ORIENTATION

[allforevil]

[When you start to stir from your slumber, you awaken to the smell of dust and rotted wood. Your bed is far from comfortable -- lumps in the mattress, a tattered blanket that barely keeps you warm and a pillow almost as hard as a rock-- and you'll immediately see there are others in your room with you.

All of you are confused, surely. "Where am I?" "What place is this?" Questions like that stir through your mind while you take in your surroundings. Something might catch your eye before anything else, though. A coloured chest tied with a bow, a large gift tag is attached to it with your name on it. There's one for everyone in each dorm, and if you open it you'll find:

An old, worn school uniform.
A colourful costume.
And a pamphlet with information about you, about your stay in this Academy, and a map of the layout of the school and the training grounds outside. The descriptions are vague, leaving out important details about your new super powers called "Quirks", a bland description about how you were selected to join the Academy called "VA" (no explanation what it means), and even the map has lame descriptions of locations that don't really give you a good idea of where you're staying.

Before you can start exploring, or chatting away with your neighbors, a voice rings over old intercoms. It sounds low and comforting, like a long lost friend. But there's something about that that feels.. unsettling. A feeling in your gut that this voice was anything but friendly.

"Welcome, students. You must be very confused, but I assure you I'll be able to answer all the questions you have in just a few minutes.

For now, relax, explore, and meet your new classmates who will be staying with you during this semester.

Oh, but..... whatever you do, don't enter the dining room."

The intercom cuts off, leaving you with a cryptic message to think about on top of.. everything else you're dealing with right now.]

Comments

[lemirio]

[Mirio shakes his head, rubbing the back of his neck.]

Well no, I would agree with you there. There's only one earth...and by star, I assume you mean the sun, right?

[ninehilist]

Yeah. So we're from the same Earth.

[lemirio]

[9S he hates to tell you that there's a difference between causation and correlation-]

Mm...maybe I'm just unfamiliar with where you're talking about exactly...it's very possible, it's not like I've been everywhere there is to go on the planet.

[ninehilist]

Yeah, but I mean. It's kinda hard to miss an entire half of the planet with no sun...

[lemirio]

I'd say so! You'd think the news would report on it or something.

[Yet...Mirio is hesitant to argue too heavily with this boy, namely because he seems insistent to believe that whatever version of Earth he knows is the true one. No matter what Mirio says different...

So he decides to try to gently veer the subject into a different direction.]

Mind if I ask you your name?

[ninehilist]

[Look he's in denial right now. Give him like three hours.]

9S.

[Yes, that is his name.]

[lemirio]

9S...

[Okay. Not the weirdest name he's ever heard. Though it's pretty weird.]

Well, it's good to meet you! I'm Mirio Togata, but please just call me Mirio.

[ninehilist]

Mirio...

[Oh!]

I think someone was looking for you. Tamaki? I, uh, almost crushed him when the bunk I was in gave out.

[And also gave him a crisis but it's fine, it's fine.]

[lemirio]

[Well he doesn't like that one bit!]

Tama-? Wh- is he alright?!

[ninehilist]

I didn't hurt him! He got out of the way fast enough, but I don't think he took me telling him there's no way he's human too well.

[lemirio]

[Well so much for skirting that topic.]

Why...would you tell him something like that?

[Like he knows Tamaki can be a little nervous and struggles to talk to people but going out of your way to pick on him like that...]

NIER AUTOMATA SPOILERs also probably spoilers for the original Nier but

[ninehilist]

Because humans have been dead for thousands of years.

[lemirio]

[...........]

We can't be from the same earth, then, because I'm a human and so is Tamaki.

[ninehilist]

[Oh boy, here we go again.]

Your programming probably just tells you are. Weird programming, but...

[lemirio]

[Mirio lifts a hand, brushing it through his hair.]

If you need proof, I can try to think of some way to give it...otherwise, I'm not sure what to tell you.

[God, poor Tamaki though...he probably didn't handle all of that as well. He'll have to go find him as soon as he's through here.]

[ninehilist]

[No he did not. And 9S is seriously sorry about that.]

There's nothing you could do...but hey, could I try and hack you? I don't have my pod with me so it'll be a little harder, but maybe I can figure out whatever weird programming you two have that makes you think you're human.

[He's helpful!]

[lemirio]

[That sounds...well, relatively normal in terms of computers and machines, but like...people?

Okay, he'll bite. Let's see how this goes here.]

How exactly would you go about doing that?

[ninehilist]

I just boot up my hacking program and hack in. No pod means no support, so it'll take me a bit like I said, but it's easy.

[lemirio]

Easy, huh.

[For an android, which he is not.]

...alright. Go ahead and try. Maybe you'll be able to figure out what's wrong with me.

[ninehilist]

[9S nods and sort of focuses on Mirio, hand pressed to his temple to boot up the program.

And then frown because something's wrong.]

It's not working. The program's there...but I can't seem to boot it up.

[lemirio]

[Just as he figured.]

The pamplets claim to have given us new abilities. You read them, didn't you?

[And to give, you have to take. He assumes whatever 9S could do before was removed...]

[ninehilist]

I looked at it, but I didn't really read it.

[He digs his out, scanning it.]

...Quirk?

[lemirio]

Quirks are what the abilities most everyone has are called where I'm from. Somehow, whoever has brought us here has done some tampering with peoples' abilities...no doubt by using their own Quirk.

[ninehilist]

That's...

[A beat.]

How? I'm an android--you can't just take away my programs! They're literally me!

[lemirio]

I know. But Quirks...they can do a lot that you wouldn't expect. Some are frighteningly powerful.

[And he isn't saying that to scare him, that's just...the truth.]

A lot of the time, the effects are temporary. If that's really what's going on here, things may go back to normal eventually...but I can't say for sure.