[ PRP ] Archive Room No. 45 (Mark, Rep)

[Baneful]

As the door dissolved, Rep opened his mouth to cry out in protest, to ask her to stop, but it was too late, much too late and even as he moved he could feel the dissolution beginning, snipping away at the threads which tethered him to who he was. There was no time to speak or make a sound as the white energy crackled away at everything of him and treated it with the same disdain he had always treated himself.

At first it was almost pleasant, a baptism of fire as all the fear and hate were burned away, all the failings and weakness torn out of him and thrown to the wind, everything he'd resented pruned off, it felt like cleaning house, making him better, improving the things he hated. The memories flashed past as if his entire lifetime was simply a Rolodex being flicked through with pages ripped out callously at random but he let it, because it felt fine, because he wasn't afraid of it, at least at first. The images turned nightmare to him as the slideshow shifted and his mother was there, sometimes smiling, sometimes angry but more often completely distant and in a drug induced world where he could not reach her, his young self doing anything it took to try and get her attention. The memories wrenched his emotions up to an agonising pitch, leaving him nauseous with sadness and long carried hurts until they too were torn asunder. When she was gone, reduced to nothing but a stranger, he exhaled in a way which made him feel as if he had never truly relaxed in his entire life. Behind her went the men, the men who had told him to call them father while behaving like nothing of the sort and another weight was lifted. Everything became an abstract sense of relief which lingered and for every layer peeled away he felt like he himself grew in proportion to the loss, no longer constrained within the tight armour he'd built to protect himself, a wild animal freed from the shackles of its own nature.

Even the initial fear of the one behind the door left him, no longer afraid of Circe, now nameless and faceless, no longer resentful of women to the same extreme, smiling despite himself as he could hardly control the elation that bubbled up in him, stretching his new strength and sense of liberation. He was free and he did not even know from what. All that mattered was that something bad had gone away for ever and he felt safe and sheltered, and - though he did not have the threads of meaning to realise it - it was for the first real time in many years.

It was only when the nameless force did not actually stop and crossed his contented threshold that he panicked, this wasn't what he wanted, not at all. He didn't want to lose these ******** small things, these small beautiful things, all the people he'd met good and bad. But she did not have mercy on his panic or struggling attempts to hold onto the pages of memory as they were torn out of his grip.

Clarice, Killzone, Rin, all were removed before his eyes and the pain their deaths had caused him was nothing compared to the joy he had lost from forgetting why it had hurt to lose them. He lost everyone, even those he had wanted to know better but had failed, the bittersweet echo of America and the towns gone in a heartbeat. Jordan, Jordan he tried to hold onto, to plead that it shouldn't be him, it shouldn't be him, just leave him. But he was gone too and there was nothing but the tears which wouldn't even come and the sense of loss for something that had slipped through his fingers. Losing his memories of Harrison were the worst of all, indescribable panic and fear, enough to bring him to his knees and leave him half curled on the floor. When they were gone, all that he had gained in freedom from pain was negated, left with a void he could not comprehend and could not remember what it had felt like to have filled with love and kindness.

He realised as the last fragments scattered of those he had known that this had to be what the weapons felt like and how it felt to be weaponised and he wondered if they regretted it too as their sense of self slipped away like sand in an hourglass as intangible as smoke. He forgot them along with the deluge of other memories, all the weapons which had touched his life along with their hunters, B0nez and Ferros and many others besides.

His childhood was terrible to lose and an absolute end to the process for - as riddled as it was with the most heinous sort of memories - it was the rock upon which every other facet of his personality was founded, the foundation at the very roots of the person he'd become. It was the catalyst for the twisted tangle of good and bad (but mostly bad) which had led him to Deus and to a life where he was capable of doing terrible things to strive to do good. All the times he'd fallen and been left to fall, all the times there had been no one to help him, the mockery and the failed friendships and cruelty, like the rest they faded and left him with someone who was nothing but a stranger playing in the sparkling water in a dusty street.

