interstellar5555 | ☆TRACK II: DISCORD AND RHYME

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☆TRACK II: DISCORD AND RHYME

Who: Kidnapped Pride Members
What: Corporate hazing, in the style of themepark murder clowns.
When: October 18th-19th.
Where: A large, empty carnival, apparently.
Warnings: This is basically Saw games for babies.

“Burning the ground, I break from the crowd
I'm on the hunt, I'm after you.
I smell like I sound, I'm lost and I'm found
And I'm hungry like the wolf.”

☆DISCORD AND RHYME

It’s your first free night after a particularly feverish series of performances. It’s a comparatively lazy Sunday evening - one that all of you are obligated to spent in the HQ. Things are normal, at least as normal as they ever are, are you’re free to go to bed early and for once have the luxury in sleeping in tomorrow. At least theoretically.

Whether you go to bed or not, you’ll find yourself drifting off - and then the sound eerie, peculiar music...like the sound of an old music box, with a soft feminine voice singing wordlessly along. You’ll fall asleep, hard, and when you wake up you are somewhere else.

"【Sad and Scary Song】"Come Out And Play"Creepy Music Box】[HD]" (Watch on YouTube)

☆THE SACRIFICES

At first, you wake up in what seems like some kind of boiler room. Some parts of the floor are slick with moisture, and your hands and feet are bound, with your wrists locked to the industrial piping behind you. Regaining consciousness is slow and difficult, as if it wasn't meant to come to you quite yet.

You can hear water and steam flowing through some of the pipes, and the complex is obviously still active with...whatever it's supposed to be doing. But maybe you're just too busy freaking out at your evident kidnapping to think too hard about circumstantial evidence.

You aren't the only one in here. Whether they are awake or unconscious, four other Pride members are bound nearby. Around the side of some of the machinery, you can see the glow of computers, though you can't quite see the screens - there are chairs, though, and a cup of Starbucks that is still steaming. Whoever brought you here is probably still around, and there's no telling how long you have before they return.

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☆THE CHALLENGERS

You wake up sitting in what appears to be a bumper car of all things - you know, one of those little vehicles you drive around at carnivals to crash into each other? You're sitting in one, and your hand are handcuffed around the bar behind you. Your neck is definitely sore, like you've been sitting like this for a while.

It only takes a moment to realize two things: 1) you actually are in a theme park of some sort, and it's still night time, and 2) you're not alone. At least a dozen other Pride members are handcuffed to the bumper cars around you, all pointed in the direction of an empty stretch of wheel worn floor - like an audience, intended to view a speaker. Whoever brought you here doesn't give you much time to be confused.

They stride into the center of the "stage" like they own the place. They are wearing a hooded coat of a decidedly gothic style, with a hood that shadows their face. When they speak, they sound feminine - almost like the voice you remember putting you to sleep earlier.

"Welcome, ladies and gentlemen," they say, "to your trial by fire."

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“Strut on a line, it's discord and rhyme
I'm on the hunt, I'm after you.
Mouth is alive with juices like wine
And I'm hungry like the wolf.”

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Bait: Tiger Universe
Challengers: 1) Xanxus 2) Wakana

The diving pool is found in a fairly prominent building towards the center - some kind of waterpark, apparently. A series of neon signs and notes lead into the core of the building, which lead to the pool as pictured, only the diving well is only part ways full - and just as any challengers arrive, water will start gushing in from the vents in the sides, causing the level to slowly rise.

Tiger is suspended in a cage hanging a few feet over said rising water. The bars are obviously too thick and heavy to lift, and as soon as the water rises around it, there will be no way for its prisoner to stay afloat. There are two separate locks keeping it from opening.

The note is left besides the ladder leading down to the waters below.

“The keys are at the bottom.”

Which, it turns out, they are! There are a variety of whimsically shaped containers sitting at the bottom of the diving pool, within a range of something plausible but difficult for someone to dive down to. Most of the objects are empty - but two of them will have the keys to open the cage.

THIS TRIAL WILL FAIL

When Tiger first wakes up, he's alone.

The water hasn't started rising yet, so when he looks down at the rippling pool beneath his cage, he feels more confusion than he does immediate dread. However, his heart rate begins to rise regardless with the growing realization that he's totally trapped, and there's no one here to help him. More importantly, it's impossible for him to help himself.

"Let me out!" he shouts angrily up at the top of the diving well. He can't even see if anyone is up there, but there must be. Someone put him here. He knows they did. His wrists and ankles are still reddened from his bonds, even though they are gone now. He sniffs and rubs at his smeared makeup, trying to keep himself together when his shouting doesn't get any response.

He isn't going to beg. He never imagined himself to be the kind of person to beg. But now that he's here, and there's nothing else...maybe he is?

