Week 5 of the Twelve Shots of Summer
Mission Mail: Compose a story on the theme of 'Symbiosis', fail and face a black mass of goopy goop as it suffocates you.
Wow, almost halfway through :O
Almost XD
I played 999 a looong time ago, and I finally got around to Virtue's Last Reward.
Destroyed it in just about 30 hours c:
Hence, my Zero Escape mood!
I hope you enjoy the story, it's part of the Twelve Shots of Summer community run by that one guy, the Champaign Guardian, (autocorrect, I meant 'Chronic Guardian' :3)
I suggest you look at the other entries before you read this! :)
Or after.
Your choice, really.
BGM for lulz: www . youtube watch?v=8nVkPZOyzBE
Seek A Way In
"Number 1, Number 6, and Number 8," a powerful, synthesised voice rumbled throughout the Mars Test Site Facility, "you are Team 1...!"
An elderly man with a face like a lion's, a young woman in a strange robe, and a young man dressed in absurdly fancy clothes, simultaneously awoke, as the polished, white devices around their left wrists gave them a small shock of electricity.
"Ow..." The woman sat up slowly, and held her hand to her temple, trying to clear the throbbing pain in her head; barely noticing the clinking sound the movement of her arm produced.
The younger man merely grunted, and rolled over, only half-awake; dimly realising that his head was uncovered, he groggily searched around the cold, hard, metal ground, before taking hold of a nearby top-hat.
Upon opening his eyes, the elderly man slowly got to his knees, and raised his left arm, as if to read his wristwatch; as he feared, it wasn't a watch that awaited his eyes, but a sturdy, metallic bracelet; a green LED display read:
1
Team 1
Of course... He thought to himself grimly, flipping his wrist around to get a look at it's underside.
Nothing.
No clasp. No latch. No way to remove it.
Click
Click
A pair of buttons yielded no result when pressed, not even a 'beep'.
The man let out a long weary sigh, befitting of his age, and closed his eyes.
'1'... Someone must be mocking me, right now...
Just then, the young man yelled out.
"What the hell is this?!" He screamed, looking at his bracelet, as if it was about to explode; if the woman and the older man were not yet fully awakened, they certainly were now. The other man's experienced eyes caught a glimpse of his LED display, as he vainly attempted to rip his bracelet off:
8
Team 1
"Calm down," the lion-like man ran a hand through his grey-streaked hair, "you know, getting worked up won't help-"
"The hell with that!" Clearly, he had lost it, "where the hell are we?! WHY the hell are we here?! And why the hell are you so damn calm?! That's what I want to know!"
"... Do you think you could say 'hell' once more, for me?" He couldn't resist making that comment; of course he would be calm, at least, calmer than someone who hadn't gone through this before.
"Ummm..." The girl's shaky voice caught both men's attention, "wh-... What's going on...?" She stared fearfully at her own bracelet:
6
Team 1
Her eyes then moved, noticing the handcuff on her right wrist; the elder man's eyes widened, and he looked at his own right arm; sure enough, a handcuff was firmly secured around it, the end of his chain, similar to the young woman's, ran into a port on the top of a wide metallic structure standing in the centre of the room, shaped like a triangular prism, and far too wide to put your arms around; the young man, now wearing his top-hat, was also bound to it by his own handcuff.
The old man... No... Rather, Gentarou Hongou's eyes narrowed as he analysed the situation.
... What's going on...?
In two adjacent, identical rooms, six other people had awoken, but of course, there was no way for him to know that.
"Tch...!" Hongou hit the floor with his fist, "... Zero..."
Nine hours earlier...
"Are we clear on the plan?" The robed woman, Akane Kurashiki, asked her two companions, who were standing in the van with her; a well-built man dressed in a blue, "Sigma?" And a short girl with snow-white hair, "Phi?" She addressed them by name, "there's only so much I can lift from the Field, as it is; Brother's still interfering, and I can't use my foresight as well as usual."
"Got it." The white-haired girl, Phi, said in a no-nonsense tone.
"Understood." The man, Sigma, complied, a little lighter, but not much.
"Alright," Akane nodded, "once we've found a way in, we'll need to rendezvous with Field, as you know-"
KZZZT...!
Suddenly, she was interrupted by a loud burst of static, "... What...?"
"What's that...?!" Phi was anxious, but she would have to wait for an answer; Akane's hand dove into her robes, and pulled out a handheld transceiver.
"Vio-... -rap, don-... -ero..." A man's voice, clearly stressed, crackled from the speaker, and abruptly fell silent.
