how can anything survive when these little minds tear you in two? [SEMI-OPEN]

[circumitus]

Who: Rey, her Doppelgänger, and VARIOUS (includes both open and closed starters in the comments).
What: Following the train of separate open logs over the Dead Ringers event. The timeline in the link is relatively loose but it covers the gist of things.
Where: Several corners of Hadriel.
When: January 16th-25th.
Warnings: Violence. Possible death and implications of sexual assault/innuendo. Manipulation. Rey is not a happy person by any means and does not have a very happy background. Feel free to check out the permissions post if you have any concerns beforehand.
Notes: If you're tagging in an open prompt, please be sure to indicate which day of the week it is in the subject line! Also I'll try to match whichever format you fancy.

---

I. January 16th-20th

She was created out of air. Not a construct from a lab, melded together by flesh and cells donated by two exceptional genetic donors.

Oh, ho, ho, it's magic, you know,
Never believe, it's not so.

Magic. At one point her other half would have chided at the very suggestion of such a thing existing. But time breeds experience, and experience inspires intrigue. Intrigue which turns into a little bit of curiosity. After all, her time here is limited, before returning to the ether where all the constructs inevitably go. So what's the use in fretting over details and results?

No, this is fun. Too much so for it to be short-lived any more than it already is meant to be. Thus, she keeps her distance, following her other half for some time before deciding to deviate. Good thing Rey is not one to maintain a diverse wardrobe, as looking the part is simple enough. Walking the part, talking the part, being the part is simple enough. It isn't the first time she has had to.

The only difference is the usual weapons she bears are different. One would have to be observant enough to notice the long machete at her hip in place of the kukri, the blade dissimilar in shape and curve. She'll make use of it, sooner or later...

For now, she can be found in some parts of the city: By the river, in the groves, or in alleyways, hacking and slashing at the air from which she was formed. The swift motions cutting through with a whistle as the blade makes effortless strikes with trained precision.

Just be careful where you step. Wouldn't want to get cut, would we?

Would we?

II. Wildcard

[ooc: If you have any other ideas in mind, just tag in whatever or contact me ahead of time, via plot comment, PM, or hit me up on plurk (citygrit) or discord (revalev#6927)!

Comments

January 17th (Closed to Rey and Firo's Doppelgänger)

[circumitus]

The fact that something seems to be amiss doesn't occur to Rey right away. The only thing that troubles her are the frequent feelings of being followed. Being stalked. She sleeps very little as it is, but even less so now with the lingering presence of something standing over her, or peering through the window. Watching her.

Maybe drowning her paranoia at the bar is the last thing she should be doing, but Rey is beyond caring at this point. She hasn't slept, and the weight of her insomnia is pulling her down as it is. With every bottle, she begins to care less and less.

Rey doesn't even bother fussing over that repeating sense of suspicion when the bar door opens. She is into far too many drinks for that now.

[foundafamily]

There are many ways to kill someone. For this situation, double Firo is certain that the best way to kill his original is to do it through the heart. Fortunately for him, the original has left plenty of obvious weak points in his cute little "family."

They seem like nice enough people, he guesses. If it weren't for their importance to his original, he might even want to hang out with them. Too bad. At least this means that he doesn't have to feign friendliness or good cheer when he spots Rey in the bar.

"Hey, Rey! Mind if I join you?"

He doesn't wait for an answer before he reaches for a drink and plops down beside her. They are, after all, good friends.

[circumitus]

It isn't much a surprise to find Firo wandering in here. This is as much one of his haunts as it is hers, it seems.

What is a surprise is that he asks first--

"Um, su..."

--only to help himself to a seat and drink anyway.

Oh. Um. Hm.

Rey blinks slowly, staring at 'Firo' for a moment before nodding. Oblivious to his intentions, but not that clueless so as not to ask questions. "Is anything up?"

[foundafamily]

Firo shrugs. "Nah. Just bored. There's not much goin' on here, you know? But I guess I should be grateful."

He holds the wine bottle out to her with one hand. "Are you gonna want any of this? Not that you don't seem to be doing a good job of finding your own."

