EVENT #1

[collectedmods]

EVENT #1

JULY 15TH - JULY 17TH

Time in the mall thus far has been ripe with tension - between the silence, the lack of resources, and the worrying conditions outside, it’s normal for morale to be less than high. But on the early morning of the 15th, things will truly take a turn for the wicked.

Starting on July 15th, and continuing on until the following Wednesday, characters will find that there are doppelgangers of them in the mall.

The first sign of this will come on the first day they even appear: in the early morning of the 15th, just as the radioactive sun is starting to rise and characters begin to stir from slumber, they’ll find a smoking heap of… bodies of mall residents with matching clothes to boot outside the mall’s front doors, cooking in the radioactive sun. And with them? Most of what was left of the frozen rations from the food court’s freezers. No more philly steak and cheese hot pockets!

On the First Floor, much of the remaining furniture that had not been in immediate use by characters has been torn apart and thrown into the toxic waters below. Floating amongst these dismantled furniture pieces are what appear to be drowned bodies of mall residents.

Doppelgangers found on the first day of this event are more likely to resemble characters whom have survival experience, or have adapted well to the mall thus far. Inspecting any of these first bodies discovered will reveal that they are identical to mall residents down to the fingerprints. Characters may retrieve the bodies from the First Floor and even the outside (if they work quickly enough) for inspection.

JULY 17TH - JULY 21ST

Throughout the rest of the week, characters can be expected to be dealing with a myriad of trouble from these doubles:

» Witnessing doppelgangers sabotaging survival efforts. Most commonly, doppelgangers will be doing things throughout the week like destroying food, cutting power lines, ruining water piping - you name it. They are difficult to catch, as they flee whenever seen, and can contort into impossible shapes to evade capture. If captured, they will either continue struggling until they escape or are killed, or they will try to convince their captor that they are the original - and if threatened, will begin to beg for their life (convincingly.) See below for more information about the doppelgangers themselves.

» Hearing screams for help identical to the mall residents' voices. Doppelgangers will be extremely convincing actors, and will attempt to lure away and confuse resident characters by any means necessary.

» The doppelgangers become more similar to their “originals” as the week goes on. Doppelgangers will be able to act increasingly in likeness to their originals towards the end of the week. Each day they continue living, they become smarter, more convincing, more advanced at impersonating their originals. This means that if they are witnessed apart from their “original” in the latter parts of the week, they may be capable of carrying on simple conversations and acting as their “original” in order to create confusion and plant seeds of doubt over who is the “real” one.

JULY 22ND

Almost as abruptly as they’d come, the doppelgangers will meet their end on the following Wednesday: those who had not already been killed by characters present in the mall will be found dead on the morning of the 22nd.

Corpses will be in every inch of the mall, and killed in a bunch of different ways: some look to be freshly killed, as though they had been ambushed by surprise (throat slit from behind, pushed from a high area, etc.) Others seem as though they have been dead for days - and are beginning to rot. These corpses will not disappear, and will need to be cleaned up or disposed of by the characters, unless they’d like the mall to start smelling a whole lot worse. Get to work, shoppers!

More than anything, their sudden appearance and equally sudden demise does beg the question - can you trust the ones around you?

NOTES

Welcome to Collected’s first main event! We’re going to provide some additional notes about the doppelgangers here, so everyone will know what they’re dealing with:

» Doppelgangers are identical physically to their originals.

» Doppelgangers DO NOT have the magical or supernatural abilities of their originals. They will retain only the skills and abilities related to their physiology (like physical strength), as they are biological duplicates (or mechanical, in the case of androids).

» Doppelgangers will be wearing clothes identical to the ones characters arrived in.

» There is only ONE copy of each character in the mall. This means that if you would like to have your character among the first ones discovered by characters, they won’t find another copy of their doppelganger doing things throughout the mall for the remainder of the event.

» Doppelgangers can be killed - they are not immortal and will not heal the same way characters do in the setting. However, they are extremely difficult to capture, and will flee if they are witnessed participating in sabotage, or if they are caught impersonating their original. Of note is the fact that they are strangely able to contort into impossible shapes to evade capture - bending limbs the other way, folding in half, that kind of deal.

» You are free to NPC your own doppelganger (so long as you’re not solely tagging as your double the entire event). If you’d like to handwave other characters witnessing your doppelganger doing things throughout the week, or handwave your doppelganger successfully interacting with your CR while impersonating your character, that is fine as well!

If you have any questions please feel free to ask them HERE. Have fun, shoppers!


