izunia lucis callout

[founderinglight]

you will pry twinzunia from my cold dead hands let's do this

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[founderinglight]

One desperately seeking a family of his own again, in all likelihood.

[You tries to be flippant but got a real answer, Junpei, no wonder Ardyn thinks he has no sense of humor.]

Time displacement?

[misanthropicprinciple]

[Hey, that's fine, you know what Junpei does with real answers and serious questions? He ups the flippancy. There must be balance in the Force.]

Oh, we met while kidnapped interdimensionally through space and time to some galaxy roughly five forty-five hundred years in my future. I don't even know what it'd work out to for you guys from Eos.

[founderinglight]

...Possibly nothing at all, if it was in your universe. You might be dividing by zero to try to manage time across realities.

[misanthropicprinciple]

I don't think it's in my universe exactly. Just a handful fewer timelines removed from my history than yours, since Earth is still definitely a thing there and Eos is probably considered intellectual property of InterGal 7.

[founderinglight]

Oh no, surely not. Copyright law.

[He says it so tonelessly it's hard to tell if that's a joke or if he legitimately does hate copyright law.]

What's your Earth like, then?

[misanthropicprinciple]

Not that different from what Eos is like around Noct and that blond kid's time, from what I can tell. Except we don't have daemons, magic, or chocobos, and most of our wildlife isn't big enough to eat us. And gods just stay inside religion where they belong.

[founderinglight]

...That sounds almost boring.

[misanthropicprinciple]

Don't worry, we still fight monsters. They just happen to be the human kind.

[founderinglight]

[Bitter snort. Oh, he's all too familiar with that kind.]

A world where my only useful skill is politics somehow seems even more depressing, put like that.

[misanthropicprinciple]

Well, are you good at escape rooms? Or math? If not, killing people is still pretty marketable, I don't think Lucians ever have to worry about that job market drying up.

[founderinglight]

[Junpei might be surprised at how he lights up.]

Oh, I'm very good at math.

[Better than his player, actually, who stalled out at calculus.]

Before... everything, I expected to wind up in magitek research somewhere. The theory side, not the engine building side like Ardyn always preferred.

[misanthropicprinciple]

Theory? Ew.

[Talk about boring, geez. Junpei snorts and raises the brandy.]

Okay, then I guess maybe you'd have had a shot at getting thrown into a death game with the esper kids in case they don't have the STEM background to solve time travel before incineration. Exciting enough for you?

[founderinglight]

When the knowledge of the theory comes through in the application of magical explosions, I imagine you'd enjoy it a little more.

[He knows physics, therefore he's good at warping and big booms.]

...Exciting, and yet I feel the need to express that there is something deeply fucking wrong with it.

[misanthropicprinciple]

Hey, congrats, you pass the 'having a vague sense of common human decency' test! Not everyone does.

[But it's not like he's bitter or anything. Definitely not why he takes another drink.]

[founderinglight]

[Honestly? No wonder he drinks. Izunia considers his soda briefly before flipping the bottle into the Armiger and pulling out a hard cider instead.

What's he even supposed to say to that?]

...You certainly fit in fine with this family, if you're used to dealing with that.

[misanthropicprinciple]

Yeah, counting the non-psychic-related televised murder party I was in with Ardyn, I've been in... three? Yeah, three of these life-or-death games.

[And a fourth on the horizon. And a fifth in an alternate future.]

But who's counting?

[founderinglight]

[No one has explained jack or shit to this version of Izunia and honestly Junpei's version will probably be more coherent anyway.]

I feel as though I don't wish to know, and yet I have to ask anyway.

[misanthropicprinciple]

Eh, it's whatever. Some people play piano or rule kingdoms, some people survive murder games. We all have a calling. Doesn't need to be overly traumatic.

[Says Junpei, taking one last pull of brandy before finally setting the bottle down.]

...You want me to start with the third one? He made it out fine. Better than he started, even.

[founderinglight]

...I suppose my bias is obvious.

[Yes hello of fucking course he wants to hear about how the fuck his brother the incarnation of spite and loathing wound up adopting a kid? Who do you think you're talking to?]

[misanthropicprinciple]

[Excuse you, he adopted a fucking adult, thanks much? Junpei will be twenty-three next month. He taps his fingers against the side of the bottle before he starts.]

There were twenty of us kidnapped from different worlds and times, trapped in a mansion in outer space for what we were told was a reality show. In a way, that's true; what we did there was broadcast to an intergalactic audience. Billions of watchers, I think. Something like that. But they don't know we're not actors. That real people are stolen away, any natural powers they have inhibited to prevent escape on their own terms, and told that if they want out, they have to kill someone and get away with it.

They also erased a significant portion of our memories. Dad lost about two thousand years, so you can probably imagine what that was like for him.

[founderinglight]

[The look on Izunia's face is calm interest until - oh god, yeah, he can figure that one out.]

They took the Accursed and gave you the healer.

[JUST GONNA LIKE. DOWN HALF HIS CIDER RIGHT NOW okay not really but he's almost tempted to get more brandy.]

[misanthropicprinciple]

He was still cursed as hell, though. So more like they made the Accursed think he was the healer. ...Except that's not exactly true either.

[He holds his hands up.]

Long story short, whatever they did to bring him back to life for the show didn't bring the Starscourge with him, but they wanted him to believe it was there, so for all intents and purposes, the effects were still in, uh. Effect. He didn't find out until later, but I guess you'll be happy to know the guy is certified Scourge-free.

[founderinglight]

...

[There's silence and... Izunia pulls his arms close to himself in what's clearly a gesture of self-reassurance, one hand reaching around to grip the other elbow while the other clutches his bottle of cider.]

It's... actually too much to handle, emotionally.

[The primary ingredient of that emotional cocktail might in fact be simple relief.]

...Please, continue.

[misanthropicprinciple]

...If you're sure.

[If the man wants to push through it, Junpei isn't anyone to tell him to take a break.]

He was the first person I met there. They took my memory of the second game I was in, but not the first, so waking up in a strange place with other hostages and a foreign object attached to all our arms? Did not make me a happy camper.

[He lifts his left arm, the one that's still human, the one with the P.I.P. still locked on.]

I tried to rip the thing off, it shocked me, and Ardyn tried to help when I hit the gravel. ...Pretty sure I mistrusted him on sight, but to be fair, you guys bear kind of a weird resemblance to a kidnapping, child-murdering asshole I've met before. Hard for me to shake off the comparison.

[founderinglight]

[Izunia has pushed through many ill-advised things, Junpei. It is hard to imagine that what you have to say is anything worse than the things he's done.]

Ever the helpful one... I almost can't remember, sometimes.