voidtreckernet | VIDEO-ish (cw: torture and murder)

VIDEO-ish (cw: torture and murder)

[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.]

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[ Misa is, at her core, very kind. She's just kind to those around her, and when she heard that the man who had been hurt in the video was in the medical car, she dashes there to help. She skids to a stop, seeing the magic and feeling it prickle against her skin. She walks over.

There's a pull, hard, insistent that calls at her to help. She looks around the room, knowing that she's the youngest here. But, she walks over to Wen Qing and slips closer to the bed. She puts her hand on the man's arm and closes her eyes.

For her, the Force is water. Sometimes, the cold beating waves of the surf, other times, the gentle spreading of a forest stream over the rocks. Now, it's the gentle push of a snow melt infused mountain stream, pressing against the ice of his mind, attempting to push away the badness of the punishment that he'd received. She's silent as she continues, slightly rocking as if on a boat next to him. ]

[ Wen Qing heaves a sigh of relief when Lan Wangji shows up and immediately focuses on the task, no convincing needed. It earns him a grateful look from her. ] If you could help me stabilize him. Clarity might help, though he was affected by foreign magic.

[ Then Lightning starts her healing spell and she goes back to focusing on the next batch of needles; one hand on his wrist, fingers constantly shifting back and forth between the various points used in pulse diagnosis while she adds more carefully chosen with her acupuncture needles to keep him stabilized as Light... the best she can describe the impressive light show is that it looks like she is pulling out the malicious spell as if she were purging resentful energy from a body.

She looks up briefly from her work when Misa joins them, getting to work without speaking up and risking to break their concentration. She nods at her, whispering, ] you're doing good, Misa [ for she is the youngest here and her instinctive healing deserves praise.

She can feel the shift in her constant monitoring, one more presence affecting him, chasing away the foreign presence and she keeps up her own work, acupuncture needles whose effects is amplified by cultivation, spiritual energy fed into him to strengthen his own body's healing capabilities. Time becomes meaningless to her, losing herself in the work. ]

Mn.

[Trying was the best that he could do. If his sect's song was not able to break through foreign magic, there was nothing he could do, but he had to at least try.

He stepped slightly to the side of the room so that he was not blocking the door to the room before kneeling down on the floor, settling his guqin across his lap. He placed his hands on the strings, pausing a moment as he closed his eyes and summoned his spiritual energy so it would flow through the music and hopefully work to help bring Xue Yang back from wherever he was trapped.

As he began to play, the Song of Clarity rang through the air. It was a soothing melody, capable of clearing the mind and suppressing hostile energy]

[ Light smiled at Misa's arrival, even if it was a thin twist of her mouth. She hadn't had to come, after all, but that she had only reinforced her opinion of the young artist.

Her own work requires less attention, magic eagerly welling up in her hands and pouring into him as if attracted by the malignancy itself. It couldn't cure the root of it all, but it seemed to be doing its job purging the more damaging effects as soon as they appeared. The glow shifted purple, sparks drifting above the bed, drifting this way and that in the currents of spiritual energy and the ebb and flow of the Force.

So she watched the others, kept an eye on the door, their expressions, their patient. Wen Qing's precise needlework, Misa's silent trance, Lan WangJi's graceful playing.

Eventually, the energy started to shift. ]

[ Misa is quiet, silent. Then, she starts humming along with the music. She can't help it. It helps her concentrate on the push-pull of her powers. She moves with the flow of the music, working on pressing against the attack on the man's mind. She wants to do this right, but she's not sure how to do it right.

She takes a deep breath, her eyes fluttering as she concentrates. Her body stops swaying and she stills as the energy begins to shift. She presses a bit harder with her healing energy. She wants to help. ]

[ Wen Qing is not a mind healer in the same way the others are, even her work with a patient's golden core being more hands-on than spiritual in employing surgeries and needles, so she doesn't feel the effect of their work in the same way they do. But she can sense the effects their work has, the tumultuous churning of his energies quieting a little, his heartbeat not normalizing but no longer racing fast enough to worry her quite so much. She intensifies her own trickle of spiritual energy to a stream, hoping he will be able to fight off the malignant effect himself as the assault on his mind lessens. ]

Steady now [ she murmurs into the focused silence ] I think it's working, keep going. Slowly now.

[Hearing that it was working, even slowly, WangJi was not about to stop now, continuing to play the Song of Clarity, every verse that he knew perfectly. He didn't acknowledge Wen Qing's words other than to keep playing]

Edited 2020-06-27 01:41 (UTC)

[ Light nods, the frequency of her casting adjusting so that instead of forming a stream of magic, the glow pulses like a slowing heartbeat, allowing the room to dim between spells. ]

[ It's her pressing forward that gets her into trouble. Suddenly, she starts sensing things and her mind is not trained enough to block them out. The swing of a sword, the flash of blood. The feeling of a heartbeat slowing and then stopping. And the bitter taste of blood in her mouth as people around her die.