NAVIGATION

Comments

Leone Abbacchio | Jojo's Bizarre Adventure

[teaserving]

⏪ i. the moody blues

Fuck.

[It's a new day after the appearances of the corpses both in the water or cooking in the sun, along with a good lot of their rations. Only, this time he'd been trying to finish up his shower and found that the it just started sputtering. The clean running water was a godsend, and having it gone is going to be big trouble.

Having scrambled to dry himself off, Abbacchio is exploring where the water heaters are for the gym, discovering that many of the pipes have been busted.]

All right. Well. [Abbacchio puts his hands on his hips.] Figuring out who did this should be easy. Theoretically.

[Noticing someone else nearby (you, namely) Abbacchio glances over and asks:] Hey. How comfortable are you with weird shit?


⏪ ii. network

un: fantasma
look if anyone else is using this we should probably keep our shit sorted
i've been investigating as much as i can in the mall but i want to know what else people have discovered
whether it's about these clones or in general


⏪ iii. wildcard

[make your own prompt or let me know if you want a specific one! you can contact me at albaaulbath | Alba#4125]

⏪ HAYMITCH

[teaserving]

[The first thing that Abbacchio did this morning was what he'd been doing for the past couple of weeks: go to the food court, scrounge a bit until he'd put together something passable as a meal, and go about his investigation or adapting to his living situation. However, curiously, almost all of the food? Fucking gone.

So he'd done a bit of exploring. Using Moody Blues could trigger another thing like it had with Schuldig, so he's trying to more cautious. Never know if that asshole is nearby, and he doesn't want to trigger another migraine in him or someone else. So, instead, he looks in the old-fashioned way.

And what better way to begin than the first floor?

It seems like starting from the bottom was the way to go. But it's not seeing the food thrown around and now tainted that bothers him. It's seeing a few bodies in the water.

The first one that really catches his eye is someone familiar. Still, eyes vacant and lacking movement. Abbacchio approaches hesitantly.]

Haymitch?

[There's no response. Why the hell would there be? Numbly, Abbacchio wades into the water, gritting his teeth at the uncomfortable feeling of it burning into his skin like it's still full of chemicals. It doesn't really matter, not to him.

He presses his fingers against the body's neck, trying and hoping for a pulse.

There's nothing.

Steeling himself, he hauls Haymitch's body toward the escalator, just enough to get him out of the water. There, he lets the body rest against the stairs, and he reaches out to force the eyelids to close.

Abbacchio sits and wrings his hands. He'll try to figure out what happened in a minute, but right now... he can't express the bit of sadness that sinks into his heart. He'd been almost relieved knowing there was someone else reliable here. Not that the kids weren't reliable, but-- an adult that wasn't fucking Schuldig or the mad scientist named Eggman.

He runs his fingers through his hair and lets out an uneasy sigh.]

Dipshit. Would've been nice if you were alive longer.

⏪ AZULA

[teaserving]

[It's almost bitterly poetic how the body of what seems to be Leone Abbacchio is floating in the water. He's easy enough to pick out with his stark white hair and the dark clothing, and upon closer inspection his make up is running dark streaks down his pale face.

The real Abbacchio, for his part, has gotten shit sorted about the corpse he had found earlier as well, and hasn't made his way down the escalator yet. Giving Azula the chance to find the body floating.]

i

[impostersyndrome]

[As it happens, Prompto also likes having a nice shower in the gym, so he'd also come down to examine the water heaters after they weren't working.

And so he's there too when he's suddenly singled out. Still, he glances around just in case Abbacchio meant someone else (but there's no one else here).]

Uh... depends on how weird, I guess?

[He's done some weird shit, but he's not sure how comfortable he is with it.]

misa amane / death note

[lifespanned]

I. july 15th / discovery

[ After the corpses had been discovered - Misa finds herself high-strung with tension for the days following it. There's too many implications that the bodies bring - that something caused them to come, or caused them to appear, or placed them there. It's horrifying. At the moment, she's only glad that she didn't find herself among those (which she would later learn to regret.) ]

What could even do something so horrible...? [ For the most part, she'd avoided taking a closer look at the bodies, but now that people have started to retrieve them from outside or drag them up from the water, there's no choice but to look at them a little. Even if it's just out of sick curiosity. ] I mean, have you ever heard of anything like this? And not in a zombie movie.

