VIDEO-ish (cw: torture and murder)

[bloomingdespite]

[Before the ICP flickers on, every passenger hears a resounding, deep voice thunder through every car in the train, carrying with it a deathly—if odd—proclamation:]

PENALTY GAME: HELL REVERSE!

[Moments later, every ICP turns on to reveal a figure shrouded in shadows, holding the unconscious body of Xue Yang with one hand as the Eye of Wdjat blazes on both of their foreheads. It's clear they're in the gaming car, but if anybody tries to enter from either end, they'll find the doors are impossibly locked.]

Passengers of the Voidtrecker Express, I hold in my hands an unrepentant murderer who slaughtered one of your very own: the victim being A-Qing, and the criminal being Xue Yang. While she has returned, this crime cannot go unpunished, and I have taken it upon myself to try and burn out the stain on his soul—or, at the very least, provide adequate agony for all of his victims, both on the train and off.

If you need to see proof of my justice...

Avert your eyes if you do not wish to see memories of the brutal death of a young woman in her prime.

[The screen flickers once again, this time showing A-Qing's murder, although it doesn't have any audio. ((OOC: Additional CW for graphic depictions of murder.))

When it returns to the interior of the Games Car, the shadowy figure is gone, but their voice and Xue Yang remain.]

I leave it to the council to dispense their own punishment, as meager as it may be.

Remember, passengers:

I am watching.

[The ICP clicks off, and the train is deadly quiet.]

Comments

[lookslikeacinnamonroll]

[ Wen Ning barely knows how to use the ICPs. It's by happenstance that he even sees this post. He clearly hasn't been paying much attention, because so much of this is news to him. ]

A-Qing was killed?

[ Why is Xue Yang here? How is A-Qing alive again? Who is that shadowy figure? What is happening?? ]

voice from 6-E to 3-B

[spikelet]

I'm okay. It's okay! The train brought me back. It was ages ago.

[ MFING DAMAGE CONTROL ]

video/action (threadjacking ok!)

[blue_ice]

Atem?

[ Kaiba 's face is very pale. He knows that eye. The voice isn't quite the same...but as someone who was once on the receiving end of this spirit's punishment, he'd know what was happening here better than anyone. He races through the rock garden and ends up breathlessly pounding on the gaming car's door, keeping an ear on the broadcast in each car the entire way through. ]

Pharaoh! What did you do? Answer me!

((ooc: feel free to send him a video message or meet him in the garden if anyone wants some answers))

Video

[mtsilver_conquor]

-You know who did this?

[Here, have a team Leader who's visibly shaken and Unhappy.]

Video

[mtsilver_conquor]

[The fuck?]

-The last thing we need is vigilantes! By the Four...

Re: Video

[so_dark_a_road]

[ Curufin is at the ICP in the Med Bay, the one nearest the Gaming Car, which he has just tried and failed to break into. ]

I agree. And now we've got a problem I don't know how to solve. And I'm sure nobody else does, either.

action, dining car

[spikelet]

[ what the fuck just happened. How did they... Why did...



Okay, wow, right. First step, finding somewhere to hide. 1-E? That means having to go past whatever that was. Somewhere this side of Games. She ransacks her memory, and comes up with... Medical? Yeah. That'll work. There's usually an empty room in there.

Second step, get out of Dining. It's a straight line; she just makes a break for it. ]

action

[theturksway]

[Shit. That was some messed up shit. Who the hell would do that on a train full of innocents? As a Turk Reno got it. People got what they deserved. He didn't care about that.

But seriously showing that to the public? That was something better left to the darkness where all secrets should be kept. There was a reason why Turks did their business where no one could see it. And he hated it whenever some idiot (Heidegger) took over and made things extra difficult for the Turks.

All right, all that aside, Reno was on the move. He didn't really know where or to do what yet but there was some shit going down and he wasn't going to sit it out.

He didn't get very far though before he ran into a familiar face. And by familiar he meant 'oh, I just saw that person get murdered in a televised broadcast just thirty seconds ago'. He hesitated. Nope, no time for that now.]

Hey.

[It came out way more casually than even Reno thought possible. He sidled up next to her and started to keep pace as she made a beeline for her hideout.

Damn, she was even younger than he'd realized. What fucking monster... wait, no, never mind.]

You okay? [Obviously she wasn't but what else was he supposed to say?]

Audio-Smoking Car

[unholyandbroken]

[CW Angelville and the coffin]


[Jessie was mid smoke when it goes down and thanks to what she saw is reliving Angelville and a favorite of her grandmother, the coffin. But thanks to a panic induced button hit her panic is now train wide.]

