ArchivedLogs:Osborn's Mind
| Osborn's Mind | |
|---|---|
WARNING: Backstorylicious | |
| Dramatis Personae | |
| In Absentia
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2013-05-20 Parley and Emma begin digging into Osborn's brainmeats. |
| Location | |
Oscorp Tower has many, many labs. Some of them are squirreled away in the basement; others are among the upper levels of the office building. Pretty much /all/ of them look nothing like you’d expect a lab to look like - no crackling Tesla coils, no switches, no dials. Actually, with the possible exception of the biology department, pretty much all of them consist of just a lot of computers and energy drinks. There are exceptions, however. Norman Osborn does have some /special/ labs. There’s the first one, that Rasa got to see; his little playground for some of his more - personal toys. And there’s another one, below /that/. The secret /secret/ lab. This is the one where Emma and Parley are being directed. The one you don’t get to see unless you are privy to some of Oscorp’s - and Osborn’s - deepest secrets. This one /does/ look like a Hollywood laboratory. A little bit. Computers - some dissected, others humming with life - fill the large workshop’s walls and some of its tables. Devices - various types of table restraints - are on the floors. There are drones; there is even what looks to be - a prototype full-body prosthetic Norman has been working on. Very /crude/; a primitive attempt to reproduce the variants Doom has made, combined with DARPA’s work - it is set up on a treadmill, clad in camo, currently deactivated. And then... there’s the Goblin restraints. There is no phrase for the scene that would greet Emma and Parley as they enter the lobby that would better describe it beyond ‘Mad Science’. Norman Osborn - his black suit off, his tie unfurled - is currently in the process of attaching his arms to what look to be - a /massive/ set of metal restraints built into the very wall. High over his head. The restraints are - easily - over four inches in thickness, /sheathing/ his wrist to elbow in metal. He is receiving help from Mr. Shaw - the man with the head as smooth as glass in his long, black coat - who is scowling all the while. CLICK, CLICK - first go the forearms. Then go the ankles (nearly up to his knees). Then comes a waist restraint - jutting out over Norman’s hip. And then - another for the neck. Thinner, this one, and more careful. For Norman Osborn’s comfort, of course. “You’ll pardon the absurdity,” Norman informs his arriving guests. That isn’t a request; it’s a statement. You /will/ pardon it. “But I’m not interested in taking any risks, here.” Mr. Shaw is stepping back, moving toward a nearby control panel. Typing a few keystrokes in. “I’ve spoken with the Goblin. We’ve come to an arrangement,” Norman informs Parley and Emma. Parley might get a flicker - of a man, staring in a mirror. Tussling with himself. Fear. Affection. Confusion. /Ideas/. “He won’t - /shouldn’t/ - interfere. But he can be... unpredictable. Even toward himself. Should he show a sign of emergence, Mr. Shaw will be so kind as to /electrocute/ him into submission.” “...I also just wish to take an opportunity and remind you,” Norman tells them both. “This first session will only be an /exploratory/ procedure. I wish to take this very slowly. As, I am sure, do /you/.” "Very much so," Emma replies, having already divested herself of all excess belongings, standing now in comfortable flats, a pair of light linen trousers and a white blouse that is buttoned up enough to hide her cleavage, but showing off plenty of skin otherwise. She has her arms crossed under her chest, watching and waiting patiently, lips pursed slightly as she inspects the restraints visually, from a distance, seemingly judging them adequate. "I fully intend to simply look around, and if things seem in order, find out what kind of reaction there is to the slightest bit of pressure and interaction. I do not wish to make any changes at this time nor force anything upon you or your counterpart until we have discussed the reaction you both have to telepathic presence and movement." She exhales and looks over to Parley, raising an eyebrow at him as they wait. << Any last thoughts before we dive in? >> << (only a last reminder) >> Parley has a habit of walking slightly behind the company he travels with, looking over Emma's shoulder as he follows her in. << (to work through me)(as deeply as you need.) i can (buffer/separate/quarantine)(easier) the /more/ i have. >> Aside from walking behind, he also has a way of gravitating /off path/, at some unspecific moment falling out of Emma's orbit to meander with his hands behind his back like a child making a point not to /break/ anything. He's in