[ She tries to make the conversation light, but it's mostly out of shock, as well as a healthy dose of plain denial that something so surreal could happen. She's practically hiding behind you so she only has to peek at the mess of bodies that litter the front doorways and top of the escalator after the retrievals. ]

II. july 17th - july 21st / shenanigans

[ Most people would keep from being seen by themselves after the whole doppelganger reveal, but it just doesn't occur to Misa that she might get caught in the wrong place at the wrong time if she's wandering off alone. Which is exactly what happens.

Caught by the leg underneath a hefty piece of ceiling tiling that seems to have fallen from the rotted infrastructure, she waves frantically from where she's trapped, calling out to you: ]

Wait, come over here! I promise I'm not one of them!

[ Will you believe her? She's at least giving you a convincing distraught look. ]

III. july 22nd / clean-up

[ Nonetheless, nothing gets to her quite like having to clean up her own corpse. It has to be the most disturbing bit of it all - her body, limp and crumpled across the floor, has a deep gash across it's neck - a pool of blood stains the tiles beneath it, and a dark red dyes the front of all of it's clothing. From far away, it seems like she's trying to decide just how she's going to move the body, but the way she recoils after even touching just the ankle makes it seems like there's more to it.

She's just standing there, staring at it, like it's going to move on it's own. Misa has seen a lot of dead bodies in her life, but it's downright disturbing to be looking at your own. Finally, she seems moved to silence, for all her talkative and obnoxious energy that she's shown to the other residents here - for the first time since being dragged here, she seems grave, her usual level of over dramatic hysterics nowhere to be seen.

When she finally musters up the courage to start dragging her double's body by the ankle, it leaves a streak of blood with each stride that she makes. She seems almost out of it, eyes staring blankly at the blank expression of her corpse. ]

Do you know what everyone's doing with these?

[ She doesn't turn to you when she speaks, focusing on readjusting her grip around the corpse's ankle. ]

clean up

[oomfies]

[ Come discovering that these bodies.. Aren't just going to mysteriously go away, like how they all appeared so suddenly that first day, Lottie's resigned herself to helping at least somewhat. Of course, this is after her freakout, her tears, her panic attack. The sight of Misa dragging her own corpse is horrifying in itself, but Lottie barely feels her terror, a taste of that existential crisis, come seeing the blood drag behind each little tug of hers. She only stares, dumbfounded. ]

I don't know..

[ Her tone clearly conveys that she wishes they did. Where are they going to put them? In a freezer locker that doesn't work? In a store all of them will vow not to go into until it starts reeking even worse? She gives a pause, stares at the blank expression of the double below. ]

Definitely not a funeral. That's too fucked up.

II

[teaserving]

[Abbacchio hesitates. Which is shitty, he knows it is, but he doesn't want to get caught up in dealing with one of the doppelgangers if it turns out that it isn't actually her.

So he slowly approaches and peers down.]

How do I know it's you, Misa?

[It's convincing. He wants to help her. But he wants to make the right decision even more.]

discovery

[trample]

[ At "zombie movie", Eren goes quiet. The look he gives her says enough about whether or not he's seen one at all. He turns his head away from her - who is uncomfortably lurking behind him - to stare the pile of corpses just beyond the doors, some of which are still being brought back in even now. ]

...Where I'm from, burning bodies isn't anything unusual. We'd stack them five feet high and let them burn all night. There'd be nothing but bones and ash left come morning.

[ Completely unreceptive to her attempts at lightening the conversation up - mostly because he couldn't make sense of it to begin with - Eren opens up about something he might not have, had things been "normal". Yet, with current circumstance being anything but, even by the mall's standards, he had let slip something shouldn't have; he quickly redirects the conversation elsewhere to make up for his mistake. ]

...Are you ever going to come out from behind me?

lottie person | snotgirl

[oomfies]

discovery (JULY 15TH - JULY 17TH)

[ Technically, this isn't Lottie's first time seeing a body. But boy, is it even more unpleasant than the last. While her body, for whatever reason, isn't among the first to be seen outside the double doors of the mall's entrance, seeing them all laid out like that is impossibly grotesque. Anxiety inducing, in the worst way possible. She doesn't fair much better come finding bodies floating in the inky expanse of the water below, drowned, pieces of broken furniture surrounding them.

Lottie, instead of being anywhere near the corpses, is looking down from the second floor. Hands gripping tight at the railing, physically stopping herself from itching at her skin. ]

H-how come we didn't drown?