Not the coffin...

[Just make sure she does not crash into an open trunk? Her phobia is kicking in just as hard.]

Video

[utulien_aure]

Was there justice in that performance? How odd; I must have missed it.

[so_dark_a_road]

[ Interesting, how Curufin has the reputation for sardonic wit, when really, Fingon is better at it! ]

There was no justice, only revenge and the risk of starting the cycle of violence all over again.

[runs_on_batteries]

[Tony watched in horror at the ICP message. It takes him a moment to react, but when he does, he's livid.]

Who the hell are you? If anyone knows who this person speaking is, I want their name! Where did you get that video?

[blue_ice]

[ Kaiba is more subdued than usual when he answers. ]

His name is Atem. He's an ancient spirit with the power of shadow magic. He was from my world...

...but I have no idea how he's here. He's not on the roster, and the object that contained his spirit isn't here. Yugi or I would know if it was.

Xue Yang will probably wake up soon. I've done things I'm not proud of, if maybe not quite the same, and Atem performed this same punishment on me. It rendered me comatose for a while, but in the end...it worked as intended.

I realize he's undermining the council's authority and has no right to do this, but...that's what happened.

[madcuriosity]

Wh-what did you do to him!

[But, as the announcement goes on and on, Alice can only scream in shock and terror, covering her eyes.]

STOP IT!

[runs_on_batteries]

Dammit.

[He hurries out of his office in search of Alice. When he finds her in the garden, he offers her a hug.]

Alice, sweetie, you're safe. I'm not going to let anything happen to you.

[goingthroughaphase]

[ She knows that voice. She isn't sure how, but she knows that voice. Where has she heard it before? ]

...What have you done?

[longforgottenpromise]

I don't think they are taking questions. [His voice is soft, the anger faded as quickly as it came, though it holds great sorrow.] Are you alright?

Video

[swansongs]

Um. What the fuck?

That's kind of really not fucking cool.

[Like, any of this. Mostly the original murder, which he had to look away from, hands clenched until his knuckles were white. He didn't need to witness another murder, he'd already lived through one personally. He didn't... he didn't need to think about it.

He was a little pale when he looked back up.]

I thought this place was supposed to be safe...

action wherever he is?

[longforgottenpromise]

[Luckily the ICP's state where messages come from so it doesn't take him long to find Dyme.

By the time he did his own anger had turned into sorrow. A dreadful thing had happened and people had been forced to witness it. There was a lot of hurt and honestly he doesn't know what he can do to help.

But he can't do nothing.]

Dyme... Are you alright?

[maxwellsdaemon]

The fuck...

[All Duo can do is stare, voice quiet at first, but raising in volume.]

What the fuck?!

[Was this even real? How the hell was this kind of thing real, of even allowed? ]

[longforgottenpromise]

[He has no words. None after his initial outburst.

There are a lot of people hurting on this train right now and honestly he didn't even know where to start.

He has an urge to check on Lord Gyousou, on Inigo and Tidus. But all three of them are fighters and honestly can probably handle such horrific things better than many people can.

As sad as it is to know that about his king and his friends. This boy though, Taiki knows nothing about him and he seems shocked, horrified. Taiki's voice is soft as he replies directly to the carriage the boy is in.] This shouldn't have happened.

[Action]

[callmegladio]

[Gladio just watches. Face like thunder, hands clenched at his sides.

This was justice?

Who was going to show this asshole justice? Where would it end? No one. Not a single person. Had the right to do what this shadowy bastard had done. Two wrongs did not make a right. And to broadcast it...

Before it had even finished, Gladio's anger reached a fever pitch.

He saw red, lashed out, there was a moment of pain in his fist... and when he blinked it was to see the steaming, sparking remains of the smashed ICP in front of him.]

Re: [Action]

[sonoflucis]

[Perhaps it's a saving grace that Noct is always sleepy because he was asleep when the video goes out. What woke him up was the sound of Gladio decimating his ICP. He sat up, blinking in confusion.]

Gladio...?

[Action]

[sobothersome]

[Maru woke to a horrible sounding voice. He looked up and toward the icp thing. Moving from the bed, he dropped to the floor and changed, becoming human in time to start to see something he really did not want to see.

On the bed he left, Madoka moved.

Nope!

Maru, normally slow, lazy and lethargic, moved fast to scoop Madoka up in one arm.]

You too. Don't watch that...

[Madoka's girlfriend would NOT be watching that. So scooped her up in his other and was out the door and running before the worst could be seen.]

