[ Before entering the cell, a different variable will be introduced to the experiment for both participants.
A memory is implanted in Dion. You're the son of a well-established member of the Royal Guard, born with innate talent in every art of battle you think to try your hand at. Your skill is applauded from youth, and you outshine even your eldest superiors by the age of 8. You're lauded as a genius in tactics, in speed, in warfare. Most importantly to you, you're beloved among your peers, who find you sweet and loyal. You've worked incredibly hard to make yourself approachable, because your skill is so vast that others are too intimidated to even talk to you after training sessions, which leaves you lonely often. But while you succeed in making friends and your skill grows ever more impressive, your body has another future in mind. You're only 16 when the curse begins to eat away at your lungs four whole years before it should. It digs into your body quickly, and in just months, you've gone from the shining jewel of the Guard to a bed-ridden shell of your former self that can barely finish a bowl of porridge. The desire to live hooks into you even deeper than the curse, though. You want to live and be well so badly that it makes you delirious. Just one more day, and it'll be your turn on the list. One more, and you'll get your new body. You can hold out long enough to survive one more battle, can't you?
A memory is implanted in Scien. You're the doting eldest sibling of three wonderful brothers and sisters, and you pride yourself in caring for them in lieu of your absentee father and dead mother. You refuse to let orphanages take any of you in and break your back to make ends meet, and you do it all with a smile because you're greeted by their loving, grateful faces at the end of each grueling day. You cherish these dinners, the times when you can let your hellish reality fade and pretend you're just a boy chattering away with his precious family. But one day, while you toiled at work, someone took everything from you. A burglar entered your home, foolishly expecting to find something worth pilfering. Finding nothing, they snatched the lives of each of your beloved siblings instead, leaving you to come home and find their cooling, mutilated corpses. Through the years, you've lost all hope in the Corps or the Royal Guard. No one has brought that fiend to justice, and so you must live no matter the cost, because your family won't be able to rest while they're still out there, unpunished.
In the cell, the following await you: a morningstar mace, a broadsword, and a box of matches and canister of gasoline.
But the heart isn’t so simple. The other strong feeling demanding your attention is your relationship with the person you’re in the cell with—what you know, genuinely know of them, and all the feelings that come with that.
Is emotion still worthwhile, if it will destroy you from the inside? ]
[ At this point, Dion can hardly remember who he is or what he wants. He was the prince of Sanbreque, a dutiful son, an employee aboard the Eudora, a dutiful white man of a son, and now back to this: a man dedicated to his community.
In the mess that is his head, it's easiest to latch on the most recent iteration of his life, and it's easier still to disregard the confusion and focus on the fury: at being brought here, and at being toyed with. All his life, and everything he'd thought that he was—all that to amount to nothing more than a pawn for Ultima (who?) to move across the chess board. And now this.
He contemplates taking the gasoline and matches and seeing if there's a way to burn the entire building down.
He doubts there is, and he needs to be smart (though how much had that done for him?), and he takes the broadsword, and when he feels as though he has a moment of clarity, he faces his opponent. ]
[just moments before this, scien was ready to burn the whole world down. that is the ache of a heart with all its emotions and then some, even taking on those of others. his assistant, once again dead. the memories of failing yuri and shoma. and as he is once again in this horrific situation, the question repeats: why weren't you enough?
not enough to save the island. not enough to protect the already small number he cared for. not enough to provide for his family. not enough to—
who is scien brofiise?
each of these weapons is nonsensical to him. all of them would fit oddly in his hands. he seeks to preserve life—no the life he seeks to preserve most is his own. (what?) and yet all he can accept into his hands are the matches and gasoline. he loosens the cap of the small tank. he rolls one of the matches in his fingers. and he looks up at the sound of his name.
everything is static. (the life he seeks to preserve most is—)]
Dion? [kill me kill me kill me] Sorry.
[he flicks the cap of the gasoline off and turns it to slosh the majority of its contents on dion]
[ He doesn't want to do this. He had always, always wanted to be a good man. A man worthy of the life, the privilege and all the blessings he had been granted. He'd wanted to serve as the guard, to make better life in this miserable place, because there had to be something better.