He cage sways slightly as he shifts positions, trying to reach his arm through the bars. It's locked. It's locked, and he's trapped in here, and there's water down below - what are they going to do? Are they...going to drop him in there?

Tears bead in his eyes, and he wraps his limbs around himself, feeling extremely small. He feels like he ends up waiting for a long time.

This has been utterly fucked up since the start. Xanxus' tolerance level for bullshit he didn't orchestrate himself was limited. As it was, he had already had a few run-ins with Froggy. He swore to god that next time they crossed, he was going to shove that cattle prod up it's little green mascotty ass. But as it was right now, he already looked like he had been in the equivalent of one hell of a bar fight, and not on the winning side of it.

His goal had been to just get the fuck out, honestly. The best way to win the game is to not give a fuck and stop playing. However, to get to an exit means going through the park. Going through the park finds him at the diving pool. And then he sees the cage and the kid. And there in lies the problem. Soon as he starts that direction, there goes the water.

He sees the note. Something about keys. And then he sees the kid. In a cage. And the water is on the rise. "You've got to be fucking kidding me." Yet he makes no apparent movement towards getting the keys. In fact, he might just be going to one of the near by food carts and getting some popcorn. "Oi, kid. How long can you hold your breath for."

The pouring water is what snaps Tiger out of his malaise more than Xanxus's initial appearance does. It's a pretty inescapable reality. He startles, looking down at it in horror, his fingers curling around the bars as what that means starts to occur to him.

He turns up to face Xanxus, and that response is so blase that he hardly even knows how to process it. Tiger chokes on his breath.

"What? No - No, please, you have to do something-" He's obviously starting to panic pretty hard. He's not used to having to ask people for things.

Wakana hadn't intended to bump into Xanxus here -- honestly she found most of the other "carnies" insufferable -- but that's just what happened. Oh, and it's that bratty Tiger kid, too. She rolls her eyes, mostly to keep herself from freaking out.

She's really been kidnapped and dumped in an abandoned carnival. This is really a thing that's happening.

"He's like five, Xanxus," she says irritably. "He probably can't hold it for ten seconds. Ugh..." There's a small part of her saying that they should really do something. Especially with the water pouring into the pool. Tiger is annoying and thanks to him she's stuck with a burner flip phone -- that had been one too many incidents for Camila to tolerate -- but he's a kid and besides, they might get arrested or something if they just left him?

And there's still that niggling little voice in the back of her head. This isn't who you really are.

With an aggravated groan, she moves toward the ladder.

It's sort of hard for Tiger to see all the precise body language going on up there, but like heck if he isn't going to immediately cling to the fact that Wakana seems to be moving towards the ladder like she's planning on doing something. Like, she doesn't seem to be in the most urgent of rushes or anything, but it's better than nothing, right?

Except it's kind of hard to be patient when you're Tiger Universe and you're also about to drown inside some kind of carnival murder game.

"Oh...Oh crap, Wakana-" Thank god he remembers her name (mostly because of the stupid nickname in the article) "Wakana, hurry, I'm going to die. I'm going to die in this cage and I didn't even do anything!"

Said with the tone of someone who expected that if they ended up dying via murder it would be because he'd actually done something to earn it.

"That's Princess!" she snaps as she starts down the latter. "Xanxus, come help me."

Tiger actually crumples down a little at that snap - the terror has gripped him so suddenly that it's like he completely forgot to be a difficult brat about it. Part of him is outraged about this, though - just because he's in a cage and literally depends on their mercy to survive doesn't mean they can talk shit to him...right?

"This isn't my fault!" he snaps back at her, angry despite the tears flooding his eyes. Oh god this is so awful. Just stop talking. Just stop before you make things worse-

Xanxus, for his part, has actually gotten popcorn at this point. He's actually going to stand there and eat popcorn while some kid drowns. Eat it and laugh because he's just that terrible of a person. There's even this nagging thought at the back of his head that all that's missing is a shark. There totally needs to be a shark in there and it would be perfect.

He huffs at Wakana, though it's pretty much a curse more than anything else. "Right." Still eating popcorn. "Too bad there's that cage. I heard shit floats..." But he supposes they have to do...something. But he's having too much fun not giving a shit. He is far far too amused by this whole thing. "I suppose I could. But tell me...what's in it for me. What will you do for me? I could dive on in there and save your sorry ass, but you got to make it worth my while. So tell me... what will you give me to bust my ass saving you when I can just sit here and oogle our princess here in a wet teeshirt."

Wakana is so irritated that she stops climbing. She rolls her eyes and growls in frustration. "I can't work with this."

Tiger stares up at Xanxus with a look of total incomprehension. He's not...he's not serious, right? Nobody would be...serious about...

He feels like his brain is totally short circuiting. Nobody would just...watch someone die like that! Just laughing, and somehow literally eating popcorn, and...nobody would...What would Tiger give him? He doesn't have anything to give! Everything he has already belongs to Pride Records, and, he's just...he's only...

