#97
“[Villain].” The supervillain beckons them closer from around the door. “I think you might like this one.”
He’s in their little captive room; being a criminal organisation has made them improvise their spaces. A hero is tied to the rickety chair in the middle of the room, ignoring them both with their head bent. A rare sight, and a nice one at that. A sight that suggests a hint of winning.
“Wait,” the supervillain says softly.
They wait. Nothing happens. “[Supervillain], what—”
A sound breaks through their question. A sniffle. The villain ducks slightly to look at the hero’s face, catching the glistening trail of long-since shed tears on their cheeks. Catching heroes is rare enough, but having them cry about it? Gold.
The supervillain flashes them a quick grin. “Wait ‘til you hear their cover story.”
The villain steps forward and flops down in the seat in front of the hero. The hero keeps their head ducked, holding back shuddering breaths, and the villain simply waits for acknowledgement.
Waiting is in vain, it seems. The hero refuses to look up, even when they clear their throat expectantly.
“I thought heroes were meant to be made of steel,” they comment eventually.
The hero finally looks at them, and the villain only feels slightly bad about the miserable quiver of their mouth and the leaking of their eyes. “I’m not a hero,” they say shakily.
The villain raises their eyebrows. Denial’s a new one. “He must have told you that!” the hero continues, their gaze set on the supervillain at the door, and on the last word they break down into tears.
The villain glances back at the supervillain and he throws them another elated smirk. The slightly bad feeling they felt suddenly splits into painful worry.
They turn back to the hero and open their mouth to say something, but it occurs to them they don’t know who the hero is. They’ve never seen them before.
The worry becomes gnawing.
“You’re not a hero,” the villain reiterates slowly, and the hero’s head snaps up faster than the villain thought they could move.
“Yes!” they cry. Hours of tears scratch at their throat. “Thank god, yes. I’m– I’m not a hero. The agency they– they took me off the street, I’m not a hero or anything or– I’m not anything to do with them I swear please the agency is just–”
“Stop,” the villain snaps, and the hero's words cut off abruptly. “The agency took you off the street?”
The hero nods as they gulp down another sob. “I don’t know why. They threw me out in a hero costume and told me to distract the villains, I don’t– I don’t know anything—”
“Hey,” the villain says smoothly. They scoot their chair closer to the hero’s. “Hey, it’s okay. We’re all here because we hate the agency, right?” They glance back to the supervillain, who’s looking rather unimpressed by this turn of events. “You’re on our side now.”
The sob escapes the hero’s throat this time. Or whoever they are. “I just want to go home,” they manage through the tears.
The villain fishes a tissue from their pocket, tipping the hero’s head back to carefully wipe some of the tears from their face. “I know,” they say softly, “but the agency might be out searching for you right now. We’ll look after you until you can go home, okay?”
The hero hiccups their next breath. “T–Thank you.”
“I’ll get you back on your feet,” the villain says with a sigh. They glance back at the supervillain scowling from the door. “And [Supervillain] will go find whatever the hell the agency’s trying to distract us from.”
107 notes
·
View notes
Your tag is keeping on playing in my head. Like - just how much of Tales had Jack spent thinking of his revenge and taking over it all. And how much he actually enjoyed spending time. Could he really look through Rhys' memories or was it just some folders Rhys kept on his Echo Eye. Was he just thinking about how to use him or did he catch himself being actually proud of him and happy to be stuck in this guys head specifically. Grrrrr hologram Jack tell us more
I personally think Jack had some type of attachment to Rhys, even if it wasn’t his intentions like… at all. Sure, getting back on Helios and taking over Rhys body was always the main goal, and whether he came to like Rhys or not wasn’t gonna stop him from going through with his plan, but Jack was almost predisposed to eventually become obsessed with him. Strap in, I’m about to ramble
First of all, I imagine that Rhys reminded him a lot of Angel. Rhys was young, he looked up to Jack almost naively so, but he was snarky and also defied him sometimes which Angel did too. I made a real long post about this a couple months ago but basically, Rhys and Angel share a lot of similarities in how Jack treated them. Jack probably did feel proud over Rhys at times, and thankful that it was Rhys and not some other Hyperion employee with the personality of a napkin. It feels more personal than just “let’s manipulate this kid and take his body”, even if that ultimately was the end goal. And after Jack was plugged into Helios and found out about what happened to not just Angel but Nisha as well? Not to mention Wilhelm being dead and Timothy leaving for the casino? Rhys was the only one Jack somewhat trusted who wasn’t already dead or long gone
But also, imagine this: you��re quite literally inside someone else’s brain. Everything you see and hear, everywhere you go, everyone you interact with, is through this dweeb with the most questionable fashion sense on Pandora (which says a LOT). No one can see you except for him. You’re dependent on him in every sense of the word. If he pisses you off, you can’t do your usual routine of beating or killing him. You HAVE to get close to (or at the very least, used to) him, something your paranoid ass hasn't allowed yourself to do for years
And honestly, Rhys’ software has bled into Jack as much, if not more, as the Jack AI has bled into Rhys. This is just my personal headcanon but I definitely think some part of Jack felt a little hollow when he left Rhys’ head on Helios, almost like having a tooth ripped out (or… being the tooth that got ripped out). Some part of him expected Rhys to be as dependent on Jack as Jack was on him, which is why he thought Rhys would just mindlessly agree to essentially be his meat puppet. But then he not only rejected him, he tried to leave too. The only one Jack had left, who became such a huge part of his holographic life, physically and emotionally. The only one who hadn’t died, left or abandoned him up until this point, wanted to leave
Jack was back on Helios, back on his throne, and he had everything in his power to regain control of Hyperion. Despite how horrified Rhys was over Jack’s plan, he didn’t have any intentions to kill Jack, and had Rhys been any less important to Jack, he could have let him go or commanded someone else go after him while he focused on getting another employee to give him their body. The only problem was that Jack was attached to Rhys and took this as a betrayal, just like Angel and Moxxi had been close to him until they betrayed him too. So what if Helios paid the price for Jack’s revenge? So what if Jack was going to die killing Rhys? It was too personal to not risk everything for
This is a very complicated way of saying I definitely think Jack cared about Rhys, whether that be because he was emotionally attached or because he was literally inside this guy’s brain and couldn’t help but get attached. Everywhere he looked, there was Rhys and only Rhys. So yeah, he DEFINITELY thought about Rhys a lot. Probably more so than Katagawa did. It’s a special kind of horrific <3
52 notes
·
View notes
i have beaten code vein with the good ending yippee!!
i've put my final stuff under the cut. im gonna try and perfect it before starting a new playthrough, but it's gonna be hard letting go of the big bonk build.
i've been really into strength builds recently which is wild cause im usually a dex or magic user dfsglksjdgl once you go bonk you never go back ig
side note: i never got the offhand weapon stuff so i kinda just put a bayonett in there so i could lure enemies away. it's a queenslayer bayonett+7
aside from that, my weapon (was the impulse anchor) felt like such a reward cause I struggled against mido like actually.
the final boss also gave me trouble but thanks to io quick healing me, I got there yippee. Aside from just being a bit awkward to fight in a small space, the camera really was out to get me.
i really liked code vein tho!! i picked it up cause i thought it would help me get over my fear of dark souls (for some reason im so overwhelmed playing them it's wild) and turns out it's one of my favourite games now.
there are some parts that uuuuh definitely bugged me (for some reason there are only like. two mistles max allowed in later sections, and even with shortcuts, made run backs so annoying).
Also knock-off anor londo wasn't bad you guys, I think you just hate mazes. provisional government outskirts + centre sucked way harder /lh
4 notes
·
View notes