engineers | pc catchall | superhell

[ HOW DID YOU LOSE AN EYE BEFORE ME... after just staring at him for an extended moment, she flops down next to him, though she takes care not to drape on him or anything. she doesn't want to aggravate whatever wounds haven't been seen to. ]

. . .

Do you want to talk about it?

[ about all the things that happened during the execution, she means. ]

[ i beat andie to eye injuries but i was only second. francy is the queen

anyway. this is fine. there is enough space, persephone is little!! and he will scooch a bit to make sure there's room.

does he want to talk about it.... ]

...Mmm. I don't know. [ that's an honest answer, at least, because it's persephone. ] Do you have questions?

Well... naturally, but I don't want to press it if you don't want to think about it. [ she leans back, sinking into the sofa a little. ] I get it.

Mmm... I'm sorry, that you have to get it.

[ because that sucks. he gives her a little bit of a smile, though. ] You can ask. Or... we can talk about anything else, if you want, too. I'm just glad to have the company.

[ well - once lin jingheng has been helped because his space husband is extra sad, lu bixing will come to check on persephone too, especially with the whole loss effect from yesterday. wherever she is. ]

Persephone...? [ where you at booboo ]

[ well, it only really lasted for curfew, because i'm very funny and the joke is now moot since yall know i'm still alive for real. lu bixing will find her in the common room, curled up in a little ball on one of the sofas. her hair is currently just past her shoulders, unkempt and hiding her face. ]

Hi.

[ it worked i was so afraid of you

anyway!!! THIS IS THE SADDEST THING. he looks so sad, immediately, and then - pauses for a moment, and murmurs. ] Give me a second.

[ and then leaves? wow? what a jerk?

...but he comes back a few minutes later, with the blanket from his bed in his arms. he brings it down, and gently tucks it around persephone where she's curled up on the sofa, and then comes to sit down on the floor. ]

How're you feeling?

[ like he can't already tell, but, sometimes it's good to talk about it. ]

Like I have a hangover, which is kind of impressive because I don't think I drank anything last night.

[ who knows... but she lifts her head when he plops onto the floor. she shakes her hair out of her face and gives him a confused look before she huffs at him and scoots over. ]

You can come up here, you jerk.

[ ehe. okay. he gives her a little smile at that and will scooch up to join her? frankly the death of A Child in their group after three very long weeks is the right occasion to have a sad hangover cuddle. lu bixing is one of those people that just exudes warmth, also, so he's a good person to sit by.

he reaches into his little satchel after a minute and digs out a little butterfly clip, handing it over if she wants it for her bangs, too. ]

I think feeling like you're hungover's pretty valid, considering everything this place's put us all through. You might be dehydrated.

[ unsurprisingly, persephone also runs pretty warm, but that doesn't stop her from leaning against lu bixing when he comes up to join her. when he offers her to clip, she just stares at it for a bit before taking it. ]

Where did you get this?

From one of the costumes in the costume store.

[ he looks thoughtful for a moment, like he's trying to remember. ] "Sexy pop star", I think.

[ knockoff ariana grande butterfly clip ] You can keep it if you want - I was using it to keep my bangs out of my face, but somehow, I think you need it more.

[ backdates for my sweet persy

anyway lu bixing is coming up to persephone on this fine day with.. an armful of flowers! in fact he waves at her when he sees her, energetically. a hole will come shortly. ]

Persephone, come here!

[ I GOT DISTRACTED BY CURFEW AND CURSES but persephone lights up when she sees lu bixing approach, and even more so once she sees what he's brought for her. ]

Oh my gods, where did you get these?

[ you're so fucking valid ]

Uriel and I picked some earlier - she wanted to lay some out for Cosmos, and we thought it might be nice to make bouquets for everyone who left us, but I'm - really not very good at it. Do you want to try? I feel like you'd be the expert.

What would've ever given you that idea?

[ she gives him a cheeky grin as she reaches over to take some of the flowers from him. she tucks some hair behind her ear with a white lily set atop it. something about just being in the presence of nature after having been separated from it for so long gives her a certain glow. ]

Lead the way, Mr. Headmaster Sir.

