@parasitesiren continued from discord
In the bandits' defense, Newt was on Pandora. That alone was invite enough for something like this to happen. And sure, he was trying to bring attention to the injustices of the place, the inhumane way people were forced to survive in the wake of the corporate wars. The evils of corporations was kind of a theme in his work. It was a well he often returned to. It was only a matter of time until Newt had to travel to the borderlands and try to shine a light on the darkest parts of the world.
Things had been going well for a long time. There were a lot of close calls, even sticking as much to the 'civilized' areas as possible, but they had been surviving and getting a lot of incredible, thought-provoking footage that would surely get more people to actually care about what went on here. It was months before they got caught out by an overwhelming amount of bandits.
They were caught while traveling just outside of Prosperity Junction. As the first one recklessly threw himself at the Technical Camille was driving, grabbing and screaming about God-King Troy, it became clear they were not just regular bandits.
The Children of the Vault, then. They had been popping up all over Pandora in the months Newt had been there. With the ferverency of true believers, they threw themselves at them, grabbing and clawing at Newt's clothes and hair and limbs until he was pulled from the vehicle.
His wife was left alone in a horde of bandits, but Newt couldn't do anything to help her. He was dragged to what was clearly the nearest COV outpost. The religious imagery would give it away, if all the bandits' orgasmic cries of praise for their Gods didn't. Newt pieced together that Troy Calypso had willed this. He didn't know why, but he had a sinking feeling it had to do with the drone following this whole ordeal. It kept loyally recording, even as the bandits deposited him in front of Troy Calypso, God-King of the Children of the Vault.
News travels fast on Pandora. At least, it does when you're a god. With devoted followers on every corner of the planet, everything gets back to the Calypsos sooner or later. When reports of a dweeb with a camera drone asking pointed questions about the daily lives of the people on Pandora got back to them, Troy knew right away who it was.
Tyreen laughed it off. Sure, anyone spreading anti-COV propaganda needed to die, but what's a scrawny nerd with a camera going to do? The problem gets delegated to her own scrawny nerd with a camera: go find a follower with low enough listening comprehension to not get confused by whatever Newt says while pleading for his life, send them out with a camera drone after them and a gun.
Troy agrees and then, as usual, does whatever he feels like doing. Which isn't Tyreen's stupid plan. She doesn't get just how big this guy is. Yes, his anti-COV propaganda is probably getting tons of views, which is a problem, but views come from viewers. Viewers who were previously not watching their streams, but could be if that was the only way to find out whether their precious celeb lived or died. So, new plan. Better plan. He puts out a call to the bandits in the nearby area; bring Corey Newton in alive.
Somehow, they succeed, though the risk of someone fucking up and killing him was ever present. He's dropped in front of Troy, camera drone and all.
Troy looked nearly asleep from boredom when the doors first opened, but he springs to life at the sight of him, hopping down off the metal throne on which he sat. He grabs Newt with his metal arm, slung around his shoulders like they're buddies, and grabs Newt's drone with the other, making sure the two of them are up close and centered on screen. His own drone springs to life out of his arm, finding a nice high angle shot to show his own viewers the full scene.
He takes the opportunity to whisper in Newt's ear, where the cameras won't pick it up, "Dude, this is super fucking cool. Big fan."
And then he clears his throat and addresses the drone. "Hellooo, lame ass high brow viewers! Got a very special collab for you today! It's the crossover you didn't know you wanted! But, now it's here, and you want it, so uh… Corey Newton everyone! Tune into my channel, Troy Calypso, not Tyreen Calypso, and not our main channel, to find out if lanky here lives or dies! We're gonna be running polls all night to find out what you want to see us do to him!"
He takes his arm from around Newt and shoves the camera against Newt's chest. "I know your shit's not live. Do whatever you gotta do to get this video out there. Pop it on social media or something, I don't care. Let's get some viewers."
Newt opens his mouth to argue, or at least to comment, but there's really no point. Instead he takes the drone and uploads Troy's brief footage to his social media. It was definitely going to be abrupt and alarming, especially because Newt never posted about anything but his videos. Troy also didn't say the url so his viewers would have an extra step looking up where Troy Calypso's livestreams even were: Newt considered adding the link to the post but decided that was being a little too helpful to his kidnapper.