Afterwards, he found himself stripped of everything which had made him the person he was, just a thin sliver of light and optimism, keen with curiosity and a desire to love and be loved. His very self had collapsed like a house of cards and the childish remnant was too soft and sweet to survive the harshness of the world, just the pared down fragments of what were the deep and essential parts of him, freed from a lifetime of bias and learned helplessness.

But protection ran in this place and when there was nothing left that was durable in him Blue Kingdom swelled to fill the void that was left, his memories of the place becoming absolute reality, the memories of Blue and The Boss becoming the only memories there were. When he stood it was simply dazed and confused and it was Blue who pushed his hair back out of his face and wondered what the ******** had hit him.

And someone was talking. Someone familiar.

Tracey was in a panic, unsure what was going on and wanting more than anything else to wrench his hunter out of the hands of the other weapon and bring him back into his arms, feeling the lack of the bond so acutely it hurt.

"I'm ******** fine." he said.

he didn't feel fine

"I'm.. I'm just." he blinked. "Was there just like, a really hot broad here or am I imagining it?" he trailed off distractedly as he recognised the voice properly. "Tracey!" he barked, remembering nothing but a world where he was lethal, dangerous and Queen and where the only thing that mattered was Protection and defending his king, where everything he saw was his.

"What the ******** just happened?"

<...are you all right?> he said, and there was a deep and terrible sense of dread at the hollowness he felt and the strangeness of the hunter. He had given up everything once and there was so little of him left, this felt like that, it felt wrong, so very very wrong.

Rep looked around. "Where the ******** are you? I can't SEE you." he said. "And why am I dressed like a t**t?" He felt like there had been a door. It had been right there. But that was crazy.

 

[Zoobey]

"How kind," a voice said from behind Tracey, who existed now only as memories of, "they sent you."

As she took form again, so did Rep's true weapon, in what should have been its natural form, had it reached its full potential otherwise. A form unfettered by forced obedience and cooperation, one that did not lose power to gain power.

"You may stay with me," she said earnestly, "you may stay as long as you'd like and do as you wish. Yet, truthfully, I am more curious as to this decision why if you do not stay. If you leave, if you call out to him, and he recognizes you as you truly are, then my curiousity will be satisfied. If you call out to him, and he forgets still, then I will take something from you as a price until there is nothing of you that remains and there is no why."

Baneful

Tracey POV!

Tracey can now call out to Rep if he wishes! If he does, he can only call to Rep where the door of the room has been, though Rep cannot see him or the doorway, he can only hear his weapon.

- Tracey can try to jog what Rep has left by calling to the remaining memories. However, he cannot use any memories with others (other than Rep and Tracey) in it.
- Roll 1d6 as you do so. If you do not roll a 6, he loses this memory
- Continue until you roll a 6. If that happens, Rep is allowed to remember that memory, and he can see his weapon again. If he does not roll a 6 and there are no memories remaining, then Rep will forget his weapon (in Hunter form)

 

[Baneful]

Tracey found himself leant shape of a sort he had never truly possessed, tall and strange, a twisted ornate statue of a creature with strange proportions, six lethally bladed wings and strange lingering halos of fear which twisted wheels of deep brilliant red behind him. He raised hands set with ten long talons on each and reached under the helmet to rub his temples. Every inch of him was clad in slick black steel and riddled through with red cracks, as if beset with corruption from the fall. He gave Circe a cold glare from where he hovered about a foot above the ground.

"I do not " he said. "Want to stay here with you thankyouverymuch. I spent QUITE enough time in the company of Marie. And while I'm sure you are lovely when you want to be etcetera but I would very much like my hunter back." he smiled fixedly in a way which bared a lot of very sharp red teeth and clenched the long vicious claws.

"Well we'll see if he remembers I suppose. There isn't much of me to begin with anyway, losing this much? No matter. If I fail I have lost what and who I chose regardless. I'm not afraid of you darling." and he gave her a wink.

Rep wasn't sure what was going on, only that it was ******** weird and wasn't something that usually happened, even in the casino.

Tracey said.

"Aye." he said uncertainly and it was his turn to wonder if Tracey was allright.

he said.

