Me, Myself and I [Bendtime after Visitation Day is Over] [OPEN]

[thewunderkind]

Compared to yesterday where the sensoriums had gotten so much use, Lash was glad that it was mostly quiet as she slipped into a free one. The day had passed relatively quickly thanks to running mazes, but even that hadn't gotten her as joyful as she should be, as strange and exciting as it had been.

The world around her changed as she stood atop a giant mountain overseeing the forest below her. Her army stood closer, as her opponent in the horizon began to prepare to attack her. A typical scenario she liked to play out at least once a week, each time using it to test out new invention ideas and fixes she should make to her existing ones.

But she wasn't there. The spark, the thing that made Lash excited about anything war-related and gave her an almost-worrying macabre yet positive outlook on nearly anything appeared to be extinguished. She'd been thinking a lot. Even now, she didn't raise her arms dramatically as she usually did to get the battle started, but merely an uninterested movement of her fingers as she dismissed it all and sat down, dangling her legs over the edge.

"Good evening Mistress Lash! We await your orders!"

She said nothing.

Lash watched the soldiers below her slowly get destroyed, unable to find herself engrossed enough to bother or want to give out commands. Those damn emotions Black Hole hated so much were going to be the death of her, weren't they? She'd seen a lot of her friends reunited with people they cared about and then felt the pangs of jealousy that followed as she waited, mostly by herself, to see if miraculously someone else would step out. She couldn't complain to Stacy about it either, as much as she wanted too, due to the AI falling silent in what she assumed was exhaustion. But that wasn't the biggest thing on her mind, eating away at her as time marched forward.

It was the cold reality of knowing that perhaps, this proved she was the only person rescued from her world.

She never had thought of it as such before, figuring out that everyone simply wasn't ready yet. All the time she'd been here, Lash had never given up hope at meeting one of her old comrades-in-arms. Gone to every poddrop too. Hell, who wouldn't want Commanding Officers from her world with army boosting powers in a war like this? She was a perfect example! The others were just a little more dumb and need more time to be properly awoken, that's all! And yet, yesterday seemed to hit the final nail in the coffin. Even without being completely ready, someone should have come out. Heck seeing Olaf's big ugly angry face would have made her feel better. Was Stacy mad at her? She'd been helping repair her weapons! There was no way she'd just ignore people who actually cared about fixing her up compared to those who cursed her name wherever they walked, right? There had to be a fairness in this! Thinking about fairness now, it was almost bizarre.

...Or maybe Stacy had been fair, and there was no one to be brought out, even for a day.

"Mistress Lash? We await your orders! Please respond!"

Alone from her world. Strangely enough, it frightened her. The very idea that she'd be fighting the war, sure with her friends, but without someone who she knew from before. Her homesickness had disappeared after a few months on the ship, but now it came back with full force.

"Mistress Lash! They've got megatanks! Please respond!" The macabre spectacle played out below her as her own units fought on, still standing where she had placed them against an enemy that had been upgrading and building all the time she was simply leaning in and doing nothing. Lash didn't care. You'd almost think she was a statue in the way she was lost in her thoughts. Eventually she issued a single command that was almost dismissive to everything.

"Whatever. Just blow them up for all I care." The soldiers below yelled out commands and eventually large rockets were launched at the sky, shining in the star-filled night sky. The nuclear-like weapons exploded in the middle of the enemies' troops, giving her a good view of the entire carnage and clouds lighting up the atmosphere. Yet she got no joy from it, even as the normally deadly breeze passed by her. In fact, it only made her sigh as she idly pinched away a tiny rock stuck in her hair. The Wunderkind wasn't sure why she was like this. This was so dumb to care about it so much! Dumb dumb dumb! She'd loved doing this so much before but right now...

It felt really pointless.

For the first time in her life, Lash was completely unamused by an explosion.

Comments

[morphitudinous]

"Ouch," Billy sympathized, wincing at the disaster scene below him. That was definitely not what Lash would've preferred.

"Maybe this is a bad time of day for you to concentrate? It's not like you not to know." Or maybe it was her lunchtime. Food was often good for brains, he believed.

[thewunderkind]

Nothing like Lash liked at all, really. Which is why it was so strange she wasn't in an uproar about it.

"Yeah..." she trailed off and fumbled with her hands. "Were you coming here to use the sensorium? I can give you this chamber, if you want." He'd definitely have more fun than her in it right now.

[morphitudinous]

Something was definitely wrong, Billy thought. Lash was never this polite unless she had something up her sleeve, and she sounded...awkward, almost sad. That wasn't like the teammate he knew at all.

"No, I just wanted to see what was going on. And I've definitely found something unusual. Lash, what's up?"

He stepped closer, giving her a look that clearly said he knew she wasn't quite herself. It would probably take some persuading to get at it, though.

[thewunderkind]

A lot of persuasion, even if she had trouble hiding any type of emotion.

"Just not having a good day," she replied, shrugging. "You know, not feeling it and all of the stuff most boring people say when they have that problem." Except she never had that problem, normally. "I'm sure you had one or two bad days on the ship."

[morphitudinous]

"That's true," Billy nodded, folding his arms and walking up to her side. "But bad days usually have a root cause, and losing a simulated battle just doesn't seem like a strong enough one. Something happened."

It was hard to pin down exactly what, though. He bowed his head in thought, thinking of the things that had changed over the past day.

[thewunderkind]

Well, you'd probably be able to figure out in some way Billy. Lash meanwhile, gave him a tiny shrug and silently watched the scene unfold some more in front her.

