There's always a lighthouse

[wheremst]

And just like that, you wake up in the basement of a lighthouse in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. There's a circle of 25 pods in the middle of the room, and two more in a room off to the side, and you can imagine who is in which.

An elevator to the side of the room leads up to the ground floor (or to the first sub-basement, if you want to check out the machine that brought you here), where you can for the first time in weeks look out a window and see the sky. Its a beautiful sunny day, with a strong breeze on the grassy ground of the island where the lighthouse stands. Have you ever been this happy to hear seagulls?

You're free. Whatever comes next, you're free and you won. Take some time to relish your victory, won't you? Reunite with friends you thought you had lost, go forth and just... well, enjoy this.

Comments

[wheremst]

Just so long as you leave bringing the rest of VILE down to us. You still want him shot over to you, right?

[fivestagegod]

Trust me, I am the last person to insist on coming along to bring down the big bad criminal organization. The rest of them are yours to do what you want with.

But yeah, that'd be appreciated as far as he goes. I actually hate him a lot less than the others do, so I'm not going to kill him or anything. I noticed you seem pretty big on the nonlethal.

[wheremst]

Yeah, not a big fan. But if they're all okay with you taking care of him, I'm not going to complain as long as he doesn't cause more trouble.

[fivestagegod]

...It's complicated. He grabbed me at a really convenient time, I would have died and done some really hideous things to my family if he hadn't dragged me into this. So I owe him for that much.

[He does not find the order in which that's presented as being odd. He would have died and then done the hideous shit.]

Granted, he also proceeded to do all of this to me, so sending him off to a world he's going to absolutely hate with no way to get ahead in life and no way to do more things like this? Seems pretty good to me.

[wheremst]

[ Listen. Other worlds are weird, she knows and accepts this. She quirks an eyebrow at the phrasing, but doesn't say anything. ]

Yeah, can't imagine him liking any part of that. If you're up for it, then by all means.

[fivestagegod]

It's going to be the world's worst babysitting job, but it'll keep me busy.

[Anyway.]

It's good that we'll probably be able to see everyone again. I can't imagine everyone being entirely happy with it if we couldn't.

[Della might make The Face at him again. He might be contractually obligated to hug her. It would be horrible.]

[wheremst]

[ Absolutely terrible. Just the worst. ]

Yeah, I can say all I want about VILE, but they built a really solid interdimensional travel machine for me to steal for you guys.