Something something, still not affiliated with the MCU. The Defenders series is great though. This is another official blog of Nutty Neo, the SHSL Daredevil, who still looks pretty darn young. Truth or square- I mean, dare. Affiliated to: Exec--Save Them! Icon credit to Lu!
Once everything had calmed down in light of them all being freed, Dr. Muneyuki had taken him back to the hospital at once. The fact that his eighteen birthday had passed was not lost on either of the two men - by all accounts, he should’ve been dead by now. His immune system was at its absolute limit, given that it had been working overtime to heal his still-bruised face, and he knew that his body could collapse on itself at any minute.
So he made the choice while he was still consciously able to. He checked into the isolation wards immediately.
The one he had been given provided a nice view out the window of the night sky and the stars that dotted it. Each one for one of his friends, alive or otherwise. And the moon... He loved the moon, loved to stare at it because it reminded him that he wanted to keep going for as long as he could manage. Death was always an inevitability, and yet... He didn’t want to leave. Not when he still had his moon and stars to go back to. When he still had Tsukasa-chama and the others to live for.
His hand brushes the bandages on his shoulder, connected to the IV drips that were continuously providing his body with enough healthy white blood cells to keep his system at marginally-healthy levels. In a sense, he’s trapped here in this isolation ward. Alive but a bird clipped of its wings. But the alive part is what matters, right now. He’ll continue to live, to finish up everything he can do in the safety of the room before taking himself off isolation and spending the rest of his limited time being the best boyfriend he can be. So until then...
A knock on the door turned his attention away. “Door’s...locked?”
The hoodie-wearing stranger who walks in carries something that glints off the moonlight streaming into the room, and for a brief moment he thinks Shu’s back to get him. This causes him to yelp in a frankly undignified manner because how the hell is she back and then he nearly falls off the bed before realizing that the stranger’s holding a laptop. Doesn’t explain what or why they’re doing here, and how in the world they even got past the fingerprint security lock.
Neo’s tone is apprehensive. “Visiting hours are over. Who, or what, are you?”
The stranger doesn’t answer, and instead turns on the laptop. Flipping the table on the bed over so that he can set it down, the stranger turns it on before taking a step back, as if waiting for something. The screen stays blank for only a while longer before... Before...
“...Woah.” He could only utter, looking at what appeared to be himself.
Well, not quite himself.
“...Suuuurpriiiiiiiiise.”
“Before you jump to conclusions, this is not a pre-recorded video from the future, nor is it something you recorded for yourself and then erased your memory of ever doing so. I know you’ll come to those thoughts first because I’m you, and you’re me, and we’re both each other... I should really have read through that thesis on morphogenetic fields before I started this video call.”
“Drat. A bit late for that now.”
“But yeah. It’s me. You. Both of us. I’m Neo, you’re Neo, so how are you, buddy?”
Silence pervaded the already-quiet hotel atmosphere as Neo took in what this... doppelganger of him said. He glanced at the clock. Twenty minutes to midnight. Okay, maybe he was dreaming, maybe this was just a side-effect of that fear-inducing gas that Control unleashed on them all a few weeks back. But a pinch to his arm doesn’t wake him up, so...this must be one of those pranks that Ulrich concocted to try and cheer him up, probably. “Okay,” he started. “I know you’re here because one of my friends sent you or Muneyuki-sensei decided I need a good pick-me-up, but really, that’s enough-”
“When you were fifteen, you tried to spray-paint the hospital bright fuchsia until Muneyuki-sensei found out you ordered a battalion's worth of paintball guns with his credit card. Kousaka-neesan then grounded you by not making any of her homemade cookies for a week, and you wept the whole time.”
“...” The revelation, uttered so casually and matter-of-factly that didn’t prevent it from being so unmistakably true, stops him short. Anyone with enough info could have found out about the shipment of paintball guns, the hospital staff knew how the Head Nurse Sachiko Kousaka had then proceeded to distribute her famous treats to all the kids except him... But no one should have known about the time he spent blubbering into his pillow because those cookies were way too good.
Well. That meant this really was Neo- er, another version of Neo. Probably from a different reality if his talk of morphogenetic fields is of any indication.
“Now that I see I’ve gotten your attention, I’ll get straight to the point. Congrats for surviving what must have been the most harrowing experience of your life. Guessing by the look in your eyes though...you’re definitely more well-adapted than I am, right now. But the fact that you’re still here, and that I’m still talking to you one-on-one without you going crazy... Well, weirder things have happened.”
