dualislogs | i've been bitten by the bug ...

i've been bitten by the bug ...

WHO: Open to all residents
WHAT: Inoculation Season, plus your regular monthly NAPs session
WHERE: Throughout the city, with NAPs held at The Ax Hole.
WHEN: Sept. 10-30 for plague shots and associated side effects; Sept. 10-14 for NAPs
WARNINGS: Please use if applicable!

So tell me, what do you prescribe for these symptoms?

Remember that awful plague that wiped out the city's entire original population? You know, the entire reason you've been brought here? Well, the medical science community of Dualis has been hard at work concocting a cure for as long as anyone can remember, with minimal results. But during the morning of the 10th, news of a breakthrough is announced is a special city-wide bulletin. All media channels are overtaken with this message, and alerts hit every citizen's phone. The best part? Science needs your help!

There's no formal approval process for new vaccines and medications, just a series of volunteer trials before it's determined whether what's being tested is effective. All residents are invited to participate in these trials, with a bonus of 200 extra duos as compensation for their time and possible suffering. Simply head down to your nearest MedDualis clinic and inform the MedDroids supervising that you're reporting for your civic duty. Participants will be given a quick, easy, and practically painless inoculation shot in the arm, and will walk out the door 200 duos richer. Neat, huh?

Participants will be warned that like all experimental drugs, there may be side effects. A non-comprehensive list of those possible side effects includes: minor appearance changes (hair/skin/eye color), enhancing or reducing senses (smell, taste, hearing, sight, etc.), sudden mild development of extranormal abilities (telepathy, super strength, super speed, etc.), the ability to share dreams (if you're not tired of that sorta thing after last month), and/or loss of control over abilities you already possess, or those abilities misfiring. Hey, at least death isn't included on this list!

Any intrepid Dualizen who comes down with a case of weirdness as a result of doing their civic duty will find that weirdness will wear off by the end of the month. The Head thanks you for your sacrifice!

Don't you feel the fever like I do?

Look at all of these bright, shining new faces! There’s even a few less bright, less shining faces - maybe even a few folks without faces - but hey, this city welcomes all types. Chances are, if you’ve just arrived, you're seeing some pretty crazy things, unless you're used to an eye-blinding amount of neon, robots, weird-ass technology, magic, and an omnipresent police force...and hey, if you are, congrats, you're gonna settle in juuuuust fine. But for the rest of you, the Head knows this has gotta be pretty overwhelming, right?

Well, since your quaint individual processing units are probably having a hard time, why not link up with another one? By which the Head means...

Hello, new citizens of Dualis,
and welcome to your monthly Network Adjacency Protocol~!

NAPs are a monthly community networking event similar to the Earth concept of speed dating! Two citizens (new arrivals and old hands alike) are placed at a table together with a handy cue card of queries to help break the proverbial ice. Ask queries and receive results, or ignore the card and yeet yourself straight into a brand new friendship! But don't be too shy, you've only got ten minutes together, and if you just sit in silence for the whole ten, the Network Admins are likely to come supervise and try to repair the uplink through a mild shock to the ol' central nervous system. You might find yourself saying all sorts of unintended facts about yourself if that happens...probably better to just make friends, right? Who doesn’t like friends?!

This month’s event is held at an exciting new establishment called The Ax Hole! The 'Hole is an indoor ax-throwing range plus bar plus mid-price grill-type restaurant, the first of its kind to find a home here in Dualis. You must be at least 18 to drink and/or throw axes, and if you are throwing axes, there is a limit of one drink per hour. The bartenders are very strict about enforcing this rule, and employees are available to give safety instructions on proper ax-throwing technique and supervise activities.

This is a family-friendly establishment, so anyone under 18 is welcome in the restaurant section and the viewing room between the restaurant and range to watch the ax-throwing action, but they are absolutely not allowed inside the range, even just to watch. In fact, anyone who wishes admittance to the range must sign a waiver stating that they understand the risks of participating and agree to hold the Ax Hole free of liability in the event of any accidents that cause injury or death.

If that hasn't scared you off yet, come on down and meet your new neighbors! Oh, and do try to exit with at least as many fingers and limbs as when you entered, OK?

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"Yes. I'd like that." Naminé bobbed her head in a gently nod, her smile remaining wide and happy. "I will have to find the materials. I don't have a sketchbook right now." Which meant she'd have to work more or ask Aqua if she can borrow some money for the supplies and pay her back after working at the café for a little while.

"Well." She touched her lips lightly. "We're friends now, aren't we?" She didn't know if it was that simple but why couldn't it be? They both wanted friends and Naminé liked her.

"He is interesting and there is. Some don't remember me... exactly. I haven't known them for very long. The boy Sora, he saved me from Castle Oblivion. And Kairi knows me because we are connected. Then there's Roxas and... others. I don't know if we're friends though. I haven't..." Her voice trialed off. "I hope we are friends but I don't know."

"I guess that could be it... He always was pretty volatile." The answer doesn't satisfy, though. And what answer would, anyway? He hates to think of Fern being so upset that he tries to kill Finn.

