OPEN

[newphew]

WHO: Hunter and you!
WHAT: Memshare!!!
WHERE: Vegas/dreamscape/etc
WHEN: Event time!
WARNINGS: CW for child abuse, child soldiering, brainwashing, ptsd, genocide mentions! also Owl House spoilers will be in here.....

Just a note that I'm going to be doing two separate top level headers! One will be to tag in to receive a memshare from Hunter, and one will be one where you can put your character's memory! Please give me a memory in return if you are taking one of Hunter's ♥

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HUNTER'S MEMORIES

[newphew]

(( I will be setting up pre-plotted memeshares here but feel free to tag in for one, this is ota! ))

WINTER

[newphew]

[ to set the mood! ]

[ winter finds himself in a dimly lit hallway -- half of it is immaculate, with golden walls and large ornate paintings lining the walls. many of the paintings depict "emperor belos", who winter will intrinsically understand to be the ruler of the boiling isles, hunter's, and.... "his" home. there is the persistent feeling that the boiling isles is his home, even if he can easily tell otherwise. and so many of these regal paintings depict emperor belos battling and triumping against "wild witches" and "wild magic". winter will also have a strong feeling that he is the equivalent of a wild witch in this scenario. ]

[ the further he ventures into the hallways, however, the more the other half becomes visible: old, dying trees, a barren land, and the sense of death all around him. here, there are just as many paintings, but they're faded, ripped, hard to get a visual on ]

[ a young human girl is with him, and she's narrowing her eyes at the gilded paintings. she looks to winter ]

[ "You're not buying this baloney about wild magic being evil and Belos being the savior of everything, are you?" ]

WRIOTHESLEY

[newphew]

[ to set the mood! ]

[ wriothesley finds himself in a dimly lit hallway -- everywhere around him is rotting and decaying. a barren wasteland filled with dying trees, and ripped canvases of paintings. ]

[ hunter's voice flits into his mind as he looks at these paintings -- The mindscape reflects the individual. Those are memories. You shouldn't touch them! he also knows, inexplicably, that this is the emperor's mindscape. Emperor Belos, the ruler of the Boiling Isles --- and the man hunter serves. ]

[ hunter is nowhere to be found. and those paintings are faded, ripped, and torn. almost like belos doesn't want him to see what's in them. ]

[ he may feel like he's being watched, as well..... ]

[frostfist]

[ It sure isn't a comforting sight, that's for sure.

Wriothesley takes a few moments to peer at the scenery around him, at the brick walls and the flickering torches and the paintings that show scraps and moments of events that must have transpired long ago. He doesn't touch, heeding the warning that somehow echoes through his head, but he does travel a little further, letting his feet guide him to first one painting and then the next. (None of them make any sense to him though, especially not with the way so many of them are mostly obscured.)

With no answers to be found in his immediate surroundings, he settles for the next best thing: walking down the hallway in search of someone or something that might clue him in as to what's going on. ]

VERGILIUS

[newphew]

[ to set the mood! ]

[ vergilius finds himself in a dimly lit hallway -- everywhere around him is rotting and decaying. a barren wasteland filled with dying trees, and ripped canvases of paintings. ]

[ hunter's voice flits into his mind as he looks at these paintings -- The mindscape reflects the individual. Those are memories. You shouldn't touch them! he also knows, inexplicably, that this is the emperor's mindscape. Emperor Belos, the ruler of the Boiling Isles --- and the man hunter serves. ]

[ hunter is nowhere to be found. and those paintings are faded, ripped, and torn. almost like belos doesn't want him to see what's in them. ]

[ he may feel like he's being watched, as well..... ]

[immortalpoet]

[Vergilius comes to - a rotten place, a hallway with tattered walls and canvas. Something is wrong.]

[He's not one to freeze up - as focused as he is, his priority is to get out of this place - and he only spares a glance for the paintings before heading down the hallway.]

Some kind of art gallery...?

ELYSIUM

[newphew]

[ to set the mood! ]

[ elysium finds himself in a dimly lit hallway -- half of it is immaculate, with golden walls and large ornate paintings lining the walls. many of the paintings depict "emperor belos", who ely will intrinsically understand to be the ruler of the boiling isles, hunter's, and.... "his" home. there is the persistent feeling that the boiling isles is his home, even if he can easily tell otherwise. and so many of these regal paintings depict emperor belos battling and triumping against "wild witches" and "wild magic". elysium will also have a strong feeling that he is the equivalent of a wild witch in this scenario, which is probably a familiar feeling. wild magic is supposedly dangerous and destructive, and so is he. at least, according to the emperor ]

