Clockwork Castle

Megara slid away from Skull, "Don't ever do that again," she growled.

Fidel glanced at her, but kept his attention on Kirux.

"So you weren't cursed...how did you get your powers then?" He decided he could ask better questions now that he didn't depend on a yes or no answer. He had never heard of anything like Kirux's abilities before, at least, not of them being possessed by someone who hadn't been cursed with them. That just wasn't how magic worked.

"Can't make any promises," I nonchalantly said before turning back to the other two. Kirux had no way of communicating an answer to him without sign language, so it looked like I would have to play translator.

"I had them since I was created!" Kirux signed.

"He had them since he was create-" I started to repeat, only to stop when the words really registered. "You were created?"

He gave a big nod.

Megara grit her teeth, but let it go. He had to know it was impractical to possess someone who was in near-constant physical pain. Unless he was stupid, and she wasn't ruling that out as a possibility.

Fidel stared at Kirux in fascination, "Created? Like, reanimated, or, like, from the ground up created?"

Kirux crossed his arms and thought long and hard on the answer.

"Neither!" he declared. The robot man didn't say anything in translation - he guessed he was waiting for him to say more. "I was made when Riku fell into darkness. I'm him without his heart."

Now Skull translated.

And then he placed his hand on his chest.

"...Feels like you have a heart to me," Skull said.

"Not an actual heart," Kirux explained. "Your heart is you! It has all of your memories, and if it falls into darkness, you do, too?"

Skull translated, then pulled his hand away and mulled over the answer. "So like a soul?"

Kirux gave him a look that said he didn't know - he had heard the word before, but wasn't sure it was a heart.

Fidel was about to ask another question when Megara got to her feet, ignoring the pain as flawlessly as only someone practiced in using injured limbs could, and walked to the end of the alley. There was nothing immediately useful to glean from the mute at the moment, but knowing exactly what manner of world she'd managed to find herself in could be invaluable.

Fidel called after her, "Hey, get back here, you're going to hurt yourself!"

She didn't grace that with a response.

Fidel got up as well and followed her, intending to persuade her to sit back down and let her injuries heal for a while longer. He didn't get very far with that goal, however, as the moment he caught up with her at the end of the alley and grabbed her wrist to get her attention, he found himself being slammed against the wall with a knife to his throat.

"Don't. Touch. Me."

He swallowed a lump in his throat. She was going to kill him. She was going to kill him. His breath became quick and short, his body trembled.

But then he was released, and the knife was nowhere to be seen. Megara stepped out of the alley and leaned against the front of what appeared to be some kind of shop as she scoped the area out. It was nighttime, so there were no people about to give her an idea of what manner of creatures populated this world. Still, the architecture composed of an awkward Frankenstein of brick, brass, and exposed wiring, along with the seemingly random pipes and chimneys that expelled steam at a near-constant rate, explaining the thick blanket of fog that made visibility in this light nearly impossible.

Spoiler

I was thinking they could have an encounter with the evil monarch's goons or something. Like, maybe there's an enforced curfew and they get arrested for breaking it, thus getting them inside the castle. Alternatively, they could be saved last-minute by a native of this world who tells them what's going on and they decided to break into the castle on their own later on. Whichever you prefer. I just figured we ought to get the plot started.

Spoiler

That sounds like a plan to me! I really like the first one, since it gives them a chance to figure out a plan for escape. If you want, you can write their arrival!

The disappearance of the still unnamed guy and girl left me with Kirux. The two of us didn't say anything for a moment - or, in his case, sign anything for a moment. We just watched the end of the alleyway.

"She just threatened him with a knife, didn't she?" I asked.

I glanced over at Kirux.

He gave a nod, looking a little pale as he turned his gaze to me. We held eye contact for another handful of moments before he finally signed something.

"Are you always a robot?" he asked.

"Nope," I nonchalantly replied. "...Do you usually have metal hands and a fake eye?"

He shook his head and then nodded.

I couldn't tell if that was indecision or something else, so I patiently waited for him to sign something else.