Rep looked deep in thought, but nothing sprung to mind, tangled up in the memories (so many of them) of the things that a mafia underboss took in stride, things he had done in the line of duty for the kingdom, but none of them fit what Tracey was asking.

 

[Baneful]

he looked concerned at the strange distortions on the identities.

Tracey did not feel emotions in a rich spectrum, not truly human and with no use for wild emotion, but he felt the panic of knowing that his own future and potentially Reps would slip through his claws if he couldn't get through to the man.

"I try no tae kill auld women unless like, you know. Their family ******** up real bad. Bishop gets...shirty about that s**t. I don't remember... should I?"

Tracey snapped, tense and stressed by the situation.
 

[Baneful]

Ok so he was in the mafia. Perhaps killing people was the wrong angle to take, perhaps something else, something more visceral, something more human would make him remember and make him see.

he said with a slow exhalation, his pride rankling at having to admit anything tender himself. Both of them had no small degree of pride, it simply ran in different directions, Reps towards masculinity and strength, himself more towards intellect and beauty.



Rep listened with bafflement which cleared to understanding like a ship from a deep fog, taking shape and form even as Tracey recounted the memory. He knew. He remembered, he remembered the conversation in a place that couldn't be Vegas with only Tracey and the agony for company and how he'd clung to the other - his weapon - for the safety he sought. And there was guilt he could not explain at the idea of having somehow forgotten.

"No." he said. "No. I..aye I.. promised. I remember."

 

[Zoobey]

"You remember," she in earnest curiousity, still just a voice to Rep, a presence to Tracey, the only one of the two with the ability to see her as she truly was, "what else do you remember?"

The walls in of his kingdom began to crack under duress, her presence exerting itself. Her tone became insistent. "< What else can you give me? >"

The LED lights of his kingdom faded, leaving an eerie blue afterglow behind. Everything so precariously laid out began to shake. "< What else do you have? > The pressure was building, an inescapable feeling of drowning. It felt like sinking again and again and again, hands once again pulling both of them downwards-

- When everything returned to normal again and the room was restored, all lights flickering back on.

"I am sorry," she suddenly said, with only a carrying tone of curiousity, "the promise is yours. I will return your memories, but I cannot return your will to carry them."

In Rep's hands materialized a strange diamond-shaped crystal. Twisting it one side revealed red facets, while the other a steady blue. Before he could think what this, or the will to carry meant, the Kingdom began to fully dissolve, unpeeling along the edges at first at the base of the door. As it did however, the blue lights and long hallway extended, guiding him away from the white void. The blue was safe, the white, if it was even white, hers. This pace crawled at first, and then stretched, quicker now, the white catching up-

- Until there was a dead end. There was simply no more blue left to tread on, the space around Rep closing at all sides.

"Jump!" Without warning, someone was behind them, who Tracey would recognize as the Sun lead. He pushed them past the precipice of blue, and they fell through what seemed like infinite white-

- Onto the top of green canopy. Grass. A soccer field.

"Keep on moving!" the Sun lead encouraged, nudging them as fast as he could. The white was beginning to peel through the tips of the field. "Twenty seconds! You can do it!"

Again, what that meant was still confusing, but Rep was already being forced to move, as the landscape changed and this time it was a long, long bridge made from weapons upon weapons, dulled with age. It extended into a series of stairs, as far away from the white that chased them as possible.

"Ten seconds!" Allan shouted, grabbing a hold of Rep, pushing him further ahead-

- If he changed to look behind he could see her watching them from her domain, never moving closer or further away.

The weapons shifted to papers flying all directions, each one drawn with whimsical crayon illustrations. If Rep looked closely, he could see one with a sun etched with words of something that felt almost familiar-

- "Five!" the Sun lead jumped just as the white tore up shredded paper at his feet, just as the white grabbed a hold of Rep at last and forced him back, as Allan backtracked and picked him up, as they tore through one last fabricated door that looked oddly like a vending machine-

And beyond that door, the white did not follow. Instead, at the doorframe, she stayed, in her white expanse, and simply watched them leave.