[ the further he ventures into the hallways, however, the more the other half becomes visible: old, dying trees, a barren land, and the sense of death all around him. here, there are just as many paintings, but they're faded, ripped, hard to get a visual on ]

[ a young human girl is with him, and she's narrowing her eyes at the gilded paintings. she looks to elysium ]

[ "You're not buying this baloney about wild magic being evil and Belos being the savior of everything, are you?" ]

[transmit]

[ Unlike other dreams that had left him in mostly open spaces thus far, this one leaves him feeling distinctly claustrophobic, the deeply unsettling feeling in his gut made justified by the hall's eventual transition into a barren land. Fully take in his surroundings he does, along with all the context the dream helpfully supplies, but he can't help but think there's one thing missing here—one terribly important thing if this happens to be a memory and not a dream. ]

Hm. [ He's of opinion that yes, these witch trials seem rather ridiculous, reminiscent of what Infected back in his world contend with on a regular basis based on the knowledge he's been given of them. What's offering his opinion going to change anything here, though? So instead, he does the lovely thing of flipping the question: ] What are we doing here, exactly…?

[ this does not seem appropriate for a field trip ]

RYOJI

[newphew]

[ to set the mood! ]

[ ryoji finds himself in a dimly lit hallway -- everywhere around him is rotting and decaying. a barren wasteland filled with dying trees, and ripped canvases of paintings. ]

[ hunter's voice flits into his mind as he looks at these paintings -- The mindscape reflects the individual. Those are memories. You shouldn't touch them! he also knows, inexplicably, that this is the emperor's mindscape. Emperor Belos, the ruler of the Boiling Isles --- and the man hunter serves. ]

[ hunter is nowhere to be found. and those paintings are faded, ripped, and torn. almost like belos doesn't want him to see what's in them. ]

[ ryoji may feel like he's being watched, as well..... ]

DR. RATIO

[newphew]

[ to set the mood ]

[ dr. ratio finds himself part of the emperor's coven -- he will remember very clearly what he had to do join. only a select few were chosen, and he's had to prove himself through rigorous testing -- deadly traps with mazes, witches duels to the death. once he was left on the top of a mountain and had to find his way down. he was one of few to even survive. ]

[ he also remembers the past golden guard, an extremely powerful and intelligent witch who was his mentor when he was younger. he remembers having a strong bond with this man -- despite never seeing his face. he died under mysterious circumstances, something ratio has yet to find any details about, no matter how hard he searched ]

[ his successor is a child, who can't be older than 13, at the most. today, dr. ratio has been ordered to accompany this new golden guard on his mission and report back to the emperor about his progress. there have been whispers already about this new golden guard -- that he's unworthy ]

[ ratio and the golden guard are alone in this mission. it's to raid a supposed base of wild witches and return with their palismen --- sentient magical totems that can transform into a staff. ratio used to have one, himself, but it was taken by the emperor when he'd joined the emperor's coven. ]

[ the new golden guard beckons for ratio to follow him ]

[curingidiocy]

[ It takes a moment for Ratio to orient himself after he wakes in the dream, memories that are not his swimming around in his mind. Such dangerous trials, pain and suffering, lives lost, and for what??

There is a young boy in front of him, no older than thirteen. He is to be the successor? He does not discriminate against age, but that does not mean he cannot take umbrage with the situation. A child on the cusp of his teen years should not be subjected to... to all of this.

It is but a memory, however. He cannot change the course of reality. So he stays silent, and follows when he's beckoned to by the young child. ]

MARCH

[newphew]

[ to set the mood! ]

[ march finds herself in a dimly lit hallway -- everywhere around her is rotting and decaying. a barren wasteland filled with dying trees, and ripped canvases of paintings. ]

[ hunter's voice flits into her mind as he looks at these paintings -- The mindscape reflects the individual. Those are memories. You shouldn't touch them!. she may remember him explaining mindscapes before. but she also knows, inexplicably, that this is the emperor's mindscape. Emperor Belos, the ruler of the Boiling Isles --- and the man hunter serves. ]

[ hunter is nowhere to be found. and those paintings are faded, ripped, and torn. almost like belos doesn't want her to see what's in them. ]

[ march also hears a mysterious giggle in the background, vibrating off of the trees and the paintings. spooky! ]

[bowtography]

[ Wow. For once, couldn't she have a delightful, pleasant dream full of sunshine and rainbows and birdsong? No? Just a creepy, decaying hallway with dead trees and abused paintings?

This is someone's mindscape? She's already worried about his mental state if that's the case, but she lifts her chin and moves forward.

