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Post by tsukikoko on Sept 7, 2018 5:33:27 GMT -6
For a long while, only silence answered him. Even the clack of claws had vanished, replaced by the heavy, but deliberately quiet placement of focused feet. It was the force that would raise hairs on one's neck, make sweat form on the brow, increase heart rate, incite feelings of panic. An ominous harbringer, drawing closer with every moment.
Then... not a sound, more the knowing that there should be sound. A grunt, or a pained inhale. The tendrils writhed, agitated, but otherwise made no move. Viktoria still stood, the steady drip of blood finally filling that void of silence. Her breath came in louder huffs, heartbeat abruptly audible, slamming against ribs in a steady, angry rhythm. Something was out of sync. The breaths, at first regular, hitched, or perhaps sped up? The image of her abruptly shifted out of focus, at least from the waist upwards, until it became apparent that there was another. A second image, layered over the first, moving slightly off beat. The source of the breathing. "Trrrying." Viktoria's voice. Strained, but solid, present, drifting across to Sarkany from where she finally, at least in part, stood in the room with him.
The ears of the second image, the real Viktoria, flickered wildly, while her features grimaced from either exertion, pain, or both. The upper torso swivelled to look at him, now very clearly seperate from the memory she had managed to hijack. The emerald eyes focused on him, her mouth parted as though to speak. Until a rapid movement of her ear shifted the expression into a slightly wide-eyed look of desperation. "I cannot prrrotect you." The scarred feline looked briefly to the far end of the room, where from the blood pool a set of clawed hands emerged. "I can... diverrrt. But you must rrrrun." The figure that lifted itself into the room was no longer the unhinged, raging beast that had followed Sarkany thus far. The eyes that locked onto him were of the unfeeling war machine. It stood, began to jog as Viktoria continued to speak. "Go. Rrright wall." Her image shuddered, twitched with static as she indicated the wall she had originally been chained to. Pieces of white lay scattered, two large sections having been pulled away in the feline's escape. From that damage, a multitude of cracks and splits branched out. "Do not stop." That was the last thing she said, before the humanoid's image again distorted, this time towards the other version of herself. An arm struck out, catching the soldier across her midriff, halting her rushing attack with a dull thump. Viktoria herself grunted, her entire form shaking from the effort, knowing she could only hold for a few seconds at most.
Assuming Sarkany had moved, in a crack split through the wall where Viktoria had wrenched herself free, shone a barely-there light. A well hidden tear, barely open. The soldier had paused, looking down at the arm holding it back. There was no drive to attack it, for this object was certainly part of itself, but that didn't mean it wasn't in the way. Hand gripped the forearm and with steady, incremental progress, the simmering violence pulled Viktoria's arm away from itself. Green, uncaring eyes again lifted to Sarkany, the steady, menacing forward momentum continued.
Should the seraph touch the tear, he would find himself in the corridor of a dimly lit house. A door stood ajar to his left, murmured voices drifting out. Ahead of him at the other end of the hallway, a wolfskin laid over a chair, eyes staring but brimming with vitality, as though it knew he was there, could see him. The mouth was agape and from within, movement, a flickering flame and swirling snow.
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Post by MP on Sept 7, 2018 9:14:15 GMT -6
“Good enough,” Sarkany said, already moving for the tear. He would have preferred to end this in the prison - the ideal scene for an intervention - but one didn’t pick and choose where untouchable supersoldiers were involved. He lunged for the light, emerged already moving in his new surroundings.
He took a moment to identify the voices, catching scraps of the conversation as he slowed to listen, but he heeded the feline’s warning. He never once stopped, and in another moment his eyes fell on the skin.
“Hello, Officer Dog,” he muttered, reaching for it. “If you’ll excuse me.”
He pulled open the lifelike jaws, reaching for the image within with a slight grimace. Even if it was just a memory, it felt distinctly awkward, to say the least.
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Post by tsukikoko on Sept 7, 2018 11:19:16 GMT -6
Blazing heat and biting cold met the seraph as he reached into the wolf's mouth. Though by no means a blizzard, the snow fell consistently, whipped around by winds that drove the flakes into the raging inferno currently devouring what remained of a village. A pungent scent filled the air. Chemical. Fuel from whatever had originally set the place alight and now kept the flames burning despite the weather. Bodies and scorched items littered the ground, including one that was distinctly non-human, if the spurs on what remained of its charred elbows were anything to go by.