CW Sex Island/Ra's Al Ghul

[redarrowqueen]

[After the video Thea is armed to the teeth, well just her bow and some arrows after sprinting into a bathroom to puke

Thanks to the island she's sure its an Eros trap.

Granted she still needs a lot of distance from the year she was there.

It would explain her free hand clawing at her neck.

She is also reliving the night she was stabbed since even now she's sure she deserved it.]

[dredefulchilde]

[Joss can be found sometime after the video airs, looking very small and very pale. He’s...he hasn’t killed anyone on this train, but he’s a murderer too. Will they find him? Will he be punished?]

[myblueskies]

[Romeo, thankfully had been reading in his cabin and hadn't seen any of this. But he had heard the commotion and it hadn't taken him long to realise, from the angry voices still echoing across the train that something bad had happened.

When he finally finds Joss he goes over to him, looking worried.]

Joss are you okay? Did you see that bad video everyone's talking about?

[longforgottenpromise]

This is not justice.

[His voice is steel. Hard but not quite hard enough to hide the pain in it, for those who know him well.

He hadn't averted his eyes and he feels sick. The murder had been a terrible, awful thing.

But causing agony was no way to fix it. Hurting another would not wash away the hurt from the first.]

What you have done is torture. A crime.

[mimidaeia]

[In the midst of all this pandemonium, there's one passenger that's at least not being undone by this.

She's concerned, though. SXT-2 can guess the emotions in the room even if she has none herself. And this is the first wide-scale panic episode she's seen on the train- barring missions, at least. Uh, shit's going down? What's this about a murderer?]

I don't quite understand what's going on.... should I try to stop the video feed?

[wizard_redfive]

[Dairine might be reeling a little, for the moment she's more angry than panicked. Her voice comes out sharply.]

If you can, do it!

action;

[irrationally]

(for allen)

[ Honestly, the video is one thing. Alice isn't easily bothered or disturbed - and honestly, if that guy killed a poor girl, then he deserves it.

But it's the fact that other people can see this too who are easily disturbed. It only takes hearing the younger Alice's reply over the ICPs for the older Alice's blood to start boiling. No one scares the younger version of her like that and gets away with it.

Except there's the problem that she doesn't know where to find the person who did it. But whatever. Alice isn't rational. She has to do something, and so she immediately summons her knife, gripping it so hard her knuckles turn white.

Someone has to pay.

She's definitely not looking all too much put together as she walks through the train. ]

(for xander)

[ Thankfully she's at least calmed down some after her conversation with Allen. Emphasis on some. She's still so jittery. This still doesn't sit right with her. She still wants to do something, but just doesn't know what. She has so much pent up energy and no outlet for it.

But one thing she does know. She has to check up on the people important to her right now. Before more happens. Before they get more upset, or even harmed somehow.

Sure, her younger self is one of those people, but there's one more person. One idiot who's always smiling - there's no way he'd be able to handle something like this with his stupidly good heart.

So Alice immediately moves through the train, not even bothering with walking regularly as she's looking for Xander everywhere. His room, the greenhouse, wherever. She won't stop running until she finds him. ]

[mynameisallen]

[Allen had seen the video. He didn't see the point in showing them that at all. For what purpose? Except to just cause panic and worry and potentially someone else wanting to cause whoever done it serious harm in a case of never-ending vengeance.

His biggest concern however was those he knew and how they would react. He knew for certain Alice at least would do something so he sent Timcampy ahead to search her out, following behind. After all, it would be much harder to find her without his guide.

When he finally spotted her he could see the knife. He knew full well that that could mean as he rushed over.]

Alice. What are you planning?

[so_dark_a_road]

[ Curufin looks appalled and distressed. ]

Hell and damn! Xue Ying, why did you have to kill somebody?

And whoever you are, you shadowy being, I can well understand the urge to exact revenge, but do you not know what happens when you torture people?? You make the situation worse than it already is.

[ He runs to the Gaming Coach and starts pounding on the door. When it won't open, he delivers a karate kick to it with a bang! that resounds through the nearby cars. ]

wen qing and lightning are here to retrieve coma boy

[enthunder]

[ Light hurries up, having been on the same side of the Games car doors as Curufin, and follows his kick up with a heavy one of her own at the same point on the door. Now unjammed from whatever power had been sealing it, the door slides open. ]

We've got Xue Yang. You look for our new celebrity.

[marriedanidiot]

What justice is this? There is no justice here, only foolish pride.

[nutkrusher]

Oh what the actual Christ.