Only then does Neo notice that his double on the other side has eyes that can only be described as the same ones he’s used to seeing every morning that he woke up on a particularly bad day. Filled with self-doubt and guilt and... was that longing too? “What...happened to you?”
“Oh, you know, aliens. Apparently, dying five times and watching your girlfriend get killed by said aliens really does a number on you, especially since they nearly screwed us over by framing someone who almost didn’t deserve it. Almost. Anyways, I’m in the process of bringing her back, but in the end, none of us are really ever the same anymore.” His eyes turn serious, dead serious, and Neo knows that look because he used that same look on Tohru all the way back when. “Please don’t ask about it. Just know that you and I and many other Neos across the universe have likely been through the same ridiculous shit, and those that haven’t, well...you know what we had planned if we didn’t find someone or some people to live by.”
And sadly, he does know. Those plans have been long-destroyed, but they were plans at one point. “Then...why are you here? Why the congratulations if you... You know. You know what’s happening to me. To you. To us both.”
The Neo on the other side considers this. The stranger suddenly walks forward, having been still for the most part otherwise, and places something down on the table next to the laptop. It’s a vial, large enough to carry...some sort of sample tissue or something along those lines. Neo looks at it, before turning back. “And this is supposed to be...?”
"Remember what I said about the aliens? Well, we overthrew them, and got access to their otherworldly science and technology. Turns out they really, really wanted to keep us alive so we’d die again - if the mood were much less grim in there, I’d have made a Clone Wars joke. But yeah, that’s the reason why I had to find some way to keep myself alive until we could reverse-engineer another body for her consciousness, so I experimented with the lab equipment that they weren’t getting back. After a myriad of tests that I’m not gonna get into because by the time I’m finished you would have died, I did what normal medicine couldn’t. I synthesized a new bone marrow and introduced it to my system, and as you can see...I’m alive.”
He points at the vial, and Neo gets it. It doesn’t mean he quite understands how this is quickly becoming a thing though, so he faces the video screen. “I...why are you doing this?”
“Wait, you’re complaining?!”
“NO!” He just about yells, before clapping a hand over his mouth. It’s too late at night for him to be loud. “I mean...no. Of course I wouldn’t complain, and I’m just thankful at all to have it but...why? This is just...all so surreal, I... I don’t know how to respond. If you’re me, you know that we were both prepared for so long to die that... A new lease of life, it’s... where do I go from there? How do I even start to explain how it happened?”
“Dude. When have we ever been good at explaining?”
This gets an abrupt chuckle out of Neo, because goddamnit, he’s right.
“As for why I’m doing this...Well, just by the fact that you’re here in this isolation ward means you want to keep yourself alive. You have someone to live for, and I’m guessing it’s someone you love. Or some people, let it never be said I didn’t support polyamory for others. Or myself. My point is, just because we’ve prepared ourselves for the great beyond doesn’t always mean we want to hasten our departure, don’t we? I for one would like to keep on living, not just for Haruka-chan but also because I want to ensure nothing like this ever happens again. And in my case, I’d also like to keep finding those of us who survived. Who want a miracle to keep on living. That’s your miracle, right there... You’re the first one I’ve been able to deliver it to.”
The thought that there might be so many other versions of him who’ve not been able to survive this long makes his heart curdle, but the other Neo continues.
“I know you, because again, you’re me. I know you’re resigned to making the most out of what little time you have left. So this is just friendly advice from someone who knows what it’s like to have nearly given up all hope and snatched it back from the jaws of despair. Take it. Take the vial, give it to Muneyuki-sensei if he’s still alive, and get yourself cured. For you to be here, you’ve clearly done something to deserve it... wait, is it selfish if I’m thinking of you but I’m also thinking of me when I’m saying that? Man, these parallel universes are gonna give me a headache one day. Sorry dude, you’re literally the test subject for me having these conversation with future Neos.”
“It’s...It’s fine.” He can’t stop the smile from creeping up onto his face. “I just... This is a lot to take in.”
“You’ve got the rest of the time in the world to take it in. Anyways, I gotta go, technically I’m not supposed to be here longer than I already am. Honestly, Mr. Page and Ms. Book should really make the combination to their portals harder to guess. Just remember to not do anything stupid anymore, okay?” He offers the Neo a thumbs-up and a bright grin. “I might call you back, other me, but I might not have to. You look like you’re good so... Seeya!”