Time to maybe find the source of that giggle. ]

Hello...?

LAE'ZEL

[newphew]

[ to set the mood! ]

[ lae'zel finds herself in a dimly lit hallway -- half of it is immaculate, with golden walls and large ornate paintings lining the walls. many of the paintings depict "emperor belos", who lae'zel will intrinsically understand to be the ruler of the boiling isles, hunter's, and.... "her" home. there is the persistent feeling that the boiling isles is her home, even if she can easily tell otherwise. and so many of these regal paintings depict emperor belos battling and triumphing against "wild witches" and "wild magic". lae'zel will also have a strong feeling that she is the equivalent of a wild witch in this scenario. ]

[ the further she ventures into the hallways, however, the more the other half becomes visible: old, dying trees, a barren land, and the sense of death all around her. here, there are just as many paintings, but they're faded, ripped, hard to get a visual on ]

[ a young human girl is with her, and she's narrowing her eyes at the gilded paintings. she looks to lae'zel ]

[ "You're not buying this baloney about wild magic being evil and Belos being the savior of everything, are you?" ]

[bruisehaver]

[ Her feelings about the scene before her are two-fold: on the one hand, she can understand the reverence with which this ruler is being treated, if he is the symbol of control and order to this land. On the other... the sharp sting of uncovering the secrets that monarchs can be hiding in plain sight, of being betrayed by someone she had sworn fealty to still burns on her face. So she takes in the paintings with a grain of salt, looking down her short nose at the young girl near her. ]

Chk. I do not believe any magic is "evil." All magic is simply a weapon to be used and manipulated, same as a sword.

[ There's nothing moral about it, only the morality of the person wielding it. Her sharp gaze cuts in to the painting of the Emperor and the owl-like beast, squinting. ]

Whether or not the Emperor is a savior depends only on the person. And you seem to have already made up your mind.

YOR

[newphew]

[ to set the mood! ]

[ yor finds herself in the body of a small bird, flapjack! she's flying around hunter, currently dressed like a scout. she'll know, implicity, that hunter is out here against orders, trying to get titan's blood -- a powerful and rare substance that will help his master, emperor belos. and she -- as flapjack -- is worried about him. he doesn't understand why she keeps following him! whatever she says comes out as chirps ]

[ hunter narrows his eyes ]

I don't speak palisman. [ and then, without a beat: ] Okay, here's the plan. I slip in with this disguise. I find the Titan's Blood before Kiki. I give it to Belos, boom! I'm useful again!

[ suddenly, a blast of magic comes out from nowhere and completely annihilates the tree they were hiding behind! ]

[ what does she do next? ]

DEARKA

[newphew]

[ to set the mood! ]

[ dearka finds himself younger than he is -- at your discretion, but in terms of the hierarchy, he's the equivalent of a newbie, a scout going through basic training to be accepted in the emperor's coven. and it's quite cutthroat. dearka finds himself believing (at least to an extent), that he's wanted this all of his life, he's worked hard for it, excelling in school, studying his ass off! he might have had to step on a few toes to even get here. maybe even duel yzak one on one. and he's lost his precious palisman (a magical totem creature who could turn into a staff) to belos, who confiscated it. ]

[ still, he's determined! currently, his mission is to escape this maze full of deadly traps and beasts. every creature, small and big, in this thing, wants to take a piece of him. the walls are massive and full of painful thorns and carnivorous plants -- so he might not want to get too close to them, either. he's got a wand and can use limited magic, but he'll have to rely on his smarts and physical prowess to get out of here. ]

[ he also realizes he's not alone -- there's a literal child here who looks to be about six years old, with unkempt blonde hair. his hood is down, but as soon as he sees dearka looking at him, he puts it back up, almost defensively ]

[ what will dearka do? try to work with this child, help, hinder him? throw him to the wolfbats? all of these are options ]

ERESHKIGAL

[newphew]

[ to set the mood! ]

[ ereshkigal finds herself in the body of a small bird, flapjack! she's flying around hunter, currently dressed like a scout. she'll know, implicity, that hunter is out here against orders, trying to get titan's blood -- a powerful and rare substance that will help his master, emperor belos. and she -- as flapjack -- is worried about him. he doesn't understand why she keeps following him! whatever she says comes out as chirps ]

[ hunter narrows his eyes ]

I don't speak palisman. [ and then, without a beat: ] Okay, here's the plan. I slip in with this disguise. I find the Titan's Blood before Kiki. I give it to Belos, boom! I'm useful again!

