Hello Tower.

[thornythaumaturge]

[The video clicks on, showing a clearly worn out Jade Strider, with a small handful of bleeding scratches and some burn marks on her face, and for once completely lacking her "cool kid" composure. She's breathing heavily and obviously panicked, but compared to John Lalonde it looks like she got off easy-- in the background he can be seen leaning over some pile of debris near two chairs, his face reduced to a bloody and battered mess from an explosion. Both of them seem to have an extra collar on under their colored collars, linked by chains to a strange box on the ceiling of the Library.
When she started talking, it was hurried and rushed, and she sounded like she was about to cry.]

H-Hey-- the fucking bomb just-- blew the fuck up in John's f-face and there's metal and shit in his face and it's all fucked up and we ne--!

[Her sentence was cut short with the sound of a "snap," the chain suddenly retracting on both ends, violently pulling John away from the bomb's remains and Jade away from the computer terminal.

Given the way both of their bodies were now hanging limply from the ceiling, that "snap" wasn't just the sound of the mechanisms.

After a minute or so of that image, someone enters the screen. She looks similar to a popular movie icon, if anyone into horror movies are watching, but just a little more terrifying. She smiles, waving a wooden hand at the camera, before switching the feed off.]

i see the network is working properly again!
good, good. that makes this easier.
i want to play a game, my fellow tower mates.
do you think you can survive any better than these two?
it's a shame they couldn't follow the rules, isn't it?
hee hee hee.
i hope you all are ready.
oh, before i go, if anyone needs candy there's plenty to be found in the library!
i'm sure they won't be needing it.
:)

Comments

[heirterosexual]

holy shit, what just happened?

[thornythaumaturge]

they lost!
isn't that obvious?

[heirterosexual]

well somebody's lost something, that's for sure!
like you, and your mind!

[thornythaumaturge]

oh don't worry, my mind is most definitely still intact.
it may seem crazy, but honestly if they had simply listened more carefully, they would have lived!
i don't think they even learned anything from that.
tsk tsk.

[knightime]

shit
jade
john
JADE? JOHN?
what the fuck is going on
what the ever loving fuck are you doing

[heirterosexual]

oh my god.
what were they even supposed to learn? you just kind of blew john's face off and then hung them! that is not okay!!

[thornythaumaturge]

how to work through problems with your friends rather than apart from them!
but unfortunately they couldn't do it.
i guess that's not a surprise since this isn't the first time they've gone off on their own without cluing their friends in, but i really had hope for them!

[thornythaumaturge]

well, i *was* trying to teach them something, but they just weren't open to learning i guess!

[heirterosexual]

what?
rose you're talking crazy.
like seriously what you just said doesn't make sense.
if they went off on their own it probably wasn't intentional, and it's still not reason to blow off people's faces or hang them!

[knightime]

so you killed them
holy shit how is that even ok
spoiler
it isnt ok
this is the opposite of ok
theyre your fucking friends
you dont just kill them because they went and fucked up

[thornythaumaturge]

oh it was completely intentional!
because john and jade had to be heroes.
and dave and i were left to play with a bunch of frogs!

[heirterosexual]

...what??
you mean like the weird universe-creating frogs? that's sort of really extremely important though? so whatever they were doing was probably to help cover for you two.

[thornythaumaturge]

it's completely okay.
i mean, if you think about it, we're a doomed timeline because someone fucked up, and so we had to die.
we may not be friends of the alpha timeline, but we're iterations of them aren't we?

[restitchtime]

[breathe in. breathe out. don't lose your shit, Strider. stop shaking. you're better than her, aren't you? for once, only once, in this horrible horrible moment you're better than her.

don't let her see you're affected by her bullshit.]

If you're trying to outdo the sociopathic killing record Lalonde set in your universe you're off to a pretty fucking pathetic start. You should stop now before you embarrass yourself even further.

[thornythaumaturge]

no, they kind of weren't!
because we were never meant to make a new universe.
that was a completely pointless task.
we were completely useless.
but maybe that's why the other two ran off.
still doesn't make it okay though.

[knightime]

[Oh no. No no no. He doesn't want to think about how they're a Doomed timeline from his timeline. Just no. Stop.]

its not ok
youre alive here
he was alive here
why are you even killing them?

[thornythaumaturge]

i'm not trying to outdo anything!
if i were trying to do that, i wouldn't have bothered giving them the chance to live.
i would have just killed them, hee hee.
them and a dave too, since that's what it would take to make it even i think.

[thornythaumaturge]

like i said, i was trying to teach them something.
but they didn't want to learn and couldn't follow the rules.
there has to be consequences.

[heirterosexual]

wow way to be a debbie downer!
maybe they were trying to find some alternate way to fix things or something.
i really doubt they were intending to leave you two to a pointless task!

[restitchtime]

You wouldn't have just killed them because that would have been too goddamn straightforward and we both know that, so don't even start with your bullshit. Especially when it sure sounds like you're gearing up for a couple more rounds of slasher theater.

[thornythaumaturge]

they couldn't be bothered to tell us.
hell i didn't even learn of what they were doing until john blew us up and he and i arrived here!
and even THEN it took me being angry with him before he told me!

[thornythaumaturge]

no no, i really would have.
i mean it wouldn't be that hard.
john has no magical ability to him whatsoever, and while jade is a time player, she's very trusting!
it was easy enough to knock her out with my magic, after all.
and i might be ready to continue my work, yes.
there are plenty of the inhabitants here who deserve it.

john stop conversing with the crazy girl.

[heirterosexual]

...wait he blew you up??
suddenly i don't understand anything.

[knightime]

theyre going to come back
you dont stay dead here
so all you really did was fuck them over for some crappy lesson

[restitchtime]

If you're going on a justice crusade then I'd suggest starting with the most obvious candidate and offing yourself. By the time you come back we'll have had a nice Batman straitjacket made up for you so you can foam at the mouth in peace while the adults do something actually fucking productive with their time.