☆TRACK III: THE STREETS ARE EMPTY

[interdimanagers]

Who: Drafted Virgo Members
What: Juno makes everyone do a seance.
When: October 21st-22nd.
Where: The basement of the Virgo residential tower.
Warnings: Ghosts, apparently.

“You can't shake the feeling. Be quiet not one sound. But the wind seems to speak, Something's here in the room with me.” ☆THE STREETS ARE EMPTY Juno arrives without notice. In fact, you can’t even really remember seeing her approach. One moment you’re doing your business, and the next she is telling you that you have to come down to the basement with her, in order to complete a “task” you’ve been assigned. This sort of thing would seem preposterous to a normal person, but even if you don’t realize it, you aren’t one. As Mr Blanche’s personal assistant and sometimes second in command, her word seems to carry almost as much weight as his does. You don’t really have any choice but to agree. “Bring whatever instrument you know best,” she says. “You’ll need it.” She snaps up every one of you that she sees in her initial sweep, and soon she has a whole pack of Virgo newbies following her down to the lowest floors of the residential tower. It feels weird, but it’s like you can’t quite articulate why. No one else seems to be able to either. Most of the lights are turned off on those lower floors, but it’s easy to tell it’s a place you’ve never been before. It’s strangely...hospital like, down there, in both aesthetic and a sense of sterility. Maybe some kind of laboratory setting? Which seems like a super weird thing to be in the basement of an apartment building, but this is yet another thing you can’t quite bring yourself to ask about. Juno leave most of the lights off, except for a few central features. The ambience is dim and cold. She tells you not to stray, and you don’t. The thought of going against her becomes somehow repulsive, like you don’t even want to think about it too long. You try not to think about your surrounding too hard, either. She lines you all up, and then after some strangely intense eyeballing, she starts breaking you up into some incredibly lopsided groups that seem to have nothing to do with your actual bands. In the end, she looks disappointed with resulting teams, but carries on regardless. Each “group” is given some complexly timed sheet music and a funny looking mobile speaker. She says that you have a half hour to compose a group piece to play alongside the sheet music , and that it needs to be good. Then, she wanders off to start pacing the basement in a strangely arcane series of movements, and leaves you all to it. Only among your peers do you start feeling like you can voice any of your previously stowed concerns, but make sure Juno doesn’t overhear you – occasionally she’ll come by to bluntly critique anyone who is performing inadequately. You feel lucky that she doesn’t have a whip with her, because you’re almost certain that she’d use it without much remorse. ☆THE SEANCE The performance is about as awkward as you’d expect, given the set up. The four groups are set up so that they’re facing each other, as if standing at the corner of a square. Each speaker is set up in the center of its group, and the precisely timed electronic beat that plays from them is what you’re supposed to perform along to. Odds are that you do your level best, but, outside of your control...something goes wrong. “Have you ever felt... Something evil, Lurking around? The moon is full, The streets are empty. Shadows cover the town.”

Comments

[panspermia]

Greg's unlikely to be the brightest person in the room at any given moment, but he's not stupid. The logical part of his brain is telling him that whatever got to him has clearly hit Weasel just as bad. The part that's looking for any source for his frustration is only aggravated by the reminder.

"Damn it... why is everyone being so stupid?"

[yuruse]

"... Sorry."

Sadly, Weasel really doesn't know how to fix the situation. Like Greg, some part of him knows that things aren't right, but the complete loss of such an important part of his being has made thinking in any rational sense difficult.

"I can still help you, if you need something." If it will make him feel better, because he's not heartless. (Which is part of the problem too.)

[panspermia]

"No you can't," he moans into his hands, the venom drained away entirely. He's too tired, too scared to keep it up. He just wants things to work, and they aren't. "You don't know what's going on. Neither do I. We wouldn't be moping around like this if we knew what to do."

Juno's the only one who has any answers. All he can think to do is wait until she comes, fixes things, somehow makes things stop being terrible. She can't leave them locked here forever.

[yuruse]

Greg is right again, of course. Not that Weasel had believed he would have been of any use to begin with. He doesn't know what to do for either of them. Truly, he's useless.

The bassist is about to lower his head again when he's distracted by a sparkling... something, floating in the air. It's unexpected, and he thinks perhaps it might be part of Juno's plans for their performance, whatever those really are. Of course he has no hopes to raise about it.

[panspermia]

At this point, sinking down into despair with Weasel seems like the easiest option. Maybe not the best, but the easiest. Greg can't think of anything else there is to do, anyway.

However, the light catches his eye before he can shut everything out, and Greg looks to the wisp with a start. "That--that thing." An edge of panic creeps into his voice. Those had showed up right around the time everyone started acting weird, right? "What is it?"

[yuruse]

"I couldn't say. Maybe some sort of light show for the performance." It certainly isn't something like a fairy, that's for sure. Whatever it is, Weasel is sure there's a fairly mundane explanation. Some sort of fancy but subtle pyrotechnics display.

He doesn't reach out toward it. He'll surely ruin it if he does.

[panspermia]

"The performance is over, though. They gotta go." If it really is just a prop, then it's being held up by something. He reaches out, trying to swat at whatever unseen string is holding it there. "Whoever's running this stunt has a real lousy sense of humor--"

His hand raps against it, and the effect is instant. His breath catches as the vision plays in his mind. A second later, Greg jerks back as though shocked, and leans heavily against the wall, eyes wide. It hadn't been painful, or even unpleasant. But it had been vivid, and rich, and for a moment it was as though Greg could feel again.