Meanwhile, the hand closer to her stays out of sight behind their backs. He flicks that wrist, aiming to draw his knife and plunge it into her ribs in one smooth motion.

January 20th (Closed to Rey's Doppelgänger and Bianca)

[circumitus]

On a seemingly quiet day, she can be found at the doorstep of House 1301. The close neighbors to the home of Nick Valentine and Rey.

Just not this Rey.

She has been planning this. Studying routines and whereabouts. Knowing everything that her other half knows, she can carry herself the same way. Tucking her shoulders, hand propped under her chin with her elbows resting over her knees -- all the same way 'Rey' would. She sits at the stairway leading into the house, currently empty.

But she can wait. She is patient. And she still has plenty of time to do this. It's been in her head for a while now, and she can't think of a better chance.

No time like the present, as they say.

[wormintheglass]

She loves the way Rey sits and holds herself: coltishly, deceptively graceful. She moves like a warrior; she moves like a wary child; often she moves like both at once.

Bianca stops very close, and strokes Rey's hair.

"Darling. You brighten my every waking moment."

[circumitus]

An echo reverberates through her mind. Pleasant at first, but then all 'Rey' is left with is disgust. Mostly revulsion towards her other self, for having the audacity to revel in such enjoyable experiences. Rey might have forgotten that.

'Rey' has not.

Her gut turns when she reaches over, seizing Bianca's wrist.

"I need to tell you something," she says. Stern, cold despite the warm welcome. "I need to tell you a lot of things."

[wormintheglass]

The grip on her wrist is like iron; this is a thing she loves about Rey, that Bianca couldn't break free unless she were allowed to. It makes her hearts flutter, something that couldn't be called fear but which tastes enough like it to savour.

She bends obediently, thinks of snapping necks, and watches Rey's eyes.

"I have all the time in the universe, precious one."

January 21st (Closed to Rey, "Rey", and Satwo)

[circumitus]

Time is strange here. The passing hours affects the artificial lighting, sure, not much unlike the underground city in which Rey had been created. Hours feel like days since she had discovered an empty room where her explosives should have been.

Did Sato find them? Had he been following her? Or was it someone just as, if not more so, worse?

Her own self, for instance?

For someone who had once decimated an entire city population, it seems ironic that she would need an explosives cache to wreck havoc. Maybe she was trying to impede Rey from using them against her -- or using them ever.

Either way, Rey's search comes to an end at the orchards, where she had received a rather vague tip about where her cache would be. It had no name, nor an explanation. The note had been left for her to find on the door to her house, with only one simple message:

Orchards. 23:30.

She knew the time and she knew the place. Half hour to midnight. The orchards are a pretty big place, though, and hardly somewhere you'd hide a supply of explosive material.

What her intuition tells her is right, in the end. Deep in the fruit orchards, following a dirt trail and some footprints, is neither a person nor what she's looking for.

It is a hole.

Face blanching, she approaches the perfectly dug hole in the ground. Three feet wide. Eight feet long. Six feet deep. The dimensions of a grave.

"I thought about cremation, but you and I both know that you wouldn't burn," comes an amused-sounding voice from behind.

Rey spins around, her eyes having adjusted to the light of the darkness in hopes that it would cloak her better here. She might as well be looking at a mirror instead, when she finds her exact replica standing between some fruit trees. A shovel stabbed into the dirt. Hand resting over the handle. A smile on her face that did not belong to Rey but of a ghost she had long since put behind her. Or tried to, when she wasn't trying to silence the beast rattling in its cage.

"Not sure whether to feel flattered or not that you would go through this amount of effort." Rey grits her teeth, eyes narrowing at her other self.

"Don't get me wrong," 'Rey' replies. "I'm very dedicated when I have my mind set to something. Shit, we both are. But I didn't do it alone."

[infinite1up]

Which is about when Sato - or rather, his double - steps out from behind one of the trees behind her, broad smile spreading across his face.

"I have to admit, this version of you is a lot more fun," he says pleasantly. "I thought you had the potential for it for some time, you know. But lately you've been a real spoilsport. Not really worth wasting any more time on you, now.