business-casual wear; a sleeveless undershirt beneath a three-quarter sleeve plaid shirt, both in shades of gray and black, black slacks with brown belt, loafers that are slowly growing more scuffed. If he had any reservations about traveling deep into a fortified laboratory, he's put it on a shelf far enough back that it doesn't show. If anything, he seems at home, casting a quick judgemental glance from side to side like a connoisseur of laboratory environs. /Judging/. Actually, maybe a touch impressed, eyebrows so briefly raising. If he had a tail, he might be dragging it along table corners as he passed them. Putting his /smell/ down in Norman's territory. Did he just crane his neck to sneak-peek at Shaw's MASTER SWITCH? Yes he DID. All this before finding himself a seat, possibly on some vacant /restraint/ chair, lounging sideways with his legs up on an arm rest. He closes his eyes briefly, and begins to regulate his breathing. No words! “Excellent,” Norman informs Emma, his eyes flicking over to Parley. As he /drags/ his scent all over Norman’s laboratory. Probably intending to rub his cheeks all over Norman’s lovely murder-drones. Grrrrhff. But then, Norman’s eyes are closing; he draws in a slow, careful breath. And Mr. Shaw - begins paying attention to the console. It is a very /indepth/ console; it includes readings such as Norman Osborn’s heart rate - his body temperature - and a dial specifically for determining how much /raw voltage/ to pour into his body. To say that Mr. Shaw is currently in a position to electrocute Norman Osborn to death would not be entirely inaccurate. But then, there’s no guarantee it would kill Mr. Osborn’s /associate/. Norman Osborn’s mind is - as always - a machine that purrs with structure and purpose. Steel gears grinding their teeth through problems; pistons pumping - devices /rumbling/ with life. The rust is there, as always; a steady encroachment that has, over the past few months, grown deeper and more noticeable - before, you would need to look closely to see the flicker of corruption. Now, it is obvious at a glance; his mind has the look of - a well-worn tool that has been left in the field perhaps a bit too long. Surface thoughts flicker across his mind, as well. The bits that are Norman - are clearer than the rest. A conversation, had recently. An unusual red-headed woman, talking with him over dinner. Norman, in his office, standing in front of a mirror. Something green... on the other side. Lunging for the reflection. Threatening to crack through. Its breath fogging the glass. A discussion. A /negotiation/. Talks about... an arrangement. “Go ahead,” Norman tells them, eyes still closed. Mind /focusing/. Emma pulls up a chair, one that does not have restraints and does have wheels for easy maneuverability. She settles back into the seat, hands gripping the armrests until she has transferred her weight her weight to the seat comfortably, then releases them to bring her fingers together to steeple them before her face. She faces Osborn for a moment, eyes open, studying his expression before closing her eyes and immediately pouncing on Parley's mind, slipping into that soft and ethereal mind like a swimmer into a fog covered lake, waiting on the sensation and adjusting to it before looking through that mind for a connection to Norman FUCKING Osborn's brain. Parley's mind is open and accommodating, that care-worn sense of myriad feed and hands that have passed before Emma wearing down and smoothing over its inner walkways make it almost - ergonomic, smooth and very much like a silky caress of mist, novacane-soothing at his depth... But then passing through to the other end to the world beyond is anything but numb - it's /sharply/ defined. Emma's natural talent honed down through his own ability like an eagle's eye viewing down the eye piece of a microscope, making /all/ minds in the vicinity crystalline - Shaw, there, at the controls, thinkin' his ShawThoughts, having his ShawFeels. Parley /will/ probably harbor some expectation to get peeks through Emma's own eyes, a very clinical comparison between her abilities and others he'd experienced quietly churning just beyond in the barest hearing. It's the sound of gnatcloud. Swarming. Just in the background. His connection to Norman has grown more familiarized since Latveria - oh, yes, on /purpose/ too, his touch light, impersonal, but confident. And once touched down he... melts. Softens. And lies down as a bridge, a neutral meeting point between two powerful minds; glinting sharp-white diamond spears and churning, steely machinery pouring through his colorless-gray waters. … a bloody red rust amongst them. Beneath the surface of that polished machine - deeper in the rust - lies something. Parley and