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WHO: Sameen Shaw and OPEN
WHERE: Around Temba
WHAT: Memoriiiiiiiiiies
WHEN: Throughout the energy storm
WARNINGS: Imagery of death, gunshots

Shaw is incredibly prone to stir-craziness and quite sensitive to feeling like she's spinning her wheels, so hunkering down for the duration of the storms was never going to be an option for her - especially not when they're intermittent, random, unpredictable. What is she supposed to do, just stay inside for days or even weeks on end? No thanks.

But this is her first energy storm, and even as a big believer in forewarned being forearmed, it's still a lot. The first time she sees a vision of someone from home, she does a double-take, and nearly calls out to them. She wants to call out to them, desperately, but the reminder that this might not really be them is a powerful one, and it holds her back - but just barely, and only to a point.

A: the time a teammate sacrificed himself for Shaw

The man she's trailing stops suddenly, and bends over a table with an open laptop that's materialized right there on the street. The imagery of it pings something deep in her hindbrain, and she quickens her pace.

"Cole--"

"Shaw!" he shouts, urgent and frightened, as he leaps for her and tackles her to the ground amid a hail of invisible gunfire that comes from nowhere.

B: the time Shaw sacrificed herself for her teammates

The group of four rushes down the hallway together, two of the men carrying the third in between them, propelling him along as best they can despite the fact that he's badly injured and dead weight. Without the rest of the setting around them, the freight elevator they're headed for looks like a freestanding box in the middle of the street - a metal cage that they're about to trap themselves in.

"Will they get out?" she asks urgently, talking to herself as much as whoever is standing nearby. "I don't know if they can get out without me. I need to help them again, right?"

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Donnie's regretting not buddying up but he hadn't really anticipated just how badly one can get turned around when a storm's actually behaving like one.

Like Shaw, he's been hesitant to call out to people he sees, or thinks he sees. He's only heard how such manifestations come about, stomach twisting at the thought of coming across any of the rest of his family, just to realize they aren't really here. ...he needs to find Leo. At least he knows he's real.

But there's someone else, someone he knows to be physically present in the city- unless... Did the strange apparitions cover people who were actually here too? Ah, there goes his overthink. He hesitates as he notices other movement, Shaw's...following someone?

Curiosity and confusion win out over paranoia as he starts towards her, mostly just hopeful that it is Shaw and he won't have to wander around alone. "Hey-" he starts, but suddenly things happen.

There's a lot of oddities that don't add up. The man busies himself like he isn't in the middle of a storm, but the more Donnie focuses on the strange scene unfolding before him, the less it seems like they're in Temba itself. But they are, and he's sure he can still feel the rain and the wetness pooling at his feet.

"Shaw!" the man shouts, and he's lunging for the woman. The sound of gunfire is enough to make Donnie react as well, throwing his arms over his head with a yelp as he ducks down. What? What?? What is happening?

Instinctively, Shaw's hand goes to her belt, reaching for a gun that isn't there to try to return gunfire that she can hear but not see or feel. The sound of Donnie's cry jars her out of it, and she rolls to the side, sliding off the man who'd pulled her to the ground - and in doing so, leaving behind the imprint of herself. That duplicate Shaw does have a gun, and from the ground, she fires it towards a door that's freestanding in the middle of the street. From behind it, there's the sound of multiple falling bodies thunking to the ground.

"Close your eyes, cover your head!" the real Shaw instructs Donnie, as she ducks lower and follows her own advice. "They're about to throw in a flashbang - a stun grenade."

This shouldn't be possible, who's even shooting? Donnie's mind tries to reason out. He can't help but stare when he sees Shaw essentially split into two, one that's reacted to him and another caught up in whatever sort of a predicament is trying to materialize.

"Wait, what-?" he starts, but at her warning he does so. He's never experienced one but he knows what a flashbang is enough to not want to get caught off guard by it. He can hear his kneepads squish in the puddle beneath him as he tucks his head down, arms and hands curling over his head as he braces himself.

Just a second or two after Shaw gives her warning, a new door materializes, several feet away and perpendicular to the first one; it creaks open just enough for the grenade to be tossed in. The memory version of Shaw covers her head too, now, but the man whose torso she's sprawled across stays still, arms and legs sprawled out as he stares dazedly up at the ceiling.

