pandatreasure: (Default)
pandatreasure ([personal profile] pandatreasure) wrote in [community profile] randangonpa2018-02-04 04:35 am

ENDGAME/EPILOG



[In the control room, the raccoons float quietly in their pods; none of the wild cackling from before, no raucous mocking—Where did those pesky animatronics go, anyway? Maybe not every question has been answered, but...how much does it matter? The lost souls are back, tangible and whole, though marked still by whatever's done them in. Maybe those scars and aches won't fade, either.

A metric fuckton of experimenting has gotten us to the answer of how to get back to where we belong: the first control room console makes it easy to find the thumbnail of your world, and, when selected, it automatically brings you to twenty two days from moment you were kidnapped from. It's easy to see an image where you should be there and aren't, and simply select it. The program confirms that you'd like to initiate the transport process, and directs you to stand on the glowing platform; have someone hit the button to shut the process down, or it will time itself out in five minutes.

Is the moment you were brought from not good enough? What about the rewards you were promised? It seems as though specifying those offers or threads isn't quite possible, but the console has two options, each manipulable independently of each other: you can control the date and time, allowing yourself to return as though you hadn't been kidnapped at all. You can also use a slider at the bottom to control the quality of the universe you're brought back to, sliding from the carrot to the stick side: A world where everything that possibly could have gone right for you and those you'd want it for does, where every choice and chance resolves in your favor...or one where there isn't a single moment that isn't conspiring to work against you.

It should be that simple, but...none of those are your universes. Trying to go to any universe but the one marked for you, and/or at any point but that three-week span you've been gone, prompts a warning message about a duplicate version of anyone belonging to that world. It asks if you'd like to proceed, and warns you once more by giving names of potential "doppelgangers"—but will not stop you from stepping onto the platform as it twinkles blue light, regardless. Is improvement worth interfering, maybe destroying, the life of another you?

That choice is up to you. For the first time in a long time, these choices are yours.

It's over. Happy graduation day.]
purrtagonist: (Roll to conjure fish)

[personal profile] purrtagonist 2018-02-04 11:33 pm (UTC)(link)
[HE IS HIMSELF IT'S TRUE]

I know you don't understand. I'm not really sure how to make you understand, either.

[a tiny little shrug]

It's just, after seeing how everyone reacted after being outed in the very last trial, I realized something.

Nothing in this place really matters except for the bonds we've forged.

[personal profile] cw_suicide 2018-02-04 11:39 pm (UTC)(link)
[that, also, was self-evident from the start. but he does recognize that it's not a lesson kids tend to learn as young as he did.

there's a reason he never was able to form bonds very well, after all.]

Mm. That's definitely not wrong.
purrtagonist: (Well my map is now a pig)

[personal profile] purrtagonist 2018-02-04 11:44 pm (UTC)(link)
[it's something Akira knew too, extremely distantly. but that last trial just. . . hit it home]

It isn't. So. . .

[digs through his pocket and pulls out a lockpick. one of his custom made ones that he fashioned out of art supplies and stuff]

Here.

[personal profile] cw_suicide 2018-02-04 11:51 pm (UTC)(link)
[... taking it. because. what else. is he supposed to do.]

--this is...?
purrtagonist: prestidigitation on your orb? (Would you like me to cast)

[personal profile] purrtagonist 2018-02-05 06:05 am (UTC)(link)
A gift.

[a memento]

If you ever find yourself in a bind, use it to escape. And think of me when you do.

[personal profile] cw_suicide 2018-02-05 06:42 am (UTC)(link)
[. . . people keep shoving things at him.

and he doesn't have things to shove at them?

awk.]

... ah, I see.

Fortunately... me being in handcuffs has been known to happen from time to time.
purrtagonist: right now i'm vomiting spiders (i'll make a healcheck later)

[personal profile] purrtagonist 2018-02-07 01:58 am (UTC)(link)
[a snort]

Thought as much. The best gifts are the ones with utility.