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❪ test drive: #2 ❫ THE OVERFLOW
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THE PROLOGUE There is urgency in the Orbiters' request. Refugees currently in El Nysa are asked via mass message to please return to Thesa Station virtual reality area immediately. Zasere tells them that the next set of Refugees are scheduled to wake, but there's been an issue. On Thesa, refugees will find that the people in stasis are still apparently trapped in slumber. Most of them are complete strangers, but there's a chance you may recognize a familiar face or two. Normally, these people would wake up from their pods without issue, but due to a malfunction caused by the unforeseen force during The Descent, they have to go through extra measures to make this possible. Those in slumber require extra stimulation, something to keep their minds active. What better than a simulation of an area of El Nysa? Keeping their minds active requires an extremely involved simulation. Those subjected to the VR (prospective characters) will find themselves completely immersed in their new environment, believing themselves to be native Olympians. To wake up from the simulation, characters must work together to accomplish a certain objective(s) in the icy tundra. Characters in-game will be aware that this is a simulation, but this is good practice for properly interacting with El Nysa natives, isn't it? PROMPT: WINTER CAME  The wind in the icy wasteland is bitter and frigid. You are wrapped up in a winter coat, but even still, the cold bites at your skin and leaves you yearning for a warm fire. Perhaps you're a merchant from the city, here to make a delivery, or you're a royal guard, sent to patrol the area. Who are you? The sky is the limit. One thing is certain — you won't snap out of your new identity until you finish a task. 1. Due to the vast diversity of the creatures on El Nysa and the fact that new ones are constantly being discovered, an important objective is to carefully chronicle different species. Unfortunately, to research these new species, they happen to need more than just a visual. More than just fleeting glances in over a snowy hill. Researchers are constantly looking for ways to secure...  3. You are stuck in a dilemma. On one hand, you are set to work for Olympia. One the other, you're not completely sure what is really expected of you, or who the man who gave you this mission truly is.When you come to, you will awaken in Thesa Station. All will be explained to you by Zasere or Sael via telepathic link. Your world is no more. The Storm has consumed it. We offer proof in the Observation Deck if you desire it, but it won't be an easy thing to stomach. We offer you a new life, in our planet of El Nysa. We just ask for your help in maintaining the vitality of El Nysa. What can we offer you in exchange for your help? PROMPT: STASIS UNIT  You have found the massive section of Thesa known as the Stasis Unit. There’s no special access required to access this part of Thesa Station, but refugees are warned that it may not be for the faint of heart. Here, in large pods that nearly cover every square inch of the space, are all of the people the Orbiters have managed to rescue. Your loved ones, your greatest enemy, your next door neighbor— you might find them here. These people are in a state of deep cryosleep. Due to the damaging effects of The Storm, their bodies are not yet ready to be awoken. PROMPT: GET REKT  The Orbiters have noticed that some of the refugees really miss their video games. The technology in El Nysa could be much worse, but it definitely leaves much to be desired. Which is why, after expressing relief that everyone awoke safely, the Orbiters have decided to provide a little fun in the form of video game competitions. Anything from old-timey arcade machines to state-of-the-art computers, consoles, and VR headsets (though you may be a little tired of VR right now...) is available, and yes, they have your favorite games! Enjoy PAC-MAN, Starcraft 2, or perhaps Dance Dance Revolution! Teach a friend how to play. Get unnecessarily angry and competitive. Most importantly, have fun. Keep fourthwalling to a minimum, please. Recommended playing: QWOP PROMPT: OMAGE
Upon receiving your mobile phone, you will be asked to set a username. Voila, you can now access the network! You can choose to send a message to the entire network, specific usernames, or you can try out the Orbiters’ service, Omage, which connects you to a random user. They thought this might be a good way for their new guests to make friends with each other...
Connecting to server... PROMPT: WILDCARD
You are welcome to write any scenarios in Thesa Station! Characters have been granted temporary access to the Observation Room, and are encouraged to study it carefully.
FINAL OOC NOTE
Please give toplevel priority to prospective characters! Current characters wishing to thread these scenarios with other current characters are encouraged to create separate logs. However, threads between 2 current characters are not eligible for Natha Orbiter REP.