[ Comes out of her lips, verbally addressing the other person viewing the spectacle that is all their nice furniture destroyed (and, you know, the bodies, too) alongside her. It's hard to tell if she's referencing the bodies specifically, or the fact they all woke up in that water. Still, she doesn't bother looking at you - her eyes are glued to the serene scene below, a quiver to her lip. ]

doppelgangers (JULY 17TH - JULY 21ST)

[ For the most part, she's made an attempt to try and keep to herself. Stay isolated, stay quiet, stay alive (mainly), have been her goals ever since the beginning of this awful, terrible, week. In order to keep herself from going insane (and having the inevtiable breakdown), Lottie's started picking up hobbies. Hobbies that include a notebook and a raggedy pen, writing furiously inside it while looking especially frazzled and, quite frankly, sleep deprived.

And come hearing footsteps near her, her head immediately snaps up, hold on her pen jittery and tense. There's a long, heavy, pause before she gathers the nerve to speak - ]

Do you have a phone?

body detail (JULY 22ND)

[ Somehow, she's not surprised. Come the final day when the mall starts to reek of rot and iron, Lottie finds herself. Literally. In a weird way, she can only think of this as poetic irony - of course, someone pushed her off a roof and she died. Lottie thought this would be easier, going to look for doubles, with someone else. The game plan was to take care of (whatever that means) whatever double they found first. It'd be just her luck that come turning a corner, there it is - her double sprawled face down on the floor, limbs disjointed. Bloodied.

She stops breathing, thinking, feels her limbs start to give out in a matter of seconds before promptly turning back around the corner they came from and slamming herself against the wall. ]

I, [ She swallows heavy, fights a wave of nausea, ] wanna find yours first. Like, now. Preferably.

network

anyone have anything to stay awake
like an airhorn
or advice

wildcard
[ or hit me up with something else! if you want to hash smth out specifically, feel free to pm this account or pp me over at snottie! ]

network

[aufsassig]

haha. listening to other people's advice usually puts me to sleep, not keeps me awake.

got something on your mind?

doppelgangers

[impostersyndrome]

[Prompto can relate to how Lottie looks, even if he's faring a little better (if only because he's getting used to this kind of thing, as sad a thought as that is). He was going to pass by, leave her be, because this area seems to be pretty secure (at least for now), but then she speaks, and he stops.]

Yeah, I do - it's one I got here.

[He pulls it out of his pocket. It's already getting a bit beat up, but he did manage to find a case for it somewhere.]

It can't connect to anyone, though. [He tried.]

doppelgangers

[bestaround]

[ Like everyone else, 9S is well aware of the situation they're currently faced with. It's made interacting with others a risk at best if he isn't certain that their copy's body has already turned up dead, which is... most people, but he decides if there's anyone who should be pinpointing these doubles, it's him. Better than putting the actual humans in danger, he would say.

So he's keeping an eye on things where he can, and that means approaching those who are out and about if there's something peculiar about them. 9S wouldn't know what sleep deprivation looked like if it slapped him in the face, so when he spots a woman looking worse for wear, he thinks that perhaps there's something a little odd going on here, and it's time to see if this is the real deal. (Somehow. He doesn't know her, but...)

But she quickly spins on her feet, catching his gaze—sort of, there's a blindfold in the way and all—and an uncomfortable pause. 9S opens his mouth to break the silence, but she finally beats him to it. ]

—Huh? What would I have a phone for?

[ If that answers her question. ]

[globs]

i. body retrieval

[ the sight of all the corpses is not a great one, but at least as a non-human (a non-organic, even), it's not as gut-turning as it could be. If anything, Cinnabar finds it more sad than anything. Reclusive as they are, they don't necessarily recognize the bodies that appear; even if they do happen to look familiar, Cinnabar, naturally, doesn't assume that it's some kind of copy. Maybe humans can have twins, too, like Amethyst. More likely, their memory is just wrong.

In any case, it doesn't feel right to leave them there. Cinnabar isn't quite so willing to go out under the scorching sun, but the ones floating on the first floor are easier to reach. Much easier to pull out, too, when you have stone strength. With their long, black gloves pulled up high, they're crouched down at the bottom of the escalator, holding what looks like a piece of bent piece of rebar in one hand and trying to hook a body floating nearby that may or may not be familiar. Maybe it's someone you've met before? Maybe it's you?! If it's not, then maybe one of the two or three bodies on the opposite escalator beside Cinnabar is. Looks like they've been busy. ]

Stay back. It's dangerous, [ they say when they hear someone approaching, not turning around. ]

ii. body double (doppelganger prompt! cinnabar themself will appear later in the thread.)

