TEST DRIVE #002

[reveriemod]

TEST DRIVE #002

( 0 0 1 ) » WAKE UP

Were you asleep or were you unconscious? It doesn't matter: when you come to, there's an odd taste in your mouth and there's a low-level mechanical hum in the air. Your head hurts and you feel nauseous. You aren't anywhere you know: everything around you is metal, from the floor you lie on all the way to the ceiling. You are dressed in a jumpsuit you definitely weren't wearing before.

"We tried to save the world. I think— I think we did the opposite."

The message repeats on a loop. If you look for its source, you find a comms device on the floor next to you. The logo on its wallpaper says REVERIE TERMINAL. Upon closer inspection, you find the same logo on your jumpsuit.

Welcome to your new home. What choice do you have but to explore your surroundings?

( 0 0 1 . 1 ) » WAKE UP WHERE?

When you wake up, you find that you're not alone. But more importantly, you find that you're in a closet. An empty closet, bar you and your new companion. It's small, cramped, and there is no door that you can see. The ceiling is low, there is barely any lights, only some coming from the tiny flashlight clipped to your suit's shoulder. You cannot be sure that there is any air coming in to the room.

Are these grooves in the wall supposed to mean something?

( 0 0 2 ) » OBSERVATION DECK

There were no windows in the corridor you woke up in and no windows in any of the crew quarters you might have checked for occupants — but there are plenty of windows on the uppermost level of the station, deck 1. In fact, there are windows from floor to ceiling all along the circumference of the station's circular deck, and it's possible to walk along it all. What it shows is a strange solar system you've never seen before and a planet that might resemble one you know, but certainly isn't the same.

You're in space. You don't know where you are. Neither does anyone else.

( 0 0 3 ) » BAR

On deck 3, you find the bar. Tucked away from the crew quarters, it's dimly lit, there are bar stools thrown down on the floor and what looks like some very old drink spills, crusty and dark against the bar top. But there is alcohol here, or at least, what you think is alcohol, in bottles with faded labels, most of them indecipherable. Take a drink, get drunk, start a fight, or start a party? You're stuck on this station, might as well make the most of it, right?

( 0 0 4 ) » SPACEQUAKES

One second, you are is walking. Magnetic boots are on, the ground feels solid enough, for a metal deck in a space station. Everything is perfectly fine, or at least as fine as it can be, given that you still don't know where you are or how you came to be here.

The next moment, it's like everything explodes around you. You're thrown against the wall as sparks erupts from electrical panels, as the whole station rumbles and shakes around you. You fall to the deck, earning yourself scratches from the grating. When you look up, it's like nothing has happened. No wires hanging from open panels, no flickering lights, no more shaking. Like an earthquake in space.

( 0 0 5 ) » NETWORK

The comms device you found next to you when waking up connects to a station-wide network, REVERIE NET. You have the option to post video, voice or text messages.

What will you share?

( 0 0 6 ) » WILDCARD

The station features a variety of locations, from sleeping quarters free for the claiming to a dirty swimming pool and a bar that still holds alcohol (though some of the bottles seem to have been opened a while ago).

Go wild, but don't wreck the place. It's your home for the foreseeable future, after all.

Comments

[magneticfields]

[ It's his concern for the man that dooms him. He doesn't register the approaching blow until it's too late. He dodges quickly, but still catches the worst of it right on his jaw and collapses. ]

What the fuck?

[ He scrambles to his feet, preparing to dodge anything else. Or even return it if he can. ]

[personify]

[Raven wants to get in close and quickly, which means all of her focus needs to be on her actions and not on controlling her appearance. A lesson Erik taught her, no less. Shifting to her true form mid-movemnet, Raven tries to tackle him to the ground and wrap her arm around his neck from behind.]

[magneticfields]

[ He isn't surprised when Raven reveals herself. But he can't figure out why she's attacking him. They parted on unusually good terms when he left Westchester. She gets him in a chokehold and he does his best to get back to his feet. She's more than his match in skills, the best thing he can do is make the most of his height. ]

Raven. What. Happened.