Heavy thumps, bone colliding with flesh, could be heard nearby. The sounds of a struggle. Snarls. With an ear-splitting crash of splintering wood and exploding concrete or stone, a body came hurtling across the scene. It sailed through the air for a second, weightless, before colliding with the snow and near cartwheeling before sliding to a stop. "You arre faulty V1." A deep voice, animalistic and hard to discern, filled the vision. Each syllable pounded and stabbed with horrific intent, a murderous edge lacing every word. A figure emerged from a nearby building, clearly the source. Larger than the other, they pushed their way out of the burning wreckage, apparently unconcerned by the heat. From the snow, Viktoria struggled to her feet, clearly badly hurt from whatever altercations had occurred here. She spat out a mouthful of blood, then raised her fists in front of herself, face as stoical as ever. "Ve vill see... commanderrr."
The memory continued, should Sarkany be of a mind to watch it. But a force behind him continued to encroach. An oppressive, dangerous weight that never faltered. Around him all the doorways still standing, four in total, crackled with varying energy and sights. One pulsed with multicolour, akin to the window of a nightclub; another, black as the void, save the faintest hint of a flickering glow, a candle perhaps; the third and nearest to him swirled and flickered as an unstable video recording might; while the final showed a sky, blue and serene. There was no direction from Viktoria this time.
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Post by MP on Sept 7, 2018 13:07:59 GMT -6
Sarkany moved from doorway to doorway, appraising each in turn. His movements, though quick and efficient, seemed to hitch occasionally, a reflexive motion. He kept glancing back at the battling figures, following Viktoria’s progress with uncharacteristic curiosity. This was not her Taurce, after all. There was no bond of brotherhood here, no merciful impulse in her favor. Only claw and fang and an animal hunger for violence. Sarkany’s eyes gleamed with fierce admiration, but he turned his back on the terrines. The other was coming. It was time to make a choice.
His first impulse was toward the flickering door. Viktoria might not be centered as he’d hoped, or have a mental shelter that he could find. But instability often meant conflict, and conflict could be enough to draw her out. He extended a hand toward the entrance. Hesitated.
The colored door glared out at him. Lurid, an assault on the eyes. Sarkany’s eyes narrowed as he stared at it. He thought of a tall, slender figure, sharp-dressed and haughty. He thought of the satisfaction in its stare. Sarkany turned in his tracks and stepped forward, wincing, to follow the pulsing light.
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Post by tsukikoko on Sept 7, 2018 15:54:47 GMT -6
Each pulse of multicoloured light brought a new vision. Jumping between two locations, linked by their flashing, almost aggressive display and the pulse pounding rhythm reverberating through the floor and into Sarkany's chest.
One, a nightclub alive with bodies of all shapes, sizes and species. To the seraph, a relatively recently familiar sight; Malthiel's club in full flow. The other, completely unknown, filled with men and women, all human, in varying degrees of undress atop stages. Each dancer moved to please the crowd below them, their bodies highlighted by each sweeping band of light. On the far side of both visions, arms folded across her chest, Viktoria surveyed the room. Her form shifted between two forms of dress, one of which was a suit. Scars came and went, signalling her relative ages by comparison. In the nightclub, the walls writhed with golden threads.