"Me and PB, though? I wouldn't... It's not like I'm trying to keep them apart. I don't think they've even actually met. The only reason he knows her at all is because he used to be me..."

He does, in a shocking display of intelligence, actually hear himself talk. He jerks his head up at Nida again, wide-eyed.

"Oh shmow-zow, do you think that could be what he meant?"

Connor's eyes narrow at the sight - the weird effect in the air, the way her hair totally changes in front of them. Multiple people - right. He sees it. And not a human who just happens to have DID, either. On some level, she's genuinely transforming.

While the girl looks around her, clearly under a lot of stress, Connor casts Hank an alarmed look of his own. The screams have already attracted attention - is it enough that the iterations might have been alerted?

"How long have you been here?" he asks Hank, lips barely moving. He's heard enough from other people, and seen just enough, that he can roughly guess how long iterations usually take to arrive when they've been alerted to a problem. If they have.

"You're not causing trouble, Penny Farthing," he says, voice pitched slightly softer than usual. "We just wanna help. You haven't been to the dorms yet, have you? Let's go over there and find your room."

In other words: let's leave this street before anything comes, and he's hoping Hank gets the message, between Connor asking about time and then trying to make them leave.

Hank wasn't far from the mark, only they weren't actually gods, but simply otherworldly beings from another planet. Of course, their longevity, durability, and metabolisms gave them, by comparison to humans, decidedly godlike qualities, along with their other abilities, so it wasn't a far stretch for the man to make.

Loki was a master of magic, of illusion and transformation. He loved playing tricks on people. The God of Mischief was a fitting enough title, and he was the sort of man who liked to press all the buttons of an entire planet just to see which combination made it explode...

"Heavens, no." He shook his head, grinning as he returned with the beer. "At least not yet. Do try not to bore me."

"Realizing I would give anything to allow for their continued existence." It hadn't been ruling them, or growing with them. Perhaps with their longevity and healing abilities, he'd taken his people for granted all these years, and Hela had forced him to accept the fragility they all shared. Whatever it was, Loki had realized they could all be gone in an instant, that he'd orchestrated their near extinction twice now.

His life had been the least he could pay.

"Medical professionals help those who are hurt?" He smirks though, clearly teasing the young man. "I suppose that does call for some level of perception, yes."

Hey, it's not like everyone here knows that stuff. And honestly, he doesn't know what Asgardians would call that field. They've got weird future science and all that.

"In my defense, I've never heard about medical practices in your world. For all I know, medicine isn't even needed anymore. So stop smirking like that, pretty-boy. But yeah, it does need perceptiveness. Could be a matter of life and death."

As pranks go, salt for sugar was indeed a classic, and he smiled to spite himself. Ah, siblings. If he were honest, the thought of his own hit him with a pang of sadness as he thought on it. He was dead. He would never see his brother again, never know whether or not he'd survived, if the Asgardian people had escaped at all, if he'd bought them enough time.

Thinking about Thor, though, did bring a smile to his face as well. "Well, we didn't spend much time in the kitchens, so bakery mischief wasn't common. I did turn my brother into a frog just before his coming of age ceremony."

"Guilt changes a lot inside someone. Sometimes it makes them worse but sometimes they learn and try to be better." She reached a hand out and put it on his and smiled softly. All she'd wanted was to be free. It was all any of the FreakAngels had wanted but instead they'd messed everything up. "Did you mean for it to happen?"

"I don't see how you could get bored here. I mean, not just a bar with ax throwing. They've got people that come back from the dead and angry robots. And all kinds of people that are probably assassins but now gotta be baristas or something."

He gestures loosely with his free hand, poking fun at the harsh forced domesticity of this world. It's honestly abrasive.

"Pretty sure they're setting themselves up for a corporate mutiny or fuckin' something." And he's a cop, alright, he doesn't want people to die. But he does not mind them having the shit shaken out of them when they've gotten used to an awful world and just take it as rote.

"Of course. If you need help with getting them I can see what I can do." Now that was an interesting thought. Nobody really let her do much of anything back home but she'd have to learn here. Re-learn. She'd known before and she could know again. If all else fails she could just download knowledge she needed.

Arkady clasped her hands together and gave a firm nod. "Yes we are!" For her it was as simple as declaring it so. Nothing ever needed to be as complicated as some people tried to make it.

"Castle Oblivion sounds very ominous." Whoever named that Castle hadn't even tried to make it sound like a good place to go. "I'm sure you are friends. I don't see why you wouldn't be, even if they don't remember you completely. Sometimes even when you forget things you can still feel them inside. Not many people can erase feelings. They stay even if the memories linger." Arkady could erase everything if she wanted, but she didn't know of many other people that could do that much.

Naminé relaxed. "You're right."

It was hard to believe that anyone wanted her around. After everything that had happened in the castle, it was only Riku who had any memory of her, but she knew that the connection they had shared then wouldn't be erased. Even if the mind forgot, the heart remembered.

Naminé could manipulate memories but she couldn't manipulate someone's heart. All she had done was transfer Sora's feelings of Kairi onto herself.