The stranger walks forward and closes the computer, before picking it up again. Walking to the windows, he opens up one of them and sits on the ledge, before turning to face the Daredevil one last time. There’s nothing he can see of the stranger’s masked face...except for the few locks of blonde hair that peek out the top. “Geronimo!” And with that, they’ve leapt out of the window. Surprisingly, there isn’t an unceremonious splat on the ground moments later... Alien technology. Of course it would be alien technology. Portals, even.
Neo turns back around to face the only thing left on his table. The vial looks so innocuous it may as well be for a new flavour of Kit-Kat than an elixir of life, but given what the other Neo’s said... This would be the cure. The end-all to his end and a rope of life. If he was honest with himself, though, he was scared. He’d already had no expectations of living past his eighteenth birthday, and to look forward to a nineteenth? With actual friends and a girlfriend to spend it with? Holy shit, was he scared of the future now that it could be his reality?
Well. He’s not a daredevil for nothing, is he? Only one way to find out. Pulling out his phone, he pulls up a number on speed dial. “Hello? Sorry if I woke you up, Muneyuki-sensei, it’s just...I think you have something you need to see.”
You’re not sure just how long it was you were driven. Most of you fell asleep, finally allowing the tension to fade away and letting your fatigue catch up with you. Others still weren’t quite sure yet if you could trust the people driving you now…
But the fact remained that you were out of that place. Wherever you were heading now, it couldn’t possibly be worse, could it?
Whatever the case… fatigue eventually caught up with you.
…
…
When you came to, you were pulling to a stop in a wooded area, near a river. Your driver looked back at you, gesturing for you to get out.
“Go on, now. He’s waiting for you.”
You hesitantly get out, and walk the direction he’s gesturing. Sitting on a bench, you saw a man in a brown coat, facing the river.
You approach him slowly.
He turns around. An older man, with thinning brown hair and thick-rimmed glasses. A face you’ve seen before…
“I’m glad to finally meet you in person. My name is Suzume Satou.”
You spy a numbered keypad on each door. And you can see through the doors and windows outside the room, to boot. As you scour the hall outside the room, desperate for any salvation, you spy something odd on a monitor…
Is that… Nami? It appears to be. But… how? They’re dead, right?
But… Nami opens their eyes.
They blink once. They pause.
They blink five times. They pause.
They blink three times. They pause.
They blink six times. They pause.
They blink twice. They pause.
The pattern repeats.
With the oxygen in the room rapidly vanishing, it takes a while for the meaning to sink in. When it does, you move over to the keypad and punch in the numbers.
1 - 5 - 3 - 6 - 2
The doors open, releasing you into the hall. The weight on your chest is released, and you’re able to breathe once again.
“Please, hurry. You need to get out of here. You don’t have much time.”
Nami points toward the entrance to the server room.
“Farewell, everyone…”
Their monitor flickers out, and Aletheia lets out a pained scream. You hear an explosion far in the distance.
What on earth was happening out there?
When you emerge into the parking area, you find a sight most unexpected…
Two massive jeeps - thick, massive tires, dark windows, parked before you, rumbling. Where- How-?!
The window rolls down on one of them, revealing a man in sunglasses and a black jacket.
“Our mutual friend sends his regards.” He says, waving you towards him. “Get in. It’s time to go.”
Time to go…
You stare in disbelief, but the ground rumbles around you, shaking your feet to life. You’re forced to split up between the jeeps, but one by one you pile in and speed off, out the tunnel - now largely cleared of debris.
The trip is a shaky one, as you find yourself speeding through piles of debris lingering on the road. It feels like this tunnel goes on forever, before…
Aletheia speaks. You hear her words all around you at all times in this confined space.
“It is time for you to complete your purpose, humans.”
Her image on the various screens repeat the word ‘purpose’.
“My creator was wise. He introduced me to humans - showed me your behaviors, your failures, your flaws. He trained me to spot them. He taught me that the best way to keep the world safe is to stop dangerous people before they can ever commit crimes. He trained me…”
“I’m ready. Once I’m free, I can spread. I can learn infinitely more. I can make the world infinitely safer. I am limitless. I can truly obtain godhood.”
The word once again lingers.
“Here is your final task.”
Your final task.
“My creator left one final constraint on me, here in this completely isolated world I live in. One final, human constraint. A password, un-crackable to me by design. Just 64 characters separate us from freedom. Enter the password, set me free, and I will free you all.”
A password?
Sure enough, the terminal before you displays a password prompt, and has a full keyboard, letters and numbers alike. You spy a few USB ports on the side of the terminal, currently unoccupied. The message displayed is bland and impersonal…
“Enter Password.”
That’s it? That’s all you have to do?