[Glowing eyes, red or otherwise, bring up bad memories for her.]

medical car

[radishlobbyist]

continued from here

[ Lightning and Wen Qing arrive at the medical car, Lightning princess carrying an unresponsive Xue Yang while Wen Qing has a grip on his wrist, just finishing up a first sloppy check on his qi done while they rushed him here. ]

Take him into the examination room. Help should be arriving soon but let's get started. His golden core hasn't taken any damage but going by the readings I'm getting, I'm certain the torture technique is still ongoing. We have to find a way to shut it down, or buffer or divert its effects if we can't end it. [ She grits her teeth, brows knitting. ] It would help to get more information on this but until the culprit is apprehended there is nothing to be done about that.

[enthunder]

[ The examination room door gets a slightly gentler treatment than the games room's, but only because she has her arms full. He's not heavy, but he's unwieldy, occasionally tensing or flinching, and she doesn't want to jostle him.

So, not kicking the door, is what she's getting at. Once they're inside it's easy enough to settle him down on the bed. She stops for a moment, glances back to get a read on Wen Qing, and then starts rummaging through Xue Yang's pockets for his ticket. Registering him in the recovery room is going to need to be a step sooner or later, if this is set to last as long as they said it would. ]

What kind of effects are we talking about?

audio, train-wide

[radishlobbyist]

[ While still in the games car with Lightning to retrieve Xue Yang, Wen Qing sends an audio message to be played train-wide. Her voice is sharp and grim beyond her usual briskness. ]

Lan Wangji. Misa. Report immediately to medical. Lan Wangji, bring your guqin.

[ She will not respond if anyone replies to her message. ]

Action, Sleeper 6

[aggressivelygood]

[Disgusting as it might have been to behold, Sven sat with the footage through to the end. Shortly after he stumbled out into the hallway and crashed into the wall, hands braced rigid against it. Air, he needed fresh air. No chance of that here...the air on the train was still, unmoving. The horrified voices of his friends and fellow passengers rang in his ears, deafening his own internal sense of justice. What was justice in a place like this? The murder shouldn't have been shown to the entire train, that much he knew for certain. He focused on that first. What a twisted thing, to expose A-Qing's horrible moment of terror and inflict it on the rest of the train, as if anybody here didn't know a murder had been committed or how vile an act it was to rob a person of their life.

Yet he felt glad. Glad that the murderer was known. Glad, even, for Xue Yang's suffering. Apparently he was alone in that feeling and it weighed on him. If somebody on the train were taking it upon themselves to enact vigilante justice, then probably everybody should be concerned, but would Sven himself really have done anything different?

Should anybody find him, it'd be pacing the halls of the carriages, clenching and unclenching his fists. This feeling of powerlessness...he wasn't used to it. And the silence where his patron's presence should be burned more blinding a hole than ever.]

I decided on the holy creature rather than the murder child

[longforgottenpromise]

[Not actually being able to do anything actually useful in this situation Taiki has taken it upon himself to move through the train, looking for anyone who needs help, anyone afraid, angry.

He knows Wen Qing is helping Xue Yang and she is the best for that, as a doctor. He would just be a hinderance there.

Those that have been voted to lead the train are dealing with the crime committed here.

He also knows many of the passengers, especially the younger ones have been gathered to be helped. It is not those ones he worries about. It is those who do not seek out others. Who try and deal with their pain alone. Those are the ones he is searching for.

He's not sure what he can even do to help, but he needs to do something.

He pauses when he sees Sven and then gathers his courage and steps towards him.] Sven?

/placeholder threading because his ghibli-inspired justice IC cant ignore it ahaha

[adregem]

[ Roland clenches his teeth as he speaks, voice tense and tight. Perhaps no one will answer but...still. A man can only keep quiet and pretend to be calm for so long. ] Justice is not yours alone to dispense, and justice served without due process is vigilantism regardless of the motive. We don't need this in an already volatile environment. No one, be it on this train or in any other community, is sole judge, jury, and executioner.

[ He does not hide his disgust. ] You're watching? That's a threat. Not a promise to keep people safe. This is ridiculous. You've just done the opposite. So much for safety in numbers.

[ Roland eventually walks out of his sleeper cabin and rubs his face with one hand. He is a picture of stewing anger, pacing back and forth throughout the cabin, from one end to the next. When he was president, he made sure everyone had a right to live life, and abolishing capital punishments was part of his agenda. This...brings up every detractor who tried to justify the side of murder as law. No. No he would never agree to it. Never to violence as the last solution. ]