IC CONTACT

[hellraiser02]

Hey, you've reached your good pal Shinigami! I'm a little busy right now and can't answer my comm, so leave your name- or alias- and I'll get back to you in a jiffy!

[click!]


[functions: voice, text message, image/media text]

Comments

inb4 liam

[knaval]

whomst

savage

[hellraiser02]

[what the fuck]

[what the FUCK]

[Duo is still busy in the overwhelming state of absorbing information about his new state of existence, or rather the state of this place's existence, when he gets....]

[two pings. at the same time.]

[Gee, Mr. Popular all of a sudden! Where was all this when he was talking up the girls!?]

Gesundheit

[A cursory search of this network revealed... his own existence, very recently. So then, could this be someone that had known him in the inbetween space of him being in the City and... well, here?]

[Shit. He needs to do his research fast.]

[knaval]

no riptide
u got ported out for a while there bud
didnt even leave me anythin im spark broken

[hellraiser02]

[If Duo was yet privy to the memes of this era, Riptide would be receiving a nice NO THIS IS PATRICK maymay right about now. Luckily for everyone involved, he's still got his hands full with things that are actually important.]

[Riptide is left hanging for a little bit. The reply Duo got is friendly enough, so he doesn't think he has to worry yet about enemies coming out of the woodwork to have his ass, which means he has some wiggleroom to figure out what the hell is going on, in every sense of the phrase.]

[By the time he can formulate a reply, he's gotten into his old cache of information, so he can immediately find out just how much new experience he's gotten with the new faces of his old friends.]

[......Poor Optimus, all he can think. What the hell happened?]

Starscream? Really???

[The most important takeaway, from all those notes.] Better than Evil Barney, I guess.

JUST KIDDING FUCK U JABBERS

[d33tached]

You've returned.

[He's only been checking the network for him every day - and maybe that reflects in his eager welcoming, but D33 doesn't really care. He just hopes that Shinigami will still remember him.]

rekt

[hellraiser02]

[Oh this isn't creepy at all.]

[Like the first ping, he takes his time in making any replies; he has enough on his plate without worrying about potential timey-wimey shenanigans and forgotten acquaintances.]

[In fact, it's a good several hours before Dee gets any reply at all, but by that time at least he's managed to sniff out where he's hid his own notes and crack open the vault.]

[Which is why he knows exactly how to reply.]

How's it hanging, Deedee?

fuck duo too

[d33tached]

[D33's entire body seems to relax at the greeting - one he usually rejects, albeit, but he feels no sense of malice toward it now.

[Still, he just has to make sure...]

Are your memories in tact, then?

not his type dee!!!

[hellraiser02]

[Oh]

[This's gonna be rough, huh. By the time Duo gets back to this, he already has read the file on the kid, to extremely unsettling feelings. He's... not sure, exactly, what kind of person he must be in the future; but the way he wrote about this guy is in a way he just can't exactly connect with, the way he is now. This mentorship, or whatever it was, feels strange and foreign in his mind as he thinks on it now.]

[That, and just from the things he's reading about this guy, he wonders why he bothered at all.]

[...Maybe he doesn't, though. After all, he'd been sort of the same, hadn't he? He never did quite ...get it.]

[Duo chews on this reply for an even longer time, so when Dee finally does get a reply back, at least he can give him the truth.]

No.

Sorry, pal. I guess you must have known me, in the future? Or the past, whatever.

I only remember things from before this world, in a place called the City. Ever heard of it?

late text

[h2no]

[linko]

this has inspired in me existentialism like the porter has never done before

Re: late text

[hellraiser02]

[uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh]

new phone who dis

Re: late text

[h2no]

[oh balls]

you get ported out? bummer
i'm just a random don't worry about it

1/2

[hellraiser02]

That obvious huh

No worries. Archie, right?

like 5 min later

[hellraiser02]

Why did you send me this

What am I watching

text

[knaval]

hey im bored u wanna hang out?

Re: text

[hellraiser02]

You got it!

What city? Wanna sit at a drive in and catch a crappy movie?

Re: text

[knaval]

nonah

im down for that
u wanna meet there?

