aterat | [Audio] - Backdated to the beginning of the event because I've been slow

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[Audio] - Backdated to the beginning of the event because I've been slow

(ooc: Hello! I am happy to say Mono saw one of your characters memories if you tag this, because I think he probably would have run into a lot and not known what to do. I just picked through a few that I think would grab his interest to start from the lists people provided. This is also a good place to have your character approach him about seeing one of his. They can even talk back and forth about each other’s memories if we want to say they both saw each other’s.)

[Mono was…

Well, he was panicking a little.

Or a lot. It was hard to tell with him sometimes, most of the time he expressed vague discomfort and an honest opinion about something he didn’t like.

Today was a little different. He’d been running messages for work when all this started, and at first it hadn’t been too bad. Confusing, yes, but not too bad… But then it started to pile up. Too many memories, too many feelings that didn’t make sense to the child. He doesn’t like it, not one bit. It’s hard enough to try to figure feelings and how things should be, without this.

And he was pretty sure he wasn’t supposed to see any of these things. This all felt like it was private. Private thoughts. Private feelings. Experiences that if he were these people? He’d want to forget they happened for the most part… The bad ones, at least.

So he’d halted his deliveries in a panic and found a place to hide until it all hopefully passed, but he had questions… Oh boy, did he have questions.]

I don’t know what’s going on, but I don’t like it! Where are all these things coming from? Why’s the sky throwing other people's thoughts and feelings at me?

[The static interference is a lot stronger today. So perhaps it was easier to tell he was panicking. Mono’s emotions were not in check.]

It feels really bad to see all these things! ‘Cause I didn’t mean to look at people's thoughts, I don’t even mean just the bad stuff! [A pause and his tone gets very dark as he mumbled.] even if I’m really mad at the stuff I saw happening to my friends… I want bad stuff to happen to the person who was mean to Tommy and also that creepy guy with Illyana…

But even the nice stuff…?? Some people come from such different places, even from here and it’s… It’s all so weird and confusing?? Some people aren’t even the same as they are now, so I think they were older… Like Mr. Rhy was really small in one of the ones I saw! Like me! But not… It was really nice, like a castle in the fairy tales. [A pause,] And some of it’s not even really people?? Just feelings? Aren’t these things supposed to stay in our own heads, not in crystals?

[Another static filled pause occurs as something crosses the boy's mind…]

And I don’t want people to see where I’m from.

[Because no one should see that place.]

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[Ever since the rain of crystals had started and Tommy had been treated to a brief glimpse of Illyana and Belasco (who he had his own bone to pick with but that's another day), Tommy had been in action. He'd shut down the business for the day, returned fees, and done everything he could to get each one of his kid employees somewhere safe, with food as well to get them through at least the day.

Tommy was more experienced than just about anyone here at the traumas of experiencing someone else's life after all.

But damn if he hadn't had a shit ton of trouble trying to find Mono. And now, with the message, he doesn't even CARE about the implications that Mono saw some of the fucked up shit of his childhood. All he cared about was getting to the kid.]

Tell me where you are. I'll get you back to your room. I promise. Help me find you, Mono.

[That was the thing about Mono, the child was very good at hiding thanks to where he came from. Kids who did not know how to hide well didn’t tend to last long. His eyes darted to the tell-phone again as Tommy’s familiar voice came through. What he’d seen of Tommy’s memories… It made him so very angry, so upset to see someone he cared about hurt at all.]

Tommy...?

[As he answered, the static continued to come out in loud bursts across the feed.]

At the docks... Was making a delivery to one of the places there, found some crates to hide in so the stuff doesn’t fall on me anymore.

[He's happy it isn't a monster even if he isn't too happy about the memories of his own and others being exposed. Six of one, half dozen of the other as the expression went he supposed.]

They are indeed supposed to stay rather private. However, if you wish to take something positive from it, it gives you a sense of compassion as to what others have gone through to become the fine people that you know now.

[It was the only positive spin he had.]

And I do share your sentiments regarding what needs to come back around.

[Ignis definitely understood revenge.]

[It's been quite a long time since Mono had been in this particular state of upset. It was rarer these days, this world (for all its strangeness) was more pleasant than his and people were so kind to him… Which is probably why some of these memories were hitting so hard, compounded with the multitude of feelings and emotions he wasn't used to and did not understand. So while on some level, the child probably understood Ignis was trying to help by pointing out the positive things to take from all this… A lot of it wasn’t connecting properly.