The scene that unfolded played in a jarring, stop motion style fashion, all the while interspersed with images of a great number of energetic dancers, some clearly non-human. A small group of men in matching jackets began to heckle some of the provocative dancers, attempting to climb on stage. Cat-like ears rose, the scarred humanoid began to move through the crowd. A scuffle broke out, members of the crowd attempted to intervene, laser shots were fired, knives and bats were drawn. Panic. Viktoria's large hand found the back of one gang member's head. On the next pass, she had slammed his face into the floor. Others took notice, spun to fire, beams of red cut through the air. A spurred elbow struck the shooter's face, a knife found Viktoria's cheek. Punches were thrown, a bat turned on its former owner. By the end of it, Viktoria hauled each of the men out of the back door into the space beyond. She stood in the doorway afterwards, an immovable barrier. "V!" Shrieked one of the girls, nearly in tears, as she ran forward and took a hold of Viktoria's arm, staring out into the alley where she had thrown the unconscious gang members. Wide-eyed, she turned her gaze up to the feline, "You're bleeding! Let me see, let me-" "I am fine." Gruff, said with only the smallest glance away from the door as Viktoria kept watch, making sure no further reinforcements were coming. Though her ear did flicker in the woman's direction. A woman who was now pouting. "Come on V, they ain't coming back. Now let me see it. God, what would we do without y..." The female voice faded into nothingness as the lights pulsed yet again, leaving Viktoria alone in Malthiel's club, leant against the wall, slim golden tendrils wrapped around her wrists. A glass sat on a table beside her, a single droplet of water running down the smooth surface. When it reached the bottom, rather than pooling around the glass, the liquid continued on its journey, trickling across the wood, down own of the table legs and then across the nightclub floor. The trail carved a path, ripped open the edges of the memory.
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Post by MP on Sept 8, 2018 13:38:54 GMT -6
His wince became more pronounced at the alternating scene. Sarkany put a screening hand over his eyes, grimacing as he pushed through the crowd. He saw no sign of Malthiel, of any untoward behavior toward the feline aside from the threads, and that have to would do for now. With the lights of the nightclub throbbing behind his eyelids, he fumbled toward the exit.
Viktoria was there already, staring after the rabble. Sarkany hardly glanced at the sprawled bodies, but he did listen to the aftermath. Perhaps he didn't have a choice. His outline braced against the wall, flickering and blurring in time to the nightclub's pulse. He stared after the girl's voice, her unfinished words, for a long moment after she faded into the Lucid Dream.
"You know," he said to no one. "When I came to this city, I wasn't looking for a pack. We would've gone our separate ways without a second thought, if I'd had my way."
A steadying pause. He straightened and began to walk.
"There was nothing left to do, you understand. I'd outlived my use. I came here to...skies, it sounds bad saying it out loud. To die, I suppose. I was done with people."
The liquid streamed across the table, tracing a line across the floor. He followed it on patient steps.
"When you came after me, I told myself I was just returning the favor. As a diversion. I said it then, and the time after that. And the time after that." Sarkany shook his head and stepped into the tear, the memory and the girl and her words all fading behind him. "I say a lot of things. But she had the right of it. You made the difference, storm or not. I never did thank you for that."
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Post by tsukikoko on Sept 10, 2018 7:18:22 GMT -6
Though no words responded to him, as Sarkany stepped through the tear he was enveloped by a familiar, friendly warmth. There was a feeling, like a hand on the shoulder, a pat on the back, that passed over him. Impressions of loneliness, misunderstanding, of never quite belonging. The flash of a slim Icarim muzzle through the canopy, the nibbling of a cat ear. Gratitude.
It wasn't long, however, before the array of experiences and sensations faded, leaving Sarkany once again in that white walled room. A number of the overhead lights had been destroyed, plunging half the room into darkness, lit only by the occassional spark of a damaged bulb. Viktoria stood with her back to the door, her claws investigating the wall for signs of weakness.
A bolt slid across the door, followed by the creak of hinges.
The feline's reaction was instantaneous. She rounded on the newcomer with savage intent, bloodstained claws brandished ahead of her, eyes blown to black pits behind the muzzle. Much of her vanished in that split second moment, leaving behind only pained, angered violence and destruction.
It was a child.
The ferocious snarl shifted into a muted growl of shock, emerald swelling to fill her eyes once again. Images of a terrified girl, her face reflected in the blade of a bloodied knife, cut across the memory with the intensity of a lightning bolt. The scarred feline checked her advance, threw herself on her leading leg and twisted to the side, in order to prevent her claws raking across the young human's face and neck. A child who had not even flinched in the presence of her. Her arms swung wide, body exposed as she pivoted.
The child ran towards her, tiny hand outstretched. Viktoria had a moment to realise the danger, that she needed to get away. Her bruised muzzle crinkled, but it was far too late. She could not move quick enough.