[ suddenly, a blast of magic comes out from nowhere and completely annihilates the tree they were hiding behind! ]

[ what does she do next? ]

MARCILLE

[newphew]

[ to set the mood! ]

[ marcille finds herself in a dimly lit hallway -- half of it is immaculate, with golden walls and large ornate paintings lining the walls. many of the paintings depict "emperor belos", who marcille will intrinsically understand to be the ruler of the boiling isles, hunter's, and.... "her" home. there is the persistent feeling that the boiling isles is her home, even if she can easily tell otherwise. and so many of these regal paintings depict emperor belos battling and triumping against "wild witches" and "wild magic". marcille will also have a strong feeling that she is the equivalent of a wild witch in this scenario. ]

[ the further she ventures into the hallways, however, the more the other half becomes visible: old, dying trees, a barren land, and the sense of death all around her. here, there are just as many paintings, but they're faded, ripped, hard to get a visual on ]

[ a piercing, rebounding scream echoes through the hallways, shaking the very ground she's standing on.... and marcille will get the sense she's being watched ]

FERN

[newphew]

[ to set the mood! ]

[ fern finds herself younger than she is -- at your discretion, but in terms of the hierarchy, she's the equivalent of a newbie, a scout going through basic training to be accepted in the emperor's coven. and it's extremely cutthroat. fern finds herself believing (at least to an extent), that she's wanted this all of his life, she's worked hard for it, excelling in school, studying her ass off! she might have had to step on a few toes to even get here. maybe even duel stark. and she's lost her precious palisman (a magical totem creature who could turn into a staff) to belos, who confiscated it. no one knows what he does with them. ]

[ still, she's determined! currently, her mission is to escape this maze full of deadly traps and beasts. every creature, small and big, in this thing, wants to take a piece of her. the walls are massive and full of painful thorns and carnivorous plants -- so she might not want to get too close to them, either. she's got a training wand and has access to all her regular spells, albeit... weaker. it looks like she'll have to rely on her smarts and physical prowess to get out of here. ]

[ she also realizes she's not alone -- there's a literal child here who looks to be about six years old, with unkempt blonde hair. his hood is down, but as soon as he sees fern looking at him, he puts it back up, almost defensively ]

[ what will fern do? try to work with this child, help, hinder him? ]

YOUR CHARACTER'S MEMORIES

[newphew]

(( Your character's memory here! feel fee to just start it off here, no need for preamble ))

[busternaut]

[Maybe Hunter's just passing by when it happens. Dearka, recovering from the worm debacle same as everyone else, finds himself suddenly slipping into one of those uncontrollable waking reveries... Though this one isn't really pleasant enough to deserve that term.

He's been thinking a lot about Nicol, for obvious reasons. Not just his death, but the revenge the remaining members of the Le Creuset team tried to take for him afterwards. Him, Dearka... Then Yzak of course. And finally Athrun, all doggedly chasing down the legged ship known as Archangel, determined to sink both it and the mobile suit pilot that protected it.

As their occular implants both glitch and sync up, Hunter will be pulled into a memory seen in the first person. He's seated in the cockpit of the GAT-X103 Buster Gundam, surrounded by controls and blinking displays that all SHOULD feel completely alien to Hunter... Synced with Dearka though, the cockpit feels like a second home, the mobile suit itself almost like another skin, for how at-ease he is piloting it.

All is not well though. Familiarity of the machine is an afterthought when you're locked in a desperate fight, and a potent cocktail of emotions reverberates throughout this memory. Grief, fury, fear... Annoyance at this one persistent little fighter jet that keeps dogging him and his efforts to exact the revenge he and his squadmates all crave. There's a flash of red light from the jet, and a loud explosion that rocks the right side of the mobile suit.

Everything that happens next, happens in a matter of seconds... A complete blur of actions and reactions. The hands at the controls-- Dearka's, but also Hunter's, they're one in the same in the way this memory is being shared-- scramble to try and maintain control in flight, but it's no use. A massive impact shudders through the cockpit as the mobile suit plows into the earth back-first, coming to a stop a fair distance away from the initial point of impact, where it lays prone and immobilized. With key systems all utterly unresponsive, and the main display indicating that the Archangel is moments away from firing on him, the pilot realizes there are only two options available to him now: surrender, or die.

...He chooses to surrender. The cockpit hisses open and he steps out into the pouring rain with both hands in the air, scowling. Enemy soldiers are sent out to meet him. He's brought aboard the very ship he was just attempting to sink and stripped of his belongings before being escorted to the medical bay to have his wounds tended to, limping the whole way. Recollecting this, Dearka feels the echoes of the fury, the humiliation, the shame of that experience... Not to mention fear, although he wouldn't permit himself to show it.