"Help me close the door!" The Sun lead had his weight pressed against the glass vending machine door, gesturing to Rep. "Close it so we can leave!"

Baneful

The crystal contains Rep's memories! He can shatter it any time during this encounter (or leave it for later!) If it breaks, it may take a while for him to sort everything out, as it would remain a jumble until he had more than a moment's worth of thought! If he leaves it for later, you can have a solo post/moment for him to gather his memories again after/if the door is closed

 

[Baneful]

Tracey gave Circe a very irritable "Of course he remembers" sort of look, before his expression for an instant flickered concerned as she asked for more, recognizing something of that insistent need he felt every single time Rep and him went into a battle in her tone. It felt like hunger, but not for fear, not in the same way.

Rep, even with the cast iron confidence of the Queen behind him started as the lights faded and he clenched his hands, irritated that the lethal claws which had been part of his ability did not come when called. If he still had the gift the Boss had given him, that raw and instantly lethal power he'd have leveled it at the voice.

He absolutely remembered that he really ******** hated ********." he snarled, but it wasn't with fear but irritation instead, a wild animal finding itself restrained and seeking to snap at the hand that seized it. He did not like the drowning sinking feeling, it was ******** awful and he wanted it to stop.

And it did, but it was by no virtue of his struggles he knew and he wondered if he was dealing with the king of some unfamiliar kingdom, his own loyalty prickling at the transgression upon lands that were not hers to tread.

He eyed the crystal thoughtfully, turning it over in his hands fleetingly, feeling some deep revulsion at it despite is beauty and pocketing it so he did not need to touch it too long. It was just in time too, the Kingdom beginning to lose its shields to what had to be her influence and he was once again living the dissolution of the world itself, the sky torn and the Boss in horrible horrible danger. He followed the lights because they were part of the kingdom and therefore part of the only one that mattered.

The white was quick and brutal and nothing like anything he'd seen before, chasing him like a rainbow chasing a rainstorm. When he found the dead end he swore again, set to whirl around and face down his doom if he had to. Allan was there and he did not recognise the lead, ready to resist him as surely as the encroaching power before Tracey in his thoughts barked. and he trusted the weapon, knowing that their fates were linked and he would not be steered wrongly by the sweet and sharp voice in his thoughts.

So he jumped, he jumped and fell and the blue was behind them. He ran because the voice in his head told him they had to and then he pushed himself harder because that was the nature of who he was, he pushed to excel, he pushed to be tougher and more fitting of his title, he was Queen and he had overcome this Kingdom eating bullshit once before, it would not halt him again.

The landscapes changed and he found himself wondering why some of them felt oddly familiar to him, though so very different from the Kingdom itself.

Tracey stated in a voice which permitted no arguing as they barrelled through the vending machine. He turned and immediately ran to the aid of the other man, throwing his broad shoulder into it and putting his entire weight behind it.

"We cannae let it ******** reach us." he snarled in agreement, though not knowing a great deal about what they were facing, knowing at least enough to understand that being consumed by that white would mean to drown in what had to amount to oblivion or worse.
 

[Zoobey]

There was a satisfying snap as the vending machine closed, and then Allan let go, sighing in relief. "Come on, let's go!"

One final door opened, and this one felt right.

She watched them leave from the other side of the sealed glass panel. At first, she took a few steps forward, the glass of the vending machine already fragmenting without the need for contact. And then, she stopped, as someone took her by the hand. They stayed with her until everything crumbled into white.

It would be a while before Rep regained consciousness again. Of the three, one had overcome the ordeal, had moved Rep to the makeshift infirmary, had waited until everything seemed alright, and had quietly left without another word. One would still remain, in the same world they always did. And the last of the three was Protected. The last of the three would dream every night flickers of red and blue, of something that endured for them because it was once a part of them.

None of the three could speak of what happened.

Baneful

Good for a solo/wrap any time! Feel free to make dream solos too to recover/get memories/however when you're ready! The crystal/memory fragment can appear in any reasonable form in the dreams!