Comic 1124 - Inspect the webs
Posted on 18th Nov 2018, 10:29 PM
in Like a Bullet from Behind
Average Rating: 5 (2 votes) /
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Author Notes:
"Caius!," Michelle starts, but Caius is already there--and with barely a hint of hesitation, he shoves his hand into it.
"Guys--" Caius starts, hazarding a glance back over his shoulders. "These don't feel like spider webs."
Fuse, alternating between keeping an eye on Caius and watching the door, glances back. "Well... yeah, they're huge. They're probably not gonna feel right."
"Nah, I mean--" Caius attempts to cut some of the webbing with his machete as he mutters. "It feels... too soft? But look," he pauses, sawing at the material more firmly, "it's like tryin' to cut through metal."
"Spider webs are stupidly strong," Michelle replies. "I'm talkin' like, stronger than steel."
"What?" Caius gives up on hacking through it, turning around to face the others. "No they ain't. Y'can walk right through a spider web."
"You can rip webs off the place they're stuck to," Michelle counters. "Have ya ever tried rippin' a web in half, though?"
Caius makes... a face, shrugging and scratching the back of his head. "No? Tha hell would I do that for?"
Michelle sighs, and Fuse tries not to chuckle.
"It just don't feel right, that's all I'm sayin," Caius concludes. "You got a point, though--maybe I can tear it from tha walls."
"I... wouldn't," Fuse interjects.
Michelle nods. "Yeah, there's no way that'll end well."
"You guys ain't still worried about Spider Satan, are ya?," Caius asks.
"...Yes." "Yeah," Fuse and Michelle reply almost simultaneously.
You ask Pierce for any ideas about practicing, on the spiritual side of things.
"You've learned astral projection, correct?" Pierce turns toward you, and gives a small nod. "That is practice, in a way. The astral form is how one sees themselves--how the mind recognizes its body. Familiarity in that can go a long way--it is good to be able to know when the soul is twisting into something it shouldn't be. In the same fashion, those with an intimate awareness of who they are, who they can be, the aspects of themselves... I've read that they can change their astral form. I've never seen it myself, of course. You may wish to test the limits of what you can accomplish in that state--it is not so different from what you would be in the plane of the mind."
You also bring up that, while your mother is no longer living... her red, technically, should still exist. Another of her kind--the Mars creature--continued to "live" even after being shredded to pieces, and was resuscitated by Zone Fifty scientists. You... wonder if magic could do something like that.
"I could make an attempt at a ritual," Pierce replies. "Though, the ritual that I and the other members of the church put together to summon you to us... didn't go exactly as planned. ...You might keep that in mind. Magic is powerful, but it can also be very dangerous. Still... there's no harm in at least looking into it."
You thank Pierce, and consider the next step. Pushing the limits of your ghost form is a good idea--as is trying to do more with forced syncs. Pierce mentioned the astral state being not that different from the plane of the mind, which you imagine is what happens when you force a sync. Both could be a good way to strengthen your abilities.
You almost, for a moment, ask Pierce about practicing a forced sync with him. ...However, he is still finding himself after a very extensive sync with Thale, and you don't want to further jeopardize his identity by forcing someone else's mind on him. Further, you're... not sure what a mind that's still very Thale heavy would look like.
You return to Bunker A, instead.
Your entrance catches the attention of Dr. Finch, who was doing further studies on the (steadily decaying) remains of the Bunker X head spider.
"Oh! Welcome back," he says. "I believe Elizabeth and our imprint friends are in the other room, though I can't begin to imagine how that conversation is going. Did you learn anything from Pierce?"
You explain what you were told, and your intentions going forward. ...And you inquire about possibly practicing a force sync with Dr. Finch.
He... hesitates. He glances aside at everything laid across the lab table, and stuffs his hands into his coat pockets. "I... hm. Hm. ...Would you think less of me if I declined?"
You start to answer, but he quickly clarifies. "I don't want to say I have skeletons in my closet, per se, but I... I I just... I know how much you learned from enacting this process with Michelle. I.. I've done a number of things throughout my life I'm not especially proud of. I've not done things that... that perhaps I should have. I'm... a fairly withdrawn person, I think, normally. I'm not... I'm still not particularly comfortable with me. This entire ordeal, all of it, every individual aspect has... has made me question more. Doubt more. ...Regret, more. It's no exaggeration to say that my world has been turned upside down, Mine, and I... I just..."