"... What's wrong?" Akane forcefully spoke through the radio, "... Respond!"
Sigma's brow furrowed; the infiltration mission hadn't even had a chance to begin, and already something had gone wrong.
"... Change in plans," Akane announced quickly, they were on the clock now, "our contact's out, we need to act independant of him," pulling her hood over her head, she opened the back of the van, revealing the starry night sky of the Nevada Desert, "we're heading in, now!" She stressed the last word, conveying the urgency of the situation, before dashing off surprisingly quickly towards the Mars Test Site Facility.
"Rrgh..." Phi ground her teeth in frustration, and jumped out of the van, "Sigma, come on...!"
Doctor Sigma Klim nodded, and leaped out after Phi; they both followed Akane's suit, advancing as fast as they could, towards the Facility.
Nine minutes earlier...
"Oh God..." A delicate lady with coral-red hair put her hand over her mouth, as tears started to leak out of her eyes, "... What have I done...?!" She would have collapsed to the ground, had the tall man, Light Field, next to her not steadied her.
"Diana... It was not your fault," Light did his best to reassure her, but even he knew... It was her fault.
Because of her... Six people now lay dead in front of them, "we mustn't panic," he barely managed to say, in a shakily soothing manner, "Junpei," he addressed the slightly younger man standing next to him, "seal off the building."
"... Got it, Light." Junpei Tenmyouji responded hesitantly, his hopelessness and dread evident in his voice.
As Junpei turned and left the room, a gas-masked figure hidden nearby, toyed with the Soporil-gas canister in his hand, and laughed...
"Number 2, Number 4, and Number 9," the harsh, rasping voice rang out again, "you are Team 2...!"
Sigma immediately bolted upright upon regaining consciousness, partially ignoring the voice; he no longer had a full grasp on the situation, but he knew that he had to make every second count.
"Rrgh... So this is what I meant...?"
Wasting no time in getting to his feet, Sigma immediately surveyed his surroundings; a cold, empty room greeted him, the polished metal sheen of the walls and floor reflected light from a solitary ceiling lamp.
"Ouch..." A girl's voice...?
Sigma realised that he wasn't alone, behind him were two figures, sprawled out across the floor; a well-groomed man in princely jacket, lying next to...
"... Luna...?" The name slipped out from Sigma's mouth before he realised it.
... No. He stopped himself, That can't be Luna... But perhaps...?
Sigma entertained a certain idea in his head, before realising that the two downed people, as well as himself, were chained to a three-sided, prismatic object that jutted out from the floor; seeing as a handcuff was on his right wrist, Sigma instinctively checked his left wrist...
4
Team 2
Diana, or 'Luna' as Sigma had called her, raised herself up, onto her arms.
"... Mr Light...?" She rubbed her eyes and yawned, looking like she had woken up from a fairly boring nap, "where..." She broke off again, as another yawn escaped her mouth; she stretched, and rested on her knees.
Blink
Blink
"... Oh...!" She gasped, somewhat comically, and brought her hands to her mouth, shocked, "w-... Where are we...?"
At this, Light brought a hand to his forehead, which felt like it was about to explode; Sigma quickly noted the LED displays on Light, and Diana respectively:
2
Team 2
9
Team 2
Whirrrr...
A grinding noise interrupted everyone's thoughts; a panel on each side of the prism slid up, to reveal three screens; the 'prism', was in fact a three-sided computer terminal.
Sigma cautiously approached...
Vwoop!
The three screens came online, startling all three prisoners:
Touch to Start
All too familiar with the type of situation he found himself in, Sigma wasted no time in pressing a finger to the screen closest to him.
"Ah...!" Light was suddenly yanked off of the ground, towards the centre of the room. Pressing the screen had produced a high-pitched mechanical hum, each handcuff was drawn to the terminal, as the chains were pulled into their respective ports.
"Oh my...!" Diana uttered as her handcuff roughly forced her to the centre of the room, where Sigma and Light were; the screen flashed red:
09:00...
08:59...
08:58...
"Santa...! No, Aoi!" Junpei attempted to grab the white-haired boy, Aoi Kurashiki's collar, but only succeeded in bruising his own wrist; in a room exactly like the other two: three people were standing in front of their own screen, their right wrists practically stuck to the top of the terminal; the handcuff chains had been drawn in as far as they would go.
Aoi Kurashiki, Junpei Tenmyouji, and Phi... They were Team 3:
3
Team 3
5
Team 3
7
Team 3
"Goddammit, you're loud..." Aoi rubbed the back of his head; on top of being knocked out with a Soporil canister, he had also been bludgeoned from behind.