"I don't have robot hands," he promised, "and my fake eye doesn't look like it does right now. But I'm okay with it! It's because we're on another world."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

Kirux mulled over the answer for a moment. "When you go to another world, your appearance changes to match it! Then you don't stand out and scare people..." He faltered. "...even though you scared me earlier."

"So when I get back to my world, I'll go back to normal?"

Kirux excitedly nodded.

"Great!" I said, clapping my robotic hands together. "Then let's go get the other two and figure out how we got here."

I grabbed onto Kirux's wrists and started bringing him towards the front of the alleyway. I might have been a robot, but he was big. I don't know how I would have been able to move him if it wasn't for him deciding to walk with me.

Megara finished gathering what she could from what little was visible and slipped back into the alley, almost colliding with a terrified Fidel as she did. She maneuvered around him, ignoring his stuttering, and found a section of wall to lean against to take the pressure off her injured leg.

She was about to say something when the alley was suddenly flooded with light from all sides. The deafening whirring of gears and the drone of a robotic voice pounded against her eardrums. Whatever the robotic voice was saying was apparently important as robots, not unlike the one who had possessed her, save the fact that they were over seven feet tall and dressed in strange black uniforms, filled the alley from both ends.

Megara's knife was back in her hand in milliseconds. She caught the words, "You're under arrest" before she attacked the one nearest her. She landed a hit where some wiring was exposed on its neck, severing the cords. She'd had to jump to do so, and when she landed her injured leg gave out. She rolled back to her feet and cursed her damaged leg, watching as the bot's neck sparked and it's left side stopped working entirely and its attempts to walk toward her become futile as it walked in a circle around its dead leg.

One of the uniformed bots, or androids, she supposed, took her momentary distraction as an opportunity to grab her from behind and wrestle her arms behind her back with a vice-like grip. She let out a little yelp of pain when it squeezed her injury, but it didn't let up even as she started seeing stars. She felt a prick as something was injected into her arm. She tried one more time to wrench herself free of the android's iron grip before her vision went black. All that was left were stars.



Fidel was grabbed first and most easily. He didn't even think to try to fight as he was manhandled more roughly than necessary into and iron wagon, tall enough for the androids to stand at their full height inside, with chains on the walls and small, barred windows at the very top that let in barely a sliver of the blinding light from outside.

Fidel stuttered question after unanswered question as the chains were secured around his wrists and neck, making it impossible for him to move more than a few feet from the wall.

Even he forgot his questions, however, when an unconscious Megara was secured in the same way and her knife and sword were taken away.

"Meg?" He stretched out his metal leg to nudge her and almost got stepped on as two more androids arrived with the other two.

Spoiler

I'm not sure what the etiquette with controlling other people's characters is with these kinds of threads, but they all had to end up in the wagon anyway, so sorry for taking over. I was thinking we write a post or two with them inside the wagon and then I can write what happens when they're thrown in the dungeons or whatever if you want.

Spoiler

I'm definitely fine with that! I think it really depends on the writers - in a situation like this, I'm definitely chill with you controlling my characters so we don't take forever bringing them places.

My first instinct had been to fight.

It always was, now. It had once been to run, but time had brought with it more confidence in my ability to stand my ground. Fighting might have been a good choice - I probably had the same basic strength as all of those robots, seeing that I was one of them. But if we really were getting caught, I knew exactly what I had to do to escape when we inevitably ended up in a jail cell or in an interrogation room alone with someone.

So I didn't fight.

Kirux didn't, either. He just started going pale and crying, desperately begging the robots dragging us to the wagon to let us go in sign language I knew they understood but didn't care to reply to. He kept trying to tell them that we were from another world, but I saw the way that the robots - far more emotionless than my own robotic face was - looked at him. They thought he had lost it.

...I would have thought the same thing, too, before getting whisked off to a world straight out of a book.

Once we were inside, they secured chains around our arms and stood guard beside us. Now wasn't the time - there were too many, and they were all too close. I kept my head down and stared at the floor as Kirux sobbed beside me and tugged helplessly at his chains - I was playing the part of the submissive prisoner.

But not for long.