[ for lack of a better phrase - persephone really is a breath of fresh air. lu bixing smiles at her, warm and pleased, as he leads her over to the field of flowers they picked from, earlier. there are lots! it's animal crossing. you know how it is. ]

This is nice, isn't it? What a nice change.

[ MY FLOWERS... once she sees the clearing, she exudes joy. she kicks off her sandals and runs toward the field, falling onto her knees as she becomes one with nature once again. like this, it becomes very clear that this is, quite literally, her natural element; it isn't hard to imagine what she must be like at her full goddesshood. ]

For real! It's almost enough to make you forget we're in Hell.

[ haha. ha. as if on cue, a screen rudely emerges from the field of flowers and begins to play a memory.

how does the goddess of spring become the bringer of death? ]

[ well, that's

wow

you know, it's not something lu bixing's expecting, especially in jarrying contrast to the way persephone just delightedly flops into the field of flowers, but... as the film plays, it's something that's almost painfully familiar. he's holding his breath, standing very still and still holding the flowers he has in his arms, and -

when it fades, he exhales, and then just plops down next to her, and says, very succinctly: ] ... Grief and anger are powerful things.

[ and that's it. no judgement.

sometimes, it's easy to forget that persephone is a god. in a moment like this, not so much. ]

[ lu bixing isn't the first person who's received this particular memory from persephone, so it doesn't shake her as much as it did initially... but it still does make things a little awkward now. she shifts a little, tucking her feet under herself as she runs a hand along the flowers, and refuses to meet lu bixing's gaze. ]

...Yeah, they are. I definitely know that.

[ and you know, at this point? at this point, he's almost expecting it, when the screen flickers again. once, twice. he knows exactly what memory this is going to be, and he steels himself for it.

how crow mouthed - to say something like grief and anger are a terrible thing. general cw for suicidal ideation, suicide attempt, human experimentation, self harm, drug use! ]

[ after lin jingheng and monoeye hawk die, you spend one hundred days locked in your house.

you're working. the eighth is a mess in an aftermath of the battle with the seventh galaxy, and zhanlu has been destroyed. you have to fix him. you spend one hundred days in your house, alone, sending out missives. speaking to prime minister edward, too sickly to do much, taking over his duties where you can. you try and fix zhanlu.

five hundred days into your restart of life, prime minister edward passes away, of sickness, of old age, and you officially take his spot. you, as the new prime minister, host the state affair of his funeral. there was a eulogy. you think you remember people looking at you. staring. watching. you remember the caskets of nothing and the tombstones and now... you're home.

home. for five hundred days, this is where you've spent all your time. five hundred days ago, monoeye hawk and lin jingheng perished, in the battle for the seventh galaxy. five hundred days ago, your entire world ended.

there were no funerals, then.

when you first arrive at the home of engineer 001 and commander lin, as the sign cheerfully reminds you, hanging over the door, you make it all the way inside. you go to the kitchen. the ai of zhanlu, in butler mode, greets you, you think, but it sounds like it comes from underwater. you go to the refrigerator. you think - a drink. i need a drink. and you open the fridge. there's hardly anything in it - supplies in the eighth galaxy are heavily rationed, right now, and alcohol is no exception - but at the back, an unopened bottle of beer, and as your hand curls around the neck, you remember -

you see the mental image, of lin jingheng in his pajamas, bedhead, staring at the beer bottle like it personally wounded him for being so disgusting, and putting it back, and sulking to the kitchen table to a cup of cold tea, instead, and for some reason, the grief and the memory snaps the last remaining piece of your stability in two.

you scream. you just scream, at the top of your lungs, as the image vanishes, the bellow of a miserable animal, and the whole world goes dark as you stagger to the area of the house where the medical capsule is, you bang your fist on the edge of it in your frustration and start asking it, i need a hallucinogen, i need an opiate, i need drugs, give them to me, i need it, i don't want to be awake, i need it, i need it - and the capsule doesn't respond. you're shaking too hard to do anything or type anything and your fingers claw in desperation at the metal. you scream, again, despairing, drowning, miserable, slam your fist against the capsule again.

zhanlu's voice comes over your head. soft, quiet, concerned - you scream at him, too, the AI unable to do anything but warn you. "Headmaster Lu, I can't accept those requests right now, you're too unstable. Headmaster Lu, this is your first warning."

he's an AI. he has to listen to you. you ignore him, shaking, almost hyperventilating, and after the second warning, you snarl - ] Zhanlu, give me a gun.

