re_alignment | [Video]

[So this entry is tagged 'party progress', but when the video comes on it's very obviously not.

Everyone know that strange "guy" with the modulated voice always wearing the suit? Well, say hello to Vandal. She's not wearing the suit today. No helmet, no ~~courier text~~. Turns out she's just your typical female human. But she's... not looking so good.]

Someone I-

Please. I don't feel right... I ca...

[Behind her, appears to be her little home, partially painted normally, but the paint job trails off into clusters of complex glyphs and symbols. The center looks like two pillars, spiraling up to two points, twisted like a helix.

Vandal is shaking, face coated in a fine layer of sweat.]

I'm turning into one of those things, I need to stop it I need to-

[Her hand is lifted. Sure does look like a normal hand, but she holds it out as though it were some grotesque limb.]

It's starting already! Please god- it won't go away this time! Someone please.

I need to cut it off before it spreads!

[Someone is obviously hallucinating.]

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Oh god oh god...

I-

I was painting. I was painting it red, like we talked about.

[well, he knows human blood is red, but he's not enough of a therapist type to put two and two together about potential set-offs like that.]

Okay. Makes sense. It looks nice. Red's always been one of my favorite colors too. [shit, what does he say?] Your friends will be there soon. Drift and Perceptor, and everybody. You'll be okay.

[There is an eerie silence and she seems to stare off into nothing. Like she's gone somewhere else before she suddenly jerks.]

Starscream?

Not going anyplace. [his concern for her just spiked off the chart, and if it weren't for his broke-ass gear he'd be on his way, Wing and Perceptor and Soundwave or no Wing and Perceptor and Soundwave.]

Vandal... There's a lot you can tell me, things I wanted to ask you. I didn't make time, before I left, but there's plenty of time now. Human things, you know.

You want to know...

Human things.

[She's sort of phasing in and out here.]

Humans are fucking awful.

Yeah, I ...noticed that happens a lot.

You're not, though.

No... I'm the worst of them, Starscream. You don;t understand. I'm-

I'm bad.

[curiosity and compassion war briefly. Starscream's compassion is emaciated and underfed and loses out pretty immediately, but at least it tried.]

...Bad how? Worse than me?

Worse than anyone here.

I call slag. You haven't hurt anybody.

[Have an uncomfortable silence that says otherwise.]

...oh, Vandal.

[he stops, he doesn't ask, he's testing ice for thickness, finding it far too thin to ask What did you do?, but it burns in him with inadvisable, morbid curiosity. That thing Prism said is only working its way deeper, but he knows better than to bring it up right now.]

Trust me for a second. Can you? You're not thinking clearly, I know that much. Whatever happened, we can square with it later.

No... no we can't it's talking to me but I can't understand what it wants.

...Talking to you. What does it sound like?

It's-

A message. A code. I don't understand what it means. Static.

...Is part of it what you were painting?

Yes...

[silent and contemplative for a few seconds]

Vandal. I know you're scared right now. But you're not alone.

...

Thank you.