Emma may not have expected to ‘see’. It is difficult to describe; borderline untranslatable. Intention is a tricky thing - it differs from mind to mind. And Norman Osborn is a man of /many/ minds. A gordian knot of low-level psychic /static/ churns at the heart of that rust; it’s some manner of tumor - but something /more/. There’s brain matter there - that isn’t even /Norman’s/. Dislocated, through his body. Ferried away in his anatomy. A braincell here; a braincell there. Connected to his nervous system - /interwoven/ through it - forming some, ad hoc /network/ of buzzing, purring brainmeats. And that’s not the weirdest part. The brainmeats are /moving/. Cells die; revert - and reform elsewhere. Like a cloud network, but driven by neurons instead of hard-drives, connective nervous tissue instead of wi-fi - forming a confused, barely-functioning consciousness - an emergent mind. A mind of what seems to be pure /appetite/. And that’s /still/ not the weirdest part. The weirdest part is this: The configuration of these brainmeats consist of thoughts - /memories/ - that belong neither to Norman or the Goblin. In those rare moments when Parley can catch a glimpse of something amidst this roaming network - translate it into thoughts for Emma to investigate, buoys for her to navigate through this sea - it becomes clearer and clearer that these thoughts... are of other people’s. Snippets of associations - of memories - of people who are, in some bizarre, horrible sense, still ‘alive’. If persisting as a collection of tattered, tooth-worn memories - wandering like senile ghosts in Norman’s nervous system - can be called life. These are the memories of people Norman Osborn - as the Goblin - has /eaten/. Emma's mind is direct, collected, driven. It flows through Parley's mind, down the path he directs, singularly focused on obtaining information and depositing it in a reservoir of her own. All of her other thoughts are seal, sectioned off, shielded or turned off, allowing her to focus at the job at hand, refined further by Parley's mutation. There is seemingly nothing behind it except the drive to acquire more information, decisions to be made on what to do with it definitely tabled for later. She is nothing, if not circumspect. She wades forward, through the mire, conducting her own sort of cataloging, peering into some of these thoughts and attempting to assign values of names, descriptions, or numbers, if they are just fleeting enough. She's good about not crossing the boundaries she promised Norman, for now, moving ever forward, dragging Parley with her, her own barrier of protection and support. << Are you seeing this? >> She queries Parley at some point, slipping further into the mind, her steps light, but her presence definitely felt. She takes a moment to choose to familiarize herself with Norman only, choosing a recent memory and diving further into it, using a surface thought, to keep from things deemed private. This dinner with the red head. That's interesting. What is there? << (that would be from)(/him/). >> Parley's aid, the deeper he's floated in with Emma, has shifted. It clingwraps to her form like a glove, and while she actively inspects, he filters through /to/ her the obscure, formless synapse-messages that dwell somewhere between the hindbrain and the realm of surface-skin and nerves, intention free of intellect, sensation free of source. And in turn... he buffers. And watches her back, softens her steps, streamlines the point of connection between the two minds. And here, now, he hovers over this terrible snarl of uncounted fractured minds - fractured /identities/ and -- watches. As acclimated as he had made a point to come with the shape/texture/temperament of Norman's mind, this shape, if anything... made a point to hammer /him/ to fit /it/. A shape he has, with some consideration, been keeping in the back of his mind. << it is(a metabolic /monster/) isn't it. (how fast it cycles...) >> Is he actually kind of... marveling? << (no wonder it's always)(hungry.) >> He unfurls a delicate wisp of smoke, a second channel within this one, unconnected to Emma, and so lightly extends it. He doesn't touch the knot directly... but, like tamping down dirt short of a water way, creates a narrow passive path. Darkly curious, if any such /bites/ taken from his own mind weeks early might linger. Or, equally dark but more fascinating... could they be filtered out into individuals? The memory of a recent dinner is still fresh in Norman’s mind; a flash of a red-head, of conversation - of something unfamiliar and novel. It sticks, like a painful splinter, in the surface - throbbing. A chat about the Goblin. About /appetite/. Just the act of focusing on this memory seems to - stir something inside of