Dr. Finch heaves a very long sigh, turning his gaze to the floor.
"I don't want to be seen. Not... me. Not the rest of me. I don't... I honestly don't want to know what my mind looks like, what manner of monster inhabits it, and god knows I don't want anyone else to see that either. I know I took that risk when were... conventionally synced for as long as we were, but... somehow I convinced myself the facade would hold up through that. Making the reality of who I am more visceral, more tangible, I don't... I don't think I'm comfortable with it. Not yet."
We won't do anything like that if he's not okay with it. The privacy of the mind is precious, and violations of it should be performed as rarely as possible.
However, we will not judge him for his past. He is not who he was; none of us are. We accept him for who he is, and we would not share his innermost secrets with anyone but himself.
We will allow him to change his mind, should he desire, but we cannot push this on him. That would go against so much that we stand for.
it's been too long since we got a Mine hug
it's ok, Doc, we don't gotta do that yet
can we ask momRed if we can feed a drop of blood to Babred and try to do a force-sync with them?
Asking Mom's red about these possibilities certainly can't hurt - may as well see what they have to say.
Maybe we could trade up something to get a minimally functioning environment to practice in? Maybe mini-Mines?
I do realize that borders into weird territory. But it might be worth a shot.
Also, thought... able to manifest limitless blood now, we could probably sync with Mom's red. As the closest thing in our entourage to another God-like entity, and also the most alien, that actually makes the most since.
I guess the "I've not done things that... that perhaps I should have." refers to what led to the divorce.
Now I'm really curious if he has a monsterversion of his wife in his mind, much like Michelle had a monsterversion of Vasquez in hers.
Reassure him that whatever happens we will not think less of him.
After all, Mom was a worlddestroying monster before and we love her anyway.
I suspect that THIS is what alt-Fuse meant when he said that Incident F was “so worth it,” then. Doing Incident F really allowed Mine to become familiar with her own identity in a new and unusually concrete way.
I propose we use changing our astrally projected form as a training program. Being limited in what we can use— not being able to visualize having certain items or powers, for example— has been a huge issue during force sync, and I suspect any kind of astral battle would manifest in a way that’s similar to force sync. So, let’s try training in steps:
Step 1: Change the clothing of our astral projection. Clothing is something that people change frequently and it’s part of how we present our identity but also not in any way inherent to it, so it’s an ideal place to start. I suggest changing our clothes to our nurse uniform, because that’s something we’re intimately familiar with. If we want to leverage emotional connections— which can be very powerful— we might try our bloody nurse uniform, because that’s what we were wearing when we met Michelle for the first time and brought Finch into the party. We could also try changing any items that we have on hand when we start the ritual into familiar items that we don’t have on hand, e.g. putting some bandages in our pocket before we start the ritual and then turning them into syringes.
Step 2: Add items that we didn’t have on hand at the start of the ritual. It could be very useful to have, for example, the blooded bandage-syringe-tentacles that we used in the hospital, and those are familiar enough to make a good thing to practice with.
Step 3: Change our astral body into something that we have physically experienced before. We could replicate an injury we’ve experienced, or maybe add the torso-ear back in. Or, we could try becoming Child!Mine, since we were a child once.
Step 4: Change our astrally projected form into something that we identify with, but have never physically experienced being. For example, Finch!Mine or Fuse!Mine or another Mine variant from Incident F.
Step 5: Modify our astrally projected form in an unusual/unfamiliar way. I suggest adding cat ears. (We don’t need to make them functional just yet, although if we get good at doing this, we could try.) Step 5b is, of course, showing off the cat ears to Tesla and Faraday ^w^
A final note is that we should wait to do this until the party is done exploring the factory, since it will probably take all of our concentration. Until they’re done, we can try to work on rigging up a way to make remote-control biomechs.
Wouldn't want to try Cauis or Fuse right now when they're in ?maybe dangerous place.
Zene?
Crease?
Mav!?
Animals??