Just Outside MCA, The Matrix, Shortly After Zinyak's Broadcast, Thursday

[suitably_heroic]

Several hours of searching his apartment - when he and Cara had gotten back, and again this morning - and then the greater premises of the MCA building, such as the lobby - and Atton had finally found a weapon.

Which was to say he had a broom.

He put his foot down on the head as he stepped outside and violently yanked the stick part out of it. "So what I'm gathering from this," he said, looking up at... wherever that voice had come from, just to make sure he was listening, "is that there's finally someone we can beat the poodoo out of."

They had taken all of his weapons, they had taken the Force out of his head, and they had taken the Ebon Hawk. Atton might not have been Sith anymore, but damn if he wasn't strongly inclined to make sure someone was going to die. Screaming. For this. "And then to finish up, I think I'm going to kick this Zinyak guy in the nuts."

[[ open, though some sp warning applies! ]]

Comments

[suitably_heroic]

"Nothing at all," Atton reported. "We got fed up with it eventually so we went back to the apartment, where I found out the schuttas took my ship!"

Not getting over that any time soon, no. Possibly also using it to keep from freaking out about anything they were doing to his head right now, but still. It was the Hawk!

[myownface]

Nobody messed with the Hawk, seriously. Nobody.

Sparkle tilted his head a little bit, and then smiled faintly. At least not having his head messed with and his stuff go missing was good for applying a little common sense to the situation.

"Did they take it, or did they just not bother putting it into the simulation they stuck us in? Because, like, he said 'sim,' right? So all the weird shit around here isn't even real? And having a ship would make this way too easy for us." A beat. "Not that we'd be going anywhere anyway."

[suitably_heroic]

Damn it, Sparks. At least check your 'not having your connection to the universe at large yoinked out of your brain' privilege, okay?

Atton was usually sharper than this. Hell, even when he'd been Force-less, he'd been sharper than this. If this was what Jedi-ing led to, it was no wonder Kreia had been against the whole notion.

He pulled a face. "You think someone went to all this trouble just to copy-paste the island?"

[myownface]

"And I think they did a shitty job of it," Sparkle replied, shrugging. "Like, look at today compared to yesterday, man. Shit is breaking. It's been a day and shit is breaking."

A pause.

"Though, like, I guess the hot dog costumes are funny. But people's pets are fucked up, and anything we could find useful is gone, and they put me into a kid's show for a few hours once I started smashing windows. So, like, if they can make Rusty the Rooster real, why not copy-paste the island?"

[suitably_heroic]

"Because it... doesn't make any sense?"

Atton glanced around himself, as if daring the simulation to reveal itself. Nothing. And a really bad feeling set on him. Copy-pasta some buildings, sure. But what he'd been-- "I mean, if what you're saying is true, then that means they sliced into our heads..."

He trailed off.

Somebody sliced into his head.

[myownface]

"Or we're in a really big Danger Shop," Sparkle offered quickly, once he realized Atton had sort of faded out, there. "Like, maybe we're in something more like Galaxy Quest than some kind of shared, fucked up-- like that movie with the chosen one and all the people are stuck in pods being fed each other's liquefied remains or whatever and there is no spoon? We don't know, man. Not for sure."

[suitably_heroic]

Atton rubbed at his forehead.

"I can't feel the Force, Sparks," he said. "The Danger Shop can do a lot of things. It can't do that."

Nothing could, unless they were actively in his head. It was the Force. It didn't just go away, at least not without a cataclysmic event that he would've remembered.

[myownface]

Ah. Right.

"Shit."

Okay. Okay, this wasn't a disaster. It wasn't, right? Except that if this was like that Keanu Reeves movie, how the fuck were they supposed to get out of it? Swinging their makeshift weapons around? There was no broom.

"We make life hell for them," Sparkle decided, blinking up at Atton. "They wouldn't have such high security now if we couldn't actually do real damage here, right? It'd be more effective to just let us rail against those towers and wear ourselves out on our own than to bother setting up, like, armed turtle men to keep us out. We'd be a self-solving problem. Instead they send people to weird little dream-places to get us out of the way when we smash shit, and tell us to behave ourselves, right?"

[suitably_heroic]

"Right. There's something they're trying to stop us from getting at." Beat. "I hope it's this Zinyak's head on a stick."

... He'd tone down the threats, but this guy had SLICED INTO HIS BRAIN.

[myownface]

Yeah, Sparkle would somehow cope.

"It's not on a stick yet," Sparkle replied, "I don't think. But hey, nothing saying we can't remedy that. Jackass is going to make me miss a meeting with my parole officer. I am so going to kick his ass."

He could dream big.

[suitably_heroic]

"Just to start with," Atton said. Crabbily. He squinted at Sparkle. "...And then afterwards I want to know why the hell you came here in the first place."

Because he'd thought that was odd before all of this started.

[myownface]

"Yeah, sure," Sparkle replied, shrugging his shoulders non-committally. "One thing at a time, though, right?"

Look, maybe he was hoping that Atton would forget about that by the time this all blew over, okay? Sparkle needed some hope to cling to, god.