Something wonderful, warm and full of love. He doesn't care for wealth, power or prestige, he had only wanted—
It's strange to hear Scien apologize. ]
No—
[ His darts forward with his sword, the blunt edge aimed toward Scien to knock the matches from his grasp.
(He wanted so badly to be a good man, but most days he can do little but choke on all the blood he's spilled. He cannot let Scien suffer the same.)
And then he'll pivot on his heel for a second strike with the butt of his sword, this one aimed at Scien's head. ]
[scien simultaneously doesn't like to be underestimated, and yet, he invites it. he's a man who's survived countless assassination attempts, day after day (is he?) and so there's something in the muscle memory that makes him harder to fight than one might expect. he loses the match that he'd pulled apart from the set but the batch of them are in his other hand. if he could just light one, then it'd be over.
doesn't he want this to be over?
there was another good man who sought to stop him, before his own choices and actions destroyed his principles. when desperation overruled his logic, and he thought that he was just so close to salvation, just one more almost for the pile.
he thinks of that good man again, his scarred face, his monstrosity, his ruinous pursuit of love.
he doesn't completely dodge the strike, but it doesn't draw blood. it doesn't hurt enough to slow him. he moves to close the space between them so it's harder for dion to swing, and again aims the gasoline to splash onto his face]
[ Scien doesn't hesitate, and he thinks that's for the best. He should want to live, and to survive. Not just because there's still much left to do, and so many lives left to save, but because he's—
He really doesn't want to do this.
The gasoline splashes in his face, stinging in one eye where he's too slow to protect himself. The stench of it is suffocating, and for a second he thinks to retreat, but any time he gives Scien is an opportunity to light a match.
Frustration wells. Frustration that quickly ignites into fury, all else giving way to a desperate desire to—not live, exactly, but win. To wrest some control for himself.
He fixes his gaze on Scien again, in a second correcting his stance to strike forward with the sword, double handed as he seeks to cleave him in two. ]
[vengeance sits oddly in scien's chest. vengeance implies that there's something that you want, that you cherish so dearly, that you find yourself torn asunder when it's taken from you. scien wins so very often, but sometimes he loses. sometimes his life's work is ripped from him, destroyed past the point of recognition, and the one thing he has for himself is gone. even then—whenever that was—it never occurred to him to seek revenge.
but now there is the love of a family on the line. his little brother, who was cut down just as he was learning his alphabet. his darling, sweet sister who gave him the world's brightest smile just before she said, "how could i possibly share blood with such a monster!"
he locks eyes with dion and feels that fury. takes it on for himself. human malice means nothing to me, he'd said so many times (when?), so why does it make him falter to think of a world in which dion wants him to die?
scien dodges, but just barely. his right arm is lopped off again, by a very, very good man.]
[ Blood splashes across his blade and his hands, and in an instant horror cuts through his rage. It is his father's blood again with Dion's lance through his chest, Nodd and Yuri who were left charred by Bahamut's anger, Shoma who the royal guard (if only his body weren't so weak) had failed.
It's Scien, whom he'd told: there is someone who feels pain when you feel pain.
He reels back, speechless at the sight of the blood and the arm on the ground, and for a second his vision goes hazy, grief tight in his chest. ]
I'm sorry. I—
[ Again, and again. He said he would atone, and again it's the same.
... But he grips the sword. He should at least finish what he started. ]
[scien falls to his knees, and fragments of memory cut into his sanity.
to the last man who'd defeated him, scien had dared him to end it. goaded him on. it didn't matter when everything he'd worked on was already falling—when his family was already dead and gone long before they could revive. what is just one more person's rage to fall upon scien as the target?
he spits out blood, derisive. to so many, he would encourage them to assign him the sole source of their problems. here, he is the one getting in between dion and escape. if scien were to die, then dion could live. something in his brain tells him that's wrong, that there's something fundamentally incorrect about that plan, but he can't quite place what it is. from whose hand is salvation delivered?
whose hand?
a twist of his wrist is all it takes, splashing the last contents of the gasoline on himself instead. it stings against the blood, the open wounds, the phantom torture that wreaks havoc against his body.]
