the first to think it or say it, but it seemed more logical to him than some benevolent show-runner with adoring and absent fans.]

That's entirely possible they don't. Even if they showed them to us it could be a fabrication. Can't really underestimate people who can transport people across time, space, and dimensions.

But there also comes a time where you kind of have to work with the structure you know about and work from there. [Kitty has lots of doubts when it comes to these places. Especially after learning she was in a shared virtual reality in the last one.]

Fair enough.

[He wasn't ready to jump into bed with this place, but there did come a time when you had to stop jumping at every shadow or light a fire to get rid of them all. But complacency and comfort where what burned him with District 13. He'd worked and grown in that structure and the structure had begin to mold under him without his knowledge.]

I guess it means we just need to do more digging. There's always something to be found if you're stubborn enough.

Here's hoping.

So, what do you go by? Was it Bucky or James? Jim maybe? Buck? [Trying to lighten things up a little.]

I'm Kitty. [She never said that either did she?] Kitty Pryde.

Nice to meet you, Kitty. Bucky's fine, I'd rather not James or Jim if I can help it.

[His mother called him James and sometimes Peggy, but absolutely no one else had and he'd rather keep it that way. It just served to bring back up the whole 'not-original-Bucky' issue he used to have, even if it was especially silly now.]

Good to meet you. I think I can handle calling you Bucky. [She gives him a little smile, but she's still curious and confused.]

So, the place you're from, what was it called? Earth? [Just a different variety than the one she expected. One where there was no April Fool's day and you had to fight to the death.]

[The question makes him pause for a lot longer than a question as simple as that ought to.]

No...it wasn't Earth. I'm not sure it was called anything...no one ever talked about the planet as a whole. To be perfectly honest, we're not even sure there's any other countries out there beyond Panem. There was a massive war almost a hundred years ago and a lot of people and places were lost, but so was our history. There isn't any record before that time. Panem and the districts that make it up are all that's left.

No one's gone to explore beyond your country? [That feels like a shocking lack of curiosity, sir.] Is it too dangerous or is there no technology to help?

[The smile he gives is a little strained.]

We weren't allowed. Panem was dangerous and controlled enough. The word is that there's nothing else out there...there was too much risk to try and explore only to fail. As awful as Panem is-was, what if anything else out there is worse?

Besides, the ability to find a ship and actually set sail safely was very limited. I know there are those who intend to go and look now, but the government's been overturned, so the opportunity is there.

So, you were also prisoners. That definitely changes things. Sounds like you finally got liberated just to come here for a different style of prison. [The sympathy is there.]

[He appreciates it, but he also refuses to look too closely at that. He was on-edge enough about all of this and doing what he could not to let it show.]

Sounds like it, yeah. No one's asked me to kill someone else [Yet] so I'll take that as a good point, at least. For now, it's just a matter of surviving.

Well, no one has asked me to kill anyone since I've been here at all. I have been put in some situations where it was necessary. If that makes you feel any better. Maybe if I'd stopped before the last sentence? [But then she wouldn't be the honest, over-sharer that she is!]

[He shakes his head.]

Unfortunately, that doesn't put me off. I'm not sure what I would do in a situation where I didn't need to fight ever. [He shrugs.] I'm good at it.

[Why squander talents?]

Yeah, there's a lot of that here. [Not said as dismissively as it might sound. She gets it. That's her too. She's had years now and she still hasn't completely adjusted. She never had to kill anyone in Marina and that's changed since being in the fleet even after the most peaceful year of her adult life.] Warriors without battles.

Or purpose unless you make your own or follow the one they lay out for you.

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Video/Action- First Pirate Transmission

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