voidmissions | [M15] ENEMY: UNKNOWN

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[M15] ENEMY: UNKNOWN - THE INTERVIEW

On opening their eyes, Voidtreckers will feel a sense of disorientation, a dizziness to their vision and inside their head. Both clear quickly, letting them remember where they came from: in the midst of a mission, some unknown entity jumping them, and then —

They're here. Wherever here is.
They stand in an empty room. The lighting of the room stings their eyes after how dark the rest of the station has been. The walls, ceiling and floor are all bright white, tiles. There is no visible door, no windows.

After the disorientation comes fear. The hairs on the back of their neck stand up. For those with danger sense, these senses are going haywire, even though any other abilities are still not working. The feeling can be pushed down, it is similar to the air of expectation at the start of a horror film, the anticipation of fear rather than being in a truly dangerous situation. It might be that they have been on the train long enough to have felt it before.

Heavy footsteps sound, it is almost impossible to tell where they are coming from as the echo through the empty space. The feeling of dread grows until part of the far wall slides open with a mechanical hiss.

Filling the doorway are two huge figures, around seven foot tall and bulky. They are in large metal suits, almost like power armour, black with highlights of gold. They wear a mask that covers their whole face. It is impossible to see the figure inside at all. Their breathing comes through heavy and raspy and when they walk their footsteps are heavy. The door closes behind them and their presence makes the room feel smaller. One of them scans a green light over the voidtrecker.

"Do not be alarmed. Under sections ninety six of Inter-dimensional law and on behalf of the Void Ministry we have intercepted Voidcraft designation Voidtrecker Express as part of ongoing investigations. You have been taking part in a simulated excercise to gauge your skill and strength. No harm shall come to you or your crew, you are protected by inter dimensional law. You have been chosen for questioning and we ask that you comply. You have the right to refuse our interview but we have the right to hold you until our investigation is complete or one week in standard void time has passed, whichever is longest. Complying with us will ensure our investigation is more efficient."

The inspector talking pauses here, as if giving the voidtrecker time to take in that information.

"Do you accept our interview?"

ENEMY: UNKNOWN

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Xehanort's definitely not the first person to arrive but he might be the first one to arrive with a nice pleasant comfy wool blanket wrapped around him like a burrito. It isn't particularly chilly but he found it and he's going to keep it as long as humanly possible.

Whereupon he immediately relocates to a place to sit, spending a moment arranging his blanket into a more comfortable burrito.

"A question for you all. How many of you decided to take your kidnappers' words at face value and spilled your guts without hesitation?" There's something dark in his tone, even if his face is pretty neutral. "I assume everyone was told what I was, and that they're running experiments of terror and endurance on us, without consent, and intend to continue those experiments. If you cooperated, did you tell them everything they wanted to know before or after they revealed they're going to keep tormenting our allies?"

Phrased like that, it's no wonder he sounds less than pleased. Cooperating with their torturers really isn't on his to-do list after they summarily rejected his offer of help.

"...What happened in your interview?"

Woof, something not well happened there. It's a confusing scenario to picture with how his own interview went, and Tidus sits backwards on one of the middle seating currently, his blitzball being idly bounced in the space between chairs, a leg folded under him.

But he stops as he looks over at Xehanort, trapping the ball under his lowered foot.

"A lack of cooperation." Distinctly so! And he's still irritated about it. "For all their atmosphere of ominousness, which I suspect is deliberate--" A thing that had gotten under his skin way more than he cared to admit, actually, "They are little different than the evil rainbow everyone fought not so long ago, snatching us up and doing whatever they please whether we like it or not."

Brown eyes slit beneath the shadowed hood of comfortable wool blanket. "The train has a bad habit of getting us stuck in places where we're merrily violated by anyone who wishes to."

There's a pause. "You cooperated, didn't you?" Frankly Tidus struck him as the sort of nice, generally helpful guy that would absolutely be willing to aid authority figures such as that! "Did they give you the ball."

"What are those series of question meant to mean?" Are you implying he cooperated for a ball or got a ball at the end of it, pal?! "It was in my arms band, okay?"

A huff, but nevermind that-

"Yeah, I cooperated. Sure, they're weird and spooky at first, but they weren't bossing me around or refusing to tell me stuff. I asked what would happen to us, and they said they wanna figure out what the train's deal is with us, what it wants." He gestures out a hand, the motion itself meaningless, just a wave.

