EMERGENCY BROADCAST (text)

[justribbing]

(All active cellphones sound an alarm briefly during the delivery of this message.)

To: All Users
From: sans.
Subject: (SUBJECT HERE)
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URGENT ANNOUNCEMENT: The following is an automated message.

Nature of Emergency: cagey queen left us hanging


PRESS 1 if outside the vicinity of: home If it is safe to do so, follow the prompts to take and send an image of your surroundings to the administrator.

Users in the vicinity of: home are requested to congregate in the: mess hall immediately for: probably a good idea to come save us


Additional Notes:

* sup.
* not much, not much, just hangin' with about 3 new and old friends in this cage dangling precariously above the water.
* can't say i like the conditions either, but the cold and damp doesn't get under my skin. i think i see other cages, tho and, uh, i can't say much for them yet.
* six other occupied cages, with about three in each. hey, it's like those math problems you used to get in school.
* startin' to get a real sinking feeling so if there's anybody out there who ain't locked up, it'd mean a lot to me and over 20 other people if you bailed us out.
* see ya. sans.

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Comments

[postictal]

[For a long moment, Tim's just kind of frozen there in indecision. He's - what's he - why would he - would he do that? Would he just do that out of the goodness of his heart, or whatever the skeleton monster equivalent is? Do people do that?

No. People aren't just nice to him. It's gotta have a secondary motive here. Or maybe a primary one. There has to be more to this.

So he sends something back, slowly typed out, with trembling fingers.]

why

[justribbing]

* because i vastly underestimated just how unsafe you are, pal.
* don't thank me.

[postictal]

[Ah.

...shit. Shit.

He can feel his facial features trembling subtly before he remembers he doesn't have to hold his composure over text. Thank god. If his cellmates ask him what's up, he can just say the sea sprayed shit over him and he's making a face. It's fine.]

guess that answers the question behind that one night i still can't remember

[justribbing]

* and that answers one of my questions. here's another.
* we lookin' at you spacing out and attacking people tonight, too?

[postictal]

really really hope not
if you can get the meds to me asap you definitely won't have to worry about it

[justribbing]

* or this all goes pear-shaped and we get to have a swim.
* way i see it, we're lookin' at multiple ways this becomes a non-issue.
* great to have options, huh?

[postictal]

[Is it weird that he finds the gallows humor appealing? It's probably really fucked up that this is actually the most reassuring thing he's seen in days, right?]

oh yeah doubly so
given how shitty my lung capacity is you can stop worrying about me pretty quick.
so that's nice, always good to know how to prioritize

[justribbing]

[ There's something about it that takes some of the mystery out of it, exposes the end for the small and insignificant change to the lives of small and insignificant beings for what it is.

A footnote, at best. A punchline, if you know what you're doing. He'd be chugging ketchup like his life depended on it (ha ha) for dramatic effect if he had any. ]

* at least you have lungs.
* me and my bro are lookin' at permanent residency at the bottom of the ocean if we don't get outta here.

* keep an eye on that other guy in there with ya.
* turns out you ain't the only one with a liability in your back pocket.

[postictal]

you don't need to breathe though right? you don't have lungs??

[Is that...not how it works for them? He's not really sure what the minutiae of that is. But you know what, that second little tidbit Sans drops takes priority.]

you mean the guy here who looks like he's about to panic any minute
cause yeah i'd say he's not doing so hot
do i wanna know what's up with him

[justribbing]

* couldn't tell ya what his poison is.
* not to add to your laundry list of troubles, but i hear you gotta steer clear of some goofy looking ghosts.
* do NOT touch them. capiche?
* turns out a little bird's lookin' out for you.

[postictal]

little bird

[Who could - okay, you know what? He's not gonna worry about that right now. Mostly he just needs to keep himself and everyone else with him alive.]

thanks for the heads up. i'll pass it along the line

/threadjacks if it's okay?

[heritrix]

I had wondered about that.

GO FOR IT MY DUDE

[postictal]

[Ah jesus. Thanks for locking this and making it private, Sans. Not like Tim can multitask any more than he already is to encrypt his texts so - fuck it! Everybody gets to see his dirty laundry! Come one come all, bring popcorn if you can, make a day of it!

