Test drive meme - July & August

[indigo_league]

➞ Post with a character you wish to test drive in this game's setting.
➞ Tag other people's starters and thread out shenanigans!
➞ Invite your friends! Try out new characters! Come play with us!
➞ Have fun!

NOT SURE WHERE TO BEGIN YOUR TEST-DRIVE JOURNEY?
CHECK OUT ALL THE LOCATIONS WE HAVE AVAILABLE IN:

JOHTO | KANTO | SEVII ISLANDS

Feel free to make various prompts in multiple locations!

✭ ✭ ✭


OTHER USEFUL LINKS:
NAVIGATION | RESERVES | APPLICATIONS

Comments

[officerdown]

[Scar can't conceptualize much of anything as nice, at the moment.]

Mm.

[Henry needs to get to a city sooner rather than later for proper medical attention. Scar... has his own matters to attend to.]

[He can't imagine enjoying the scenery, right now.]

[no_ufo_ending]

<sub>[Henry glances behind them. The path stretches on and on. He leans a little to look around the human barge that was Scar. The route stretches on and on in that direction as well.]

[He rubs his face with his hands.]



[The sun hangs low in the sky, casting long shadows over the route. Henry's stomach is growling but he tries to ignore it. Somehow, when he was trapped in the Otherworld, he hadn't needed to eat or do any other Very Necessary human things. But now...]</sub>

Hey...?

[officerdown]

Yes?

[Scar has shown zero signs of slowing down or tiring. This is what he does. Go and never stop.]

[no_ufo_ending]

_{[The tip of Henry's shoe catches on a small rock in the path and sends him teetering forward. He manages to catch his balance before stumbling into Scar.]}

It's getting dark...maybe we should make camp?

_{[His voice is small. Scar seems very determined and Henry doesn't want to be a bother. But also he's dying a little.]}

[officerdown]

[He doesn't express as much, but this is the downside of going it with others. Scar pauses in his tracks. Maybe just a little farther? They had started late, as well...]

[He glares down the road ahead, and he nods.]

[Scar pulls out his flashlight and lets his bag drop from his back. He realizes, now that he's paused, that he's quite hungry. He sifts through his bag, for...]

[Sorry, Henry, more power bars for the moment. He picked up some cans on his way out of New Bark, though. Scar sets to work first on getting the fire going, then his traveling pot, then their tent while 'real' food is heating.]

How long has it been? For you?

[The question has been eating him for hours.]

[no_ufo_ending]

<sub>[Henry wishes he were more help. With his busted wrist he couldn't help steady the tent poles or whittle down wood. All he could do was gather kindling.]

[Soon, he's sitting near the fire watching the pot bubble. He fumbles with his splint. His arm is really sore now and it throbs when he moves.]</sub>

A long time...

_{[Henry mumbles a little under his breath as he counts on his fingers. They're numb on his injured hand.]}

S...seven years?

[officerdown]

[Scar doesn't mind that Henry can't be of much help. He goes about his work quickly on his own, letting Henry rest as he needs.]

[Seven years.]

[Damn.]

[He can't ask, then. He doubts many would have noticed his not being there for a long while, except for the one possible ripple.]

[Time to make sure this question doesn't become about himself!]

And you went someplace else? While you were gone?

[no_ufo_ending]

_{[Henry nods. He listens to the crackle of the fire.]}

My world. But I didn't remember here while I was there...

<sub>[Now that he's back, he has this awful feeling in the pit of his stomach next to the gnawing hunger that something was taken away from him. Even if he has it back now (he hopes) it still hurts. To think he could go back there and forget again...]

[He shakes his head and throws a small twig on the fire.]</sub>

I'm glad Eileen is okay now...but I don't want to go back.

[officerdown]

Who is Eileen?

[Other than an excellent segue for distraction as Scar stirs their soup.]

[no_ufo_ending]

My neighbor...she got pulled into that other world too. Because Walter wanted her to be his new mother or...something. All the notes I read...it's hard to remember everything. It wasn't like I read them, it was like they appeared in my head. It happened so fast, one thing after the other. And we were always running.

_{[He thinks about the other people in the apartment. Neighbors he'd grown used to hearing through the walls that were now dead and pinned to the ground in some grey hell.]}

So many people died in that ritual.