Norman’s sprawling network of thoughts. The tangled nest of memories stir in response to Parley’s delicate touch; it is one thing to wander through these flickering associations - but another to see them /respond/. At once, they are overlapping, weaving through each other. Someone’s memory of a happy wedding day. Someone’s memory of pain and screaming as teeth sink into their jugular. Someone’s memory of precious corporate secrets. All intertwining, all intermeshing; stitched crudely together in a narrative that has no rhyme or reason. A thousand puzzle pieces, all from different puzzles - none of which fit. And that snarl of a tumor wants /more/ - as if it’s trying - to assemble enough to /put/ together a single, coherent narrative. But with each memory gained, the narrative becomes more jumbled, more /irreconcilable/. And yet there is only one solution: keep searching. Keep looking for more memories to fit together, /jamming/ them together into that mismatched whole. Maybe that tendency toward greed is why the darkness sets in, then. A darkness that streams in from below the foreign conscious entities, flowing thick and rich but... yet threatening to encase them at an alarming speed. Intending not to stop, but to hold. Like a parent holding gently onto their child's wrist while guiding it toward a lion's face. To pet? Or towards those lovely, lovely teeth. Who's to tell. That said, though it presses - it /is/ gentle. Perhaps he expects it somehow not to be noticed at all. Two thin strips of glowing yellow blink into existence. Thin, horizontally aligned crescent moons, curved upwards in delight. As the darkness pours in, albeit slowly, Emma pays it about as much mind as one does walking through sludge in a sewer. It swirls around her like cloudy detris in a stream, gaps caused by her presence rapidly filling on the other side of her. She keeps moving, slowly, trudging through further into Norman's mind, looking at his memories and trying to find one of those old and deep rooted connections between him and the entity known as Goblin. When the tide of darkness wearies her to slipping, its as if she thrusts out a hand against it, erecting a shield of her own to augment the protection provided by Parley. It is not on the offensive, not exerting any more pressure than the darkness itself is, instead, matching strength for now. << (look for) >> Parley's voice is a thin whisper of suggestion to Emma, speaking close to her ear. << (his father.) >> He is a sensation cling-wrapped to her mind like a pair of boots, thoughtful, quiet, inspecting. And comments, detached, as he looks out across the powerful landscape of Norman Osborn's mind, almost to himself. << (if we wanted to kill him)(now would be the time.) >> JUST SAYING. It isn't blood-thirsty, nor desirous to do so. Just... in no way /shy/. Like laying out playing cards one after another - take Shaw, first... While Emma walks on, dragging her own complicated little net of protection and clarity, Parley himself hangs back. A moment of pause, shake-shake-shaking off a mental foot like a cat that had just stepped in a /puddle/, he looks down deep into that dark, delighted sludge... In the physical, he takes in a pensive breath, drums his fingertips on a knee. Just once, a short little tattoo. And then he reaches back down, presses mental hands into the invasive snaring tar. Here, too, the sense of him is starkly... unnourishing, lacking in substance like asking for a glass of water and getting the equivalent delivered to you in about twenty square feet of /fog/. He lays down in the mire, rolls over and sinks in. This is, after all, a deal with /two/ minds. << (you're being)(cooperative.) >> He murmurs to those yellow eyes. << (what do you want)(from this.) >> Somewhere on the surface, Norman’s brows furrow. Though he is not privy to Emma and Parley’s communication - with each other, and the malignancy that is the Goblin - it’s impossible /not/ to feel the force of his disapproving glower. Norman DOES NOT LIKE. Though for now that darkness lays quiet, there is a fssssssh of released pressure when Emma presses against it. As if the denied force relocates itself elsewhere, waiting to flow right back where it was. Save for tiny little little pinpricks toward both that shield and Emma herself, explorative moreso than damaging, though... considering the source, the two might well mean the same depending on how much Emma is prepared to let it /poke/. sweetly, oh so sweetly, /everyone/ gets to hear: << hhHhheeeelllLLLOOOoooooo pretty eyes >> Over on Parley's side of things, the darkness collects more thickly. So thickly, in fact, that it's almost like a solid - like metal shavings clinging, toppling over itself to gather onto the apparently magnetic Parley's