These threads may be carried over as game canon if players choose! Players are encouraged to submit TDM threads as application samples, but they are not required. Please direct any OOC questions to the questions thread below! A TDM thread of AC length may be submitted HERE for 2 NATHA ORBITER REPUTATION POINTS. Current players may submit their thread at any time, and prospective players may submit a thread after acceptance. Please note that threads must contain at least five (5) log comments from your character. A toplevel counts as a comment. Network threads are not eligible.
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He holds his hand over his heart because it aches to know that he had been unable to help in the end. Unable to help someone that didn't even exist. He doesn't want to accept that. He wants to dig his heels in and be stubborn about it.
"It was. They were. They were real here." He thumps his chest. "It was real." He frowns a little. "And you. Who are you to tell me differently. You can't even show your face. You go by a number. I refuse to believe a stranger. What do you know! I think they are real. They are alive and they are somewhere. And I will find them and I will help them!"
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The distrust is understandable, but he finds himself frustrated by it all the same. There's an easy way to give Reinhardt a wake-up call, but if he takes off his visor now it might be too much to dump on him when he's already dealing with a lot. He'll give it a little time.
"Follow me, I'll show you," he says, keeping his calm in the face of Reinhardt's insistence. He makes for the exit from the simulation room. The door slides open, and he waits for Reinhardt in the hallway. There's nothing here that resembles where they just were. It's all sleek, futuristic, a far cry from the snowy mountains they'd ventured to in the simulation.
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So when 76 goes to leave, Reinhardt follows. He follows because he has to. Standing in that room gives him no answers and doesn't get him any closer to getting back to the people who needed his help. If following this man gets him to that faster, he will. But he no longer trusts him. Reinhardt shifts so that when they walk, 76 is on his sighted side. He's sacrificing his safety from the unknown to keep an eye on the smaller man.
The hall looks so damn strange. His frown deepens as he takes it all in. "Where the hell am I?"
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The hope is that the further away they get from the simulation, both physically and mentally, the more willing Reinhardt will be to let it go. There's a chance he could enter the simulation again, if he really wanted, but it wouldn't help anything. It's little more than an escape from the awful reality facing them, at this point.
"It's called Thesa Station," he says. He's noticed the way that Reinhardt has positioned himself next to him, and the lack of trust isn't exactly surprising. "As in, a space station." He's fully prepared to be met with disbelief, so he starts down the hall. "There's proof, since I'm not expecting you to just take me at my word."
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"And why am I in a space station? Why would they take me here and make me believe things that aren't true? What sort of nefarious plans do that have for me? If this is some sort of trick to make me turn from my path, I won't fall for it."
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"A giant storm destroyed all of our worlds. The people in charge here recovered us in the aftermath, and you were in stasis until you'd healed enough that they could wake you up. Apparently they thought the simulation would help all of you regain consciousness." He shrugs, because it's not like it makes any more sense to him than it will to Reinhardt. But they hadn't had much choice, just like everything about this place.
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He doesn't want to lose hope. Lose the only drive he has, but hearing that their world is gone and that so many had died for...nothing. That innocent people had been obliterated without any chance of helping them. It hurts and his hand goes to clutch his chest a little.
"How many?" His hand drops and he squares his shoulders like he's about to take up his shield. "How many did they save?"
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"It's hard to say. There's a part of this station that houses all of the stasis pods. You can take a look there. It's massive." He could mention that he'd found Reinhardt there and had maybe even visited him a few times, but not quite yet. Even when Reinhardt knows who he is, he probably won't admit it.
They've reached the observation room, and 76 pauses for a moment outside of the door, glancing over his shoulder at Reinhardt's imposing presence. "Brace yourself," is all he says before the door slides open and he leads them inside. Before them is a large viewing window, allowing them to see the blackness of space outside. El Nysa takes up a good portion of the view, but beyond it there's still plenty to take in.
