metalogs | If madness overtakes us both [Open]

[Hearing Accelerator speak eases some of the weight off of his shoulders, but Donnie's pretty sure coughing up blood and spontaneously bleeding everywhere is Not Fine.

He nods at Leo without hesitation, dashing off to go look for the first aid kit, relieved there's one available because even if it probably doesn't have nearly enough of what might be needed, judging from all that blood, it's still something.

While he's in there, Donnie grabs a couple of towels, soaking a hand towel under the faucet before coming back to the kitchen with everything.]

Got i--eugh...

[He grimaces at the wounds, sucking in a careful breath as he rolls up his sleeves and steps closer, minding the mess on the floor. Passing off the dry towel and the first aid kit to Leo, Donnie fixes the wet towel in his hand so he can try carefully cleaning around those slashes.]

Okay, so pardon me for being blunt, but what the hell happened?

[Accelerator doesn't particularly care and he isn't in the mood to snap at them regarding smarmy comments about his lack of muscle, so off goes his shirt. There are two diagonal slashes across his torso, they look fairly deep and bloody, though with his choker on his blood as resumed circulating as normal. It could be worse?

He puts his hand in one face for a moment, like he's got a headache.]

Yeah. I know how to control the fucking vectors involved in blood flow. I'm shutting my pain receptors off, too. Makes it easier to think.

[It isn't necessary to get into how he knows how to do all of that.

He reaches for part of the wet towel, casually rubbing at one of the wounds to get the excess blood out of the way.]

I was in Academy City for a couple of weeks. How long has it been?

[Those look nasty for sure, but Leo thinks they can get away with just bandages. Really, Accelerator should go see a doctor, but for now…

He takes the first aid kit and has it opened, rooting around, when Accelerator answers the question. Leo feels the shock roll over him, but his hands don’t stop what they’re doing.]

It‘s been like two seconds.

[It can happen that fast…

Leo doesn’t have time to stress over the confluences right now, though. He pulls out some disinfecting wipes and bandages, setting both on the kitchen counter.]

We came over for movie night, you got up to go to the kitchen and then started coughing up blood.

[If Accelerator seems able enough to clean himself off, Donnie lets him have the towel to do so. He frowns as the esper explains, or at least says what's happened on his end.]

How-?

[Donnie pulls his goggles down to look at Accelerator then for any signs of... Residual energy? He's not sure what, but it's not like Accelerator's lying when he's suddenly bleeding everywhere.]

[Two seconds...? Accelerator has to dig around in his memory, but luckily he recalls this night. Right, that second Lou Jitsu movie they were going to watch, and the whole stupid movie night thing. God, it's really bizarre thinking he was going to have a movie night with all the memories replaying through his brain.

At the forefront, though is this apparent temporal anomaly. That or he's started hallucinating days upon days worth of memories, but that honestly seems less likely. If his brain was functioning that poorly then he'd have developed RSPK Syndrome, and that doesn't seem to be the case.

Accelerator clicks his tongue, taking the towel and wiping away the blood on his chin. Aside from the injuries, his body looks normal.]

I don't fucking know. I didn't remember any of this.

[There's that, too. As he reviews his memories he's catching that small detail.]

Being back in Academy City was like I had never been here.

You couldn't remember...?

[Leo mulls over that info, as he starts opening up the antibacterial wipes. It looks like the blood has been cleaned off well enough, and Accelerator is stopping himself from bleeding for now, so cleaning and dressing is the next step.]

From what I've heard, when people go home with those machines from the Alliance they do remember. [Since some people go back deliberately for that reason. But then what does that mean...?]

Maybe it's because it wasn't voluntary this time. Maybe it was the Confluence... I don't know, catching you up?

[Except that opens up a lot of implications and Leo doesn't even know where to start thinking about this.

This would be where he would tell Accelerator that it may sting, except Accelerator said he turned off his pain receptors (insane!) so he'll just start disinfecting.]

[Between Leo and Accelerator handling clean-up, Donnie steps to the side to be out of Leo's way while he continues to study the esper through his goggles.]

So far as I've heard and read, Confluences are concentrations of whatever power, and there haven't been any reports of any since the last one, which is kind of strange if we go by previous occurrences...

Either way, there technically shouldn't be any runoff from the previous one to be causing anything.

...and then there's Chaos Gate's ominous parting words.

[He shakes his head.]

Unless you've suddenly, spontaneously developed some kind of power to...I don't know, time-sync with yourself from where you're supposed to be?