[suitably_heroic]

"Fine," Atton said.

It wasn't hard to keep him angry in the one particular direction right now, anyway. Not that that would last.

"So we need to get more weapons. Some of the bad guys have blasters."

[myownface]

"So... we get the weapons from the bad guys," Sparkle guessed, tilting his head a little. "Using, um... brooms? Rocks from behind? If you get shot in your head, do you get shot in real life?"

Because Sparkle really didn't want to die in this place, thanks.

[suitably_heroic]

"I don't know," Atton said. "How about you go upstairs and worry about whether fake pizza is poisonous, and I deal with the getting shot at part? I've had practice."

[myownface]

"What, and I haven't?" Sparkle... was not completely certain why he was arguing about this, except that he didn't entirely want to see Atton out there on his own when he was prone to getting tripped up by the whole 'something is in my head and they took the Force' mess. And maybe because... screw that. He'd survived Fandom before. He'd been shot at before. And it wasn't like he was in any hurry to get shot at, but...

This felt a hell of a lot like 'Go watch cartoons,' and it was leaving a bad taste in Sparkle's mouth.

"Fuck that. I can get shot at too."

WHAT THE FUCK WAS HE SAYING?

[suitably_heroic]

WHAT THE FUCK WAS HE SAYING?

Atton stared at him like he'd grown a whole extra head. One that had a comb-over and dressed responsibly.

"Do I really need to point out how these things usually go down for you?" he said, finally.

[myownface]

Sparkle, meanwhile, was going to square his shoulders and look Atton dead-on.

"Of course not," he replied, lifting his chin. "But, like, this isn't my first dance with Fandom's bullshit, and contrary to popular belief, I don't get my ass handed to me every time. I can handle it."

... Probably. There were plenty of other people handling it, and he wasn't, like, the most inept person on the island or anything. Right? Fuck, he hoped not.

"I wasn't going to go charging at one of those goons and try to fucking tackle him for his gun or anything. God."

[suitably_heroic]

"Then what are you going to do? Stand around near the peanut gallery and throw rocks?"

Atton was this close to facepalming. This close.

"If we can get you a blaster, maybe you'll be able to do some actual damage. But I need to go get one, first."

He didn't even have medpacks on him, let alone the capacity to Force heal. What he did have were some pretty vivid memories of the last three times Sparkle had gotten swept up in an island-wide invasion event.

[myownface]

"So go get one! But I'm not going to just hide away watching cartoons while we're stuck here!"

There was a world of meaning in there, and Sparkle wasn't going to volunteer just why that was.

"Like, they obviously don't want us dead, or they wouldn't have brought us here in the first place. So... I don't piss them off. Don't piss 'em off, and don't get shot. Stuff got weirder since yesterday, right? So maybe I can at least look around and figure out what's changed. But I don't want to hide, okay?"

[suitably_heroic]

"Sparkle, it's you. The day you don't piss people off is probably the day we'll be putting you in the ground."

Atton was so tempted to just physically throw his hands up. So tempted.

"But hey, you know what, knock yourself out, it's not like I can lock you in the building or anything. Just don't rely on me coming running when you get your ass kicked."

...because he wouldn't be able to pick up on it.

[myownface]

"It's not like I get my ass kicked thinking, 'Hey, it's okay, Atton is going to come save me,' anyway!"

Sparkle... did throw his arms up. Because Sparkle was just that mature.

"I'm not a complete lost cause!"

[suitably_heroic]

"Who said anything about lost causes?" Atton snapped. "What the hell are you trying to prove, here?"

This was the kid who had left Fandom partly because he didn't want to keep running into situations like this. Right? Atton could clearly remember a 'this place is screwed up and I'm not made for it' rant or, oh, fifteen.

[myownface]

Yes, but Sparkle was totally a changed man after a couple of months in Toronto and one spat with Lewis, obviously!

Or, you know, he was trying to prove something.

"Nothing!" He was just doing very badly at it. "We are in shit now and I won't want to spend all of it hiding!"

Yeah, that was not even remotely the half of it.

"Like, look, this place isn't playing by Fandom rules it isn't playing by any rules, they took the Force from you and even after they told us what was going on, it still took me spelling it out for it to click with you, didn't it? They copy-pasted the island, and we're all a little fucked right now and maybe I don't want you getting yourself killed either, okay?"

That was... slightly closer to being the half of it, anyway.

[suitably_heroic]

"I'll be fine!"

In the long run, Atton being a little off-kilter was probably a lot more dangerous for anyone trying to kill him than the other way around, really. ... Physically speaking, anyway.

"I mean, thanks," because one day he'd get used to people worrying about him, even if he was pretty sure that couldn't be it for various reasons that weren't entirely the first bit of this sentence, "but me, I'll be fine. Just got to get myself back in the pre-last year mindset and I'm good to go."

You know, he was kind of glad Anakin wasn't on the island right now, because if Atton was thrown by this, then mr. I Live And Breathe The Force would be having a meltdown.

"You, on the other hand, aren't going to spontaneously manifest combat reflexes on the spot here."