At such close range, the grenade's effect is dizzying even though they've prepared for it; it'll spot their vision with white and leave their ears ringing. "Stay behind me," the real Shaw tells Donnie, again trying to reach for a weapon holster that isn't there. "He's going to have a gun, and I don't know if--"

The door flies open, and a figure wearing a gas mask and tactical gear enters the room, waving a flashlight and firing as he comes. Memory Shaw fires back, and she hits him before he hits her; he falls, and she jumps up, slamming the door shut and stealing a wireless communication earpiece from the body.

"We need to move, now," Memory Shaw says to the other man, and he hisses in pain, not even trying to stand as he groans, "That's gonna be tough." He'd gotten in between Memory Shaw and the bullets, and in doing so, had taken several to the back - and they'd gone in deep enough that there's blood blooming through the front of his shirt.

"How do these work?" Real Shaw whispers to Donnie, her gaze trained on the scene in front of her. "Can they see us?"

Edited 2024-06-12 21:35 (UTC)

If this is the memory of flashbang then Donnie sure doesn't want to experience a real one. But then that's what this is, right? he thinks. A memory.

He flinches, squinting as he tries not to fall over but he's still disoriented, only barely managing not to panic as he keeps telling himself it isn't real in the back of his mind. Jury's still out on just how real any of this is, Donnie's still trying to convince himself. But Shaw's here and he sticks close, even as he starts to look back towards the apparitions beyond as they continue to go through the motions.

The man...does not look like he's in good shape. Oh...ohh but that is a lot of blood. He almost jumps when Shaw speaks to him again, wide eyes flicking from her to her copy and back.

"I-I don't know," he stammers, once he realizes what she's asking. "I thought we only saw people during these things, not whole situations..!"

"He's going to die in about ten seconds," Real Shaw says flatly. "So I guess it doesn't matter." Even if they could call for help, it wouldn't come in time.

Memory Shaw doesn't have that memo, though. "All right, come on," she murmurs, pulling him up as carefully as she can and dragging him about a foot, leaving a smear of blood on the street as she does.

"I'm sorry," he groans.

"No, no, no; don't talk," says Memory Shaw, moving back around to crouch over him as she assesses the damage. It's clearly not good; urgency leaks into her voice, and non-demonstrative as she is, she manages a brief pat to his shoulder. "All right, look, I'm gonna call Control, and, uh-- we're gonna get you some help."

Real Shaw's hands ball into tight fists, and anger flashes across her face. She moves to stand, turning to walk away, even as the scene continues.

"I was trying to get your back," the man says.

"Always trying to be the hero, huh?" Memory Shaw shoots back, going for a lighthearted tone; the man does a half-grin, half-grimace, chuckling through the pain.

"No," he says, talking more and more of a struggle with every word. "Just yours."

Real Shaw misses the deer-in-headlights look on Memory Shaw's face in response to that, but it's not like it matters. She remembers all of this like it was yesterday.

He shouldn't be watching this. This is something that Shaw has had to go through, this is a delicate memory that no one else should be privy to. It's just like...

The thought gets put on pause as he gets caught up with the two, or rather the oddly out of character look that touches the memory of Shaw's expression at that point. He hurriedly pushes himself to his own feet, squeezing his eyes shut for a moment as he tries to calm himself down.

"This...it's not supposed to happen this way. The Storm... I've never heard of entire memories coming to life," he starts to say as he trails after Shaw, grounding himself on information. Nice solid information, no emotions attached. "This is different, but it's familiar. It's... like that time we were locked up in Calibrations..."

"What's Calibrations?" she asks, walking away from the memory scene without looking back.

The rain had never stopped, but as they distance themselves from the memory the wetness becomes more evident. At least it's lessened from a downpour, not completely masking their view. Donnie's circumvents a particularly deep puddle forming in the uneven street.

"A trap," he replies, his eyes watching the ground now, wanting to avoid seeing any 'ghosts' that might trigger something else. "There's a tunnel on the southeastern side of the city. It dead-ends, but there's actually a hidden door. I've only been inside once, but I've been told that on occasion it's opened and people are lured in somehow or another. And then we get locked in and can't get back out again until something or someone decides we've had enough.

"...we're given rooms to stay in, a centralized place to...socialize, I guess? It's a prison no matter how you look at it. And then at a given time, we're compelled to sleep." He makes a face, not liking how such unknown outside influences can affect them so easily. Mermaids, he reminds himself, thinking of the entire city being walled off and him not knowing what had happened to anyone within.

"We dream," he continues. "Except it's a very vivid space, somewhere from our memories, somewhere that means something to us. And there are things there that don't really belong there, objects that represent memories. And we're not the only ones in these dream-rooms. People wander through each other's dreams somehow, and if they touch certain things, it triggers a memory for everyone there to see. Whether you want it or not."