It's not like the other guy made much of an attempt to mask (he hates himself for the pun, immediately) that whole clusterfuck anyway, but he's still entitled to be bitter about it, he thinks.]

oh good. anyone else wanna step forward in the meantime
seeing as this looks to be testimonial hour

\o/

[heritrix]

Quit pitying yourself as if you were the only victim there. I went through a lot of trouble because of you.

[But from their few interactions when he was fully himself and sane, she's banking that that's only going to make him loathe himself more. Which pisses her off, because while she's adamant he take responsibility for anything he (or it, not that she knows that) did... From that brief brush against his head, she actually would posit that it's not something he can control, even if she's not sure what it was. Other than he wasn't under something else's influence.]

I won't drag your skeletons out into the open like this, but when this is over and we're all safe, we WILL have a chat about it. Got it?

[postictal]

[Quit pitying himself. Yeah. Okay. He doubts there's a right answer here, so he just...doesn't bother. When's he ever started to defend himself, huh? No point. No goddamn point.]

how nice of you
great. cool.
anything else?

[heritrix]

[It's like talking to a brick wall. Rin sighs, but doesn't close the phone. Yes, actually, there is more.]

Don't attack the cages.
Or anything to force an escape.
Queenie's rigged a nasty surprise for anyone who tries.

[postictal]

i'll be sure to suppress my violent impulses. it'll be a real struggle you know but i think i can manage it

[Is he being overly brittle? Definitely. But he's also trapped in a cage that's about to lower itself to the bottom of the sea, he's allowed.]

puzzle cracking only. got it.

[heritrix]

[But it helps nothing??

No, it's absolutely allowed and more than warranted, which Rin reminds herself after she gets done massaging her temple. She swears half the adults in this place are more childish than the kids.

Really though, she's the type to turn off those types of feelings in a crisis. Sometimes she forgets Tim's reaction is the more normal of the two.]

I wasn't singling you out.
When Zuko tried to bust out with her firebending, it rebounded the flames back into the cage on all of us.
I don't know the identities of the people you're with, or their abilities, but make sure they know it too.

[postictal]

[He's regret the way he's snapping at her, except that he's a little bit - not panicked. Not yet. But he thinks maybe they'll get there soon. Him or his fellow prisoners will, and this space is not big enough for that sort of thing.]

i'll pass it along.
so far we're just id-ing pokemon. there's six total. any way someone could forward the photos of them to whoever works in the daycare?
i don't have them in my contacts and one of my cellmates doesn't have a phone.

[heritrix]

[Ummmmm..........]

Forward?

[This girl doesn't even know what the word download means, sorry Tim. But she does know AZ, so she's already trying to pull up his contact info.]

[postictal]

[He snaps and attaches a couple pictures of the carvings they're meant to decipher. The silhouettes of a Pikachu and a Bulbasaur are already aglow, signifying that they must've already gotten them right.]

i mean like send them to whoever can help so they can see

[heritrix]

[Mrrrr, she's not good at that, but this is an emergency. Rin pulls aside either Zuko or Steven (whichever one of them is free, really) to help her send the pictures to AZ.]

Okay. Contacting him now. I'll get back to you when I've heard something.

[From the looks of those pictures, his team already has two puzzles completed. Maybe by the time she's been able to chat with AZ they'll have more, but she'll ask about the four left regardless, putting her own puzzle on hold for the moment.]

[heritrix]

[Aaaaand after a conversation over here:]

AZ says that second, round one is called Snorlax.
The fourth one is Venusaur.
And the last in the puzzle is Diglett.
He said he'd never seen the one next to it.

[postictal]

[UNFORTUNATELY TIM HAS ALREADY MISNAMED THE VENUSAUR WHOOPS HA HA THAT'S A BUMMER.

But he's not gonna get into that now! Right now he's going to keep himself from getting shanked by the Shadow his little error seems to have summoned! Gosh he's so glad he's doing this puzzle!]

oK
thSAanks

[heritrix]

[UHHH. That sounds less than okay? Feeling very confused, Rin's about to type and ask him what's wrong, or to let her know how the guesses go when she faintly hears the sounds of battle carried on the wind.

She has a really bad feeling in her gut, ahaha.

Unfortunately she can't see their cage from here. The best she can do is wait for the fighting to stop, straining her ears to make sure it's not just being drowned out by thunder and the heavy pelt of rain. When it feels safe to do so, she shoots off another text.]

You're not dead, are you?