Fingers brushed her skin. That was all it took.
Something was in her head. The same snaking tendrils, a soft blue this time, exploded from the child's touch and dug themselves into the walls, ceiling, floor of Viktoria's memories, searching every recess. The humanoid began to howl; an animal sound, one of pure, unfiltered agony. But she remained on her feet, still powered by some desperate fighting fury. Red and black flooded the room, smothered the tendrils. Her fist swung at the child, no longer trying to avoid them. But even the memory had shifted out of focus; she couldn't see, couldn't find them through the searing heat in her skull and the blackout threatening at the edges of her vision. She staggered backwards, still lashing out. The tiny pressure followed, placed two hands upon her abdomen and further tendrils exploded through her mindscape. The pain worsened, threatening to tear apart her mind at the seams.
With a dull thump, Viktoria's back hit the wall. She pressed a clawed hand against the smooth surface, tried to push upright, shove the child away. But instead she slid, in small, juddering steps, down the wall. Until she sat in a collapsed heap on the floor.
Still she howled.
For a half second the agony faded, the hands left her abdomen. Viktoria's head lolled, she tried to focus. A weight straddled her chest, hands reached for her face, barely visible through the feline's blurred vision. An urge to fight them. She had to. Had to escape, find Sarkany. She couldn't raise her arm.
Fingers touched her temples. The mental inferno began again. A sound like shattering glass.
Rage flooded Viktoria, took her over, gave her the strength to struggle. To fight. The world around Sarkany began to seethe and boil. Hot violence seeped from every fissure, growing and spreading until it was a raging torrent, smothering even the pain. All were the enemy, all were to be destroyed.
But even that was not enough to save her. Her claws lashed out, the child moved to avoid them. She tried to bite the hands against her face, only for the muzzle to prevent her. Tried to rise, succeeded in pushing herself to a squat even. But no matter how hard she pushed herself, the tendrils wormed deeper. From the walls, smaller, golden threads. The image of Errol and other tall, slim figures, Malthiel included. All strangely beautiful, all lean and delicate in appearance. The larger tendrils took on that colour, came to resemble those Sarkany had seen elsewhere in her mindscape; their thorns grew larger, the rage that had swirled and ravaged abruptly dissipated in their wake. Two of the glowing threads turned, slid their way across Viktoria's body, then burrowed into her temples.
You will obey. A command so powerful it near slammed into Sarkany's chest with the force of it.
The scarred feline gave another garbled snarl, clawing at her own face. A final thought, weak and pleading beneath the onslaught. "Nyet.. pozhaluysta..." (No, please)
The memory, the animal wailing, continued on beside him. But past the child and Viktoria's spasming body, the door still lay open. Devoid of the thorns currently were far too preoccupied with lacing their way into the feline's temples and fanning out to her other memories. They had not noticed the seraph yet. The entryway simply sat there. Waiting.
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Post by MP on Sept 10, 2018 8:30:51 GMT -6
The feline collapsed. But her howls wore on. Sarkany stood rigid by the doorway. White-knuckled. Ink-eyed. He passed a shaking hand over his face as if that could remove the scene. For just a moment, the room was overlaid with foreign echoes. Rays of sun through a cloudbank. The curve of the world below. But he controlled himself, reigned in his bleeding thoughts. The past was past. Nothing, and no one, could change that.
Sarkany turned his eyes from the child - tried not to hear the wails of his packmate. As much as he wished to intervene, as much as the shade at his shoulder and the beast in his mind both howled at him to act, there was nothing here he could do. He turned his back. Muhmure hakhar, he turned his back on the feline and stepped through the open door.
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Post by tsukikoko on Sept 10, 2018 8:47:27 GMT -6
The door slammed shut silently behind Sarkany as he stepped through the threshold, sealing the agonised cries behind him. The world was cool here, almost frigid. Silent. Black. But perhaps most startling of all was the complete absence of what had been an ever-present simmering of anger. There were no barriers here, nothing keeping the violence at bay, it was simply... not there.
Stagnant. Frozen. Barren. All these terms could describe the place Sarkany now found himself.
