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

[mouflon]

Jeez, you just can't let a nice compliment stay that way, can you? Well, I guess I shouldn't have expected anything else.

Do I want to know who the naysayers were?

[emberserker]

Father Kotomine was going on ad nauseam about it until he and Rhea broke into their fifth argument that night alone. Zelos, too, but in his case it might have been wishful thinking. Nobody surprising.

[mouflon]

[ ...Oh no. Oh no. Rin looks like she's trying very hard to hold her breath for a second, and then it all escapes at once, a snort of what is definitely amusement escaping through her nose. ]

What's that saying? "Hell is other people"? It sounds like both of them got about what they'd earned.

[emberserker]

You have no idea. We were trapped in the courtroom, as a group, for three days.

[mouflon]

[ That's... hilarious, but also terrible. ]

I can't even imagine what that must have been like, all things considered... How'd that happen in the first place?

[emberserker]

The Professor found us, that's how, and sent those agents and the cleaning staff to deal with us while the backup simulation was coming apart. We had to gather what files we could and escape into there.

[mouflon]

[ Woah, what? ]

Even the cleaning staff? [ ... ] What were they like?

[emberserker]

You know that calendar with the janitors? Those janitors. Apparently, the prize machine has a sense of humour. One of them had a gun, but the others carried batons or brooms if that.

[mouflon]

[ holy shit? holy shit??? ]

...I don't know if that's hilarious or horrifying, to be honest.

Speaking of the prize machine, though... Did you guys ever find out anything about it?

[emberserker]

Not a thing. I certainly didn't expect even the staff here not to know.