"You...!" Junpei raged against the metal ring on his right wrist, but no matter how hard he tried, he could not get an inch closer to Aoi, who was on a different side of the terminal; if the terminal wasn't low enough to see over, Junpei wouldn't even have seen him.
"Hey, you two. Shut up for a second, and look at your screen," There was no malice in Phi's voice, though she was both irritated, and curious about Junpei; having already pushed the 'Press to Start' prompt, Phi's fingers glided around the screen, moving around what looked to be fragments of a 3D wireframe model.
A puzzle.
"Screw that," Aoi appeared disinterested, but was already looking at his screen, "who are you, to tell me what to do?"
"Who are you," Phi retorted, without looking up from her screen, "trying to pretend you're me?" Indeed, Aoi and Phi were both thin, white-haired, and aloof; it wouldn't be unreasonable to think them siblings.
"No," it seemed their childish bickering wasn't going to end any time soon, "you look like me!"
"No, you!"
"You!"
Junpei ground his teeth in frustration, and yanked his arm against the handcuff one last time; at this point, his wrist was beginning to bleed.
Aoi would have to wait.
Allowing his arm to rest, Junpei started on the puzzle on his screen.
07:01...
07:00...
06:59...
Rules:
There are 9 persons, including you, split into 3 teams.
There are 9 rooms, each of which, contains 3 puzzles.
Each person must complete their own puzzle in each room within 9 minutes.
Puzzles can only be completed to a certain degree, if you work on your own.
To complete a puzzle, you will require cooperation from a minimum of 1 other person.
Cooperation between all 9 persons will almost certainly solve any puzzle.
Completion of all puzzles in a room will allow escape from the room.
Completion of any puzzle in a room will allow escape from that room, at the cost of one person remaining behind.
If a person has completed their puzzle, they may either hold the left button or the right button on their Bracelet down for 9 seconds, doing so will unlock their handcuff, as well as the handcuff of the person corresponding to their button.
Simply: The left button will unlock you and the person on your left. The right button will unlock you and the person on your right.
Failure to follow any rules will result in being subjected to fatal electrocution by your Bracelet.
A bead of sweat trickled down Gentarou Hongou's forehead; he was finding the puzzle much more difficult than he had initially anticipated: Joining the virtual fragments produced a Rubik's Cube, which then expanded to fill the screen; each side of the cube had a jumble of random numbers on it, ranging from 1 - 9.
He assumed that he had to manipulate the cube into showing only one of each number on each side, but the timer read '03:37' and he had only managed to solve one side.
More than half of the squares are blank, though... How am I meant to know what number goes where...?
03:33...
03:32...
03:31...
At this rate...
"... This fucking thing...!" The man in the top-hat, Art, he had called himself, slammed his fist into the screen in a fit of panicked frustration.
KZZZT!
Right as he did so, a painful, searing shock from his Bracelet coursed through him.
"AAGGHH!"
The air around him smelled of burned flesh.
Unable to drop to his knees, Art merely hung, suspended by his handcuff, cursing in pain.
Beeeep
"Destroying input device is tantamount to rendering puzzle unsolvable," a chillingly calm, computerized voice announced, "repeated attempts will result in a penalty."
Hougou, distracted by this, failed to notice the smaller 'beep' that sounded when Akane Kurashiki completed her puzzle...
"This..." Sigma stood up straight upon his realisation, "L- Diana! Tell me, what numbers did you start off with?!"
"M-Me...? Well I..." She had been, unbeknownst to Sigma, silently crying until he had talked to her.
After all, they only had 3 minutes left, "I... From the top left, across, I have '1, 9, blank'-"
"Of course!" Sigma hit the side of the terminal, how could he have been so stupid? "Listen, you two, I started off with '1, blank, 4', each screen omits numbers that belong to other people in the same room as you!" He explained as quickly as he could, "I won't see 2 and 9, because you both have that number Bracelet, and neither of you will see 4, because I have that Bracelet!"
2
Team 2
9
Team 2
4
Team 2
"Hurry up, fill in my blanks for me!" Phi ordered Junpei and Aoi.
02:48...
02:47...
02:46...
"... No." Aoi shocked Phi.
"'No'? What do you mean, 'no'?!"
"How do I know you won't ditch me?"
"... What!?"
2 minutes and 30 seconds, they did not have time to be screwing around.