"The reason they had to put on that charade was half 'cause the train wouldn't talk to them unless they faked a mission." He folds his arm across the back of the seat again. "Yeah, I don't get why they need to keep it up now or why we can't just talk to everyone... but at least they're answering questions." He huffs. "That's new, for once."

"You just.. keep a ball in your armband?" At all times?

Everywhere Tidus goes, a ball is there too?

Somehow that seems plausible. "You trusted them awfully quickly, and still do, even though they're still psychologically torturing our allies right there in front of us." He doesn't approve, apparently, but his hostility seems directed elsewhere. "Given how often we've been lied to in the short months I've been here, I would have thought someone who's been around much longer would be far more cautious. Were you given some proof that I wasn't? Did they bother to say why all these horror tests are needed to help figure out what the train wants?"

Which he'll allow for, he wasn't there for everyone else's interviews. "Because all I got was some suffocating aura of dread probably meant to keep me meek and submissive."

"I got that feeling at the start, but after we started talking, it went away." He wouldn't call it suffocating, but then - both of them had a different experience, as it were. He brings his arms down, moving off his leaning against the chair.

"I get it, you know? They're weird, why should we trust them, they could turn around and do something bad with what we tell them - but what's doing nothing going to do? I've been on the train forever, and those guys gave me more than the train ever has." He shakes his head. "I'm not gonna be paranoid when they offer to help out. I just... didn't get that bad of a feeling from them."

What else can he say? That he's not that paranoid, but it's not like he doesn't understand some of Xehanort's concerns. Only, he finds it hard to see them as bad as he is.

A spooky station would be a lot worse if they were really getting attacked.

"But they didn't ask us for anything special. What's knowing what we think about the train or the kind of missions we've been going to tell them?"

"Once we were here and they simply asked for help instead of devising a trap and then continuing to hold us prisoner, they would have had a FAR better and more sensible platform to build from with us." His gaze shifts to the monitors. Who's being tormented right now? "Instead we get to watch this charade while still being held against our will on their claim to be working with the Ministry. They gave you something to work with, but was any of it the truth? They're doing bad things right this very moment, and you're still getting not bad feelings about it."

He looks away, to count how many people have arrived by day two, lips thinning. "Their tests aren't about our missions, Tidus. The tests are about us. What are we going to tell everyone down in those simulations when they find out we just sat here and peacefully watched and cooperated while they're being terrorized? Again?"

It almost sounds like he cares.

"Look, if you wanna ask if we have to keep that up-" he motions a hand in direction of the screens, "--sure, we can - they don't stick in that room, right? I agree, how long do we need to keep it up for anyway? But I already told you what they told me, and if you're not gonna believe anything they say..."

He shrugs, helpless. Then what can they do?

"We'll see what happens, right? If they're here to learn about us, then all we can do is fight when the time comes. They don't know about everyone on the train."

Xehanort wraps his fuzzy shroud a little tighter, expression settling into a scowl. "I've learned the hard way not to blindly trust strangers. It's a lesson everyone should have picked up by now." He's not going to just believe anything those investigators said, not until there was actual evidence.

And maybe even then, out of sheer mulish stubbornness. "It's a little disturbing that the response isn't 'well let's try to get out' instead of shrugging and deciding to wait and see. Maybe a lot disturbing, especially with Diagad and the stuff that happened before it."

"And here I am without my illusion resistance pendant to help even know if this is another trick."

...Does Xehanort just want to be grumpy and moody? Tidus doesn't figure he's going to be able to help him ease up, so he's on the side of giving up on arguing any point. Sometimes, you just want to be a grumpy potato in a blanket. It happens.

But at least for Xehanort's latter remark on pendants, Tidus raises up a hand, and from it appears a bulky-looking forearm shield. Fortunately, he's holding the straps (so it doesn't fall on his head), and he gives it a wave above his head.

A small wave, mind.

"I'm not feeling anything different," he says after a moment. "...if the room isn't blocking the magic," he then adds. That's a possibility.

A possibility that won't help Xehanort feel better (or will just credit his suspicion), but.

Xehanort is not inclined to trying to feel happy and content while imprisoned and being forced to watch people get terrorized, for some reason. Maybe there's something in the air, like that forced oppressive unease from the other rooms, making Tidus react to all of this so utterly calmly and acceptingly. Their captors did want cooperation, and clearly they're getting it from some sectors!