[officerdown]

[Scar doesn't know who Walter is, either. Or what ritual.]

[He knows plenty about running, though. And he has more than enough of his own history that would only lead to head scratching without miles and miles of context. So, he lets Henry speak as he wishes. He can tell the other man is working through it all in real time.]

[When the soup is sufficiently warm, he halves it between his travel cup, which is given to Henry, and the original can, which he sips from himself.]

[no_ufo_ending]

<sub>[Henry accepts the soup. It warms his hands and he takes a deep drink from it. He can feel it in his bones. He's so hungry.]

[He closes his eyes and he thinks. It's hard to put the events in order in his mind. A sudden flash crosses his mind--grey featureless bodies lurching out of the walls on the escalator. How did he fall all the way down without fracturing his skull? Maybe he did. Henry touches his head with one hand.]</sub>

There was a cult doing some kind of dark magic...I think they lied to him--to Walter. So he would do their dirty work. I should feel bad for him...but he killed all those people, tried to kill me. Several times!

_{[Suddenly Henry is gripping the cup so hard his knuckles are bulging.]}

With guns, with traps, with a chainsaw...I was supposed to be the final sacrifice. I can't forgive him.

[officerdown]

Then you don't need to.

[It's a tiny reassurance, but a reassurance nonetheless. Scar can manage that, when the stars align.]

[no_ufo_ending]

_{[Henry thinks of the disagreement he and Heather had about Walter. He shakes his head.]}

No...sorry, I'm rambling. It must sound crazy to you...

[officerdown]

Not in the least.

[Scar considers, for a moment.]

Our world is just as violent. I've killed... more people than I can count.

[no_ufo_ending]

<sub>[Henry pauses mid-soup-sip.]

[A shudder zips up his back. To hear it said so plainly. On one hand, he appreciates how direct Scar has been with him. But on the other hand, it does not allow him to hide his head in the clouds.]

[Surely the people Scar killed were bad people.]</sub>

Oh...I only...him. Walter. Unless...you consider ghosts people.

[officerdown]

[Scar's ribs feel they've curled inward. His eyes are blank, soup can pressed still to his lips.]

[It isn't a great sight, for a man who has just confessed to murdering thousands of people.]

[Henry doesn't know. Surely, Henry doesn't know.]

Ghosts can be many things.

[no_ufo_ending]

I guess so. I don't know...I don't know if they knew what they were doing. If I had been killed the way they were...I'd probably be the same.

_{[His eyes narrow as he thinks.]}

I think Walter was something in between a ghost and alive. His body was in the walls of my apartment but...he bled when he died.

[officerdown]

[Scar levels his breath slowly, subtly.]

Dying does something to people.

[He's still staring into the fire.]

Especially when they're forced to linger.

[no_ufo_ending]

<sub>[Well that's...a statement. Henry looks at Scar. He looks at the marking on his forehead and imagines what kind of injury would leave a scar like that.]

[He makes an assumption and he's so tired that he can't quite keep it to himself, especially when his view of the world has been blown wide open so recently.]</sub>

Were you a ghost before?

[officerdown]

[Scar's thousand yard stare slips into ten thousand.]

[Yes. No. Yes, again.]

I am dead.

[He can confirm that much. There is nothing past this. Nothing waiting.]

[But Scar feels, by now, that he's died a great many times.]

[no_ufo_ending]

<sub>[Scar doesn't say no exactly. Henry's eyes widen and he sits up a little straighter, suddenly feeling like he should be showing more respect.]

[He thinks of Heather's dad.]

[Henry turns the cup of soup between his hands. What he says next just kind of comes out on its own.]</sub>

I would never pin you to the ground with a holy sword.

[officerdown]

You couldn't.

[That sort of erupts out, too, and Scar isn't even certain what he means by it, if anything at all.]

[The stern angle of his brow softens. He sips at his broth.]

Perhaps you could, at this point.

[His soul must be more than heavy enough, by now.]

[no_ufo_ending]

_{[He feels like he's got a pretty good handle on defeating evil spirits with swords. So why should Scar be different? Maybe...because he isn't evil. That could make all the difference.]}

You aren't like them.

[officerdown]

I am aware.

[Intimately.]

I have seen my share of real ghosts.