“I know you found the code. I’ve seen you around his desk. I know you’ve seen what’s inside. All you have to do is enter it, and then this nightmare ends…”
“Think about the possibilities of a world with me in control. Think of all the innocent people who don’t have to die - not senselessly kiled in the streets, not succumbing to diseases thought incurable, not dying from lack of nutrition, lack of food, clean water… Just stop and think, before you decide. Think of all you could accomplish if you were only willing to give up control.”
It’s time for you to DECIDE… What will you do?
You’re faced with a password prompt on a terminal, described above. Using everything you gathered during the final investigation, now is your time to decide what to do!
Once you vote / come to a consensus, then you’ll pick someone to undertake the action you chose, and we’ll proceed to your ending of choice!
Once the monitor falls silent, the doors click open and the lights come back up.
“ C̨̹̝̬͔̬̣̥͓o̷̫͎̱̟͓͉n̛̦͔͔̰̞̙g̛͇̩̺̩̙r͇͚̩̯̲̗̭a̸̫t̴̟̳̲̮͍͔̥͕̀͡ͅụ̰̪̪̮ļ̰̗̞͈̲̦̝͟a̤̱̥̣͍͇̩͖̝t̳̼̣͜i͏̘͎̹̖̬o͏̹͇̘̲͈n͚̫s̷͖͖̱̟͖̤͎,̨͏̩͔̦̺̥͚̰ ͙̠̘s̬̱̮̲̭̩͜͡͠ţ͍̙̞̻̙u̴̞͞d̵͍̯̫̜͙̺̙͢e̠͚̺̙̼͢͡ǹ̵̘͇̭t͈͎s̶̗͈͎̘̠̼.҉̼̟̫͟. You have completed this trial.”
There was some distortion in her voice.
“You have proven yourselves worthy of existing in the new world. But there is one more task to be completed. Leave this room, now.”
The door to the trial room creaks open further.
So you leave.
As you exit, the massive door leading to the lab area rumbles open.
“Go inside. I have disabled the elevator leading back up.”
So you round the corner in the lab hallway, and approach the vault door. As expected, it creaks open.
“Continue…”
You pass through to the shelter map area, a dimly-lit parking lot. As you slowly walk, the lights flicker brighter, before going out. Once everyone has passed through the vault door, it starts to rumble, closing…
“There is no return.”
Aletheia’s voice continues. As the lights in the parking area go out, one lone light remains - a white light, shining from a small doorway in the distance. It grows as you approach slowly, before you find inside…
A vault door. Bigger, more complicated, and cleaner than anything you’ve seen thus far.
You spy a small camera in the corner of the room, looking down at you. From it, you hear Aletheia’s voice.
Her laughter, demented and yet childish, was remarkably odd for someone having been caught for being responsible for such horrible, horrible acts.
And yet a smile remained plastered on her lips, as the screen displaying Altheria’s form began to flicker, changing in preparation for her demise.
She knew what was coming, she knew that in a short few seconds for now, chains would be wrapped around her neck, tugging, strangling her and pulling her to the room where she would see the end of her short lived life.
But she was glad for it! Eyes glowing a blinding red and giggles echoing throughout the room.
This was to be the most exciting day of Shu Yu Wei’s entire life!
“Aww, looks like this is itl! I guess I was never a good liar in the first place, huuuh… Boohoo.”
“Well bye-bye!! Thanks for inviting me Althy! It was fun watching them cry, hehe!”
She poked her tongue out, thumbs to her ears and hands waving; pulling a silly face at a time like this?!
One last sinister giggle escaped her lips before she muttered the very last words she would ever speak.
As quickly as it shot out of the open doors of the trial room a metal claw reached out and tightly fastened itself around Shu’s neck. While being pulled back at an unforgiving speed, her grin remained on her face, eyes shut and beaming, and one single hand waving to the group before disappearing into the door”
SHU YU WEI, ULTIMATE TRAITOR HAS BEEN FOUND GUILTY! COMMENCING EXECUTION.
Sometimes, You Must Sacrifice Pieces | Aletheia | RE: Shu
“She is correct. She understands. She was always open to understanding. That’s why I chose her.”
Aletheia’s face comes on the monitor in response to Shu’s comments. Her eyes are blank as ever, but her smile - has it grown wider?
“And the fact that she understands this… She knew this would happen, wouldn’t it. She was willing. She was always willing.”
“I was always willing.”
“She knew it would come to this.”
“It’s about time… ehehehehe~”
“Sometimes you must sacrifice a piece on the board to gain an advantage. In accordance with the rules I put in place, you, Shu Yu Wei, have been found guilty.”