I will not become another burden for you to carry.
[not another life on dion's long, long list of regrets. if there is something insane and absurd to be done, scien will do it himself. his fingers find the singular match he'd dropped early on, striking it against stone before setting himself aflame.
hadn't he made a promise? regardless of what you ask of me, i would always choose to save you.
but there is something so spiteful in these memories that linger—so he also flicks the same match right back over in dion's direction. justvirchethings: burning in hades together.]
[ His apologies, as ever, mean little in the face of what he's done. No amount of guilt or regret could ever bring back the lives he's taken, the homes he's destroyed, and the people he's betrayed. And neither should it. He doesn't deserve- he doesn't deserve—
He had said that he would no longer seek death. That he had made memories and bonds so precious that he wouldn't let them perish with him in Origin. It was impossible to imagine waking up after that final battle, and facing another day among the ruins of his country. It was impossible to imagine taking another breath with all the grief in his heart.
He had said that he would try to live.
—But at what cost?
The words barely register before Scien goes up in flames, and for one, terrible moment, he is the Royal Guard desperate to live, and he is elated that he's won.
Just a moment, and then horror fills every part of him. He's frozen, terrified to move lest the sight of the flames become real. ]
You would never—
[ you could never be a burden. you could never be a burden.
Don't show consideration for him. He doesn't want mercy because of all the mistakes that he's made.
The flames are hot before the fire even reaches him, the smell of burnt cloth and flesh, charring and painful where it sears through him. But still his skin is cool against the fire where tears track down his face—one last kindness.
He wishes that the fire could swallow him whole. Burn out his eyes to spare him the sight of Scien falling to pieces in the flames, but they don't get the chance before the cloaked figures arrive, and he's taken from the cell, victorious. ]
After his own match, Luke is likely injured--he's certainly hurt emotionally, since he probably just fucking MURDERED SWEET LITTLE 2-STRENGTH DAHUT OR SOMETHING can't stand it here. Outside of the cell, he's kinda sorta able to cling to the dredges of his true memories a little better--and honestly, that makes it even worse, because it makes the guilt unbearably heavy.
But Scien and Dion are in there, and if he couldn't save Dahut, then maybe he can save them? He tries as hard as he can to break in there, but it is futile, and probably all he accomplishes is summoning cloaked figures to hold him down or something.]
[ dahut is dead, and the matches continue. diluc looks tense standing near luke (sometime after he's been detained by their guards), but he doesn't lash out. nor does he try to comfort him. ]
...It's pointless.
[ he watches with a dark frown as scien and dion face off, thoughts grim. (yaaaay reliver effects) ]
[ SWEET LUKE NOT THE PARANOIA. this really is the worst match-up of reliver side-effects. diluc is definitely not enjoying any of this, and just responds tersely, ]
It'll be over soon enough. You're not doing yourself any favors.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
MOVEMENT II
SCIEN & DION
A memory is implanted in Dion. You're the son of a well-established member of the Royal Guard, born with innate talent in every art of battle you think to try your hand at. Your skill is applauded from youth, and you outshine even your eldest superiors by the age of 8. You're lauded as a genius in tactics, in speed, in warfare. Most importantly to you, you're beloved among your peers, who find you sweet and loyal. You've worked incredibly hard to make yourself approachable, because your skill is so vast that others are too intimidated to even talk to you after training sessions, which leaves you lonely often. But while you succeed in making friends and your skill grows ever more impressive, your body has another future in mind. You're only 16 when the curse begins to eat away at your lungs four whole years before it should. It digs into your body quickly, and in just months, you've gone from the shining jewel of the Guard to a bed-ridden shell of your former self that can barely finish a bowl of porridge. The desire to live hooks into you even deeper than the curse, though. You want to live and be well so badly that it makes you delirious. Just one more day, and it'll be your turn on the list. One more, and you'll get your new body. You can hold out long enough to survive one more battle, can't you?