[ it's hard not to notice the terrible crashing sounds coming from the abandoned Cr*te & B*rrel, and one single look through the glass panes elucidates their source. There's a slight figure inside, one in a black uniform with pale skin and red hair that twinkles like crystal in the flickering lights - and they're holding a full-size standing lamp in their hands, which they're using to repeatedly smash a display of already-mostly-broken kitchenware. Shards of pottery are going everywhere, and there are dark stains and blotches coating the area around them that might be familiar to characters that have seen the effects of Cinnabar's poison.

If that's not alarming enough, when Cinnabar aims their next swing at a sturdy-looking stand mixer, the lamp bends and then snaps in half - and their left hand goes with it, breaking off cleanly at the wrist and falling to the ground below with a crimson sparkle and a heavy clatter. ]

iii. wildcard!!

[ other prompt ideas!!

--> Cinnabar's doppelganger missing a lot of body parts but still dragging itself around the mall in that weird contorted way and trying to destroy things
--> Cinnabar can help with body disposal! Their poison corrodes living things.
--> maybe cinnabar runs into your character's doppelganger?! They don't want to hurt anyone and will be easy to fool!
--> anything else!! PM me or hit me up on plurk...!!! ]

[aufsassig]

Body Discovery — July 15th

[It's the hair that stands out, really. Even soaked through every strand, even half-submerged in the First Floor's toxic floodwaters and floating like some sort of particularly noxious seaweed, there's really no mistaking that orange stringy mop of hair floating around down there.

It's attached to a corpse, obviously. It's floating facedown in the mire, surrounded by discarded bits of wood and plastic and fuck knows what else. No telling how long it's been there. It's not like he regularly comes to the escalators leading down to the submerged First Floor just to stare out over the watery abyss or anything.]

Well, fuck.

[Germans invented the word doppelgänger; of course he's familiar with it. It's still not the first word he thinks of, though, looking at the body floating around. The first word he thinks of is clone, and all the ugly connotations that come attached to it.

If you're standing nearby, then you're about to get a sober-faced glance.]

Hey. Think back, back when we first turned up here. You have any marks on you that you don't remember getting before?

DoppelGangnam Style — July 17th through July 21st

A: NETWORK

all right, sound off
seems like we've got some little rats skittering around this place
anybody managed to catch one alive?


B: ACTION

[So maybe you're one of the lucky (?) ones who still has a doppelganger kicking around later in the week. Unfortunate for you; they're wreaking a lot of havoc, destroying things and pissing people off as a result of it. People like, say, Schuldig, who doesn't take particularly kindly to already-scarce resources being wasted and destroyed in a situation like this.

Want to capture and interrogate a doppelganger with him? This is your prompt for that, hell yeah.]

Wildcard — Anytime

[OOC: Want to do aftermath threads or just something else? This is the prompt for you!]

body discovery!

[globs]

[ they're lingering up towards the top of the escalator, keeping a more-than-healthy distance between themself and any human interaction, as usual. Even half-hidden behind the guard wall and clearly trying to make themself inconspicuous, they stand out easily with their crystal hair and the flecks of liquid silver floating in the air around them; nevertheless, when he turns around and calls out to them, Cinnabar flinches a little, as if they weren't expecting to be seen. ]

I -- I don't have anything like that...

[ that body in the water looks just like him. They've noticed it, too. ]

[impostersyndrome]

A: Destruction

[Since shortly after arriving in the mall, Prompto had taken up residence in a camping store, pitching a small tent to collect his belongings in and sleeping in a sleeping bag. A lot of the mattresses in the home stores were moth-eaten or moldy by now, and the ones that weren't had quickly been snatched up, and Prompto doesn't mind sleeping bags anymore, not really.

He'd been staying in and around the tent since the doppelgangers first showed up, but he had to venture out finally for food. And now that he's returned, one whole liberated can of beans in his hand...

He sees that his tent has been ripped apart, and his belongings strewn around.]

...Hah. Of course.

[If someone comes by, they will see Prompto despondently attempting to put his faux-campsite back together. He's trying really had not to cry. It's not working very well.]

B: Chase

[It's not long before he catches one in the act, trying to rip apart a power line. Prompto immediately pulls out his gun, running towards it.]

Hey, you!

[He gives chase, running after it through the store - only for it to horrifyingly contort and compact its body so it can squeeze into a vent and escape.

He freezes in his tracks, staring after it, before turning to whoever is nearby.]