[ He breaks free and does his best to ward her off. ]

I told you I was leaving!

cw: blood

[personify]

[When he gets away, her eyes dart around them- everyone is giving them a wide birth or leaving the room to get help. But that's not what she's worried about. There's so much here he could use against her here.

And yet, he's not. Raven's not sure what to make of that.]

What are you talking about?! You tried to kill me! [Her rage boils as she steps forward to try and attack him again, instead stumbling and collapsing to the ground with a shriek of pain. She's done irrevocable damage to her stitches in the struggle, now bleeding down her leg. ]

[magneticfields]

[ The shock of the attack is still slowing him down. ]

Not recently!

[ They've been over this, why is she bringing it up now, so many years later? Then she collapses and he scrambles to her side. And realizes the wound is one he recognizes all too well. Shit. ]

Shit.

[personify]

[The fact that he seems so concerned is enough to stop her from trying to subdue him again. That doesn't stop her from pushing back from him on the ground, teeth clenching in an attempt to hide the amount of pain she's actually in.]

Not recently? You only just attacked me!

[Raven's staring at him, her rage muted enough to actually look at him now without the cloud of betrayal marring her reasoning skills. There are differences from the man she's just seen. The beard, a few more added wrinkles...] Erik? [What's going on? Now she's not so sure.]

[magneticfields]

[ It's like being faced by some vengeful Dickensian ghost. The ghost of cruelties past. How arrogant he was. How little faith he had in the people who loved him most.

She had still come to Cairo, risked her life, to stop him from his own spectacular attempt at self-destruction. She had convinced the rest of them to join her. Because of her faith in him. He thought he had appreciated the depth of that act but being confronted with just how much he had hurt her he realizes how little he would ever truly understand her. ]

We're in space. We've been... kidnapped or something, I don't know. I've been here for weeks. There's only a handful of mutants, most of them are something else. When I left Earth it was 1983.

[ He touches his jaw. Damn. That's going to bruise. ]

[personify]

[She wants to argue with him that everything he's saying is a lie meant to distract her. But it's all so utterly ridiculous. So ridiculous that it almost had to be true. Pushing back from him, she fights through her protesting leg to get back to her feet.]

I was just in Paris. 1973. [As well he probably knows. She blinks trying to push past how dizzy she felt and keep at bay the growing darkness in the other corners of her field of vision.]

[magneticfields]

[ He frowns in concern at how she sways on her feet. ]

I gathered as much. Have you gotten any treatment? You must have lost a lot of blood.

[ The exertion of the fight wouldn't have helped with that, either. ]

I can stitch it up.

[personify]

I've done what I could on my own. [But she didn't have access to a needle and thread so attempting any sort of stitches on herself hadn't been an option. She's taken on a slightly paler shade of blue, but it putting up the best front she can.]

[Before she'll let him anywhere near her, she wants to know why. Charles had said some things, but it was all a jumble and then the chaos afterward made it hard to sort through.] Why'd you do it?

[magneticfields]

At least sit down. The last thing we need is you getting a concussion when you faint.

[ He does. Leaning his back against the bulkhead and pulling his knees up slightly. The question isn't easy to answer, but she deserves an explanation. He doesn't look at her as he speaks. ]

Because they wanted you. Trask and his scientists. They were going to experiment on you. Torture you. Use what they could find in your DNA to improve the Sentinels. Turn your powers against us. [ He looks to her. ] I thought I had to.

[personify]

[She takes a few shaky steps back into a chair. What he's saying, it all makes sense. It all tracks with how she knows Erik operates. Do what's best for mutant kind, at any cost. Even if that cost is her life. That still doesn't make it an easy thing to accept.]

But you didn't manage to kill me. [Because he talks like she's still alive ten years later.] Did Trask do it? Make the Sentinels stronger? [She feels nauseous, perhaps partly because of her leg, but mostly by the potential implications.]

[magneticfields]

No, I didn't.