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But he had no cause right now. He had no one and nothing to fight for. He was again just an old man, with everything torn from him...again. He wants to go back. Go back to that fake world where he had a purpose. But he's a knight and knights didn't run away. He had to face this. Face this with a stranger whose voice sounds so damn familiar yet out of place at the same time.
So he braces and there is a vast empty nothing of space and that planet. His hand drops and he steps, one, two, he's at the glass and his hands press to it, framing the planet. He stares at it a long moment and his shoulders relax. Everything seems to click into place and he turns to give the stranger in the visor a smile. "Is that it? Is that the place were I am to be going? Do you think they need knights there?" Because 76 has just given him a new cause. Before him sits a whole world for him to help.
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He isn't entirely sure how Reinhardt is going to react to the view, and the silence is something that Jack finds uncomfortable, as he shifts his weight from one leg to the other and watches his old friend. The first time he'd looked through this glass, he hadn't handled it well, but Reinhardt always manages to surprise.
Do you think they need knights there, he asks, and Jack can't quite help the strained smile behind the mask. Some things never change.
"More than you'd guess. You'll see when you get down there." There's still a lot more to explain, but they're alone here now, and Jack knows that he needs to make his move. He lets out a breath. "There's... something else I need to show you first, though." Here it is, the moment he's been dreading, even if he's already gone through it with a few of the others. His stomach turns queasily all the same.
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"I suppose I will see." He pushes away from the window and returns to looking at the other man. "Something else. I suppose I've come this far. You've not steered me wrong. So, I'll come with you again and see what you need me to see." He thinks it's another thing, like the planet.
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Reinhardt will no doubt have a reaction to this, whether it's anger or relief or both, whether or not Jack says something. Yet it still seems like he should be able to find some words.
"I haven't been entirely honest with you, Reinhardt." Not during their short interaction here, or during the long years back home. Either way, it should be pretty clear now why he'd seemed so familiar.
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Reinhardt can only stand there, staring. Staring and slack jawed. His hand clenches slowly at his side as his brain comes to terms with what his eye is showing him.
It's Jack.
Years older. More scars. Less hair. But still completely unmistakable.
Jack.
Jack is here. Jack, whose empty coffin he buried, whose eulogy he gave, whom he cried over bitterly alone where none of the surviving Overwatch could see him, was here standing in front of him.
His face crinkles in confusion. The last time he had seen Jack was when the man had signed off on his retirement papers and told him he had 24 hours to leave the Watchpoint. He hadn't been there. Hadn't been able to shield Jack when the Swiss Base exploded.
His failure is staring him right in the face.
Reinhardt's single eye fills with the tears he had sworn he had finished crying years ago. "Jack? That's...it's really you? You're alive?" He is trying to make sense of this. He struggles with it. "What year is it for you, Jack?" Because maybe...maybe these aliens had saved Jack from the explosion. Maybe it's still 2070 for Jack.
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Jack definitely can't handle the fact that Reinhardt's tearing up, and that those tears can be heard in his voice -- betrayed, confused, wanting nothing more than for all of this to somehow make sense. Reinhardt asks what year it is for Jack because he so badly wants to believe that someone he considered a friend wouldn't have hid this from him for so long, but he's wrong.
Maybe this act of betrayal will be enough to make Reinhardt realize, once and for all, that there's not enough of Jack Morrison left to support anymore.
As much as he'd rather leave the room and find some hole to crawl into, Jack has to finish this now that he's started it. It's not going to get any easier, but it's not like he hasn't pushed through plenty of other painful endeavors in the past. This might be pretty high on the list, though.
His head tilts up to finally meet Reinhardt's gaze again. "It's 2076, Reinhardt. Same as it is for you."
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The sorrow and pain in his voice makes his words quiver with how much he's holding himself back. "The same as it is for me..." Then he's stepping back to his original spot and his hands are in shaking fists at his sides.
"It's 2075, Jack. Brigitte and I just routed out a bunch of gang members from a town suffering under them. Brigitte and I have been fighting. Keeping the promise. Keeping the oath. And you...and you..." What's he supposed to say to this? To the fact that Jack's been alive all this time.