Maybe it's the food. Said 'food', such as it is, is eyed dubiously from his safe distance. Going a week was going to be very tough even for him.. "Given it's blocking all other forms of magic," is the sullen response, "And it's already proven they can make us feel what they want, that really can't logically be trusted either."

Tidus might be terminally inclined towards helpfulness, but there was a good chance everyone else wasn't. He could hope. "I'm sorry, Tidus. I'm not as.. naturally inclined to trust as you are, I suppose. Especially with so many bright red flashing warnings flying around that the train has been helpfully introducing us to over and over and over. This isn't okay, this isn't fun, and in spite of what happens in the future I do not yet enjoy watching people run around in terror."

The shield disappears after the point, his arm coming back down to return across the chair. Listens to Xehanort, with some weariness.

"No one said anything about this being okay or fun," he says first, tone at least restrained. "I already said about talking to them, but you don't want to, so what else can I say? I didn't like watching people disappear without knowing where they were going either, but you know what? I want to know more about what's going on or the people around us than everything the train doesn't tell us!"

Now, his tone isn't as restrained - not shouting, but his throws out a hand back to the screens.

"You know what that's better than? People getting dragged from the middle of their lives without any equipment to protect themselves, stuffed into carriages and made to watch people come and go without warning. You think the train's any better? It all sucks. Everything sucks around us, Xe, but I can take being stuck in here a few days if it actually means we're getting listened to. Can it come 'round and bite us later? Sure - but we're already here, they already know about us, so what am I supposed to do about it? Be mad they had to fake a mission that isn't going to get anyone killed?"

He sighs, slumping his arms tighter around the back of the chair.

"I'm willing to take the risk, Teddy. We don't have any better choice."

"Some other terrible situation doesn't change this one at all," is the muttered response. "That's a bad argument, and all it does is try to divert the topic to something else. Master Ansem would have such a disapproving frown. I might as well say it's better than being run over by a herd of buffalo; it may be true, but it's pretty much irrelevant to the immediate situation at hand."

Train: good or bad, it's not part of the discussion as far as he's concerned, apparently. "People don't need to die for something to be awful to the point where it should be immediately stopped, no matter what might potentially be gained from it later. Diagad didn't kill us either. Nor did the encounter just before that which forced all of you to suffer your worst terrors, but oh, was anyone suggesting we cooperate and see what we learn when that thing was torturing us? After all we didn't die." His scowl deepens suddenly, fairly bristling with indignation. "And now I'm employing your fallacy, I would be laughed out of the debate hall and rightly so." It's shameful, SHAMEFUL. He deserves to be laughed out of a debate hall.

He was going to have to moderate his own responses better, the situation was bad enough without inviting Even to appear out of nowhere and mock him for resorting to logical fallacies to try to make a point.

"I have been taught that the ends do not justify the means. And just hoping they throw us a tidbit that they haven't yet bothered to do in favor of what they HAVE DONE and are continuing to do right now, doesn't make any of this acceptable to me. The price is too high." Would it have been, had the situation been a little different? "On the questionably bright side, it's heartening to know my morality is apparently still intact. As we are likely being monitored, I will leave it at that." He has plans, terrible plans if he gets the opportunity to put them to use.. but discussing them wasn't going to happen. Not when it's so likely their captors are listening to every word they speak.

Sure, Tidus isn't going to say anything to that, shaking his head as he turns away from Xehanort, going back to rolling his ball under his foot. If the guy was going to use him to vent his frustrations, he didn't want to keep being the dart board.

Have an arched brow, Xehanort. Not of disapproval, but.

"They are hardly our friends in this position," he admits. "But outright antagonizing them before we know more is not necessarily the best choice, for now."

"I have yet to inflict any harm upon any of them," is the stiff, prompt response, expression going from neutral to guarded. "One may resist without violence."

"And one may antagonize without violence." But that's neither here nor there. He signs, reaching up to rub the bridge of his nose. "Nonetheless- until we know more, we certainly should be guarded in what we reveal. Though we have no idea how long or how closely we have been watched."

They most certainly are being monitored in here.

It's almost guaranteed they're being watched!