Newt presses post and holds the camera drone to his chest. He hopes that Troy won't take it and break it, because this camera drone is a very expensive professional model that he likes a lot, but he doesn't have the highest hopes for the integrity of his things to be respected. About as much as he's expecting his own integrity to be respected. This was not good for him. The only way to get through it was to play for the cameras. He wasn't so sure his on-camera persona was the kind of thing Troy's viewers would have much interest in keeping alive, but maybe Troy could be convinced, if he was really a fan.
"Troy Calypso," he says, not knowing what else to say. His voice is naturally quiet and he's only mic'd up for his own camera. He tries to speak a little louder, though he doesn't look at Troy's drone—he keeps eye contact with Troy. "I've seen some of your videos. Brilliant propaganda pieces. You have a lot of talent for someone so young."
Truth be told, he was planning on breaking the camera drone. But, Newt clutches it close against himself and Troy decides that it's not worth the undignified tussling that would be required to rip it out of his hands. He can keep it- for now.
Newt's next words catch him off guard. Though flattery isn't going to win him his freedom, it does momentarily stun Troy. He wasn't lying when he said he'd always been a fan of Newt's. "You really think so? I mean- duh! I'm a god. Can't get much better than that. But, enough about me-"
He shifts the dialogue to Newt. He's not particularly used to hosting alone. Usually Tyreen carries the pressure of coming up with a constant barrage of clever things to say, and he just pipes up whenever he's hit with something particularly witty to contribute. But, he is good at propaganda. He's pretty sure if he just lets Newt talk for awhile, he'll say something that Troy can spin to make him sound even worse than he already does.
"Why don't you tell the viewers at home who you are? And what you've been doing lately? Word on the street is you've been trying to keep these poor innocent-ish Pandorans from reaching the Great Vault. I mean, you're kinda public enemy #2 right now, right behind the vault thieves. Or at least you will be in about 15 minutes. Better say something good fast if you don't want this whole planet to turn on you."
Newt had a strong feeling that there was basically nothing he could say to dissuade these ravenous cultists from wanting to kill him. The ones here were cheering at everything Troy said. He could only imagine how the chat sounded.
"Um, I'm Corey Newton," he said hesitantly. He didn't want to play along, but what choice did he have? "I'm a documentarian, I make… documentaries…"
Would it even help to argue with what Troy was saying? The idea that Newt could stop them from opening the Great Vault was absurd. He was a guy with a camera. From the way the crowd was screaming for his blood, though, Troy's word was obviously all they needed. Newt hugged his camera drone tighter to his chest.
The crowd wasn't who he should be talking to. Troy was the one who needed to be convinced, but how was Newt supposed to do that? "You'll tell your followers whatever you like. I'm sure they'll believe you. It's quite the following you've amassed. I've been seeing the Children of the Vault around since the moment I set foot on Pandora."
"Our marketing's pretty sick, right? You could learn a thing or two from us. No one down here even knows who you are. Kind of a shame, honestly. They get super pumped about, you know, death to the corporations. Your Olympus stuff could've really landed with the bandits if it wasn't so artsy. Actually- lemme roll some footage. Give em a break from trying to figure out what documentarian means."
He presses some buttons on the side of his own drone and the livestream cuts to a pre-edited compilation reel of clips from Newt's documentaries. Mostly him asking questions about death and violence, split with shots of Camille and Violetta (featuring uncalled for bouncy sound effects while zooming in on Camille's chest.) The videos are played on screens around the room at the same time, letting the live audience have a look, as well.
Troy seems to have lost sight of trying to turn the crowd against Newt. But, nobody wants to watch a stream of a nobody. He wants to push an angle of Newt being a badass; just not as much of a badass as the Calypsos. It'll make his final defeat more satisfying.
He takes the opportunity to talk to Newt without the cameras actively rolling. "I'm not gonna kill you, like, immediately. You can chill. We're gonna milk this for views as long as we can."
Newt wasn't expecting a compilation reel. He wasn't expecting any of this, to be honest. He didn't think anyone on Pandora would notice he was there at all. Maybe it would be flattering that Troy actually did seem to be a fan if it weren't for… well, everything else.
"Were the, er, cleavage shots of my wife necessary?" Newt knew there was nothing he could do about it, but he felt like he should say something. Violetta started talking on the screens and he flinched slightly at the sound of her voice. He had to focus to tune her out. Most of the clips were from his first documentary, Me and Olympus, and having to listen to bandits cheer and catcall at such a personal part of his life was putting him even more on edge.
"That's a relief." He wished Camille was here. He didn't want this to be happening. "It's good to know I won't be brutally murdered until there's a dip in views."