[ He feels the same sick, hollow sadness he felt on the plane to Paris when he realized what he would have to do. Except now it's somehow worse, because she's there, and suffering, and hates him for very good reasons. Along with Charles and Hank, who he knew would hate him for it as well. How did they get past this point? How did he end up back here?

He hates time travel. ]

I don't know. There was blood. They got some of it. I don't know if we managed to change the future, which was the whole damned point.

[ He rubs a hand over his hair. ]

If our situations were reversed, I'd want you to do the same. No single one of us is more important than the cause.

[personify]

[She's quiet, the gears turning as she processes everything. It's too much. Raven had been trying to help the mutant race, not be the cause of it's destruction. Trask needed to die, how was she to know that her actions would only make it worse.

Then Raven's looking at him, contemplating if their roles were reversed. Could she do the same? Could she have just killed him? The simplest solution to avert disaster? She's not so sure that she'd be able to make that decision, even if on an intellectual level she knows it might be the best answer. It doesn't feel right. And while her anger is dulled somewhat, it's still there. The emptiness still eating at her from the inside.] Let's hope it doesn't come to that.

[magneticfields]

[ She falls silent, and he does as well. It's all such a hollow justification. But he knows that if it came down to it, he would do it again. To any of them. Because he's the only one of them who can.

As dedicated as Raven is, as formidable as she is, there's still enough softness left in her.

It's not a bad thing. ]

That's the point of what we do, right? So none of us have to make those sorts of decisions anymore.

[personify]

[There is still part of her that's not prepared to lose herself for the sake of the greater good. Dying is one thing. Killing Trask. That feels right. Killing someone she cares for is an entirely different thing. It would be a far worse fate than her own death.

What might she become then?]

Do you actually think we'll ever get there? To a time when mutants aren't murdered, experimented on, or forced to live in fear?

[She's not so sure that can happen.]

[magneticfields]

[ In the end, he choked. He couldn't do it. No matter how much he believed that it had to be done, that it had to be him, in the end he couldn't do it. He couldn't kill her. Knowing that he shot both her and Charles is enough to keep him up at night. Knowing that as bad as they all thought he was, he still had the potential to be worse. They don't even know about Apocalypse.

About Nina. ]

I have to.

[ The belief that this was all for some purpose is the only thing keeping him sane. ]

[personify]

I want to believe too. [But she so fucking tired. She just wants Trask dead, it's all she can bring herself to focus on. One enemy at a time. One foot in front of the other.]

[magneticfields]

[ He reaches and touches her hand. He wants to offer more comfort than is really possible. Their mission is dangerous, and the odds are stacked against them. Erik's daughter has already paid the price for his mistakes.

Raven hasn't made the same mistakes he has. ]

Your instincts are better than mine. So long as you do what you know is right, you will be helping us achieve that goal.

[personify]

[Surprisingly, Raven doesn't tear her hand away from his. It's progress. And it's due in now small part to shock. Hearing Erik tell her to do what's right by her own measure rather than his? She can hardly believe her ears.

The words are out of her mouth before she can stop herself.] What the hell happened to you, Erik?

[magneticfields]

[ He lets go, and steps back. He can't tell her. He can't tell her about fleeing to Poland, meeting Magda, having Nina, and knowing some kind of peace for the first time in his life. Even if it was a façade that disintegrated around him, dissolved by fear and blood.

He can't tell her. ]

A decade happened to me, Raven. A lot can change.

[personify]

So I can see. [And it's making her almost more uneasy than if he had still been trying to kill her. It seems like ultimately he's come out of it better than before, but at what cost? She moves to stand, ignoring the sharp objection of her leg.]

I should... I should get back to my room. [She's got a lot to think about. About whatever might have happened to Erik. What she thinks about everything. It's a lot. And she's too tired to fully process it all.]

[magneticfields]

[ There's so much he can't say. A gap between them that hasn't existed before, and not due to the gunshot wound. The distance of time. Irreversible. He's never lied to her, and he still isn't. But he can't force the displaced memories on her.

So he just nods. And watches her go. ]