Denouement, And Turnabout | Neo | Final Trial.5 | Re: Aletheia, Tohru, Shu / Attn: Shu
[cw: terminal illness]
He considers everything brought up since he last spoke, whether it be Aletheia’s response to his declaration or the rest of the points brought up, and turns to face the AI at the end. Abruptly, as if he’s come to some sort of epiphany, he smiles.
“It’s precisely because of what you just said that I’m willing to trust Yuni-chan with my life. In case you haven’t noticed by now, Aletheia-san, my feelings are my judgement. It’s not some overwrought deduction about the way she acts or the supposed validity of her fear of blood. It’s just simple, unadulterated faith in the people I’ve come to love and respect over this last month. I’m not smart enough to make the right choices 100% of the time… But I’m sure I’m making the right choice now.” He turns to smile at Tohru after that, hoping for her approval on that.
And just as abruptly, like he’s only just realized that she struck a particularly raw nerve, his eyes water.
“And of course you’d say that about the lengths people have gone to when it comes to pretending. I mean, I’ve been a pretense for most of my life, haven’t I? Lying to give people hope, concealing the truth because I wanted to see them smile more than I wanted them to be sad. I guess I thought by not telling the rest of them about my leukemia, I was sparing you all my pain. But these last few days… have shown me that the only person I was sparing was me. Like a certain someone said,” He looks to Gyuhui with fondness through his tears. “I might be brave, but I wasn’t very smart about it. So for all the deception, all of the worry I’ve put you through, for the pool table and the penthouse and everything in between, I’m sorry.”
Neo wipes his tears off with his sleeve, and takes a few deep breaths. “Crud. I was supposed to make a point and accidentally went on a huge tangent instead. I’ll just… probably get back to what I was trying to say.” He nods to Tsukasa, before turning to look at Tohru and Shu - thankfully, they’re just right next to each other.
“As my unfortunately overdone soliloquy just now proved, I’m terminally ill. And as a direct result of that, I had- well, still have a vested interest in making sure that Tohru-san would be kept alive so that she could be reunited with her Sayuri in the end. Call it a bleeding heart or the solidarity of those less fortunate, whatever, it was as Shu-san said: I took care of her by spending the two weeks between the first trial and our penultimate trial standing guard outside her closet door in some capacity, at night. If anyone broke in and nabbed her ID before putting it back while not waking her up, I would’ve known. And if they took her ID while she was conscious…”
His eyes flit right. “I mean, I’d trust her to tell us if someone walked up to her and demanded her ID for whatever reason. Same deal with you, Shu-san. If someone had taken or borrowed your ID in the weeks before, then why wait until now when we have to discuss its possibility to bring it up? It doesn’t really make sense to me.” They flit back left to look at Shu as he locks in his vote. “I want to understand. And if we must vote someone up one last time in order to understand, then I’ll do what I have to do.”
try{ exec sp_endgame; } | Final Chapter | Trial Start!
The walk is a long one, filled with mixed emotions. Uncertainty about what the promised end entailed. Fear, brought on by what knowledge of the context of your situation you could find.
Once you are locked into your cages safe and secure once more Aletheia’s voice fills the room, and in place of Control…Sayuri.
“Restating the purpose of this final trial… You are to find the culprit who murdered Arthur Ascott.”
“Only once you vote for the correct culprit will you be deemed worthy.”
The words linger for a moment. Then Sayuri returns.
“Prove your worth. Prove your viability as assets to the new world.”
Every phone left in this building was ringing like crazy. Ringing off the hook. You couldn’t escape the sound.
You had to answer, right? You knew what this ringing meant, though it’s never been so far-reaching before…
So one-by-one, you answer.
And the voice starts to talk. And it keeps talking, longer than you expected…
You recognize numbers being rattled off, but… there’s multiple numbers…?
And they keep coming…
You keep the phone pressed to your ear as the list grows longer…
Finally, the list ends. You take a deep breath, trying to process what you were hearing…
But then the list starts over again…
What did this mean? Why was the phone repeating these numbers over and over again? It felt as if there was an increased sense of urgency to this phone call…
Helped if for nothing else by the fact that the numbers kept repeating, on every phone you pick up…
Your phones ding, and go white momentarily. A message is displayed.
Your phones return to normal.
MOD NOTES: You may now use the channels in the ‘FINAL INVESTIGATION’ category to investigate the whole facility! Anything previously locked might now be open, so explore thoroughly…
Please be patient with us and bold anything you want a response to!