[ because you've lost everything. in one fell swoop, in one moment, you've lost everything and you can only run from it for so long. you've worked so hard. you've done so much, to not look it in the eye, but the grief is a monster that lives under your bed and in your brain and today it rips you in two. it's all-consuming, like it was when you were a child, and zhanlu can't ignore you, and as the gun is placed into your hands, you start to bring it up, to your head, start to --

then

zhanlu projects footage on the wall in front of your head.

A 14-year-old Lin Jingheng was attending the opening ceremony of the Black Orchid Academy. The ceremonial hall was decorated with heroic histories of the Union since its founding, motivational and inspiring. The young boy sat in the corner with his attention being pulled away occasionally. But even then, he still wanted to act cool, and pretended to look around in boredom whenever he remembered he was still in the middle of a ceremony. He then accidentally noticed the small camera beside him that was recording his every move; his face reddened in embarrassment and anger as he slapped his hand down and turned off the recording.

you forget everything.

you sink down to the floor, and you watch the clip again. you watch it again. you watch it again. you watch that clip hundreds of times and you don't sleep, and the next morning, you drag yourself to your desk, grab a pocket knife, and carve a single hatch mark on your desk. you push yourself to standing. you turn off zhanlu's automation function, so he can make conscious decisions, because you - you can't be trusted with yourself, all the time. you know that, now you've fallen and burnt to ashes, and now you have to rebuild yourself. one scratch mark says i fell, and i nearly quit, but i dragged myself to standing.

--

three years pass in the new independent era in the eighth galaxy. you are their leader, the face of their revolution and their prime minister, and no one outside of your home knows the turmoil that you go through. they can't see you that way. in those three years, a group of pirates and black market illegal merchants reemerged, emboldened by the chance to disrupt the economy you've worked so hard to build. it launches the galaxy into a war that lasts three long years, and you command your military forces and your political forces like an expert. you are an expert, you're the prime minister lu bixing. you can do anything.

five more scratch marks are carved into your desk.

you promised prime minister edward before he died this - if you fell seven times, you'd get up eight. these are your falls. these are your dips into despair that are so deep that you want to die. you want to die. locked into the misery of your ruthless job, alone, you want to die. you want to die, you want to die, you want to die.

you can't die. the eighth needs you.

after the first one hundred days on your own, your house is invaded by other engineers who come to help you work on zhanlu so he's no longer just in emergency mode. it takes you all a total of four hundred days to get him online, but the other engineers are so crowded and messy that you force them out, and you need to move things to the attic. the attic is untouched and filled with lin jingheng's things. you could almost see him next to you. you could almost have him there.

you light up a cigarette. you inhale, just for the sake of the familiarity. to feel like he's there, that you could see him, that he's not gone and you were just delusional the whole time, stupid -

- the smoke burns your lungs, and you start to cough, violently, violently, and you take the cigarette and you smash the burning end into your arm until the pain is so bright and smart that it forces you to come back to your senses. he's dead. lin jingheng is dead. nothing will bring him back and he is dead.

two hatch marks.

another day, you find yourself trembling as you inject a biochip in your arm. it's an opium biochip - the kind being used to create 'perfect humans', though the data is incomplete. it won't be, for you. it becomes your pet project. you work. you experiment on yourself. you inject yourself, over and over again. you work. you work. you don't sleep. you rule the eighth galaxy, you unite its forces through carrot and through stick, monitoring public executions and supply rations and economic growth and population happiness all at once, and you pull an entire galaxy to its feet while you tremble on your knees in the dark.

three hatch marks. four. five.

(you download all of the video data of lin jingheng in zhanlu's system. you watch every single part of it. you work. you work, you work, you work, you throw yourself into your duties and at night you take drugs and force yourself to sleep only when you need to, or when zhanlu forces you to, like a tiny hand tugging at your pinky finger when you're about to let loose on the world.)