[Accelerator nods slowly at all of this.]

Those fuckers have never been able to tune their machines to my universe, so it couldn't have been voluntary.

[It was the very first thing he attempted when he got here, in fact.

He sets the towel aside, and since he's pretty useless when it comes to actual first aid he's going to sit there and let Leo take over, focusing on his calculations and the implications of all of this.]

I'd only be able to expand my ability in that direction if I input new values into my Personal Reality, and I've only ever done that back home. Not here. Time's a scalar, anyways. [So he'd have to do a lot of new calculations to somehow manage a vector-based time-sync.

He sighs.]

I guess I wouldn't put it past my boss to be powerful enough to pull something like this off. Or someone from back in Academy City.

[Leo focuses in on bandaging Accelerator up, nudging his arms whenever he needs to move them. As usual, most of what the other two are talking about starts going over his head pretty fast.

He doesn’t have much to add on the speculation of spontaneous time powers, but he does add this.]

How do we know any of the confluence junk is in Chaos Gate’s control, anyway? People can say whatever they want.

It’s weird that we haven’t had one this month, but… funky stuff happens to this dimension all the time.

[Donnie frowns to himself. It's hard gauging anything between Accelerator's PR field and whatever else might be going on, and he'd only really had a look at what was going on once or twice before.]

We have no concrete evidence, just a lot of coincidences so far as we know. But there are also facts. There was some higher power, or at least someone with a higher power, involved in everything regarding the whole Starfallen mess, and it was enough to bring Chaos Gate to the forefront. With a flashy codename like that you have to wonder what all she can do- I mean, what really is chaos magic?

Hey 'rator, what all you know about your boss anyway?

[He'll shift when Leo prompts him to, a little annoyed with himself that he needs first aid to begin with. You don't get to be the strongest by needing other people to patch you up.

That is, however, slightly less important than the topic at hand. Accelerator is silent for several moments.]

.....

[Where should he even start.]

She lives up to her name. [What a chaos gremlin.] I think whatever happened to the Confluence was caused by her. I think Mechanima was aware of what she could do, too. Part of the reason he made me be her assistant was to keep tabs on her.

[Is this something he should've mentioned earlier? Who knows. When he first started the job he didn't really care how questionable an order like that was, but now he's wondering if he should've been upfront with Chaos Gate....]

[Great. So she really could have something to do with it...]

If she has some control over it, maybe she did this to you on purpose? You're her assistant, so maybe she... wanted you to go back, or have your memories back, or something.

[But why? Wouldn't that imply Chaos Gate can see their own futures somehow?

This is making his head hurt. He focuses on the bandages.]

...There. I think you'll live.

[Pats Accelerator's shoulder.]

That doesn't make much sense. I guess the whole chaotic factor would play to her supposed nature but other than that, there doesn't seem to be much point in it.

[Reluctantly Donnie pushes up his goggles, but at least Leo's got Accelerator patched up.]

Do we need to get you to a hospital? You may have rewired your blood flow but does that do anything for internal damage? What happened anyway? Because that all looked pretty bad.

... She doesn't hate me, so I don't think she would've done this on purpose.

[Because he remembers going home and things immediately going to shit. Things are in fact, worse than ever, moreso than the chaos going on here. Now that he's getting a minute to dwell on it, he's noticing an aching deep in the pit of his stomach.

Last Order's condition hasn't been fixed. Whatever that nun did on September 30th was only temporary....]

It's fine. I can encourage cell regrowth. [He's mumbling that absently. It isn't a big deal, really.

Now that he's all bandaged up he slumps back in his chair.] You two won't believe me if I told you.

So? Maybe she knew that something you experienced would… I don’t know, help her somehow.

[He knows this is a stretch at this point, but still…

At Accelerator’s response, though, he laughs.]

Dude, we’re turtles with magic powers who were mutated by a goat man and then raised by a rat in the New York sewers. It would have to be pretty wild for us not to believe it.

[Donnie's staring at Accelerator like he's grown two heads before he shakes his own head with a sigh.]

Right, because that's something people just do. [He mutters, but if Accelerator's not concerned about internal damage then he's not going to get himself anxious over it either.

He gives the esper a flat look before gesturing with his head in Leo's direction with a smirk.]

What he said.

.....

[He doubts it, unless getting skewered Aiwass is going to help, somehow.

He sighs heavily. Okay, guys, prepare yourselves for some nonsense.]