"I thought we should dump you in the river, but she insisted we do it this way," he adds with a shrug, by way of explanation for the hole.

[circumitus]

Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal! is the line of dialogue that probably should have followed had this been that sort of movie, or an episode of a canceled TV show. Alas, Rey does not find herself too surprised by Sato's involvement.

But what of his counterpart? The original. Or is this that one? Hard to gauge an 'evil twin' when it comes to someone who's pretty damned evil to begin with.

At his commentary, 'Rey' just lightly shrugs. "What can I say? I love new experiences. We've already drowned before. Buried alive, though? That'll be different!"

Rey's jaw clenches as she goes for the pistol at her hip. Near as she can tell, her other self is sporting nothing more than a machete. But that still makes her dangerous if she's capable of what her original is.

The reflexes between the two are paralleled. With the same speed Rey takes her gun, 'Rey' swings the blade in a swift arch. A bullet pierces her abdomen. A machete runs through her chest. The force of the piercing edge sends Rey several steps back. Her heels rocking before teetering over the edge of the hole, and lands with a thud within a makeshift coffin.

While she is gasping, winded both from the impact and the dull pain stinging across her arm, 'Rey' only staggers. Blood blooming from her middle, through her shirt. She looks down at it, red smearing across her hand.

And she just... laughs. She actually looks at Sato and fucking laughs.

"Did you see that?" 'Rey' jeers with a crooked grin, her tones hinting a mild disbelief. "Motherfucker actually shot me!"

[infinite1up]

Sato seems considerably less surprised, crouching at the edge of the makeshift coffin and reaching down to snag Rey's gun out of her stunned grip, a (by now) familiar but unseen force holding her down.

"Of course she would," he says, speaking to 'Rey' while looking down at the original. "She's a good killing machine, just like you are. If only she had any sense of fun, we could have had a grand time. But it wasn't to be," he sighs, almost sadly.

Actually glancing up at the double now, he adds, "I suppose you want to do the honors?"

January 22nd (Closed to "Rey" and Nick Valentine)

[circumitus]

What's done is done. Whether her other half lives or dies six feet under, it makes no different to 'Rey'. This goes much further than just getting her comeuppance. Death is a mercy. Mercy that something such as them have no right to earn in kind.

No, she is not entirely without a heart. A synthetic's body was always meant to withstand many things that would kill a normal human. If she knows what's best for her, Rey will know how to make use of her time and make it last.

Or she could be down there digging a hole through her own throat. For all 'Rey' cares, that might as well be the case.

There is just one last stop she has to make. A cord that has to be cut.

It's late at night when the door to House 1401 opens. Dirt tracks across the floor as 'Rey' makes her way into the bathroom. Her clothes are filthy. The shovel drags behind her, then she rests it against the wall before she starts running the water in the sink.

That scarred up face staring back at her in the mirror is identical to her counterpart in every way. From the intricate, deliberate marks to the shade of her hair, though darker now in both the light and the filth. She brings her hands over her head, running water through it and down her face. Soil begins to fill up the basin, and does not stop.

[synthedick]

Given all he's had to put up with during the last couple of days, Nick has had it up to here with this double business. Maketh and Henry were both taken out early on, and Nick has no question what happened: one look at the bodies and the broadcast the fake Maketh had put out told him everything he needed to know about the latest trouble the gods were making. These twins apparently have enough of the original's mind to be able to fool people into thinking they are the real McCoy, leading innocent folks into whatever direction the gods want -- and knowing them, it can't be good.

It reminds Nick too much of the Commonwealth, too much of the Institute and their synth replacements, too much of what he is in relation to the man he used to be. It was something he'd hoped he'd never see come to pass in Hadriel, but here they are, with people paranoid of one another, and here he is, in charge of the Guard and wondering all the while if the doubles will be revived the same way their original counterparts presumably will. Or will Hope decide that one of each person is enough and just leave whichever one is lucky enough to survive against a their copy?

