maskormenace | ★ 002

[Since her hotel hostage adventure had gone south, Lourdes has been laying low - not out of a desire to look repentant (she isn't, and she sees no reason why she should pretend that she is), but because she's been sulking. Her powers are gone, which is both horrible and a relief, and she's on probation, which she considers a joke.

But what she's most upset about is that it hadn't worked. She's not at all surprised that she'd been caught, and she'd always figured that it would happen eventually - but before that, when she'd been in the hotel with everybody, it hadn't done anything to make her happy, which had been her main goal in the first place. It hadn't been like Hearst Castle, or even the Horizon. It had been meaningless, just like everything else in the world.

She waits a while before turning to the network. She hasn't actually been planning to address this in any way - not to explain herself, and certainly not to apologize. But one evening when she's sitting around in her apartment, angrily glaring at the tattoo on her wrist, she fires it up and says something on a whim.]

It was for their own good.

[She has no idea how far news of the takeover has spread, or if most of the people who hear this will even know what she's talking about. That's okay. She doesn't care.]

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You hate it, though.

I don't care.

[But she sounds less sure of herself now than she ever has when saying it in the past.]

Edited 2015-10-04 20:16 (UTC)

[There's a light shrug at that.]

Well. Humans as a whole really aren't worth caring about. Hang the gods too, if you ask me. Aliens as well.

And you may be right, there may not be a way to fight. But what you care about is all that really defines you. Whatever plan you make... figure that out first... and then carve that into everything in your way. That's what I'd do.

I don't think I'm going to make a plan.

[He really shouldn't be this frustrated. It's not like that world or this one should mean anything to him. But for the last few days EVERYTHING has seemed interrelated and terribly personal.]

Nothing, then?

Why should I do anything? What do I owe the world?

Why should it be my job?

The world? Not even the first thing. The concept of greater good is full of it.

But it's not making you happy.

I thought this would. It did before.

[... Sort of.]

I don't think anything can make me happy now.

[For a moment his expression pinches into anger, then it simply washes down into exhaustion.]

"Then, get even" has always been my go-to. But I can't exactly say it works out well.

How? I can't defeat them.

If you met them, you'd understand. They're the most terrifying creatures in the universe.

What do they do? I mean, besides the whole soul eating thing.

Possess people. When I met them they were in the bodies of a little boy and his grandparents. Then one of them killed the grandfather to find a stronger host.

[She's leaving out one - the very first alien she'd met. But Okoya is the sorest of subjects to her, and anyway, she still doesn't know what to make of her (his? its?) host.]

[HA HA HA POSSESSION. He grimaces at that.]

I wonder if they'd be susceptible to charmspeak.

They wouldn't be. They're above everything.

[He nods at that, simply accepting it as possible.]

How many are there?

Thr-- four so far, but one is weak and not allied with the others. The rest will come soon. Their own world is dying; they need a place to go.

I wonder if you could turn the weak one against the rest.

They'd crush him and nothing would change.

Not like that. Some battles you can't win straight forward...

Eh... I'm shooting blind here. But if they weren't scared of anything, why would they need you?

They need what I can do.

Just for convenience?

I guess so. They can only control people when they're inside them.

[That's one weakness...]

Can they just leave bodies or does the host need to be killed?

Edited 2015-10-11 18:32 (UTC)

I'm not sure. When other, less evolved parasites from the same dimension infected us, we survived. But it might be different with this species, or with regular humans.

[He grins.]

Then hypothetically ... could you order the host body to fall into a coma?

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