That thing had said it somewhat corresponded to the term 'angel.' [He's spitting that out, like it's totally ridiculous.] It cut straight through my reflection using some kind of auto defense inputted into it by the board chairman of Academy City. My brain was interpreting that mechanism as wings that looked like they were made of platinum.

[Well, Leo believes it. He just wishes he understood it better. He's familiar enough with sci-fi tropes that he thinks he gets it, though.]

An angel that could cut through your reflection using an auto-defense... [Wait...] Does that mean the board chairman or whoever knows how to negate your powers?

[He doesn't really have much to say about it calling itself an "angel," because, again, anyone can just say a thing!]

An angel, right. But yeah, what you're suggesting is that this thing was created to specifically breach your defenses, and on top of that, was successful.

...was it anything like your 'wings'?

No. [To both Leo's question and Donnie's suggestion that Aiwass was made to combat him.] The board chairman developed this fucking production line of an artificial angel that led to the conditions for this thing, Aiwass, to form. Maybe 'summon' is a better term, because it sounded like it's been around for billions of years and that it'd keep on existing even after all of humanity's died off in the future. Anyways, once it could form it decided to show up because it wanted me to meet it.

[He drags a hand down his face. It's been a long few weeks.]

So no, none of its creation had anything to do with fighting me. I attacked it and its Aleister's fucking auto-defense kicked in. Its wings were like mine though, just... better.

[That's the best way he can explain it.]

Something about mine being from the Aeon of Osiris, and its being from the Aeon of Horus. I don't even know what that means.

Okay, so this guy was trying to make a fake angel, and he summoned a real angel instead. Allegedly.

[Pulling out a book word for that one. He has no idea if this thing is really an "angel" or not, but maybe that isn't the point. It's powerful and functionally immortal, if all of this is true.]

Osiris and Horus? What are... oh! [He smacks his hand into his palm.] I remember! From Lou Jitsu Meets the Mummy Ninjas!

[He seems proud of himself for remembering the names of Egyptian gods from a movie.]

....

Okay, but I guess if there can be alien entities that were locked up in some dimension by otherwise inexplicable forces then sure, why not angels. So maybe...this production line just happened to have all the ideal conditions in which this actual "angel" could make use of? Because it sounds like it's still somehow operating on a similar level enough as what espers are.

[Donnie doesn't roll his eyes at Leo because that'd be the first reference he'd have pulled too, if he hadn't run into someone who claimed to be a god here who shared the same name as one from the Norse pantheons. His first excursion to the library had also included his looking up books on mythology.]

According to Egyptian mythos, Osiris is the god of the afterlife, death and resurrection. Horus is the god of healing and protection and associated with the sky, as well as Osiris's heir.

Admittedly, having an "angel" refer to figures of the Egyptian pantheon is kind of strange but I'm not so sure as to what it was getting at unless it was suggesting in a loftily roundabout way that you're old school and it's the new model.

[Accelerator shrugs vaguely. He definitely doesn't have the full story on the whole angel business, and it bothers him.]

AIM diffusion fields were involved, somehow. Those parameters may have been what I added to my Personal Reality to make my own wings. [It only partially explains it, since he doesn't have an explanation for that nun's song, but it's something.

He hauls himself to his feet, grabbing his ruined shirt to toss out and heading to the bedroom to get a new one.]

I don't know why it brought up the Egyptian pantheon. That's not something relevant to espers, so yeah, it might've been something like that. [Maybe it was mocking him. Maybe both? He clicks his tongue in irritation.] I guess it's something to ask Aleister Crowley if I ever get an audience with him, since I'm apparently so important to his fucking plans.

[AIM diffusion fields, Egyptian gods, personal realities... sure, okay. As usual Leo is only partly keeping up, until...]

Aleister Crowley!?

[He doesn't follow Accelerator into his bedroom, but he does move closer so he can be heard without having to shout (too loudly).]

Wait, like, a coincidentally named guy, or like, actual early 1900s magician Aleister Crowley? Oh, oh, wait!

[He smacks his forehead.]

Yeah! Aiwass the Aeon of Horus! I watched a Youtube video about this forever ago!

[Brb, he's digging into Wikipedia.]

[Donnie's about to ask, but Leo beats him to the punch- although by his tone, it's clear that his brother somehow is familiar with this name.

So naturally Donnie stares at him as though he's sprouted a second head.]

Wha-?

[He'd look it up himself but he's still baffled that these things aren't Accelerator-specific after all.]

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