WEEK 4 TRIAL

[foundationmods]

It was noon on Saturday.

No matter where they were, no matter what they were doing...the moment the chimes rang out through the hall, they felt a change.

The world...began to expand, as they felt themselves leaving the world they were on, and towards another, much larger world...🗈

...As always, the courtroom was there - along with the audience, watching, waiting for the entertainment before them.

The Witch - Nirrti - was there, sitting in the most important place, watching all of them with a sharp, cruel gaze, though no smile could be seen on her face today.

Watanuki was also there, but he merely lounged in the back behind them, smoking a kiseru pipe in silence.
...It seemed as if he was content to watch - that he had to watch - as part of the rules of the game.

There was no music to be heard, but... perhaps on another plane, in another place, someone else heard music as they gazed upon the proceedings.

Again, their forms had changed - perhaps into something different than last time, but...still a change, no matter how dramatic or inconsequential it was.

...There was a deep silence in the room, one that no one wanted to break. It was the faint tension in the air, like the moments before a race or a competition begins.

Truth was elusive, yet they had to find it.
No matter how painful, or upsetting.
No badly how much they all hurt.

For the sake of the dead...and the sake of them all.

Comments

[anonnomnomnom]

[Anon laughs once, quiet, when the deer appears.] Well done. [He doesn't move -- he lets the deer hit him full force, taking the entire width of its antlers. There's monster pompom blood now mixing with Syaoran's blood on the floor, probably. This has somehow been a very bloody trial even without the execution.]

[cryosurgeon]

[And under his mask, with whatever mouth he might have under there right now....

Erhard grins.]

[incrediblystressedout]

[The deer gives Anon a solid one-two - it's aggressive and mindless, but Joey is focused. She sees him not fighting back, and she doesn't have the will to keep hurting him pointlessly. That is kind of the opposite of the point she's trying to make. She raises a hand, and her summon stops, grunting with animal aggression.]

Drop him.

[anonnomnomnom]

[He lets himself roll a bit before righting himself, bloody and a little tattered -- but it doesn't seem to faze him otherwise.] We're all earning new tricks this trial, aren't we? [It's oddly conversational.]

[incrediblystressedout]

I'm not fighting for fun, even if you are. Do you want me to add lasers to this guy? Because I can do that.

[Sure enough, the deer's eyes start to glow, red and green like the summoning circle.]

[anonnomnomnom]

[He's quiet for a moment.] I'm not fighting for fun, either. Not this time. [There's something true in that, even if he doesn't dwell on it.] They're good lasers, though.

[incrediblystressedout]

Thanks. Are we gonna talk like people, now?

[anonnomnomnom]

I was actually hoping you could show me more deer. [He doesn't seem to want to talk right now. But at least he seems to have calmed down since Syaoran is out of his vicinity.]

[incrediblystressedout]

[Joey pauses this, and considers for a second. Closing her eyes and concentrating, she conjures with faint, colorful pops, regular-sized deer who fly around in the air on the feathers of oversized dove wings. And also magic, because that's nonsense.]

[anonnomnomnom]

[He doesn't say anything, but the needles around him warp a little bit. They get a little more colorful, and then they start chasing the deer around, trying to shoot them down. Well. It's still more benign than what he was doing just now. And none of them are aimed at Joey herself.]

[incrediblystressedout]

[The deer are imaginary. Even if Joey cares about imaginary animals very very much, she's also perfectly capable of imagining them out of the way of Anon's needles, and they won't wake up in the mansion remembering the pain of getting skewered six ways from Sunday later. So if Anon wants to play, she can play.]

[anonnomnomnom]

You should make it a little harder to hit them. [He's going to start multiplying his needles, making them glow and start to spin in funny patterns. This is eventually going to turn into some kind of bullet hell mode needledeer shooter at this rate.]

[incrediblystressedout]

You think so? I didn't want you to call me a cheater.

[They're just going to flicker from place to place now, regardless of continuity of flight. Occasionally one is hit, but with a bit of concentration, Joey replaces it with two half-size deer, Asteroids style.]

[Give her until at least college to get into Touhou, come on.]

[anonnomnomnom]

There's no such thing as cheating. You just get creative. [He seems pleased with the evolution happening to the deer, and his multiplying needles split still further to go after the smaller deer. There's more and more of these in the air and it's absolutely getting hard to keep track of, but Anon doesn't look away. The focus is nice. And also we're throwing her in the deep end of the bullet pool, enjoy.]

[incrediblystressedout]

[Yeah, maybe shooting a million bullets is easy, but dodging several million bullets with a dozen or so flying projections?]

[Joey tries her best, but her flying familiars are struck down in puffs of smoke one by one, Joey grimacing with the effort of making sure they poof rather than take realistic, bullet-like damage.]