He takes a step forward and another as he speaks until he is right in front of his old friend. But he doesn't punch, instead, he reaches out to try and grab the man into a hug. Grab him to sob in relief (and a little anger, let's be honest) against his shoulder. "You're alive. You're really alive. It's you. Gott, it's you." Because however betrayed and angry he feels, the fact is that Jack is alive. After losing all the people he has lost, just having one back is a miracle he doesn't deserve.
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Reinhardt's found his own way to keep fighting, one that doesn't involve hunting down conspiracies and committing acts of terrorism. He would never resort to something like that. It's good to hear that Torbjörn's oldest has been with him. At least he's had someone.
The outburst of emotions is bad enough, but when Reinhardt reaches out for him, Jack has no idea what to do. Reinhardt's hand settles heavily on his shoulder and Jack goes completely stiff, digging his heels in to prevent being dragged any closer to him. There's relief in Reinhardt's voice more than anything else. He's glad to see Jack, even if Jack isn't the same man he'd known for so many years.
He can picture the funeral footage in his mind's eye. Reinhardt standing before a large crowd, regal in his suit as he fought back tears and gave a eulogy. This man had suffered years of grief, but Jack had repeated the mantra to himself: it's better this way, it's better this way.
"Not just me," he says, the words blurted out as he searches for any way to take the attention off of him. Even if that means throwing Ana under the bus. She'd made it clear that she was willing to reveal her secrets to anyone else from Overwatch who might awaken. "Ana's here too." Ana survived too.
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But he is not in prison. He's right here and Jack is here as well. Jack is here and Reinhardt can't stop crying. The tears just fall from his one good eye. The tears he had choked back when he had given that eulogy. A speech not about Morrison, the Hero, but Jack, the man. He had held them back then because the rest of them, the ones that survived, had needed someone to be strong.
Now, he doesn't have to be so. He can cry openly, aware of just how pathetic he must look, shaking hands on these bracing shoulders as one side of his face goes wet. He allows himself to do this though. How can he not.
And then the other shoe drops.
His hands go suddenly slack and then fall away. He steps back. One and then another, head shaking.
Ana... Her death had hit everyone so hard. It had been the domino that had started the inevitable fall. Just months after Ana's coffin had been put into the ground, they'd lost Jesse and Genji, both AWOL. He had been summarily kicked out. Not even a year later, Gabriel and Jack had fallen too. And it all started with Ana.
Ana...whom he had...
"She's really...alive?" He doesn't want to believe it, but Jack's right there, so why couldn't she also be here. And somehow that hurts even more. Reinhardt finds himself wishing Jack would have left him in the simulation. "Who else..." He knows he's being irrational. "Who else? Reyes? Lacroix? Next thing you'll tell me is that Balderich is growing old in Russia! And all this time. All. This. Time..."
He stops his backward motion, now more than two arms lengths away. "....Why Jack?"
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When Reinhardt asks about Reyes, Jack goes tense, but he doesn't know if he can get into that right now. It's one thing to discuss Ana, who is here and who is still herself. Trying to explain what happened to Gabriel is a completely different issue, and he thinks that they've already gone through enough turmoil for one conversation.
It's selfish, but it's other people who had insisted that he was perfect and flawless, not him.
"I can't speak for Ana," he says with a shake of his head. "But I didn't know about her until recently, either." He doesn't know whether or not that will actually make Reinhardt feel better, but maybe it will help to know that he and Ana hadn't decided together to keep this from him.
"Overwatch was a mistake," he says, his own tone and expression remaining almost artificially neutral in comparison to Reinhardt's outpouring. "I didn't want anyone repeating it. So it was better if I just... stayed away."
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His heart that shatters just a little more when he's told that they had been a mistake. The organization that had wanted Balderich, that had become his family, that had done so much good...a mistake.
Anger flairs. "You know that's not true! What we were doing, it was good. Important! How many more people would have suffered and died if we hadn't been there! What we did. What it was. It wasn't a mistake! What we believed in, what we fought for, it wasn't a mistake. It wasn't then and it isn't now! I still believe in it, Jack." If he didn't, he'd likely had remained retired. But no, he had returned to act as the shield for all who needed it, where ever he went. A promise kept. "I still believe in the good that we did. I still believe in Overwatch." He pauses and takes a deep breath. He takes a breath and he lets all the hurt he feels go. Forgiveness is so much easier than anger. "I still believe in you."