Nick sighs as he steps in the doorway to the home he shares with Rey -- while he may not sleep, he can almost feel the exhaustion in his metal bones. With him in charge of the Guard and trying to keep an eye on what's left of the headquarters, he's seen neither hide nor hair of any double of his own, nor of one of Rey... at least until now.

He expects her to be home; what he doesn't expect is the trail of filth leading through the den to the bathroom. It's unusual, and given the threat of copies wandering around and the images of brutalized Maketh and Henry still fresh in his mind, it puts the old synth on his guard. Rey could be a less than ideal roommate sometimes, but she didn't come in leaving a mess behind her unless it was an emergency. She's left lesser disasters when covered in her own blood.

Still, he can't help the concern in his voice as he follows the path to the bathroom door, one hand on his cane, the other in his coat at the ready.

"Rey?"

[circumitus]

The faucet whines when she turns the knob, halting the water from the nearly flowing sink. She doesn't answer right away, just stares at that disgraceful mug in the mirror before her.

Luckily, Rey isn't all too difficult a part for her to play. She is stern and straight-faced when she emerges from the bathroom, finding Nick with her clothes dirtied and smudges of soiled skin on her arms and neck. She looks like Rey, and even carries to same burdened strides like Rey.

"The city's gone and turned itself into an animal house, hasn't it?" she even says in Rey's voice.

But she knows as well as Nick would probably figure out sooner or later. She is 'Rey'. And unfortunately for her roommate, he is a perceptive type. A dangerous type.

January 24th (Closed to Rey, Nick Valentine, and Sharon da Silva)

[circumitus]

Solitude is like a worm. Digging deeper and deeper into the dirt tunnels, closed in tightly all around.

Alone. Always alone.

Panic was useless. Waste of precious air, waste of energy, waste of the mind. In a place where Rey, six feet under a patch of freshly dug up dirt in Sorrow's orchards, hours seem like years. When all that time is spent with nothing more than your own thoughts and memories, it's enough to grasp onto one shred of sanity.

Breathe in. Breathe out. Short gasps. Long moments of holding it in between. Why bother? There's no point. Might as well just die here. Alone. Like the worms.

Her chest tightens, but she fights the fear. The lump in her throat. The tightness in her chest. Time has passed. No one is coming. Maybe they're dead--

No, stop that. Don't think that.

Breathe in. Hold it. Breathe out.

Memories of dry coffee grinding in her mouth keeps her conscious. Plays the ku-ji mantra in her head and occupies her hands with the mudra. She's learned this from a sniper somewhere before. Where? Who? What was their name? Shit, she can't remember. Can't risk diving into places in her mind that she can't crawl back from. Because that's what solitude does.

It leaves again. Air closing in. Pressure tightening. Take short gasps. Rin, pyo, tou... The numbers are all that's left.

Otherwise, she is alone. Six feet under.

With the worms.

[synthedick]

Also alone is Nick Valentine: detective, former cop, synth. He's a member of the Guard, someone who is willing to do what needs to be done to protect the people of Hadriel. These days, he's added the title of 'family man' to his list. Unfortunately, his family is currently buried somewhere, giving him a new descriptor: determined to find her if it kills him.

And it just might, given the way he's leaking coolant, leaving a trail behind him as he limps across the western bridge. Tranquility's little moped lot is in sight -- empty. Just his luck.

"Shit," Nick utters, looking down at himself to see how he's holding up -- given the stain from the hole in his middle that bleeds through to his shirt and pants, not good. While not alive, he can still feel certain degrees of pain as his sensory receptors fire one after the other, a sharp beeping in his head telling him he needs a better patch job than the one he managed to give himself after dealing with Rey's double. He didn't have time to do anything better than wrap some of his ruptured pipes with duct tape and hope for the best; his family is out there, somewhere, and he'll be damned if she dies on his watch.

At least the double left him enough clues to go on, had littered them throughout the house: a shovel like they stock at the orchard, fertilized soil rather than the parched dirt from the park. Now it's just a matter of getting there, finding her, digging her up... and not overheating until he does. With a sigh and a fiery look to the trees far in the distance, he gets moving again, one hand leaning on his cane, the other using the shovel as some kind of walking stick to help hold him up.

