☆TRACK II: DISCORD AND RHYME

[interdimanagers]

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. (Click here for your top level!) ☆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." (Click here for your top level!) “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.”

Comments

[interstellarnpcs]

"Your test. Your hazing." The woman laughs. It is not a kind sort of thing. "Someone has got to do the quality control around here."

Apparently not Lesedi Santiago, that would be crazy.

[mildwildchild]

Yeah, anger pretty well outweighs confusion and fear now. "What does trying to kill us have to do with quality control?" he explodes finally. He's not quite suicidal enough to try making a move on the trio, but he's bristling with sheer indignation.

[interstellarnpcs]

She leans back like he just said something absurd.

"If you weren't quality you'd be killed, obviously," she says.

[mildwildchild]

After everything Jamie's been through tonight, he's a little surprised that he still has energy to be this angry. Or he would be, if he wasn't utterly consumed by fury. "What the fuck is wrong with you?" he snaps, voice rising, and now he does start advancing on them, pushing past whoever's between him and the Predator members. "What the fuck gives you the right to pull this kind of shit, huh?"

[interstellarnpcs]

The two women exchange knowing looks, and then they both laugh.

"The fact that we can, obviously," she says. "Hey, stick it out and maybe one day you can do whatever you want to this degree, too." She takes another drag. "The favor we're going to give you doesn't hurt, either."

[mildwildchild]

That laughter, the casual admission that Predator was tormenting him and everyone else just because they knew they could get away with it - it reminds him of his run-in with Bali Pope the night of the gala, and that makes him blindingly, furiously angry. Rage feels like it's throbbing in his sinuses, coursing through his limbs, trying to burst out of him.

"What makes you think I want anything from you?" he shoots back. He's shoved his way to the front of the crowd, and he's still advancing, for the moment too caught up in his emotions to care about the consequences. He's angry, and he's humiliated, and the only way he knows how to deal with it is by overcompensating.

[interstellarnpcs]

Until he's actually on them, they aren't going to move. The woman just makes a dismissive gesture. The man crosses his arms, looking somewhat more imposing.

"Do what you want. It's all the same to us," she says.

[mildwildchild]

That little gesture almost sends him right over the edge, and he's a hair's breadth from actually going after them - but he catches the big guy's subtle movement in his peripheral vision, and breaking eye contact with Cigarette Lady is enough to snap him out of his suicidal rage for a moment or two.

He glares at each of them but isn't willing to back down just yet. "Yeah, someday we're gonna be bigger than any of you losers, and you bet your ass that we're gonna fucking destroy you."

He talks a big game for someone who was screaming for his life at the top of a rollercoaster track like an hour ago.

[interstellarnpcs]

She grins like a cat.

"I look forward to it, hot shot."

She sounds like she actually means it.