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It doesn't feel like it was worth it to him, anymore. Not when his life fell apart around him and he lost everything. Not when one of his best friends is still lost to him, twisted into something horrible and angry.
Reinhardt's final words are the ones that seem to pierce right through him, though. If Jack weren't so tired, maybe he would have yelled back, told Reinhardt that he was idealistic to a fault and that he believed too much in things that were broken, and that one day it would be the death of him. But he can't seem to muster any of that up, much as he might try. Much as he knows it would be better if he broke this bridge for good and pushed Reinhardt away.
"There's nothing to believe in anymore," he says quietly, with a shake of his head. He runs a hand down his face, over his scars. "It's all gone, don't you get it?"
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Even if it was broken. Even if it ended up breaking him in the process. As he had been told long ago, his legacy was his deeds.
Reinhardt's frown deepens. "I get that. I get that's it's all gone. Our world...everything and everyone in it, it's all gone. Nothing can be done to change that." He sounds so hurt by that notion too. How many hadn't he been able to save? "But that doesn't mean that what we stood for is gone. Protecting the people, helping the helpless, saving those in need, these are things that don't change. Justice and the good we do, it follows after us. And even if there is only one man who still believes, that is one man more than zero. So when I go down there, know that I will keep right on doing that. And know that if you need me, I will don my armor to help you." Because like it or not, Jack, Reinhardt has already decided, and he's decided to have your back and believe.
no subject
He isn't ready to go back to trying to save the world like Reinhardt is suggesting, either. He's not Jack Morrison anymore, but a washed-out relic who'd rather focus on digging up the secrets that this world must also have.
"No one's going to stop you from doing that," he says with a shake of his head, before moving back to the viewing window where El Nysa hangs in the blackness below them. "I'm sure you'll find plenty of people who need your help." In a way, Jack is envious of Reinhardt. Once he's settled and has people to protect, he'll be content, or at least feel fulfilled by what he's doing. Jack, on the other hand, doesn't think he'll ever be able to fill in the hole that Overwatch left in him. It had been a part of him, and so that part of him had died along with it. Not that he really knows how to put any of that into words.
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He had put his armor on again because he had nothing else in the world. He didn't have conspiracies to chase. He didn't have deeper secrets to uncover. All he had was a promise to a dying man. He would keep that promise. No matter how much it hurt him. No matter how much he suffered because of it. It's all he had left.
"I hope they won't. But I want you to know something Jack..." He turns to face the man, face seriously. "Know that no matter what, I will help you as well." He not only forgives this man for the lying and the hiding, but he's more than ready to jump in the line of fire for him. "My shield is yours." Even if he didn't have his armor, something at the moment, he's still unsure came with him, he would find a way to watch this man's back when he needed it. Somehow. It's not like they have an active comm system anymore.
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Jack had figured even Reinhardt would need some time to be angry with him, a few days to work through the shock and the sense of betrayal. Instead, he's already pledging himself, offering his shield like there isn't this huge chasm between them.
Maybe Reinhardt knows how to cross it, but Jack's at a complete loss.
He stares up at his old friend with a tired gaze, searching for words that left him a long time ago. For so many years, he'd been good at offering the right response to everything. Now it's all turned to ash in his throat.
"I'm pretty sure there are other people more in need of your shield than me," he eventually replies.
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It's all he has. Because if he get angry at Jack, he knows he'll never stop being angry. He'll never stop being hurt and betrayed by this. It's not a way that Reinhardt wants to live. Instead he sees that tired gaze and reaches out. Reaches to give the man he once called his commander a squeeze on the shoulder.
"That may well be true, but you are my friend Jack. And that still means something to me. So just remember that. Just remember that and once I'm down there, I promise I won't forget you." He really does mean that.
lmk if this is okay... assumes all the things
is good~
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