A memory is implanted in Scien. You're the doting eldest sibling of three wonderful brothers and sisters, and you pride yourself in caring for them in lieu of your absentee father and dead mother. You refuse to let orphanages take any of you in and break your back to make ends meet, and you do it all with a smile because you're greeted by their loving, grateful faces at the end of each grueling day. You cherish these dinners, the times when you can let your hellish reality fade and pretend you're just a boy chattering away with his precious family. But one day, while you toiled at work, someone took everything from you. A burglar entered your home, foolishly expecting to find something worth pilfering. Finding nothing, they snatched the lives of each of your beloved siblings instead, leaving you to come home and find their cooling, mutilated corpses. Through the years, you've lost all hope in the Corps or the Royal Guard. No one has brought that fiend to justice, and so you must live no matter the cost, because your family won't be able to rest while they're still out there, unpunished.
In the cell, the following await you: a morningstar mace, a broadsword, and a box of matches and canister of gasoline.
The rage in your memories is strong. This newly implanted life fights against the last life’s memory of your years in Arpéchéle and that memory still fights against the memory of your weeks on the Eudora and time in your home world. They all wrestle for dominance, but a bloodlust permeates every single feeling.
But the heart isn’t so simple. The other strong feeling demanding your attention is your relationship with the person you’re in the cell with—what you know, genuinely know of them, and all the feelings that come with that.
Is emotion still worthwhile, if it will destroy you from the inside? ]
no subject
In the mess that is his head, it's easiest to latch on the most recent iteration of his life, and it's easier still to disregard the confusion and focus on the fury: at being brought here, and at being toyed with. All his life, and everything he'd thought that he was—all that to amount to nothing more than a pawn for Ultima (who?) to move across the chess board. And now this.
He contemplates taking the gasoline and matches and seeing if there's a way to burn the entire building down.
He doubts there is, and he needs to be smart (though how much had that done for him?), and he takes the broadsword, and when he feels as though he has a moment of clarity, he faces his opponent. ]
—Scien?
no subject
not enough to save the island. not enough to protect the already small number he cared for. not enough to provide for his family. not enough to—
who is scien brofiise?
each of these weapons is nonsensical to him. all of them would fit oddly in his hands. he seeks to preserve life—no the life he seeks to preserve most is his own. (what?) and yet all he can accept into his hands are the matches and gasoline. he loosens the cap of the small tank. he rolls one of the matches in his fingers. and he looks up at the sound of his name.
everything is static. (the life he seeks to preserve most is—)]
Dion? [kill me kill me kill me] Sorry.
[he flicks the cap of the gasoline off and turns it to slosh the majority of its contents on dion]
no subject
Something wonderful, warm and full of love. He doesn't care for wealth, power or prestige, he had only wanted—
It's strange to hear Scien apologize. ]
No—
[ His darts forward with his sword, the blunt edge aimed toward Scien to knock the matches from his grasp.
(He wanted so badly to be a good man, but most days he can do little but choke on all the blood he's spilled. He cannot let Scien suffer the same.)
And then he'll pivot on his heel for a second strike with the butt of his sword, this one aimed at Scien's head. ]
no subject
doesn't he want this to be over?
there was another good man who sought to stop him, before his own choices and actions destroyed his principles. when desperation overruled his logic, and he thought that he was just so close to salvation, just one more almost for the pile.
he thinks of that good man again, his scarred face, his monstrosity, his ruinous pursuit of love.
he doesn't completely dodge the strike, but it doesn't draw blood. it doesn't hurt enough to slow him. he moves to close the space between them so it's harder for dion to swing, and again aims the gasoline to splash onto his face]
no subject
He really doesn't want to do this.
The gasoline splashes in his face, stinging in one eye where he's too slow to protect himself. The stench of it is suffocating, and for a second he thinks to retreat, but any time he gives Scien is an opportunity to light a match.
Frustration wells. Frustration that quickly ignites into fury, all else giving way to a desperate desire to—not live, exactly, but win. To wrest some control for himself.