--

in the seventh year of the new era, one of your students, brilliant, brilliant mint, pilots the first program to travel through the heart of the rose, the wormhole at the edge of your galaxy, your natural barrier. you are told not to go, but you go, anyway. what's the worst that could happen? you'll die? you don't care. you go on your own.

the people in the eighth praise your courage when you return with fresh research for mint's project. you didn't die. instead, you gathered data, and from the inside of the wormhole, the data gathered gets you the visuals on what happened when the seventh and the eighth galaxy fleets, respectively, were destroyed. your father's ship. lin's. gone. destroyed, in the blink of an eye.

you come home from your trip. you order captain turan to station patrols around the wormhole, now that it's active. you lock yourself in your lab. you take a strand of lin's hair you extracted from the couch and you open a breeding tank in a fit of madness and you think, i could just reconstruct him, because you could, you're a genius, it would be easy, it would be so easy, and zhanlu blows up the breeding tank.

you stay in the dark lab for three days afterwards, but when you emerge, the knife comes out, and you scratch the sixth mark into the wood of your desk.

--

the final hatch mark is the product of your research, nine years into the new era of the Eighth Galaxy.

you stand there on the precipice. you stand there, with your completed opiate biochip research. with this completed project, with all the tests you ran on yourself, you've given yourself those abilities. you are fast. you are strong, you are, in essence, the perfect human, and you've found a way you could transplant it into anyone. tested on mice, tested on yourself. you have learned that the rainbow virus can be used to break humanity down to ashes, and rebuild them as something greater. you know, now, why you lived through that first outbreak.

you could have an army of superhumans, you could take over the IUS. you could take over the entire universe. it has taken you nine years to prove this scientific theory, and you found out that it's true.

(you could wreak destruction, on the people who took your father and lin jingheng from you.)

you stare at the papers in your hands. they tremble.

this time, you don't call captain turan. this time, you don't call the engineering department. this time you don't deliver the research. you go to your office. you work, all day long. you come home, and you stare at the papers.

you walk to your lab, where you've secretly kept those strains of the rainbow virus, papers in hand.

and you set the sample and every single paper ablaze, and destroy it for good.

when you return to your desk, you mark the final hatch mark.

if you fall seven times, you have to rise eight.

with a storm in your heart, you turn away from destruction.

with a storm in your heart, you rise. ]

[ all of this happens—persephone watches every single thing that lu bixing has done in the span of all the years this memory entails, and though she cannot hear any of his thoughts, she can feel the raw emotion in each pained expression, each jerky movement, each period of deafening silence that threatens to tear him apart. none of this is anything she's ever expected from him, and for a moment, she almost convinces herself this is someone else entirely...

but no. this is lu bixing, and though he hadn't done it willingly, he has shared with her his truth.

and so... with him having seen her at her lowest, and her at his... she whispers: ]

Haha hey what the fuck.

[ this is my favorite tag ever this is such a fucking mood

he can't help it - the response is like, startlingly funny, and he laughs, just a barked noise that's completely unintentional, and he reaches up to rub a hand over his face afterwards. it's not the first time he's seen this, but the shame in his stomach curls up every single time it plays, and this is no different, but that helped to shatter the mood, a little. ]

...Like I said. [ a little ruefully: ] Grief and anger.

[ slaps andie with surprise pcs out of nowhere

anyway it's!!! a new week and on monday, lu bixing sends persephone a picture! it's from a very high up view - a sky high view of the brand new giant garden.

it's followed by a selfie! taken at a downward angle from the new garden, on top of a big mushroom, making a peace sign. ]

🍄🥦🥕🥬🌽!!!!!!!!!

Edited 2023-03-07 16:27 (UTC)

✔ Read xx:xx am

[ is the only notification lu bixing will get.

meanwhile, the mushroom he's sitting on begins to shake. ]

[ help

well, persephone will hear a - ] Waugh! [ as six foot of dumbass falls on this mushroom. but, three seconds later, his face pops up over the edge of the mushroom, and he brightens up, grinning and waving. ]

Hi. How happy are you right now?

pc catchall | superhell | persephone

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week 2, friday

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w3, wednesday

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w4, monday

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