Mono was alone, overwhelmed and a little… Unbalanced at the moment.]

It just makes me mad! They shouldn’t have been hurt to begin with! Everyone kept telling me adults are supposed to take care of kids and protect them!! It always made me feel weird because that's not how it is where I'm from! And it's not even true! There are terrible adults everywhere!!

[Static crackled angrily across the feed, snapping and popping more loudly than usual and obscuring the child's voice somewhat.]

They should have to hurt like the ones they hurt. I’d make them hurt if I were there…

Do what you can to mark it from the outside without getting another crystal. I'll be there. I'll find you.

[His voice is firm and strong, in ways he never was around his kids unless someone threatened one of them around him. He was, after all, a super hero.]

I promise you'll be safe.

I’m trying. I don’t want anything else in my head!

[Static crackled, obscuring the boy’s voice for a moment.]

It’s all confusing and bad... So much stuff I saw makes me so angry! Like I should do something, but I can't! If I had been there, I would have...

Well, keep knocking the side. I'm going to be there in a second.

[Tommy didn't like the idea that Mono was angry possibly for him. So he stops thinking. He flips his collar up, sends his boyfriend a text to let him know that he might be home later, and then raced to the docks to find his friend.]

I will!

[Mono was absolutely angry for Tommy... He hated to have seen how people treated him, that people could be so cruel. Mono hadn't felt quite this upset in a long time, not since he'd been in his own world.

But he began knocking on the side of the overturned crate he was hiding in, as odd as that seemed to do. Usually when he was hiding, he tried to avoid making sound... This was different, though.]

[Tommy doesn't respond. He's not need to because a few minutes later he's knocking back.]

Mono, kid?

[Mono started a little when the knocking was returned, but then he heard Tommy's voice outside the box.]

Tommy??

[He turned off the tell-phone, which ended the static interference across the feed, and carefully raised the edge of the crate a little to peer out.]

I'm right here!

Come on out. I'll shield you myself.

[Because there is nothing else he can offer.]

Let me take you home.

[What? Mono stayed right where he was for a moment. He wanted to go home, and he wanted to not end up with more memories from people, but...]

But then you might get hit by more of those things! And you already had to deal with a lot of bad stuff. Maybe... Maybe I should just stay here and it'll stop, eventually.

[Clearly the kid hadn't thought about this when Tommy said he'd find him.]

I've been through this a lot, Mono. I can handle it. Promise. And we'll talk about the bad things later. But right now? I'm out in the rain. And I'm going to stay here until I get you to agree. So you get to make up your mind.

Mono was silent for a moment. If Tommy was just going to stand there in the rain, then he might get hit with a memory anyway... And he was going to get cold pretty fast from the regular rain.

Right. This would just make Tommy suffer more, and then Mono would have to be mad at himself, too. So he lifted the side of the crate finally and darted over. “Okay, but you gotta do your fast thing so you maybe avoid more of them.” That made sense... right?

"Of course," Tommy agreed, scooping the boy into his arms. His free hand curled around Mono's head to keep it stable, and then he moved. Bolted with great speed and within moments he was stepping into the Gray building.

"This is all shit today."

[He wasn't sure why the boy was so upset but obviously this was pulling strings on him that Ignis couldn't see, nor could he have known about.]

Indeed it is rather upsetting and you're quite right, no one should've been hurt like that and there are terrible adults everywhere.

[But even with acknowledging that, he wondered at the layers and depths to the boy. But he tried to be the voice of reason as he usually was.]

I completely understand and your feelings are valid, but this is their past and it can't be changed. And unfortunately the responsible parties aren't here.

If this were a normal day, Mono would have been in awe of that. Well… He still was, of course. That had been amazing, after all. But he was just relieved to be back indoors, where nothing else could get dumped in his head.

It didn’t stop the anger at what he’d seen, no, but it was still… Better.

It was hard to not agree with him. “It is shit!” Hey, Mono’s first swear… But the kid was upset, and Tommy had summed it up nicely. “How’s it even doing that! How’s the stuff in our heads getting out like that???” And, the child rounded on Tommy with a rather intense expression. “And that stuff that happened to you! I thought adults in other worlds were supposed to be nicer and take care of kids! What was that place!?”

There are small blessings in the fact that Aterat was different enough from world’s like his that his abilities didn’t seem to work beyond the phone interference. Otherwise, he’d have been breaking things before Tommy got to him.

