WEEK 2 MINGLE - ARTEMISIA

[foundationmods]

Things had changed so rapidly in the past few days.

The loss of two of them hung over like a shroud, made even worse by the fact that an innocent person had been executed.

Was this....how the rest of the game was going to go...?🗈

....Even if it was, there wasn't much they could do now. Yuuko herself hasn't shown up in public since the trial, and while some have talked to her, she's been...subdued.

Did the trial hurt her just as much as them?

Regardless, the island is still beautiful, if deadly. Summer continues, beaming down on all of them, the waves of the sea warm and inviting.

But even if things look bleak...

They have something in their hands that will soon lead to the Truth, and the heart of this matter.

And in the air...lies a heavy sense that everything is about to change.

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Comments

[aleph_armed]

I'm pretty sure jails don't actively encourage people to enter their cell and make them happy so that they can collect energy from it.

Things like what purpose they have or where their power comes from doesn't matter to me. That's someone else's job. My job's to keep them in check and make sure they don't kill any more noncombatants.

...If you really want to see what you could do with them, you could try out some of the weapons, but you have to get permission from the bosses first. They're sensitive about me giving that stuff out.

[I mean, if Anon ate an abnormality, it would just reappear in its cell within five minutes anyways.]

[anonnomnomnom]

You'd be surprised at some of the jails where I come from!

[Like, any jails with inmates of unusual ability are going to be a circus, so maybe that's where he's coming from. (Not literally.) (Probably.)]

Aha, you're a real professional, aren't you? I think they should just make all the employees people like you. That would make a lot more sense than sending noncombatants in against these guys, right? Like me! The bosses are probably going to be stingy again, but I definitely want to give it a shot sometime.

[Sometime when he has his powers! Let him live! Let him keep an Abnormal pet!]

[aleph_armed]

...Honestly, I agree. Noncombatants shouldn't be forced onto this stuff. It should be left to people like us. Not everyone can be a combatant, because there's a need for smart people, but there's a time and place for these things, and the purpose of us combatants is to die first.

[anonnomnomnom]

Well, that's not what I meant, either! You can be smart and a combatant at the same time, you know -- it's just a pain if you have to deal with noncombatants messing up the field when you're trying to fight or do your thing. Besides, if you go into a battle thinking you're going to die first, that's about as good as losing!

[aleph_armed]

...That's right. That's why we can never really get along. For you, it's all about the fight itself, isn't it? But it's a bit different for me.

[anonnomnomnom]

Haha, of course it's mostly about the fight itself. In a lot of cases, that's how the decision is made. But I don't think that really has anything to do with how we get along.

[In his view, they get along perfectly fine.]

But tell me about how it's different for you!

[aleph_armed]

The difference, I think, is that for me, it's a matter of what will be lost if there's a loss. When people like me are sent to the battlefield, it's guaranteed that people will die. Nonetheless, if we lose, many more will die in our place. I think you probably think that's natural -- that's the perspective of the strong, I suppose. But for those of us who were weak, we remember that weakness. We remember that somewhere, someone saw us as something more than just a tool of death, and we want to protect that, no matter the cost.

The reason why we are the first to die isn't because we intend to lose, but because we consider the idea that our deaths can save many more. People like me, we chose this path because we understood that the only comfort we can have in our lives is making sure others don't have to life through what we did.

[anonnomnomnom]

Oh... I see now. Yeah, we can probably never really understand each other -- you're the type who's fine being a stepping stone to other people, because you have connections, or something like that. It's just short-sighted and drags down your potential, you know? You can't do anything if you're dead, after all. All those people you saved might just live for one more day, or one more minute.

People who don't value their own lives this way don't make any sense at all.

But if you were really on this path of death like you said, I guess that also makes sense. You wouldn't be able to see much else.