He fixes his gaze on Scien again, in a second correcting his stance to strike forward with the sword, double handed as he seeks to cleave him in two. ]
no subject
but now there is the love of a family on the line. his little brother, who was cut down just as he was learning his alphabet. his darling, sweet sister who gave him the world's brightest smile just before she said, "how could i possibly share blood with such a monster!"
he locks eyes with dion and feels that fury. takes it on for himself. human malice means nothing to me, he'd said so many times (when?), so why does it make him falter to think of a world in which dion wants him to die?
scien dodges, but just barely. his right arm is lopped off again, by a very, very good man.]
no subject
It's Scien, whom he'd told: there is someone who feels pain when you feel pain.
He reels back, speechless at the sight of the blood and the arm on the ground, and for a second his vision goes hazy, grief tight in his chest. ]
I'm sorry. I—
[ Again, and again. He said he would atone, and again it's the same.
... But he grips the sword. He should at least finish what he started. ]
no subject
to the last man who'd defeated him, scien had dared him to end it. goaded him on. it didn't matter when everything he'd worked on was already falling—when his family was already dead and gone long before they could revive. what is just one more person's rage to fall upon scien as the target?
he spits out blood, derisive. to so many, he would encourage them to assign him the sole source of their problems. here, he is the one getting in between dion and escape. if scien were to die, then dion could live. something in his brain tells him that's wrong, that there's something fundamentally incorrect about that plan, but he can't quite place what it is. from whose hand is salvation delivered?
whose hand?
a twist of his wrist is all it takes, splashing the last contents of the gasoline on himself instead. it stings against the blood, the open wounds, the phantom torture that wreaks havoc against his body.]
I will not become another burden for you to carry.
[not another life on dion's long, long list of regrets. if there is something insane and absurd to be done, scien will do it himself. his fingers find the singular match he'd dropped early on, striking it against stone before setting himself aflame.
hadn't he made a promise? regardless of what you ask of me, i would always choose to save you.
but there is something so spiteful in these memories that linger—so he also flicks the same match right back over in dion's direction. justvirchethings: burning in hades together.]
no subject
He had said that he would no longer seek death. That he had made memories and bonds so precious that he wouldn't let them perish with him in Origin. It was impossible to imagine waking up after that final battle, and facing another day among the ruins of his country. It was impossible to imagine taking another breath with all the grief in his heart.
He had said that he would try to live.
—But at what cost?
The words barely register before Scien goes up in flames, and for one, terrible moment, he is the Royal Guard desperate to live, and he is elated that he's won.
Just a moment, and then horror fills every part of him. He's frozen, terrified to move lest the sight of the flames become real. ]
You would never—
[ you could never be a burden. you could never be a burden.
Don't show consideration for him. He doesn't want mercy because of all the mistakes that he's made.
The flames are hot before the fire even reaches him, the smell of burnt cloth and flesh, charring and painful where it sears through him. But still his skin is cool against the fire where tears track down his face—one last kindness.
He wishes that the fire could swallow him whole. Burn out his eyes to spare him the sight of Scien falling to pieces in the flames, but they don't get the chance before the cloaked figures arrive, and he's taken from the cell, victorious. ]
PEANUT GALLERY
no subject
After his own match, Luke is likely injured--he's certainly hurt emotionally, since he probably just fucking MURDERED SWEET LITTLE 2-STRENGTH DAHUT OR SOMETHING can't stand it here. Outside of the cell, he's kinda sorta able to cling to the dredges of his true memories a little better--and honestly, that makes it even worse, because it makes the guilt unbearably heavy.
But Scien and Dion are in there, and if he couldn't save Dahut, then maybe he can save them? He tries as hard as he can to break in there, but it is futile, and probably all he accomplishes is summoning cloaked figures to hold him down or something.]
Enough! Let them out!
no subject
...It's pointless.
[ he watches with a dark frown as scien and dion face off, thoughts grim. (yaaaay reliver effects) ]
no subject
We can't just do nothing!
no subject
...I don't think we have a choice but to wait it out.
[ or die in mortal combat! ]
no subject
Unfortunately poor Diluc has to deal with Luke's bursts of paranoia in here]
So you won't even try? [Is he enjoying this? Is he on their side?]
no subject
It'll be over soon enough. You're not doing yourself any favors.
no subject
I'd rather try and fail. [Because he's not a SPY]
no subject