[morphitudinous]

After a few moments of thought, it clicked. He didn't remember seeing Lash on the deck at all yesterday, or anyone looking for her...

"Stacy couldn't find someone for you in time for visitation day?"

[thewunderkind]

The entire scene suddenly stopped, paused in mid-battle.

"Stacy's never found me anyone at anytime," she stated simply, although the bitterness in her voice was pretty telling.

[morphitudinous]

Oh, so that was it. Billy felt months of old pain rushing into the back of his mind. It wasn't so long ago that he'd felt the same way, bitterly waiting for months upon months while his friends had their happy reunions. It had changed now, though, and nothing he said could cheer her from that. 'They'll wake up soon' was probably a lie. 'I know how you feel' wasn't comforting either.

"I'm sorry," was all Billy could think to say, head bowed. "And...it's frightening, isn't it. That they might not be in the pods at all." A thought he had thought far too many times and still considered about his remaining friends.

[thewunderkind]

"I wouldn't say frightening. Black Hole doesn't do frightening, they frighten." She'd argue every way about that too. "It's more...really disappointing, I guess. Figured they'd grab a bunch more than just me. I can understand wanting to have the Wunderkind on board, but you should see what the other COs can do too!"

[morphitudinous]

"I'm sure they're amazing," Billy said quietly, bringing himself closer. "I want to see them too. I wish I could promise that they're here, but...I can't. And it's horrendously unfair to you."

He just wished that there were more comforting things that he could say without lying.

[thewunderkind]

Billy you could have totally lied she would have believed you. But well, you people and your heroic types and your not lying at anything.

"Eh I guess it'll just be the sensoriums, or if we defeat the Ohm, I guess. Wonder why I even bothered going to poddrops at all."

[morphitudinous]

"Don't I know that feeling," Billy whispered, kicking an idle rock on the ground. He'd been that way for at least a year, losing hope that anyone would ever be there for him. Then someone was there in entirely the wrong way, and then...Kim. He'd been so immensely relieved to see her.

Though that reminded him that there was some cheering up he could be honest about!

"I know it's not much, but at least you've never had someone awaken with a grudge against you. Knowing you, it'd probably be quite a spectacle." He didn't try to smile, but he stood beside her, desperately wishing he could help.

[thewunderkind]

"Oh don't worry. If Kindle had woken up, there wouldn't be much of anything left." And she didn't even sound sorry about it. "Although I guess airlocks do make things a lot more quiet and a lot less...dirty."

[morphitudinous]

Billy smirked. Yes, that was more like the Lash he knew. If he was worrying about what she might do to others more than her own depression, things were probably fairly normal.

"We've had enough dirty fighting for a while, I think. But we might have to worry about some tentacles blocking the airlock. We all have to be civil to each other regardless of our pasts...but I've learned why the rule makes sense. Certian people never change, but some have."

He's proud of you, Lash.

[thewunderkind]

"And that's why they put him back into the pods. He was a pretty dumb guy, after all."

Sorry Billy, but that went just completely over her head, or she just pretended to ignore it.

[morphitudinous]

Billy just quietly rolled his eyes. So she'd ignore him, but at least she seemed better?

"We're safer as we are. You'll be ready to put them away, right?"

[thewunderkind]

"Yeap. I'm pretty sure I'd push Kindle back in hers, or ask GLaDOS to run a few tests on her."

[morphitudinous]

"So you're ready."

Billy knew very well that he was treading on thin ice, but at least he was leading her away from pain. "Still need to beat something up?"

[thewunderkind]

"As fun as it would be to beat you up," if she said that as a joke of was being serious, it was hard to tell, "I think I just need a bit of time to ponder for myself. I know I might seem a bit grim right now, but...you hero types just end up app poking your noses in here anyway. Even the most depressed person on the ship can't get down with you guys around, I bet. Or that and want to kill you. Regardless, I'm totally skipping out on next Poddrop. I'm tired of waiting around. If someone wakes up they'll have to work and find me instead."

[morphitudinous]

"That sounds more like you," Billy laughed in relief, reaching out to thump your shoulder. "Just program one of your soldiers to poke you if you ruminate too far, all right? I'll pass the information along if I find one of them there---I have to be there to find new engineers anyway."

[thewunderkind]

"Okay! Uh...should I give you a visual aid of the people I'd actually care to see or?"

They were in the sensoriums, after all.

[morphitudinous]

Billy nodded, a small smile on his face. "If you'd like to. I can't promise I'll remember it all, but I'll give it my best."

[thewunderkind]

"'Kay. Lemme just give you the really good ones then."

Images of Hawke, Flak, Adder, Sturm, Jake, Sonja and Jess appeared.

Could you guess which ones were part of Black Hole?

"That's Hawke. Birdy's pretty much the silent type, so just look for a white mohawke towering most of the normal humanoids. Flak's just a big muscle brute. I think he has no eyes under those goggles no hair under that helmet. Adder's a pale guy with purple hair, Sturm well...uh...look at him. Never knew what he looked under that helmet. That might actually be part of him. Who knows. Next is Jake. If you hear a guy speak like Punchy with orange hair, that's him. Sonja is about my size, but wears a pair of glasses. She's actually my main rival back at home. And that's Jess. If you see her...don't tell her I'm here."

[morphitudinous]

Billy took careful note of each appearance, eyes locked in concentration until she reached the last name. That was odd.

"Why not? I'm not sure how long we can hide your presence. Should I just send a warning?"