>action

[hellraiser02]

Sure thing gimme like 45 min

[Duo comes rolling up to the drive-in just after sunset, parking his bike somewhere off to the side where it won't block other patrons. Riptide, obviously, won't be hard to find.]

Hey buddy! Ready for some good ol' fashioned garbage horror-action double-feature?

backdated to the 18th

[fource]

[This isn't the first time Quatre's texted Duo, but the previous conversations had been mostly humorous. Near-daily accounts of the ridiculous circumstances imPorts get up to when stuck in close quarters, reports of what various persons of interest were up to, snapshots from the ship's computer of various perspectives this far out in the solar system. All of them texts once they leave the Earth Sphere, which Quatre cheerfully attributes to the signal delay and the tight quarters; maybe if he had remembered sending videos from Venus, he would have known to lean more on the latter for his excuse.

He goes radio silent on the 18th, which shouldn't be a surprise; that's right on schedule for when they expected to rendezvous with Phobos. The first word Duo gets from Quatre is this.]

Nuclear arsenal confirmed. Unable to disarm from orbit. Jacob etc currently requesting permission from gov to retaliate against base. Assume permission granted.

[It's hurried, sent out as quickly as possible without drawing too much attention to it. He forwards along the plans, schematics, and network diagnostics he and Jonathan were able to extract from the base; a few minutes later, sent far too early for Quatre to have received any response from Duo, he follows up with]

Don't think they've spotted us yet. Some large robots (md?) They're conducting experiments on site. Can't access records but

[a shorter delay, maybe twenty seconds]

They're hurting someone

[hellraiser02]

[Duo knows the delay in transmissions means Quatre's just sending him this information for his benefit; he can't help him from here, act as support, when the situation can change in minutes.]

[There's always moral support though.]

Great.

[That's... everything. That's just to everything.]

[fource]

[Sure enough, Duo's reply has barely had enough time to get delivered to Quatre before Quatre replies:]

Going down to base keeping eye on Dooku

Base activated self destruct

If we don't come back don't let them use this to justify another mission

Let you know when we're off

04

[hellraiser02]

[Dooku, huh. Duo grinds his teeth for a moment before he continues on to the rest of the message. He's glad at least that Quatre is going into it knowing what he's dealing with, that at least he's the sort of unlikely ally they're equipped for.]

[The rest of this...... it's par for the course. It's the same life or death they faced in every other mission. He isn't nervous. Just angry he can't be there, too.]

[But Quatre's right. Someone needs to be left, to make sure things aren't twisted, afterwards. History is always twisted by the next to come to power.]

Roger that.

Good luck.

around midnight

[fource]

[He was asleep, having some unremarkable silly dream with dogs and neon lights and city streets curving up and over his head, like they should be, when suddenly it changes. Quatre stops (everyone around him stops with him, like actors after calling cut, and they all turn collectively to look off into the absent horizon with him). There's a heavy weight in the air, appearing without warning but lingering like a slow suffocation. It takes his subconscious a second to name it; in the dream, Quatre says "Duo?" Then he snaps awake in bed in Heropa, and the distant melancholy is still there.

He's getting dressed even as he sends the text.] What happened?

[hellraiser02]

[It takes... a little bit, for the reply to come. Not worryingly long, but long enough that he’s obviously ignoring it- or distracted with something else- for a little while. Maybe Quatre manages to go back to sleep in the meantime.]

I’m back

[Hm. Just long enough not to trigger the auto-send, huh... Just having a laugh, Grinbitch, or is there a nasty surprise waiting for him?]

[fource]

[Nice try, Duo. By the time the response comes, Quatre's already set up at a laptop scanning the newsfeeds with one hand and checking the network on his communicator with the other, searching for either some emergency at the Porter or some other sign of something going wrong. He's fully dressed and ready to head out just as soon as he knows where to go.

Ah, but communications are restored.]

Welcome back. You can't have been gone for more than 24 hours on this end. What's wrong?

[hellraiser02]

Looks that way, huh

'i'm back' isn't enough? Haha..

[Mmmaaaybe he can get outta this one? Probably not, huh.]

I didn't go home



btw