Too bad there's that cage. I heard shit floats...

His head swims, like he's about to pass out, and he sags forward against the bars. He never asked to be like this, he thinks, but the thought hardly makes any sense, even in his own head. Xanxus is still just standing there, and even Wakana is stopping on the ladder, and the water is still swelling beneath him, and he just can't...

"I...I don't know," he says, in a very small voice, feeling like he's going to throw up. "I don't...I don't want to..."

He doesn't want to die.

And Xanxus laughs. He laughs like it's the funniest damn thing he's ever seen in his entire life. He actually tosses a kernal of popcorn at Wakana because yeah, he knows she is less than pleased to be stuck with him as a bassist, but guess what, too bad.

He smirks at them both. At Tiger, who looks like he's about to puke and to his irate band member. "Come on, you can think of something. Nothing is free, little man. So what's it going to be. Make you worth my effort" He's striding to the edge of the pool with his bucket of popcorn. "I'd say you have about 10 minutes before that reaches your head. . Tick tock...Tick. Tock."

Right. There's a time limit here. Even if Tiger is an annoying little brat, Wakana hardly wants to see him dead. She hurries down the ladder as quickly as she can -- she can deal with Xanxus later.

Once she's in the water, she can see the containers at the bottom. So that's where the keys are? That's not too difficult, she thinks, even if she's only sort of okay at swimming. It's just going down and then right back up again.

She grabs a container and opens it up... only to see that it's empty. She instinctively huffs in frustration. Realizing her mistake, she hurries back up to take a breath of air.

Please raise your hand if you've ever felt personally victimized by Xanxus.

Xanxus's laughter is serving to be the accompanying soundtrack to Tiger totally losing his mind. He feels so small and worthless for a few terrible moments that he feels like he could just melt into a puddle and die right then and there, no drowning necessary. Or maybe blow away into a cloud of dust.

But he has defenses to this sort of thing. His core is intrinsically soft and vulnerable, which is why, to his recollection, he's spent years building up an outer shield of preemptive pride and anger. In the face of some kind of comprehensive mental breakdown, that anger, that frustration, is the only thing that rises up to make him act.

He yells in a way that is burning with frustration and hopelessness, and wildly starts trying to kick the shit out of the door of his cage. It doesn't accomplish much - but right now it feels like the only outlet to a tidal way of conflicting feelings that he doesn't know how to process or control.

Edited 2015-10-21 04:08 (UTC)

Wakana in the water means he gets to popcorn a kid drowning and look at his drummer in a wet t-shirt. He's not seeing anything at all wrong with this. And honestly, it does look like way too much effort for him. Since, that box had zero keys inside it. Lame.

And then the kid has a meltdown and starts fighting against the cage. It's sort of...nostalgic. Fighting against things you can't win over. Struggling against the inescapable. Knowing you've lost and that your end is slowly slowly crawling its way up your body in a freezing cold torrent of... FUCK. FUCKING HELL.

He drops his bucket of popcorn.

"You owe me, you little shit, these boots are expensive." And then he's forgoing the ladder and just diving on in.

Wakana has to flail out of the way to avoid getting hit when Xanxus jumps in. "Finally," she mutters, then heads back down. Time for round two.

Tiger has since collapsed against the bottom of his cage from his efforts, and sees Xanxus crash into the water in a state of total bewilderment. Why, he wonders. Why bother? Why are either of them bothering when they don't even care?

"What are you doing?!" he yells at Xanxus, his voice cracking with emotion and strain. "What happened to nothing's free, huh?!" His cheeks are wet with tears of desperation, and the last thing he should be doing is trying to convince someone to not help them. But it's like he's lost in a fit of total insanity. Like everything is already hopeless.

The water starts to lick against the bottom of his cage.

Edited 2015-10-21 06:40 (UTC)

Everything does have a price. He's already stated his price. A new pair of boots. Not cheap at all, honestly. Because diving into the water is going to ruin them. And why was he even bothering. It was better just to watch. To stand there and mock the kid as he drowned. Perhaps it was that flash of helplessness. The phantom feeling of ice climbing up his body Or maybe it's just a temporary bout of humanity. Whatever it was, the bassist makes to the bottom of the diving pit.

When he emerges again, he slams a box down to check. Empty. Watching the kid drown was looking more appealing by the second. "Fucking hell. This is bullshit and I swear to fuck I'm going to kick the shit out of whoever planned this all." It's not just his grumbling. He's the sort that really will end up trying to thrown down. After he's done trying to get the kid out.

There's certainly one thing Tiger already knows: there's no way in hell he's buying Xanxus a new pair of anything.

He's not sure how much he is even emotionally internalizing the fact that Xanxus is helping after all - as the water rises, his head is lost in a mire of horrified panic and self loathing. His skewed point of view is making the worst of an already pretty ugly scene - none of it really feels like compassion, it just feels like a tired obligation to something that isn't really worth it.