Fidel tried in vain to control his breathing. He stared helplessly at Megara. However she'd been knocked out, it couldn't be good. She had to have fought back too, he didn't need to know her long to know that, and he would have to check her wounds because of that. He would curse the fact that the only time she seemed to be capable of calming down for a second and lettering herself rest was when she was possessed by someone else.

His attention was drawn to Kirux. He was sobbing again, looking helpless, almost childlike.

Fidel felt a pang of sympathy for him.

A thought.

"Hey, Kirux?" Fidel said as quietly as he could whilst still being heard, "You said you knew Megara, earlier, who do you think she is?" He cast a wary glance at the unconscious girl. He wasn't being threatened with a horrible death, so he decided she was still asleep.

I raised my head slightly at the question - I was just as curious about Kirux and his connection to the girl as he was.

Kirux started to sign, only to stop when he realized that his wrists were restricted. His eyes - both the real and fake one - widened in horror, and he renewed his sobbing with vigor. For someone who was definitely a good inch taller than me, he looked so small.

Spoiler

He can still finger-spell easily within the restraints. I don’t know how much sign language you know irl, but that doesn’t require anything other than the ability to move your fingers and maybe rotate your wrist, which he should be able to do. Also, has he been spelling Queenie’s name this whole time or did he give her a name sign? Because if he gave her a name sign that’s adorable, but the fact that he hasn’t told her about it in any of the other rp’s where they meet is strange.

Fidel felt himself start to want to cry at Kirux’s tears. He swallowed the urge and tried to make his shaking voice as soothing as he could, “It’s alright,” he assured, “you can tell us later...”

He trailed off as Megara raised her head, blinking off the effects of whatever had knocked her out. Her eyes went suddenly wide as she stared at her shackled wrists.

“Megara?” Fidel tried to get her attention.

She trembled. Her breathing was deep, steady, controlled as one could only do deliberately. She didn’t respond.

“Megara, are you okay?” Fidel inquires again.

Still no answer.

Spoiler

Good point! I didn't think of that - I admit I don't know that much about sign language, so I've been learning as I go along. (The only word I really know in it is bacon, which is thanks to my best friend knowing some sign language and that being the only word her oc (Kirux's best friend) knows.)

I'll just say that he's a little too flustered to think of that.

I also didn't think of that one, though I really should have - he's thought of doing that with other people before. I'm going to say that he did and it just wasn't mentioned in those other roleplays - or hasn't been yet.

Thanks for pointing all that out to me!

I should have felt more worried about Megara going silent, but I was more focused on Kirux - after all, he had been the nicer one out of the two of them. I moved a little closer to him - not close enough for the guards to notice, and not close enough thanks to the chains around my wrists, but close enough for him to notice.

He sniffled and let out another sob when he noticed.

Spoiler

No problem! Something you may want to know about name signs, too, is that they’re usually a letter handshake mixed with an actual sign. If I remembered my mom’s name sign I’d give an example but alas, I have the memory of a goldfish with brain damage, so I cannot. Hope this helps in the future though.

Fidel got as close to Megara as he could, which wasn’t very close considering they were across from each other and his chains were anything but long, and tried again to get her attention, “Meg, are you hurt?”

She flinched at his words but continued to say nothing as she tried in vein to stop trembling.

Fidel swallowed a lump in his throat. This wasn’t good. Not good at all.

He turned to Kirux, “Are you okay? You’re not hurt?” He felt bad for not asking sooner, but now was better than never.

Spoiler

It definitely does!

As Kirux gave a tearful nod, I turned my attention back to Megara - and the way that she was reacting. I couldn't figure it out for the life of me. I didn't think it was whatever they must have put in her - that wouldn't cause her to flinch when she heard him speak.

...Was this some kind of panic attack?

Fidel returned Kirux’s not with relief. Okay. He was okay.

He turned his attention back to Megara.

“Meg, talk to me, what’s happening?” he pleaded.

She continued to stare at the shackles. “Don’t call me that,” she said quietly, forcelessly.

Fidel felt just a little more relief at her words. Any words at all were better than none.

“Megara,” he amended, “Are you okay? What’s going on?”

She didn’t respond.