Did you see that!?

C: Wildcard!

[[OOC: I have plans for the death of Prompto's doppelganger, but if you would like to play out a brief encounter with it, or with another doppelganger, let me know! Prompto will be going around the mall, mostly hunting for his own doppelganger or trying to stop others from destroying things.]]

For Dimitri (also spoilers for FFXV)

[impostersyndrome]

[When he first considered the possibility of killing his own doppelganger, his first thought was that he's done this before.

But it was different then: the MTs had armor that hid their faces, if their faces were even still human under there. They couldn't talk, or emote, or style their hair, or do anything that really looked like Prompto.

This one... it looks like Prompto, right down to the hair, the clothes, the expression on its face when Prompto first caught it trying to destroy a sink. He's taken enough selfies to know what his face looks like when he's surprised - he recognizes this.

He was so startled that he let it get away that time. This time will be different, he tells himself. This time he'll kill it, before it causes any more problems.

And he was able to to convince himself that he could do it, right up until now, as he stares down the hallway to where he's finally backed it into a corner.

Yet somehow his hand stays still around his gun.]

Don't move...!

[But his voice lacks conviction.]

A.

[regale]

[ Wataru here isn't exactly here for camping goods, and while his knowledge of things like survival are basic at best, he's at least resolved himself to learn more. So, here he is, looking for something like a cooler that seals when closed. Not that he has anything to keep cold, that's not the point, just... something that closes and can be carried easily. Rainbow coloured preferably (impossible).

So here he is, humming melodically and twirling down the main aisle of the store, passing the sad looking tent before, essentially, moonwalking backwards back to it. ]

Oh? What is this...? Has your home been destroyed in a brutal storm?

[ ... anyway... ]

eren yeager / attack on titan

[trample]

discovery.

[ Just outside the walls lays a number of corpses, but only one rests within the mall itself. No more than a few feet from the doorway, Eren kneels beside the body of a small, blonde girl, whose remains are in many places charred beyond being recognizable. Similarly, Eren's clothes are in tatters, with many holes burnt into his sleeves and back; his exposed skin is scarred, but healing - painfully.

The pain of his body pales in comparison to that in his heart. It is easy to tell even at a glance that he is more than just on edge; he is at his limit, and ready to snap at a moment's notice. You should be grateful he stops at a glare when you approach his personal space.

His fist clenches. ]

What.

double.

[ At one of the many exits stands a man who carries with him a fireaxe. Since the start of the day, the sound of shattering glass has echoed in this wing of the mall; from the shop fronts to the windows or the even the exit doors themselves, seemingly nothing within reach is spared: he means to break open everything.

It's as he's wrenched off another door using the pointy side of his axe as a wedge between the door and its frame that he's approached; said door falls cleanly between the two of you, landing with a loud cracking noise as the glass breaks into pieces. Undisturbed by the noise, however, he reaches for something that ought to be impossible for him, standing a few feet away from the nearest surface, to grab - he does it anyway, his arm stretching the extra inches it needs to take a sandwich (half-eaten, it should be noted) and toss it at you before dashing off.

As he passes by: ]

Leave me alone! Stop bothering me!

pest control.

[ Eren loads a round into his rifle; the sound is music to his ears, especially after recent events have given him a bad name around the mall. With more reason now than ever to do his fair share of work, he has resolved himself - not a very difficult task, mind you - to rid this world of his copy.

That, however, has proven difficult: over the last few days, Eren has driven his doppelganger into a corner more times than he can count, only to be foiled again and again. By now he's learned that it's terribly difficult to shoot something whose body will conform to dodge it; it's even more difficult to try and restrain it on one's own. That's where you come in. ]

Remember - [ He says, looking you dead in the eye. His left hand tugs at a bright red band around his right arm, which has his gun tucked into his shoulder. ] I'm real. Just keep it still long enough that I can shoot and I'll never have to remind you again.

wildcard.

( obligatory - feel free to just surprise me, as I'm open to most anything, or contact me at bondrewd for anything else! )

discovery

[globs]

[ they've been doing what they do best: hanging back on the periphery and keeping a safe distance from all the others. Humans, they've found, are very much like gems: loud, sociable for the most part, curious. The difference is that they're much more fragile. It's with great trepidation that Cinnabar watched them try and retrieve things from the outside, mostly ending in failure. They'd offer to help if they didn't know it would end poorly for them, too.

