Post by Vulpix on Jun 7, 2024 22:12:41 GMT -6
Leader teleports back to the empty hub. Well, empty except for the four dead bodies there.
Neon, Lacelle, Gabriel, and Garble appear not long after.
All five of them are silent as they look at the numbers on their bracelets. No one has a shape anymore.
Lacelle - 10
Rat - 10
Garble - 8
Neon - 9
Leader - 9
Leader looks down in disappointment. "I'm sorry I wasn't able to get full marks so we could all leave together..."
"This isn't right. Lacelle and Gabriel shouldn't get to leave! They should have nine points, like us!" Neon says.
"Looks like we got four points instead of the usual three four betraying," Gabriel says. "I certainly won't complain."
"That's right," Leader says. "I don't remember seeing the usual recap of the rules in the AB room. But I guess I wasn't looking too closely anyway. I had just sort of gotten used to the way it was before."
Neon storms away to the second floor. "This is absurd," she growls, "the Orphium Project managers will be hearing about what a sham this whole thing is, and they should expect the full force of my revenge if they don't release me immediately!" She sits down in front of the computer, ready to type on the bashed keyboard, when she notices that the computer isn't even on. She tries to press the power button a few times, but to no avail. It seems they have been well and truly abandoned.
Leader looks around. "Wait a second. Where's Winner? Wasn't he with you guys?"
The others notice for the first time that this is no longer the case. Garble scratches his head. "Hm. Perhaps he wandered off?"
They hear Neon's scream of rage from the upper floor.
"I know I won't be able to come with you guys, but you should get out of here." Leader pushes Lacelle and Gabriel towards the hallway where the metal bars once blocked their access. "You can come back for us!"
Lacelle shakes her head. "No, Leader, I don't want to leave you behind."
"If Neon comes back down here, I'm worried about what she might do to you guys. You remember how Violin was..."
Seeing no other choice, Lacelle and Gabriel leave.
Garble, Leader, and Neon wait for their return.
They wait.
And wait.
And wait.
Until one day, there's no one left to keep waiting.
Like Olivine Heller, they are absorbed by the Orphium Layers, but not before Garble grooms Leader and takes him as his new husband.
Lacelle and Gabriel, the only two successful graduates of Project Orphium, have every intention of returning for their comrades. But as soon as they exit the hallway, burlap sacks come down over their heads. Their hands and feet are bound, and they're thrown in the back of a van. They drive for a long time before they are dropped off on a bustling city street. Everyone around them seems too preoccupied with their own business to notice them. When they look down at their wrists, neither of them are wearing their bracelets anymore.
Gabriel dedicates the rest of his life to finding out more about Project Orphium. He goes back to living in a bunker, albeit a new one. He manages to find that it was a sort of government project, an exploration into alternate dimensions, led by a pair of scientists: Dr. Lees and Dr. Heller. Several prisoners were selected as candidates for the project, which had been funded in part by the Department of Justice. The trail stopped shortly thereafter. All records say that the project was cancelled, and never moved past preliminary testing. Gabriel knows this was not the case. But nobody would listen to the ramblings of someone so deranged, and so nothing ever comes of it. He dies in an unrelated skydiving incident.
Lacelle, knowing that returning for the others was hopeless, chooses to move on with her life as best she can. Of course, she ends up taking on riskier and riskier expeditions. After a fall in the Himalayas that almost cost her her life, Lacelle is forced to put the life of an ice climber behind her as well. She stays in close contact with the sherpa who saved her from the cold, dark crevasse, and eventually the two fall in love. She and her partner raise a small family in Tibet.
When Kannon steps through the portal, it seems to everyone else at first that he has come through alone. But a faint gust of wind seems to whisper "thank you," in their ears.
"She's home," Kannon says. The others nod solemnly.
They are on the outskirts of a small town. Trailblazer, Kannon, Wisteria, Violin, Ribbon, Red, Gray, Rainbow, Gold, and Cyan make their way into the town. Gold immediately walks into the middle of the street and is crushed by oncoming traffic before anyone can stop her. The others, who are a bunch of escaped convicts and undocumented people of colour, flee the scene. Their first stop is a salon, where Red, Gray, Rainbow, and Cyan undertake the necessary measures to cover up their natural skin tones.
Gray parts from the group after this, determined to start anew. He earns a fortune playing poker at various casinos. One day, he attracts a little too much attention from the wrong sort of people, and it costs him not only his wealth, but also his life.
The rest of them, knowing that they ought to lie low for the time being, book a flight to Japan under assumed names. Together, they build a new Buddhist temple, where they can all take refuge. Due to irreconcilable differences, Cyan and Ribbon take their leave of the rest of them.
Ribbon and Cyan become English teachers at a Japanese elementary school. Cyan finds it difficult to tolerate the children, but Ribbon is able to keep her calm for the most part. Still, it isn't enough to keep Cyan from being let go after numerous children complain to their parents about being bullied by their teacher. Shortly after this, Cyan falls ill. She grows weaker and weaker by the day, until one day Ribbon can see right through her. When Cyan's form finally fades completely, Ribbon suffers a nervous breakdown, and is institutionalized.
When construction of the temple is complete, Trailblazer sets out to search for his son. Feeling that enough time has passed, he dons a clever disguise and returns to the country they came from. He does manage to successfully locate the abandoned building in the Nevada Desert where Project Orphium had taken place, but by then it is too late: Leader succumbed long ago. Like Gabriel, he seeks to have his revenge, but manages to turn up even less information. Accepting this, he instead dedicates the rest of his time to exploring the wilderness in honour of his boy.
Kannon, Wisteria, Violin, Red, and Rainbow remain at the temple. Red and Violin at first decide to use it as their base as they begin their foray into Japan's criminal underground. Together, they find quick success in their schemes, which grow and grow in scale. But their hearts are changed by Kannon's looks of deep, sincere disappointment in their behaviour.
"You are so much better than this," he says one day as he watches them hauling another corpse to the basement acid bath to dissolve.
At this point, Red has been feeling herself getting weaker for several months. "Maybe he's right. I think we've just about gotten even with everyone we need to. Well, as soon as we finish dealing with the Kizuna-kai syndicate."
"What about the Project Orphium scum?" asks Violin.
Red shrugs her shoulders. "Without them, we never would have met. Isn't that right, gem?"
Violin nods in agreement. They finish up annihilating the Kizuna-kai syndicate, but after that they turn to a life of seeking peace and enlightenment. Red seems to achieve this enlightenment, and roughly a year after ending their lives of crime, she ascends this plane. It is a miracle like Kannon has never witnessed before, and Red is declared a modern bodhisattva.
Rainbow disappears without a trace. The others are ashamed to admit that they have no idea precisely when it happened, but they knew it to be the case when the temple's wifi went down and they couldn't fine her anywhere to fix it.
During a conversation over dinner between Kannon, Violin, and Wisteria, another miracle happens. Wisteria is going on about the wonders of Chinese medicine, reminiscing about her old life.
"It is such an honour that you brought me to your home country, Kannon. Chinese culture is so rich, and so advanced in traditional healing."
Kannon swallows his bite of onigiri. "We're in Japan. I'm Japanese. You know that, right?"
At that moment, Wisteria can see once more.
Not from her physical eyes, which are gone forever, but her third eye is opened.
She achieves true enlightenment, and in her old age, after Kannon and Violin have passed on, the community that they built together continues to revere her.
Not from her physical eyes, which are gone forever, but her third eye is opened.
She achieves true enlightenment, and in her old age, after Kannon and Violin have passed on, the community that they built together continues to revere her.
you got this