She doesn't bother asking Why don't people talk about this?, or Do we know who's behind it?, or even Is there any way we can stop it? Maybe she will later, but right now, she doesn't care.

"You were right," she says. "This place does really suck." After a beat, she adds, "You okay?"

After all, he had, technically, just witnessed someone being shot to death.

Of course he's right- is what he'd say, but Donnie's not feeling it right now. He steals a glance towards her, mopping his brow with the back of a hand, not that the mask helps for keeping the water out of his face.

"...not really, no," he admits. Really, what part of this was okay? "I...I'm sorry. That's not something anyone should have to go through, let alone see it happen again like that."

"It doesn't sound like decency is part of the equation here," Shaw says. "But I avenged him. Our handler, the guy who sent us out into the field - he was the one whose fault that was, so I killed him."

"Well, that's something I guess..."

Donnie's not sure what all else he should say, or what he's supposed to say. His tone isn't judgmental, he can understand a need for vengeance even if he's never personally experienced it on such a level. It was always dumb things, the things your brothers do and you simply get back at them because that's what's called for.

This...this is different and he's not sure how to feel about that. It's someone else's experience but he thinks it's highly unfair that he has to feel things about it.

Unfortunately, I killed the guy who I felt was most responsible for my friend's death is just about all that Shaw has in her arsenal when it comes to both comforting a kid who witnessed the death, and responding to said kid's sympathy, and so she's left having no idea what else to say. "It sucks," she adds, lamely.

He can be cool about this. It's not like he hasn't seen other people's memories before and while there hadn't been too many actual deaths he's witnessed, there were other ways to be awful. Right now Donnie's just glad he not by himself although he'd rather be with Leo.

Is he scared that he's technically walking next to a killer? No, that's the weird part. There are plenty of dangerous people here, people who have killed people, but the reasons make all the difference, and Donnie can't say that if something ever happened to any of his brothers or his family, that he wouldn't respond the same way.

"Yeah...I'll bet it does."

Luckily for Donnie, there is one thing Shaw has going for her when it comes to this stuff: she fully understands the importance of family. After falling silent for the length of several paces, half her attention on the street ahead and half on him, she asks, "We can go looking for your brother if you want."

Wordlessly, Donnie nods. The easiest thing would be to try contacting him but the network's been patchy, although he's surprised it's even still functioning at all. A strange storm indeed!

"I was trying to head back to our place at the warehouse but I guess I got turned around." He looks about to try figuring out where in the city they even are.

"Not hard to do even under normal circumstances," she points out, sighing. "Abandoned cities are--"

Abandoned cities don't have working freight elevators with bright blue walls built into them, but there one is, just across the street. And she recognizes it immediately.

"-- Oh, crap."

"Are...?" Donnie prompts, already not liking that something else has happened and it's enough to railroad Shaw off her thoughts.

It doesn't take him long to look for himself and see what she sees, and while he doesn't know what it stands for or what will happen, he knows that it's still something connected to her some way, it has to be.

"Oh no. Uh... uh, we...don't have to go that way, right? We can just- Shaw?" It'll be fine, she walked away from the last one, she can still walk away from this.

"Yeah. But--"

This isn't real, this definitely isn't real, there's no way that whatever happens here will have any affect on things that have already long since happened, and yet--

"What'll happen if we don't go that way? Will it still happen?"

"I...don't know," Donnie admits, as much as he hates giving that response. "But even if it happens, it's not like it'll make a difference, right? Ultimately it's just trying to get under your skin and it can't do that if you aren't there to let it. Maybe it just...stops?"

"When Cole died, I couldn't save him," she says - not heading for the elevator, but not walking away from it, either. "But this time, when this happened-- I think I need to go to this one."

Just to make sure.

Edited 2024-06-13 01:53 (UTC)

Donnie looks at her, concerned. He swallows, but nods and takes a step beside her.

"Well, if you're that set on it..." He's not letting her go alone.

"There's gonna be more guns," she warns him, as she starts forward at a half-jog. From the opposite side of the street, four people materialize, also heading for the elevator at a quicker, more frantic pace. The tallest of the three men, clearly injured, is being half-carried by the other two.

Edited 2024-06-13 02:22 (UTC)

"Is it bad that I kind of figured that possibility?"

Nevertheless, Donnie is right behind her once Shaw begins to head forward. The situation doesn't look promising once the figures begin to appear.

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