"Given our situation, doing anything but guilelessly telling them everything they want and letting them do what they want will likely be seen as antagonism." Sullenness creeps back in by degrees, gaze shifting from his King to the distant monitors. "If they're investigating the train, why are we being psychologically tortured? What need do they have of gagueing our strength and skills? Why didn't they simply ask for help instead of forcing us into their little game? They couldn't even ask questions without trying for emotional submission. And now we sit here, watching our fellows continue to be tortured for ... what?"

Beneath the shroud of his warm, comfy blanket, Xehanort's eyes narrow at those distant screens. "I think I spotted Even on one of those monitors. I don't know what I'm going to tell him later about us sitting here peacefully watching him suffer under someone else's forced tests, after all he's been through til now. But oh, we shouldn't antagonize the people responsible.."

There's a low disgusted noise. "I don't know about you, my Lord, but sitting here and 'not antagonizing them' feels very much like participating in the suffering going on right now in the name of 'simulated exercises'. It sounds like precisely the sort of thing I'd be doing in another few years."

Light willing, Xehanort would never. Will never. There is a long pause from Ansem as he studies the other man, before exhaling and moving to stand beside him.

"Xehanort."

He waits a moment to ensure he has the other's full attention.

"I am not suggesting we be tame and docile. It is becoming clear that they do not intend to stop any time soon; however. But if we can learn more about them by revealing some of our own history, I - and I only speak for myself, not for our fellows - am willing to tolerate certain indignities if it will lead to an alliance in the end."

There's another pause, and, somewhat quieter, he continues. "Radiant Garden has not seen war for generations. I am not a military strategist. However, I have studied our history, and in my own time between worlds, I sought knowledge in preparation for...confrontation. Many lessons led me to the same concept; know thy enemy."

What have you to fear from us? A question he had asked them. But now, he wonders; what do they fear, at all? And why is it leading them to use such methods?

"Tell me then, what have you learned from them so far to justify the continuation of our lack of antagonism in the face of what they are doing to us, and to those left behind?"

Not long ago he wouldn't have ever dared question Ansem. But things change. Time has been a harsh mistress, and the lessons it taught were cruel ones that left grievous wounds behind. It would be a long time before they healed. "Do you think they will do aught other than keep us here, watching these monitors? Do you believe they may enter and allow themselves to be questioned? There is nothing to be learned about one's enemies by sitting and staring at blank walls and torment-filled monitors and letting them do as they wish out of sight and out of reach."

There's a movement of blanket that suggests were he not burritoed, this would have come with gestures alongside it. "What are we to learn here in this closed off space? How are we to learn our enemy here? It is a wise sentiment, and one truly worth applying when it can be, but it seems wildly impractical given our situation."

"To justify?" He shakes his head. "I will not justify any of this, not at this point. But I did learn they claim to hold themselves to a law, sections of which dictate we will 'not be killed or deliberately injured'." He speaks as if quoting - which he is. "'Voidcrew can be held for one void week whilst investigations are underway though no individual should be held away from any other members of their crew for more than one void day'. By this, we can learn they are answerable to a higher power - and that they have no fear in their current actions. And if they are answerable to a higher power, then this is far larger than it seems.

"Allow me to turn this around, and to explore your own thoughts. Assume we take a more defiant stance against those who have not only displayed the ability to limit our powers, but affect our very minds. I assume you felt them, during your interview." A slight tilt of the head. "What would you seek to accomplish?"

There's that disgusted noise again. "And yet here they are causing deliberate injury." Already breaking that law, aren't they! "Their laws clearly don't hold much weight." Theoretically being beholden to a higher power is no more comforting than being told they might, in theory, just be released in a few more days.

What WOULD he do?

The look turned on Ansem is outright shocked. "Master, did you not just caution against revealing too much?" He has plans, and he's not about to reveal them where anyone might have a microphone lurking! "Suffice it to say I have purposes and goals I would accomplish given the opportunity, and leave it at that until absolute privacy can be assured."

"So I did. Forgive me - I meant in the most general of terms." What amusement is displayed is mostly self-depreciating. "Though that tells me all I need to know."

Indeed. More than enough.

"...I trust your judgement in this matter. And I will say, it would do us no harm to have multiple purposes pursued at once. Be they diplomatic, or to be used if diplomacy fails."

For all that he wants to be optimistic about this...he is no fool.

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[M15] ENEMY: UNKNOWN - THE INTERVIEW

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