He might be alone for now, but he won't be for long.

[unitas]

It's the trail Sharon spots and follows, having always had an insatiable curiosity along with what some might call compassion. The sight it leads her to is an even more curious one than what drew her in in the first place: Nick, one of the guardsman, leaning heavily on a cane and using a shovel to shuffle forward. He's a man on a mission and Sharon can't be too certain if it's a good one or not—the doubles weren't known for their niceties thus far.

"You look like you might need some help there," Sharon calls from some distance behind him, intent on not startling him and accidentally getting herself struck with a shovel or a cane. Or laser eyes, if he's got them (what, she hasn't the faintest idea of his skillset),"Not sure if I should call a doctor or a repairman, though."

In his state, it's unlikely he's a danger to her, even if he turns out to be a double, but she'll keep her distance until she's certain.

January 17

[ushahin]

The double has found this place to be simply delightful. It's so easy to go into someone's head and stir things up. Such a fragile thing the mind is. All it takes is one firm tap and it can shatter like a pane of glass. He's making his way through the city, soaking in all the little feeble minds of the people. They're so small and insignificant. It's like being surrounded by ants, things that wouldn't even be worth his time were he not trying to ruin Ushahin's life.

When he sees Rey's double, he looks her up and down. There's a subtle difference in this particular broken face, a lack of humanity and warmth that the real Ushahin exudes. Then he smirks in a way that makes it clear who he is. "Having fun yet?"

[circumitus]

Disappointment nearly plagues her when she notes the familiar aura around 'Ushahin'. Not the broken man that Rey knows, but the broken doppelgänger that shares the likeness of 'Rey' than anything else.

Still, it would be rude not to at least say hello to a kindred spirit. They're all here for the same purpose, after all.

"Oh, yes. Oodles," she replies, a smug twitch curling the edge of her lip. "Actually, I'm just about to get started."

No point in playing the stalking predator if she isn't going to finally rip into her prey. Claws and teeth and all.

[ushahin]

His grin goes wider, more unbalanced than the real Ushahin would ever be. Such a nice thing, to be surrounded by so many minds that feel the same way that he does about ruining the other's life. "Do let me know if you desire any help. I plan on shattering a good many minds before our time here is over."

His ice cold claws are going to wrap around someone's head and tear into them until they are broken into little pieces. Only then will he leave them, scattered and traumatized if they are still alive to pick up the pieces.

Wildcard; January 21

[so_dark_a_road]

[ Curufin and Rey meet just after she discovers her explosives cache is missing. By this point in the week, they should both be pretty nervous! I'm assuming this is after Maketh and Henry have been murdered. I can edit if you want any changes. ]

Curufin is trying to keep track of too many things at once. The dopplegangers are turning up in unexpected ways and places, people are disappearing, and the rumors are flying thick and fast. Curufin is carrying an armload of newly-forged weapons.

He sees one of his coworkers approaching, just as he crosses a street. "Rey?"

[circumitus]

[ That works for me! ]

Face blanched, Rey barely registers Curufin's presence when he speaks out to her. She doesn't even stop when she absentmindedly bumps into him, almost giving a hint of a start when she withdraws and blinks at him.

Her mind isn't in the present, but in that empty room. And while she had hoped that maybe people were going mad and she had been spared from the grief for once, it's clear that it isn't so simple this time.

Of course. Why would it ever be?

It's a few more beats before she speaks, her eyes drawing to the weapons in Curufin's arms.

"Apologies, wasn't paying attention."

[so_dark_a_road]

It's as though she were sleep-walking. He reaches out a hand to steady her, and then when she steps back, he looks down into that scarred face with its distinctive green eyes.

"No problem. We are all a little distracted, these days." Six days into this strange interlude, and everyone is jumping at shadows or staring into space. "Are you all right?" Rhetorical question -- she doesn't look all right -- but meant to show concern.

January 25th: Curtain Call (CLOSED NARRATIVE | Rey/"Rey")

[circumitus]

[tba]