He distinctly remembers his cocksure, idiotic brain deciding then and there that the ONLY reasonable way of coping with all of this, was to be as loud and obnoxious as reasonably possible as he was walked through the halls at gunpoint. Complaining, leering at the local girls... What was the logic here? Maybe he was just trying to convey to the Naturals that even though he'd surrendered, that didn't mean they'd broken his spirit. But in the process, he'd refused to accept that the people around him were soldiers just like him... People who had just experienced their own losses.

It brings him shame now to look back upon. In particular, the memory lingers for a long while on the face of the crying girl who he'd antagonized. There's a blackout, a disconnect between the visual and sound, Dearka's own words coming back to haunt him. Are you afraid of me? Find me unusual? ...What I want to know is, why are you crying again? Did a foolish good-for-nothing Natural boyfriend of yours die or something?

The image returns just as abruptly, only now, one half of the vision is stained red. The sting of a fresh wound across the forehead provides context as to why. This whole memory has continued to play out in the first person point of view, and when the "camera" looks into the shiny surface of an upended medical tray that's propped up nearby, it's not Hunter's reflection there, but of course, Dearka's. He looks about four years younger, there's a gash on his forehead and blood running down his face, and he's laying on his side on the floor with his hands still tied behind his back. Various medical supplies are strewn across the floor in front of him. He looks up and finds that same girl from before, grappling with another young man around his own age. He's trying to both hold her back and wrench a large medical knife out of her hands, as she writhes and shrieks, her face contorted in fury, her eyes full of tears.

Tolle... Tolle is nowhere to be found! But this guy gets to live!? WHY!?

At this point, Dearka-- The real one here, in the present, sitting around in some gathered common space in Las Vegas-- manages to wrench himself out of the memory, he grits his teeth and rubs his forehead, trying to abate the sharp pain between his eyes. He seems to be completely unaware that anyone else was just watching that.]

arrives fashionably late

[frostfist]

[ how many concurrent threads can we have at once, stay tuned

And how many of other people's memories can Hunter barge into before the implants finally stop glitching? Here's another one, nighttime in a residential area. There's a house nearby, with a small crowd of children milling nearby. They're all different ages and genders, but what they have in common is a look of confusion and panic on their face. Some of them glance nervously at the house, others cry and wail, and still others glance towards the house with dark looks on their faces.

There seems to be a muffled argument floating through the open front door….does Hunter care to go investigate? ]

CW: body degradation/body horror, blood, gore, nudity

[saudadist]

[ This dream, this memory...it's one that's still raw, fresh, aching. To her, it happened not so long ago. A few months now. It's more vivid than it usually is. The ache of her body and the sting of the seasalt in the air are so real. Why is she seeing it all again?

Why? Why? Why is it always like this? No matter what, she can never be allowed to live happily. She can't even make a single promise to someone without another person coming along to force her to break it.

Why did Kurama have to appear now of all times? Why couldn't he just leave her alone? Why did Kouta have to take a bullet for her sake? Why? When he said he hated her only a few minutes before? Why does she have to live in a world that can't allow her a single moment of happiness? Why can't she destroy a world like this as it so justly deserves?!

And why...why...why...why...why is her power hitting its limit now? Why is it now that her body begins to atrophy, her hand falling off entirely, that she's at the breaking point? Wasn't it enough to just cough up her lungs like before from the effort? Why can't this body hold on just a little while longer??

She touches down as gently as she can on the Sea Candle's ruined platform. Kouta's condition is already abysmal. The bleeding isn't stopping, but he's still breathing. For how long? She can't say. Her mind races for what to do, but... ]

Die...he'll die. It's too late. He'll die...

[ All this power and again...again she can't save a single person! Just like before, the only person who ever mattered is going to die! All because he foolishly chose to protect her. Someone who's only ever brought him grief.

But...no, wait! If she...that's right. Her "arms" can be so precise, right down to the molecular level. If she focuses, she can heal him, right? If she stops the bleeding, he won't die here...

Right? ]

If his wounds will close just a little bit, what would my life matter...?

[immortalpoet]

[Hunter awakes to the sight of a modern building. Something that looks like a school, to be exact. He happens to be dressed in a nice black suit, tie and all, standing outside what looks to be a barbed wire fence around the perimeter.]

[Vergilus approaches - he's dressed differently, a black leather jacket and a holster with his gladius perched on his back. He glances dully up at the building.]

So this is the building you said Lapis would meet you at? A gallery....

[Even if Hunter may not share in these memories, there's something insistent in his head. There's someone he needs to find in that place.]

[A young lady named Lapis.]