#and ace's games with gordain

[paladinmain]

💊 cradle pharmaceuticals

[phiklimz]

i talk So much abt zero escape but thats cuz im insane over it but like. the way the cycle of trauma is represented in zero escape’s plot makes me like froth at the mouth. gordain was traumatized by the sinking of the titanic. proceeded to traumatize countless others, including ace in a nonary game. ace passes on that trauma to akane and so forth. im literally never gonna be normal abt how trauma and its effects r represented especially through the time loops!!! good god i love this game

[echonk3]

Ace, the Devil

For 999 Week, I'll be doing a short second person pov oneshot for the cast plus an extra character based on a tarot card. There may be a few spoilers for VLR in certain oneshots (I will be adding warnings for that) but not ZTD as I have not played it yet outside of some of the obvious such as Junpei and Akane being in it.

999 spoilers obviously

Today is Ace, who I have given the tarot card "the Devil".

Word Count: 506

_____________________________________________________________

You’re aware you’ve sold your soul at this point.

You’re aware that you’ve dug yourself into a rabbit hole trying to achieve your goals. You’re aware that you’ve lost some of your humanity in the process. You’re aware that if the public learned about what you’ve done, it wouldn’t end well for you. And to prevent that last thing, you’ll have to do something about this.

Years ago, you won a game. You were put into a situation so similar to your own now, but so different at the same time. Some of your fellow participants' blood is on your hands, permanently staining them even if you can’t see it. You remember telling Gordain’s successor after sacrificing your losing participants that since you won, you could make a better of the Nonary Game as if it only happened minutes ago.

And then you remember learning of the morphogenetic field, and the glimmer of hope that maybe, just maybe, you’d be able to see faces after being surrounded by monkeys your whole life.

Thankfully, you managed to find others who were interested in your project and so, development of a new Nonary Game, to test the morphogenetic field. With the help of your new associates, you bought the ship you had gone through a death game on for this new experiment and found a root that boosted your company up in the ranks.

And now, that Nonary Game you made nine years ago has come back to haunt you.

The Nonary Game this time is almost exactly like the one you created, with some slight differences. But one thing hadn't changed. To win, you’ll have to backstab, especially to get out without others learning.

You do that. You remember the relief going through your mind when you hear Kubota screaming from behind the large heavy door and the explosion. Pushing Snake, Light through the door and the anticipation before the boom. Finding Musashidou near a camera just like the note Zero gave you said but also an axe and do what you have to do by grabbing it and striking him.

(And that’s what you do in other timelines. You use Kubota’s knife and simply stab the others. But in one of those timelines, you burn in hellfire)

With them gone, there is less of a chance of you being exposed. Though, there are still some to go. Mainly Nijisaki if he’s there with you and maybe Clover as she was Light’s sibling. They could expose your kind old man facade.

You know what you did to deserve to be in this game. You know you’ve done terrible things to achieve your goals, but every path toward every goal is filled with sacrifices of all kinds. And you will do all you need to do to achieve your goal. No matter.

You know you are the Devil, but what you don’t know is that Justice is also in this game and you wronged them nine years ago, and they’re just as unrelenting with their goals as you.