[Ignis’s words were rational and logical, yes… But Mono was not in a rational, logical frame of mind. The child had already been one bad day away from becoming the biggest problem in his world, and if he had full access to his abilities here? Things might have been getting broken.]

That doesn’t make me feel better… [And he wasn’t sure how it was supposed to. The static jumped again as he tried to figure out how that was supposed to be helpful, but it only frustrated him as he tried to sort through the jumble of emotions and thoughts rolling around in his head.] There’s too much stuff in my head and feelings don’t make sense like this.

[Another low electric hum and a crackle. Unless he could get his emotions under control, this was going to be a problem for a while.]

I’m tired of having to watch friends and other kids being hurt or put in bad places! That’s all there is in my world, bad places and people that hate me and other kids. That are barely people anymore! [Admittedly, Mono was saying more than he meant to.] It made me feel weird when people acted like that wasn’t normal! But at least it seemed like maybe there were places without that stuff! But there’s not.

Wow, but that was a curse, yeah. But in the end he shrugged.

"I don't know. In the last place it happened because it was all connected to our minds. But I don't know about this," Tommy admitted. BUt he winced at what Mono said about him.

"Uh, you're... you're going to have to be more specific, Mono," he said, a bit ashamed of that. Could well be something in the Sphere, or even with his parents. But he thought he could probably pin it on Super Juvie.

“So you’re used to it happening…?” What if it happened more here, too?

Mono’s eyes sharpened considerably at Tommy’s next words. “More specific? That means that more stuff than the kinda stuff I saw happened??” No, the kid doesn’t like that at all. Nope. He liked this and the situation less and less the more they spoke. “I don’t know where you were. But wasn’t a good place…” He shook his head a little as he continued, “There was someone making you go somewhere you didn’t wanna go.”

And the more words he said, the darker the kid’s tone got. “And you were really upset… You were scared before it ended…!” And that had been scary in itself, both the vivid residual emotions and the fact that he’d seen someone like Tommy scared.

"Yeah, I'm used to memories happening, and I don't like it that it's starting here either," Tommy sighed.

But at least what Mono says does explain something. Super Juvie. Well that blew.

"Yeah, that... was a while ago," Tommy sighed, fingers pulling at his hair for a moment. "But my brother came and got me."

Which wasn't exactly true in the way he was implying, but it would be enough he hoped.

Mono waited, seeming to expect more of an explanation than that… Well, it wasn’t like the kid knew if it was polite or not to ask about these things. He just knew that Tommy had been in trouble and hurting and he didn’t like it… “Why were you even in a place like that? Who made you go there?” Because clearly that hadn’t been Tommy’s choice, the kid couldn’t imagine going somewhere like that willingly… Even when they had to go through dangerous places in his world, it wasn’t because they wanted to so much as that they had to.

Yes, it helped to know that Tommy’s brother got him out, but that didn’t make having been there in the first place any better.

Yeah, he knows he might need a better explanation, but... Fuck. How did he explain how horrible people could be to each other at his home?

"I... accidentally did something bad, and so I was taken away from it," Tommy answered, his voice soft. "It's not a happy story, Mono."

Mono. Mono.

[His voice is calm even as a slight panic twists at his chest. He doesn't know what's happening but he knows how hard it could be on a child. It isn't fair for him to have to be opened up without his own consent.] Hey. Listen to me. It's Jacob. It'll be okay.

I don't know what's going on or if we can stop it but there are people here to protect you. I've been gathering up crystals but trying not to look at them. I might have some of yours too. They'll be out of sight once I figure out how to get rid of them. And there are others trying to help you too.

You aren't alone.

[He has seen some of Momo's memories in his efforts but he doesn't think it's best to focus on that now.]

Tell me where you are. We can find somewhere safe. You don't have to experience these emotions okay and don't feel bad for it. It isn't your fault.

Mono didn’t think it would be a happy story. It was pretty obvious to the kid. And… Well, again, what Tommy was saying wasn’t making him any less angry on his behalf. “If it was an accident why would they take you somewhere so bad?? Accidents aren’t something you do on purpose or anything!” Maybe other worlds were more like his than everyone had led him to believe… Well, less… deadish, perhaps, but still full of bad things.

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[Audio] - Backdated to the beginning of the event because I've been slow

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I'm so sorry, Ignis ;;

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