"It was a place of oblivion." That was where the name came from. "I woke up in that caste when I was first born. I didn't have any memories but... it was a lonely place." Naminé never wanted to go back there.

Volatile? Nida thought the guy was appropriately ready for the danger of all of this place. Still, he stays silent as Finn comes to his conclusion. Of course, he doesn't know what that conclusion is. He doesn't really follow.

"What do you mean, what he meant? And how did he used to be you?"

"Well, he used to be my sword. Two of my swords, actually. But one of them was my Finn Sword, from when me and Jake brought Prismo back, and I had to go back and stop myself from waking Jake up, and other-me turned into a totally rad sword. But then it merged or whatever with the Grass Sword, and it turned into Fern."

He thinks that covers everything. The butterflies have calmed a little, one settling on Nida's shoulder. What was the original question again?

"So, maybe he's upset that he's not me? Could that be why he thinks I stole his life?"

Well... that's definitely a weird origin story, and Nida isn't sure he even follows it, but he's intrigued. Maybe... can he maybe be friends with this not-Fern then?

Still, he might have a bit of insight, just by looking at Squall and Seifer.

"Or maybe it's that you have all the things he wants. The friendships. The recognition. If his origin comes from you, then he wants the same things you do. But you're the one that actually lived it. People will accept you, and not him."

Hyne, he misses Fern so bad now.

"But, he lived it too..." It's a discouraging thought. It isn't Finn's fault that he's the one who stayed in human shape, and there's nothing he can do to give that existence back to Fern.

"Fern is Fern now. And I think that's great! It's like we're really brothers. I'm sure everyone else would like him too if he gave them a chance..." And now Finn is stuck here, and Fern is back in Ooo upset about something they can't change and Finn can't go back and help make it better. Maybe he's even made it worse before without realizing. The butterflies all start to land, covering his hat and shoulders. He ignores them.

Connor stares at him, a little startled at Hank's sudden shift of attitude...but then the feeling that builds behind his thirium pump in the moment that follows. For a second, he has the pedantic thought that someone who screws up and is 'goofy and weird' can't be perfect by definition - but even pedantry doesn't abate the rush of odd pleasure at Hank telling him that. The closest thing he can compare it to is the old satisfaction of completing a mission, only infinitely, dizzyingly deeper.

He finds himself rubbing his chest directly over the pump for a second as Hank releases him.

"I'm not...not really sure what to say..." he says softly, fumbling over the words a little, flustered. His LED's gone yellow just working to figure out the right thing to say to something like that.

"Let's--Yeah, let's go."

He'll figure it out better out of the way of other people.

Hank sees the light turn yellow again. He sees Connor rub over his "heart". There's that pang of worry, but he realizes then that maybe it's not bad, like Connor said. It's just him thinking. Maybe for fucking once something he's said is sinking in.

"I'll argue to the end of time against you beating yourself up, don't worry. I'll not shut the hell up ever. I owe it to you to be just as annoying."

That yellow light gets another rub with his thumb, a fond one rather than a concerned one, before he walks around him to the door and pushes it open with his shoulder.

He can't actually think of anyone he'd give such a thing to, and the idea had never occurred to him until Namine herself had posed it. He frowned down at the ax-throwing festivities, crossing his arms.

"Are there trophies?"

"Most of our healing is accomplished by soul forge, if you've heard of such things."

He shrugged, still smirking.

"Though I suppose it could be a matter of life and death."

He hadn't said anything that even insinuated all the thoroughly accurate impressions she'd made, but she hadn't cast a spell that he'd detected, either. He looked down at the pale hand over his own, frowning, then looked up into her strange, violet eyes.

"You're a telepath."

Tim's is at NAPS again, and while it wasn't exactly his choice to come, he's not completely sorry he had. The axe-throwing is entertaining enough, even if he's braced for a medical emergency to erupt at any moment, and he is, grudgingly, meeting people.

And running into people he already knows.

He nods in greeting to Hank, smirking a little at the comment about the probable outcome of the evening. "I hope you have 911 on speed dial."

Loki did raise his eyebrows with a bit of interest at the information. "Resurrections and angry robots are more interesting than kidnapping and medical research to be sure."

Loki hadn't been subjected to this forced employment as of yet, and to be fair, he wasn't willing to do many of these mundane tasks for these people. Hank had piqued his interest, though. "And what is it you do here?"

Curious. People didn't assume that. Or they got all scared. She kept smiling and nodded. "Yes.

Hank looks over at Tim mid drink. He remembers the guy from the park, in that harried interaction. One of the few people asking reasonable things. But thanks to that collective fucking brainfart, he's figured something out.

He lightly points to Tim once he's swallowed.

"I remember you. Yeah, but I have a feeling that if city ordinance allowed this thing they've gotta have their own injury system or somethin'. Especially since the city is hosting this shit here."

He puts down his mug, heavy forehead knitting up.

"Actually I uh... I got a thing to ask you. About being from Gotham, actually."

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i've been bitten by the bug ...

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I didn't even know that and I love this knowledge

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(I am extremely late, and I apologize)

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No worries I'm just excited to thread again.