Logan Starbright
Simulator
11/16/2026
Monday - Morning
Don’t look at me like that. Like I’m some kid who thinks his dad will wake up any day now and come back from the war. Like I’m a parapelegic with leukemia and more curses than days of my life. Like I’m a crazy, pathetic fool. It makes me sick. And so what if it’s a ‘dream’? I’m a Spirit Tamer; I make dreams come true. I’ll do whatever it takes to make that happen. That’s the only reason I’m here.
"Of course what her objective is is beyond me, who knows what's going through that girl's head?"
Well aren’t you useless. Back to glaring at me like I’m code missing a semicolon, at least.
"You don't need to be particularly powerful to backstab someone."
What ugly laughter. Is it mocking herself more or the expression of merriment it’s perverting? Logan can’t tell, but it doesn’t really matter. It just means that she’s in this moment overwhelmed; not with joy, but with the cruel absurdity of the world. Besides, she’s right. One weakling in the wrong place can ruin everything.
"I'm sure I could dispose of the traitor if I found them, it's some... Other beings... That are the ones I'd rather not run into under the current circumstances; I have no way of telling if the traitor is working with them or not, so I must assume that they are, I can't take the chance of being incorrect right now."
So there are people stronger than her. Not that I have a full grasp of her abilities, but Amelia might. I don’t think she’d react like that just because the enemy has superior computational capabilities.
As their encounter continues, Eve halts suddenly and exchanges awkward pleasantries with Verity. Good, she’ll be safer away from this. She responded rather quickly to my command, though; is she naturally servile? There might be some unpleasant directives in her logic centers, so I’ll have to have her looked at. He briefly recalls the grumpy brunette. Hopefully she’s alright. Though so far Verity hasn’t taken any offensive actions, which tracks with the reports Amelia managed to find-
At Amelia’s query, Logan immediately raises his arms to guard while tensing his legs to dodge an incoming attack. There’d been a part of him, small but present, that decried his consistent activation as a foolish waste of energy before an important mission. That part is gone. Verity’s gaze makes it evident that she’s no ally.
Seconds crawl by through furrows of sweat drawn on Logan’s skin. Thoroughly honed reflexes strain themselves to the utmost to detect the breaking point in her bloodlust that heralds conflict - and slowly detect a decrease as one of her robed arms rises lazily.
A scrap of white and color falls from her outstretched hand like a feather of truth to the scales. Logan’s gaze immediately flicks to the photograph, and
there’s quite a few people there, 50 at least, all gathered within a wooden structure that shelters against the cold
unlike the people milling around the bottom of the tower below without heed for any sort of harsh climate, their revelry is warmth enough -
an attitude that the people gathered likely share, that’s definitely a party of some kind judging by the tables of food and how they’re gathered around
the tower, looking up with joy and glee at the sparkling colors of the fireworks above
unlike Astra, who’s staring at the Christmas trees with mild amusement along with him, did those use to be ents? It’s hard to tell, the edges of the photo look a little
red, like a sky bleeding from a scouring with smoke and pollutants which is a bit much isn’t that, that’s just a Catherine Wheel near the
moon shining on the chest of Mokujima’s opponent in chess. She’s deep in thought over her next move, but since she should be able to capture her foe’s queen in three moves she’ll probably be fine
unlike here, where there’s no sign of her. Strange; with how she reacted to Eve I figured she’d be heading here in
hey
a flurry of motion like the rough-looking blonde in the kitchen who’s balancing countless plates of roasted duck and stuffed mushrooms and perfectly sliced cubes of tuna glistening a brilliant
red and black swimming around just out of sight the moment he shifts his gaze, but they come back each time a brilliant star carves an iridescent wound into the dusky sky and his eyes are practically bulging out of their sockets to take everything in as
the Raz Stone puts on a concert, for even without his signature stage he’s got a charisma you just can’t
look away
from the enemy, who’s staring at him with an expression he can barely make out amidst all the
red hair of the woman with a guitar walking behind two girls, one looking to the other like she was quite the
pain smashing against his retina and ramming it into his cornea as his brain tries to slam its way out of his skull through his eyes fixed on
the familiar sight of Vincent’s coffee shop, with Ludwig and Anna chatting on the stools. He’s never seen either of them make that sort of face before, which awkwardly makes him wonder
what should you be looking at right now?
Sweat pours from Logan in a torrent as he rips his gaze from the barbs of the image, red and black and static blurring into the tears swimming in his aching eyes. He realizes, suddenly, that his hands are empty. Chains clatter against the side of the clock tower as they plummet to the ground while the photo slowly floats down. It’s within a few feet of him. He can easily grasp it with one hand while maintaining his grip on Amelia with the other.
The photo falls past him, sinking into the fog. He’d seen all kinds of people in that , but he doesn’t know who’s missing.
Logan addresses Verity again, trying to ignore how his soaked clothes cling to his skin like a thousand leeches and his blood thrums through him like a flood of acid. “What do you mean by ‘other beings’?”
Amelia
Strange City, Simulator
11/16/2026
Monday - Morning
Amelia groans at the massive onslaught of junk data that rampaged through her systems like a stampede of exploding bulls. What the hell was that? Even maintaining short term data logs is a pain with how each file tries to delete itself or corrupt everything else around it. Can’t be just a simple virus or memetic hazard. If Spearmint wanted us dead we’d be fighting right now. So what, did she throw a tantrum ‘cuz someone else talked to her little sister? And why a Polaroid? If she actually wanted to be retro she should’ve gone with an oil painting or something; Polaroids are way too mainstream.
A photo’s a mostly precise record of an event. You can edit photos and leave things out of photos but people generally assume that a photo tells the truth - especially an older kind of photo like that. Plus there’s the date of Christmas Eve, which isn’t our time. Memory errors and photos “from the future”… it’s a real stretch, but was that some sort of future that didn’t happen for some reason? There’s a theory that life forms constantly observe themselves to make a record of events in their body, and that something messing with that would mess with their timeline and existence. That’s ridiculous, but Burroughs had bypassed every defense to talk with her, all while monitoring an entire planet and interfering with that mysterious Tower. And if Spearmint’s to be believed, she’s incapacitated… or worse.
Kid, just what are you involved in? You alright?
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Originally Posted by Genesis
