IC Contact - Exsilium

[maddeninghatter]

[ Thirty seconds of tuneless humming--beeeeeeeeep! ]

Comments

[velveteened]

( and on his back he lands with a sudden start, and the well worn thought of but is he really blind. but after a moment he sighs, accepting defeat, and answers without moving to get back up just yet. )

If you think about it, then it's pretty logical. ( as if thinking is all he's done, and a certain roomba-related misadventure wasn't what gave him the idea. ) B. Rabbit — anything from the Abyss, no one could figure it out within a few days, especially if they didn't know much about the Abyss in the first place.

( or contracting, which they clearly didn't — or an incuse wouldn't've seemed such a novelty )

But that wasn't a problem. They were in a hurry, but they didn't think we were going anywhere. So in the meantime, why not start to think ahead? It's not so easy as copying that much power. What about how to control it? Or — ( and here it is ) — how to stop it from destroying their soldiers?

( not the sentience of the power itself, not the anger behind it that so wanted to, but more pragmatically: the same problem contractors of very powerful chains have to worry about themselves.

and if you've one such on your hands, why not try to find out how it works? )

[maddeninghatter]

[ Controlling chains and bypassing contracts had been an important subject of Pandora research, ostensibly for the purpose of addressing the illegal contractor problem. Of course, political intrigue had played a role, too. His own chain was widely held to be too powerful for one man to wield; only because he was a servant of the noble Rainsworth house was he tolerated, and then only with considerable grumbling and reluctance.

However, despite years of research, circumventing a contract was still impossible. So too, blocking a Chain's power, except with a Chain-killer such as his own.

...

What had Oz said? When he invoked, he'd said it felt like it had originally, back when he had needed Gilbert's seal. Break's mind turns around to his recent experiences with his own Chain, recently enhanced by the Initiative's sentient power. Mad Hatter had become far more powerful — but also more destructive, to his own body. Indeed, he would have died the moment he invoked, if not for...

He shakes his head, as if casting off the memory. ]

It's too much for your body, your Chain. I'll ask Gilbert to seal it again.

[velveteened]

No.

( — illogical. but he's not eager to be in a situation like that again, much as the last was for less than a week and a month ago at that. )

[maddeninghatter]

[ Patting Oz on the head. ]

I'll take that as a "yes."

[ He launches himself off the top bunk, landing cat-like on his feet. ]

[velveteened]

( he sits up quickly, affronted. )

I said no! That's not going to fix anything.

( had been lenalee's vain promise from that day, we'll fix this, and he'd known not to believe it even then, but still. )

This isn't going to be permanent — ( or so he certainly hopes. ) — so as long as I don't use it...and I wouldn't here anyway.

( lest b rabbit DESTROYS THE MOON on the accident )

[maddeninghatter]

[ He seems to be headed for the door, but now he stops, puts out his arms, and pirouettes back around. ]

You haven't told him yet, have you~? ♥

1/

[velveteened]

I did!

( THE MOST INDIGNANT )

[velveteened]

I explained the whole thing to him as soon as I was sure about it.

[velveteened]

And — 

[velveteened]

He fell asleep, so I'm not sure how much he heard.

( he is really offended by this. )

[velveteened]

There wasn't any point to waking him up after that.

( and after all the sleep he's catching up on. )

6/6

[velveteened]

( THE DEEPEST OF SIGHS.

and, after a pause, he decides he should probably do one thing more, on the topic of telling. )

And there's something else.

[maddeninghatter]

Pffffffffffff —

[ No, sorry. He can't hold it in any longer. ]

Ha! Ha! Ha!

[velveteened]

( o m f g )

There's nothing funny about it!

[maddeninghatter]

Ha! Hahaha! Hahahahaha!

[ In nothing resembling a hurry, Break finally manages to catch his breath and leave off laughing. ]

Why don't you come down and tell me what's so not funny.

[velveteened]

( HE'S GETTING NEW FRIENDS.

in the meantime, though, he's scrambling off the top bunk himself, in a jump that's significantly less graceful but gets the job done and anyway who's looking. no one, har har. )

It's not at all!

[maddeninghatter]

Hm, well. Gilbert must have been very tired to fall asleep on his precious master....

[ He looms over Oz, smiling sweetly, arms behind his back ]

[velveteened]

( the only response he gets to that

is the biggest frown he's never seen. )

[maddeninghatter]

We~ell~ if you've got nothing more to say, I'll just toddle off and go find Mister Sleepy-head~♥

[ He swings around and starts out the door again. ]

1/2

[velveteened]

( nnnnNNNNNNNNNNNN )

[velveteened]

( he says, )

They'd never seen an Incuse before.

( a belated answer, sort of, to what wasn't quite a question in the first place. )

[maddeninghatter]

[ Which is why they were so interested in it. ]

What an awful tease you are. Go oooon, I'm all ears.

[ Poor child, to have had to go through this. Guilt is searing through him again. It's his fault, for not being there. ]

[velveteened]

( he hesitates, not having thought out this far what to say; that and a reluctance to talk about the subject at all draw the hesitation out into a pause. )

Project Chimera didn't really need people around; the scientists mainly did their work in the laboratories. But to do that, ( he starts to raise a hand and then drops it, shaking his head ) they had to collect samples to study there — like blood, for instance.

( and presumably what precisely they were doing going at his chest for the incuse will be easy to infer now. )

[maddeninghatter]

[ ...ah.

He turns and reaches out, on purpose to pat Oz's head. But the gesture seems too.... too something (perhaps his hands are too small for proper patting), so he settles for simply trying to push down the wild locks of Oz's hair. ]

Experiences like this...

[ He killed as many UE scientists as he could find, but not nearly enough. ]

They make you stronger. But even so, it's okay to let yourself be looked after.

1/3

[velveteened]

( it's a futile effort, of course, with how his hair is; even with gil's ministrations he'll never have neat hair. the gesture makes him blink, a little distracted from the answer for a brief moment, and perhaps he doesn't need to say that this is most certainly not something he's told gil yet (ever, possibly) nor anyone else. what he does need to say is likely not what his first instinct is — that he hardly needs looking after, that everything's fine, that there's nothing at all to worry about — which would probably garner more accusations of being an uncute brat.

besides, that's not a good answer anyway. even he knows that by now. )

I know, I know. It was just...