"'Completion of any puzzle in a room will allow escape from that room, at the cost of one person remaining behind,'" Aoi recited a line from the rule screen that had earlier briefly flashed on screen.
Phi understood what he meant, it was possible that she could unlock herself and Junpei upon completing the puzzle, leaving Aoi behind.
"What are you, stupid?" Phi pushed, "just tell me the damn blanks, and I'll tell you mine!"
If they were fast, maybe they could all escape.
Maybe.
"No, you tell me yours first." Aoi said firmly; he wasn't budging.
"Nngh..." Phi relented, she actually intended to tell him where to place the 7s after she knew where to place the 3s, but if she told him first...
He might...
02:00...
01:59...
01:58...
"Please... We have to all escape together...!" Akane's lower lip trembled, as she pretended to be intimidated by Art.
"I don't care about that, tell me where I put the missing numbers!" Art screamed as loud as his tortured throat would allow.
Akane 'flinched', and hid her face behind her hand.
"Hey," Hongou spoke in a low growl; he had already told Art and Akane where to place the 1s, surprising her; not that she needed them, even with her inhibited access to the Morphogenetic Field, she was able to solve the puzzle without help, but she hadn't expected Gentarou Hongou to give out his number so easily.
Perhaps he was playing the 'nice guy', just like he had, one year ago.
But whatever the case, it appeared that Art was still unable to solve his puzzle, "don't pick on the lady, she's trying to help." Hongou rumbled.
"Stay out of this, old man!" Flecks of spit flew from Art's mouth as he rounded on Hongou, "I'm sure as hell not dying here!"
"I... Don't understand..." Akane stuttered out, "why can't you just tell me...? I promise to tell you mine-"
"Your promises don't mean jack, girl!"
"If you don't tell me, we'll ALL die-"
"I. Don't. CARE! TELL ME!"
Unfortunately for him, Akane was testing him; she wanted to see if Art would take the logical way out.
She could leave at anytime.
And now she would.
Click...
01:30...
"Ridiculous...!" Sigma pounded the terminal.
It just wasn't fair. How could they do this?
"But that's... So cruel..." Tears welled up in the corners of Diana's eyes as she covered her mouth.
Light stared, or rather, fail to stare at the screen in front of him.
Being blind was... Difficult.
01:00...
"... Argh, fine!" Phi growled in frustration, and shot Aoi a dirty look; she had solved as much as she could, with Junpei's 5s, but there was no way she was solving the rest of the puzzle in under 60 seconds.
It was either tell him, and risk being left behind, or say nothing, and certainly die.
Aoi looked up with a smirk.
"Well, hurry up and tell me, then."
Phi's eye twitched in irritation.
"Come on, 40 seconds left...!" Junpei yelled.
He couldn't die yet... He had to find her.
"Alright!" Phi shouted, "First face, upper-right; lower face, lower-left..."
...
00:00
Brother, the man who had captured the 9 people, sat down in front of the master computer.
"Heheh... Control won't realise until it's too late..." He pulled off his gas mask, and turned the monitor on, "let's see the results..."
Team 1:
Number 1 - Gentarou Hongou: Alive
Number 6 - Akane Kurashiki: Alive
Number 8 - Artemis: Deceased
Team 2:
Number 2 - Light Field: Deceased
Number 4 - Sigma Klim: Alive
Number 9 - Diana: Alive
Team 3:
Number 3 - Aoi Kurashiki: Deceased
Number 5 - Junpei Tenmyouji: Alive
Number 7 - Phi: Alive
Three dead.
And only one room out of nine down.
Clearly the idea of 'teamwork' didn't sit well with them.
"Well... This is looking to be entertaining...!"
To Be Continued...?
Oh, you got through it, heheh.
It wasn't as good as I planned it out to be... But I hope you enjoyed it anyway :D
I seem to have a tendency to take the... 'Less-Travelled Path' when dealing with the weekly Prompts:
Week 1. Secret Genius: I took a slightly less literal take on it.
Week 2. Romance Most Contrived: You know what, I basically picked apart the idea that a DracoxHermione is even remotely possible. Because... Well yeah.
Week 3. Tea Party: Not exactly a tea party, but... Mngh.
Week 4. Betrayal: Most of the other writers went all dark-y-gloom-y. Not me! :D
And now, Week 5. Symbiosis: Teamwork? I'm sorry, what? Pshawwww, human indecency prevails!
Anyway, once again, check out the other works, past and present, on the Twelve Shots of Summer community.
Good times, all 'round :D
'till next time!
-X