She can't block them out and she can't break out of the trance either. Not yet, though her internal struggle does not show, save in the rapidness of her eyes as they flutter and move behind her eyelids and the tears streaking down her face. She continues to help, a hopeless castaway on the ocean of the Force. ]

[ There is a change, the pace of the healing picking up as if one of them is suddenly pouring more of themselves into this healing session but a quick glance at the other shows Wen Qing doesn't show Wen Qing anything out of the ordinary and her attention returns to her patient. ]

Keep going [ she instructs, removing a needle to place it differently, quickly followed by two more. ] We're doing well.

[With his eyes closed, WangJi was not watching what the other people in the room were doing, focusing solely on his spiritual energy to try and give the music the best chance of working. So, still, he continued, playing the melody for the room]

[ Able to observe as she was, the tears on Misa's cheeks didn't go unnoticed. At first, however, Light assumed it was a part of the trance. Perhaps she was... seeing part of it? She didn't understand how telepathy worked, and that had her holding her tongue, but she began to watch Misa more closely. ]

[ The Force can overwhelm, especially when channeled by someone with no shields, no mastery of what she should do. What she hadn't been expecting was the torture to come back to her. She hadn't known that she would feel every thrust, every slash in her mind. She hadn't known that watching everyone he had killed killing him over and over again would happen.

But the tears suddenly stop and she gasps, as the pain gets to her. It makes her shiver and her body shrink back, but she doesn't stop, not until she's sure that the man in front of her is at least better. ]

[ No, no, she had not been mistaken when she felt that first stirring of change, something is wrong. She senses it, and then when she pulls herself out of her meditation-like focus enough to be paying proper attention to her surroundings, she finds confirmation in the tears running down Misa's face.

She curses under her breath, looking towards Lan Wangji, towards Lightning, hoping one of them will have the answers written on their face. ] Something's wrong with her [ she hisses, voice low so as not to startle and disrupt anyone. ] Does anyone know if it's safe to disrupt her? [ She is already moving forward to do so anyway, at least by putting an arm on Misa's shoulder, hoping this will pull her back. ]

[WangJi had been so focused on the music having his eyes closed that he hadn't noticed that Misa seemed to be in distress as well. His first sign was when she gasped suddenly, seeing her begin to shudder.

He glanced over at Wen Qing even as he rose. He was still holding his guqin, playing the best that could, this time focusing some of his energy towards Misa as well. Now on his feet, he was ready to catch her if he should have to do so]

I do not.

Shit. Misa, stop it!

[Her magic can't target multiple people, and she's not even sure if it will help. Misa's power is in the mind, isn't it? She keeps casting, but that doesn't prevent her from circling the bed in a few steps to grab the girl's other shoulder. A shake, following the same logic as Wen Qing.] What, do we just knock her out?

[ No, she's not done yet. She's not. She can fix this! She knows she can, she just has to push through... She can do this...

But it's Light's calling of her name and the gentle shaking of her shoulders that drags her out. She falls backwards, the Force connection breaking within her mind with a small crackle of energy. But she never truly loses her connection to the Force. It's always there, and it starts the work of repairing what she's damaged in herself.

It won't stop the nightmares, but the scarring won't be as bad.

Her eyes snap open and she scrambles away from everyone, staring around wild eyed, before she remembers where she is. ]

What's going on?!

[ When Misa shies away from them all, Wen Qing raises her hands in a pacifying gesture and forces herself to keep her distance even though everything in her urges to rush forward and check on the girl's well-being - and then soundly berate her until she no longer feels terrified for her.

Instead, she forces herself to calm and to exude calm. ] You were shaking and crying. It looked like you had taken on too much but we couldn't simply cut you off, we don't know enough about your powers to know if it was safe. [ Well, there is some rebuke in her voice now. ] You must rest now. You did what you set out to do. [ Or even if she hasn't, she needs to rest anyway. ]

[For the moment, WangJi put his hand over the strings to silence them since it seemed that she had come out of it]

If you need me to play the Song of Clarity for you as well, I can do that.

[Music and using it to heal was the best possible thing that he could offer. He was not a doctor... and Wen Qing was likely glad that he didn't try to be]

[When none of them reach out for her, Light braces herself and places a hand lightly on her shoulder. Ready to pull back, if it looks like it'll only make things worse. She'll beat herself up for involving Misa later, in private.]

You wanna sit down, stay until we know he's gonna be okay? His music'll probably help.

[It's a compromise between resting and seeing a job done, which is the best she can see them offering.]

Edited 2020-07-15 23:06 (UTC)

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VIDEO-ish (cw: torture and murder)

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