So it was that, when a sound finally did emerge from the unending darkness, it was an abrupt, startling volume. "Hallo... Sarrrkany." A voice; deep, Russian and undoubtably Viktoria's, sounded from somewhere to the seraph's left. She didn't sound tired so much as completely and utterly exhausted, nearly broken. There was the muffled sound of movement, a breathless grunt of exertion, followed by the dull thud of a body slumping back to whatever floor this place seemed to have.
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Post by MP on Sept 10, 2018 9:30:25 GMT -6
His bright shape looked around at the words, its soft glow fuzzing and smoothing again at the motion. Sarkany turned and began to follow her voice on quiet steps.
“Hello, Hkoma,” he answered, and whatever his thoughts on her memories, both expression and voice were calm. It was the tone of the old days - of shared hunting and companionable woodland walks - fond and familiar as if the compound had never happened at all. More presence than form now, Sarkany’s shape seemed to radiate a smile as he neared.
“Do you where we are?”
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Post by tsukikoko on Sept 10, 2018 13:59:56 GMT -6
There was a pause for a few moments, then another groan, louder this time as Sarkany approached, before Viktoria's voice again filled the space. "Hyave... some idea." From out of the darkness, a shape, somehow slightly illuminated; it was as though by moonlight, yet confined to a singular location. "Zis iz... my hyead.. da? Iz norrrmally... brrrrighterr. I am, ah... allowed... to vatch." The figure shifted, rose slightly onto what turned out to be an elbow, before the scarred feline turned her head to look at her companion. She visibly quivered, apparently even the small task of raising her own torso proving too much, as she slid down onto her side with a small 'oomf'. The humanoid managed to part her lips in an approximation of a smile, her fangs glinting in that strange silvery light. "You arrre.... hyarrd to keep... alive."
The expression fell, her eyebrow ridges pinching together in the closest look to concern her facial structure could manage. "I am not vanting... to hyurrt you... orrrr pup... agents too..." Her entire body, if she could call it that, felt as though it wanted to all apart. Do nothing but lay here. Muscles usually so respondent and strong, now shook as weak as a newborn kitten. To even try and rise was extraordinarily difficult, especially after the lengths she had gone through to help lead him here. But for Sarkany, she tried again, pulling her arms in towards herself and pushing upwards. It was slow progress, but with panting breaths, she managed to again prop herself onto an elbow spike.
"I am... sorrry."
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Post by MP on Sept 10, 2018 15:26:51 GMT -6
He answered the bestial smile with one of his own - a wry, what-can-you-do expression and a small shrug. But his smile flickered at her next words.
“I know,” he said.
Sarkany padded forward and knelt at the feline’s side, a space between them. He started to joke her apology away - some offhand remark about fair turnaround, his knife in her back. The deflection died in his throat. It felt wrong to see her like this.
“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry too. I shouldn’t have doubted,” he said instead. “We’ll have to make up for it here, hmm?”
He held out a hand to her then. It had no substance here, no earthly strength. But a whisper of warmth, the ghost of an eternal sun, came with it. The touch of a foreign will.
“I can lend you my strength for this - offer a rest point, shape the chains into something you can face.” Yellow eyes searched the green, uncommonly solemn. “But I can't fight them with you. I can’t open the doors. When you’re ready, Hkoma, you’ll need to lead the way.”
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Post by tsukikoko on Sept 11, 2018 4:53:13 GMT -6
Viktoria looked at Sarkany's outstretched hand, some of the life returning to her eyes as the seconds ticked on. She had tried to fight back multiple times, of course she had, but it had become apparent to her this was not a battle she could take on alone. Feats of mental consitution had never been her strong suit; there had been no way to reach out to anyone, though she had desperately tried. To have Sarkany appear here when she most needed it, willing to help and stand beside her despite what risk he might be taking to himself, was a gesture the scarred feline had not experienced often before her time in Wathais. Especially not to this magnitude. She didn't think she would ever get used to it.