This, though -- surely they should intervene. Maybe? In truth, they're still hesitating on whether or not they should approach at all, lingering half-hidden by an old garbage can a short distance away, and they look mildly spooked when Eren notices them, making their decision for them. ]

... You're damaged. [ they gesture at the burned skin. ] Injuries like that are dangerous for your kind, aren't they...?

[ the dead won't come back. It doesn't seem like it was worth it. ]

double

[oomfies]

[ It's hard to have peace of mind when there's murder, stalking, and sabotaging afoot. It's even harder to try and grasp at that peace when someone's been breaking every nook and cranny in this mall - she's heard bits and pieces of it, faint but there. Has only just confirmed it when she noticed the massive trail of glass everywhere. She's followed it like a true detective, is intent on questioning the hell out of someone - maybe get divine retribution on the way and have them clean it up. It sounds like a good idea until she's suddenly assaulted - ]

What the fuck!

[ She doesn't have time to process how he even managed to grab that half-eaten sandwich, too busy zipping off her jacket and tying it around her waist in a burst of petty rage. And when she's done, she picks up her pace and gives chase, startled at the sudden turn of events but not enough to stop her from getting some answers (and, mainly, an apology - she smells mustard even through her tank top). ]

Stop running, [ A deep inhale, and then a shout as she hops over some stray glass on the floor, ] and explain yourself!!

[fireglowup]

[ 01 | oh am i intruding (early event, first responder only please!) ]

[Finding a body isn't what surprises Zuko. The strange thing is that there weren't bodies before. This place had obviously been populated at one point, and yet whatever killed the world outside left no traces in here. No, what's surprising is that the body looks fresh.

Zuko's seen drowned bodies before. He knows what the rate of decay looks like, day by day. This body could have been alive yesterday. Which means they're a recent arrival to the mall, which means one of them has died. And drowning in an area like this--an easily avoided staircase downward, a place you'd have to be a fool to explore--is a suspicious sign.

As he drags the body from the water and turns it over (no one he recognizes, but that doesn't mean much, he hasn't exactly done a lot of socializing), he runs through his recent memory, trying to retroactively pick out some red flag, some indication of foul play, that could give him a direction to look into.

Which of course is where your character finds him--stooped over a waterlogged corpse, lost in thought. Bit awkward.]

[ 02 | fancy meeting you here ]

[Zuko makes it a habit to pull the bodies from the water whenever he sees one. He knows by now they're... copies of some kind--and the more he thinks about that the more unsettled he gets, so he doesn't--but it seems wrong to just leave them floating there like garbage. He keeps thinking about the aftermath of the North Pole, and the bodies that had been just left there to rot. At least he can do something for these people, as fake as they might be.

He starts making a makeshift morgue of it, arranging the corpses in neat little lines and covering their dead faces with whatever ratty blankets and towels he can scrounge up. He knows there's not much point to it, but doing it feels meditative, somehow. Not calming, but solemn.

By now other corpses have begun to show up too, killed in other ways, but whatever ones he finds he still brings to the same place. He pulls a thin cloth ripped from some dress he found over his latest addition, and stands up to see the exact same face in the area--that is, the corpse happens to have been your character's, and what kind of conversation are you meant to have about that? There's just no way to open that isn't horrible.

So Zuko just gapes at you wordlessly instead, which is much better.]

(corpse can instead be mutual cr OR a stranger to both of them, up to you!)

[ 03 | they're worse than rats ]

[Much further into the event, the doppelgangers have stopped being unsettling and morbid and started just being annoying.

This is the third one he's caught trying to dismantle the little makeshift camp he's holed up in the back corner of N*rdstr*m, and he's just about had it with them. As soon as he sees what is happening, he breaks off at a run toward the little asshole, firing warning sweeps of fire ahead of him as he goes. (They dissipate harmlessly before they come into contact with anything flammable--Zuko's not that sloppy. He just wants to scare off the horrible thing.)]

Get out of here!

[It runs off immediately, and Zuko tries to give chase for a moment--he doesn't have much hope, but he has to give it a shot every time--but it loses him in short order. Zuko's left to return to his (once again) destroyed camp and toe the remains of the structure sullenly. He hates these stupid things.]

(as before, identity of the doppelganger is tagger's choice!)

[ 04 | your custom starter here ]

[PM me here or cerebrah to work out something specific!]