A baby--there had been an infant, in his arms, someone he wanted more than anything to protect. Someone who meant everything to him.

It felt dimly familiar, but it didn't fit quite right, somehow.

[yuruse]

"Greg?" Weasel might be lacking hope, but he still has concern in full. That reaction is unexpected, and he backs away from the light himself as if it might do something to him also. Keeping it at a distance, he shifts around to get to his bandmate's side, tilting his head to get a better look at his face.

"Are you alright?" This is probably the least emo he's sounded since this whole thing started. The others mean the world to him.

[panspermia]

For just a few seconds, he feels whole, like a real person. As the moment fades, though, it leaves him feeling colder and emptier than ever. Greg blinks at his bandmate for a moment, before rubbing furiously at his eyes.

"That--that thing." His voice is tight, and sharp, and wet. "Don't let that thing near me. You got it?"

He backs off a few steps, more to put distance in from the wisp than from Weasel.

[yuruse]

Weasel isn't sure what the little wisp has done that could have startled Greg so. It doesn't seem to be emanating any heat, but that doesn't mean anything. It could still burn someone. Yet Greg doesn't seem to be covering any obvious burns on his hands. Maybe it's sparked a bad memory? It could be that he'd had a bad fireworks incident as a child.

He hesitates to touch it himself, after his bandmate's reaction, but he doesn't know how else to get it out of the way. The bassist swats at it carefully with the back of one hand, hoping that will knock it back.

What he doesn't expect is the familiar imagery flashing through his mind again - images he'd somehow forgotten before now. There's a name on the tip of his tongue, but he can't quite form it and it eludes him. The wisp vanishes and he's left wide-eyed, clutching at the front of his shirt as his denied emotion is returned to him.

[panspermia]

Greg flinches even as Weasel touches it, as though expecting another side effect just from being nearby. A sort of dumb thought, but tonight is already dumb and he's rattled enough to expect anything.

Yet, whatever he might have expected, the light vanishing so simply wasn't part of it. Again, Greg backs away, eyes darting between Weasel and where the wisp had been.

"What... what happened? What did you do?"

[yuruse]

Widened eyes turn to Greg, the shocked look fading into something more glazed over as one set of memories is followed by a completely different set. Greg's form becomes little more than a silhouette in the dark, his mass of hair suddenly reminiscent of another, face obscured by a mask. They were no longer in a basement, but surrounded by forest, the moon hanging low overhead.

"How do you know about me?" The man speaks, and Weasel - Itachi - recalls that he's the one that set this meeting up.

"You slipped through Leaf security at it's tightest in order to examine the stone tablet under the Nakano Shrine. Only the Uchiha know it's location." The Uchiha. His clan. Family? A surname he rarely uses here for reasons he never really thinks about. This man, then, is a member of that family as well. "Since then I've kept an eye on your movements, discerning your character and ideologies."

"Well, then. That saves me time. You'll already be aware that I bear hatred for both the village and my own clan."

"I have terms." Itachi cuts him off before he can go any further. "I'll help you exact revenge on our clan, but you are not to harm the village itself. Nor--" The name. That name again, on the tip of his tongue. He waits for it to come, but the memory ends as it's spoken. He knows what, who, he wants to protect. If only he knew the boy's name.

Weasel blinks rapidly as the imposing figure he'd been looking at once again becomes the much less imposing figure of his bandmate. The change in scenery throws him off, and he glances around abruptly. For a moment, there's a sharpness to his eyes that his friends here would find unfamiliar, but that fades away as he focuses on Greg again.

"...Hn?"

[panspermia]

Weasel had already been plenty quiet and eerie, but this sort of spacing out felt like an entirely different thing than the moping from a moment ago. Those lights were screwing with people, he knew it.

"You're freaking me out. What did you do? Where's that thing, what did it do, huh?"

He's caught between wanting answers and being scared of what he'll hear, his tone both demanding and too tightly wound to really listen.

[yuruse]

"What did--- ah." That's right, the wisp. It had clearly caused this, as the memories (if that's really what they are) had been initiated by touching it. Now it's vanished. Why had it disappeared when he'd touched it, but not after Greg had?

Despite his confusion, he feels... better. Whole again. Whatever had sapped him of all hope before is gone, the emotion once again filling the gaps it had left. Had the wisp been responsible for this too? Hoes does he explain this to his friend?

In the end, he decides not to. The man in his memories, perhaps slowly seeping back into his general persona, keeps things to himself for good reason. "I... It's alright. Everything's fine, Greg. It's gone now."

[panspermia]

Were he himself, he'd be happy to take those words at face value. He ought to be glad, to see his friend calm, collected, restored. It ought to be encouraging, something he was hoping for in the first place.

Instead, Weasel's reassurances only frighten Greg more. He hasn't stopped backing away.

"No. No way. Whatever it is you're pulling, I'm not buying it. I'm not putting up with any of this spooky garbage any more, okay? Keep your creepy lights and magic tricks to yourself! I'm out of here."

[yuruse]

"I didn't create the light, Greg." Though saying this isn't likely to get him anywhere. Greg knows he didn't make the wisp. He'd frightened and irrational, and whatever had gotten to Weasel has affected him somehow as well. He isn't his usual self, and if touching the wisp hadn't fixed that the way it had with him, then he's not sure what else to do.

He doesn't yet consider that each of the floating lights might be different, or harbor a different memory. To him, they simply seem to be catalysts of sorts.

"Please don't run off and do something stupid."