Whether it was his presence, the warmth of his gesture, simply time passing to allow Viktoria to recover or some other reason besides, the feline began to find movement a little easier once again. She still struggled, her body responding lethargically, but managed to reach for the seraph's gesture nonetheless. To brush against the shining, near otherworldly presence and stength he could give her, if nothing else. "If ve do zis..." She started, now beginning to force herself to a seated position, the brute determination clear to see on her face. "I cannot... fight like zis." A final grunting breath of effort and the scarred feline successfully sat before Sarkany, her body sagging forward a touch but her eyes bright and focused. "You arrre... rrrememberr, firrst we met. I talk of... sentimental?" She gestured with one hand to herself. "Zhey rrremove. Also doubt, hesitation, rrrebellion... I am zis." Her gaze turned towards where the door, now impossible to see, had been. "Vhat iz trrry to kill you.. zhat iz, ah, my drrrive to fight, kill... my tactics, fearrrlessness, strrrength." The emerald returned to look at the seraph, full of unspoken words that he did not have to stay for this, that he could leave and never look back. That she would understand. "I vill need it."
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Post by MP on Sept 11, 2018 11:00:18 GMT -6
As the seraph’s hand closed over Viktoria’s, the shape that was Sarkany seemed to collapse like a sea spray, light and presence lingering in a faint semblance of him. Impressions came in brief, unconscious pinpricks: the skid of gravel underfoot, the dizzying tug of the surf. But Sarkany centered himself in another moment, his figure resolving itself as the effect took hold. He started to help her upright.
Flashes of companionship, of preened ears and lightning spars and grinning aftermaths on the ground. Of hunting and of battle, of the ironclad certainty there was someone at your back. All of it overlaid with a second willpower: resolve, assurance, a waiting calm that was almost serenity. The effect was like standing in water, a buoying force. Though it still took effort to act, the feline’s movements seemed subtly supported by the thought-tinged air.
At other times, alternating, superimposed when one focused on it, the effect seemed more like a shelter. The memories were a screen, a retreat from the bleak surroundings. It had no more substance than a well-told story, a vivid distraction rather than a true barrier. But it lent some remoteness to the storm, however small.
As the changes settled around them, Sarkany nodded his understanding.
“Good. That simplifies things.”
If he saw the feline’s permission to go, he gave no sign. He knelt unmoved but for his blurring outline.
“Do you have a plan?”
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Post by tsukikoko on Sept 11, 2018 15:23:14 GMT -6
Being able to stand again, supported by a companion, a friend, bolstered Viktoria far more than any reassurances or spoken word could have done. Then, there was no hesitation, no doubt in her. Just a question of the way forward, simple and proactive. This the feline understood. This, so much unspoken but so clearly defined between the two of them, near easy as breathing. She closed her eyes, let the looming sense of the void wash over her. Two figures, stood at the precipice, single points of illumination against the yawning jaws ahead. She was not alone in this. To again experience that companionship, the breeze of a living world against her skin, the look of exasperated shock over a stolen sandwich... Viktoria would gladly fight to the bitter end for that.
Twin points of luminous green reappeared in the darkness, turning until they gazed at Sarkany. When the feline spoke again, a measure of strength, that old stoical surety, had returned to her. "Da." A finger pointed at Sarkany's chest, as though she might prod him. "And iz involve you." With a task set, a goal in mind to work towards, Viktoria was all focused purpose. They may have thought they had taken all that made the supersoldier functional, tactical and decisive, but the remnants persisted as integral as her genetic code. Despite the best efforts taken to remove it. "I notice, ah... vhen trried to hold back, mysyelf, it iz not attack of me. Alvays vhen I manage to leave zis place and look, cannot find beforrre... ah, no enerrgy. Pass out. Find syelf back herrre." Her hand reached out, fingertips coming to rest on the handle of a door that should not exist. "But you, I vill follow. Alvays. Until you arrre dead. So-" The door slid open, Viktoria turned her back to the empty space, a dull metallic grey behind her. "Ve bait trrrap. Da?"
With that, the humanoid fell backwards, tipping herself into the waiting memory below. A dome, where the laws of gravity apparently did not apply and a number of large, muscular figures wrestled in floating free fall. Viktoria included, wearing nothing but a skin tight white and yellow bodysuit. They appeared to be fighting over... a pig?
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