02

[oomfies]

[ This isn't the first time Lottie has seen her corpse. She found it when she thinks it was just murdered - or whatever is honestly going on. The only difference is, instead of showing some empathy like Zuko is, she just.. Left it there. Made it someone else's problem until she absolutely had to face it herself. And boy, is she facing it all right - that green hair is hard to miss, even slightly obscured by the corpse beside it.

Her double at least looks like she's sleeping now (if she squints, really squints, the piece of cloth looks like a cute face mask!), looking marginally less horrifying than she did post-being pushed off a ledge. Because of her own staring, she doesn't say much at first either. What do you say to the dude who 'buried' your body as best he could in a modern day mall? ]

Uh.. Cool setup.

[ Oh, no. Fuck. That was terrible. Shit. ]

Not like literally cool. I just mean that it's cool of you to do this.

01!

[lifespanned]

Ewwwww! How can you just touch that?!

[ Did Zuko need to hear an overdramatic and shrill scream in this very tense moment? Because he's going to! And the source is Misa, standing a few yards away, covering her mouth and cowering in a way that can only be described as theatrical. ]

Put it back! Before you get it's germs!

[skeletonize]

i. an offer
i. ( midway through the week, a message appears on the forums: )

user name: reverendDaughter
topic: Disposal.

To anyone who requires disposal of the corpse of their duplicate: I am able to force the rapid and controlled decomposition of an organic body. On this scale, I can only do so much a day — one or two bodies, perhaps — but it will prevent purification.

As payment for this service, however, I ask for one thing. I lay claim to the bones that are left behind.

If this deal is not adequate, I can also offer to use part of this payment to ward an area of your choice. It will prevent anyone not specified at time of warding from crossing a threshold. Just know that it might take me some time, depending on how much I've exerted myself in any given day.

ii. ( the other option is that she roughly gives the same spiel specified above to someone she encounters, most likely if they are ruminating over what they are to do with the sudden encumberment of the corpse of someone who had up until that point been impersonating them.

she's so matter-of-fact and unfazed in the face of the situation and what her offer entails that the whole thing is unsettling. )

ii. emergency plumbing
( harrowhark arrives late to a scene of violent vandalizing in the gym. if anyone had discovered the doppelganger, they had already departed in hot pursuit. harrow is distracted from doing the same by the damage that had been left behind: a pipe leading towards the showers has been partially disassembled, seemingly missing a length roughly a foot long. the two other ends of the piping are slightly bent inwards, toward the room, and these split veins are currently gushing an alarming amount of water onto the floor of the room. though she has less than zero use for the gym personally, the showers being crippled for any period of time would certainly be... problematic. she heaves a sigh, and she resolves to fixing the problem.

she won't be able to do it alone, though. not without more effort than she's willing to really expend. she can create something to serve as a temporary piece of piping, but it would be best replaced with something more apt later — in order to do that, the crooked pieces would need to be bent back. though harrow is capable of plenty of things, she is not capable of that, and though she could probably manage it with a few constructs... well, she will call that plan b.

instead, she goes searching for help. she most likely doesn't have to look far; the sound of the water rushing through the broken piping is loud and attention-grabbing, and it's beginning to pool in large puddles on the floor. she approaches, expression clouded with severity and intent, the damp hem of her robe trailing behind. )

I can provide a temporary solution to the problem. But I will need your help.

1-2 yeehaw

[bestaround]

[ Duplicates are not an oddity to a YoRHa unit. They were a fact of life, multiples of any given unit deployed as seen fit, created over and over again as their lives were taken time after time on the battlefield; 9S is intimately familiar with being slain dozens of times over the course of only a few years. Simply put, the act of looking upon his own face was far from strange.

However, as the week goes on, 9S is well aware by now that near everyone else was experiencing the same, and their doubles had less than good intentions—nevermind that he hasn't a clue how anyone here would be capable of slapping together another YoRHa model to begin with. There's no explanation for where these copies are coming from, but after witnessing their destructive acts—his own included, horrifying as that is—9S knows he can at least do something about his.

It takes days longer than he would've liked, but eventually the deed is done. When Harrowhark approaches, he's tugging a katana out of the chest of a slain body identical in appearance to his own, a rusty red staining the clothing; there's a peculiar scratch as he does, metal grinding against metal. The explanation that follows is met with a frown (in part because of what she asks, the other... is that appearance), but it's difficult to tell with half his face covered up. ]

If you're looking for bones, you're not gonna find any here.

[ Both he and the corpse 9S stands over appear quite human, though, so it's reasonable to assume any stranger would think there's any to be taken. There's yet to be anyone who's looked at him and saw him for the android he is. ]