He doesn't voice any of that though, past a certain point. It's not really worth it. It's not until the water starts pooling past his shoulders that he does anything besides struggled pointlessly with the cage and cringe. They aren't going to make it, are they? They aren't.

Tiger's fingers have been wrapped around the bars at the top of the cage for the last five minutes or so, and they've been gripping so tight that the knuckles are white. He tries to lift himself further above the water, but the top of his head hits metal - there's nowhere else to go. The kid makes a strangled sound, the pace of his breath hitching and increasing in speed. He'd stopped crying for a while, but that resolve is falling apart.

He looks up towards the top of the diving pool, towards some imagined observer that had any control over this.

"Stop it! Please," he begs.

Wakana's head pops above the water. She gasped for breath. This is tiring, especially with the water constantly rising.

"I found one," she says, holding it up in one hand. Only one, but that means they're halfway there. Except Tiger... isn't going to hold out much longer, is he?

She's almost panicking as she fumbles to fit the key into the lock. She chooses the wrong lock at first, wasting a good minute trying to get it in. When she moves over to the other lock, her hand is shaking so badly from the cold and the stress that... she drops it. She drops the key.

The kid in the cage is begging invisible things to make it stop. It stands to reason someone's watching this somewhere. Probably jacking off to it too. There's nowhere to go and he knows his guess for time is nearly up.

It's annoying as fuck. Because it's cold in the water. So. Fucking. Cold. He really really doesn't like the cold. More annoying because his bandmate ended up with a key. A key she drops. He watches is float on down towards the bottom and does the only thing he knows how to do.

He swims for the edge of the pool to haul himself up. So he can sit on the edge and laugh. "Well, if you weren't laid before this, you don't have to worry about dying a virgin. You're fucked, kid." Xanxus everyone. The barer of good news...

One key isn't nearly enough, but at least it means something. It means that they could still suddenly find the second key and that things could be okay - and Tiger is trying to hold onto that idea really hard. At least until Wakana drops her key into the water in her panic, and Xanxus casually gives up.

What do you even say to that? What do you do? What do you do when you're literally about to die, and you don't even have the time to sort out exactly whose fault it is? He feels like he should be angry, like he should at least tell them both off before this happens, but he can't. Instead he just feels like crumpling inwards. Wishing that it could just happen faster instead.

He just feels...really small, in a way he doesn't understand. He feels like he wants his mom, or dad, or anyone...something he doesn't remember ever having.

He just looks at Xanxus, that laugh hurting more than anything else, and then to Wakana. And then he just looks at the water and whimpers.

Xanxus' laughing is the worst thing about this. Something about it makes Wakana snap.

She grabs at Xanxus, the closest thing there is to a visible "bad guy" in this situation. She never liked him, anyway. "Just shut up!" she screams, trying ineffectually to shove him beneath the water. "Shut up already!"

She's not wrong about that. Not at all. If only Wakana knew just how right she actually was. This is some quality super villain shit right here. All he's missing is the large white cat.

And then he's grabbed and hauled right back into the water. You'd think Wakana would want to take care for the victim first, but it seems she'll save trying to be a hero until after.

Not that he'll let her. Sure, he goes down, but he also grabs her and pushes her down as well. If it's a water fight she wants, a water fight she's going to get. Complete with splashing her like their four and in a kiddy pool and not next to some drowning kid in a cage.

The water is starting to make it card for him to get any air - only the space at the very top of the cage's bend has any space for him, and even that is rapidly disappearing. He starts to choke out something to the other two - the two currently busy fighting each other in the water - but he stops. They aren't even paying attention. He would have though that, at least, if he was going to die here that at least there would be someone there with him. But there isn't really. There never has been.

"I'm sorry," he mumbles to no one in particular. To just everyone in general, he guesses. If he wasn't like this, then maybe someone would have actually cared when he died. Factually speaking, there are people that would, had they been here, but in the moment he's incapable of imagining it. He's really just messed everything up. "Please..."

The water goes over his head, and he reflexively struggles, despite the fact that he's known there's no point to it for a while now. It's the moment he's been dreading this whole time. He doesn't know what to do. There isn't anything to do, and all there is left is waiting for it to end.

And now...I'm going to die.

That thought rings through his mind, like a striking piece of deja vu. And suddenly, in those last moments, he remembers feeling like this before. He remembers a place dark yet filled with lights, and a hollow, piercing cold. He remembers hardly being able to breathe, and being scared in a way that make him feel so much smaller.

A tired, frozen little...sadsack.

In the real world, Tiger's fingers slip from the cage bars.

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☆TRACK II: DISCORD AND RHYME

► BOBBING FOR KEYS

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I am so so sorry for him

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