more readily accepting presence. Scratchy like velcro. It speaks in a warped whisper to Parley alone, despite the fact that it may be passed on either way: << EVERYTHING ? >> << Hello, Yellow eyes, >> Emma replies, quietly, like a librarian responding to a query when she is utterly unwilling to look up from her text. She continues, the shield taking whatever poking that Goblin delivers without changing shape or moving, just resiliently following Emma's progress through Norman's mind. At Parley's suggestion, she slides in deeper, looking for memories in that mind of Osborn's father, looking specifically for the ones that the inky tendrils connect to. Telepathic fingers strum that connection, attention focused on how those reverberations affect both minds. << We are unprepared to do that, Parley, >> Emma admits quietly, to Parley alone. << We do not know how our strength compares to his. There is no guarantee that any of us would survive and be effective. >> Her body takes a deep breath, the slow, even breaths of her concentration exaggerating for a moment as she takes stock of her entire connection, pulsing for a second back to her own mind through Parley's, checking his condition and stability at this time, brushing privately against him, a subtle scritch of attention given. Parley ripples under Emma's fingers, as a soft give of tawny fur, shivery-warm and mammalian. It rolls, into her skitch and then disperses, inward, away. And, almost casually, he rolls over under the thickening blackness, yielding to its pressure - not in a rush, but slower. Giving by increments, to only slowly lay over like a coin into that hungry palm. Small concession by small concession. << (we can help)(with that.) >> There is a pause, where in body, he holds his breath... And then /relaxes/, the sense of flexed sinew growing softer. << (but you're rough on your toys.) and unless you go easier (they will not last.) >> Perhaps Emma expects to /find/ Norman’s father amidst those ghost-like memories; another mind the Goblin has devoured in its incessant hunger. If so, she might be surprised to discover no trace of thought amidst this thrumming network that would identify itself as the progenitor of this man. Indeed, as she grows closer to the memory of Norman’s father, she finds herself entering a place where the Goblin and Norman are deeply entwined - one of the few places where it’s nigh-impossible to tell where Goblin ends and Norman begins. A vague silhouette of a man; brutish, domineering. A drunken, abusive dullard. Parley and Emma see him through Norman’s eyes: A balding giant who stands before Norman as a child, delivering jaw-rattling blows. Alcohol fueled tirades. Vicious beatings for minor, trifling infractions - some real, most imaginary. Not so much as a glimmer of love. Norman, as a child, living in raw, primal fear. Dreading every night he returned from school to that house. Hoping he would come home to find his father passed out on the couch. /Preferring/ him drunk; at least when he was intoxicated, it left his senses too dull to notice Norman. Starved for affection, Norman devours every sliver of escapism he can find. Comic books. Stories. Fantasies. Too terrified by his father to form healthy connections with others, he is incessantly bullied. He concocts imaginary friends to fill the void. Except one of them turns out not to behave. Blackouts. Incidents around the house. Acts of violent, secret rebellion - bottles of booze, shattered. Objects of value, destroyed. A father, furious. An imaginary friend, consoling. Comforting Norman. Taking the beatings /for/ him. Offering to keep him safe. To protect him. To scare all the monsters away. Something with bright, egg-yellow eyes -- and a mouth full of steak-knives. Something that while it had all the reason to be scared, was not. It simply /existed/. And even now, it allows this journey through his and Norman's shared recollections as if it's nothing. Like the gravity of their situation never quite managed to strike him for what it was. As if it has since ceased to matter. ... Or has it? Perhaps the Goblin is too busy with that aforementioned coin to pay proper attention - what else are coins in palms for, after all, but to either spend or... to flip between fingers, roll over knuckles - to PLAY WITH. The strain exercised on Emma's shields lessens considerably. The darkness very much remains, ever present and still /holding/. Greedy? Oh yes. But dangerously protective as a second. Fortunately the brunt of it seems somehow... dulled; Parley proves to be a shiny little distraction for the prodding and poking and the -- BITING. As if the very mention of the Goblin playing rough prompts it, that protective presence in Norman's mind moves to CONSTRICT and /CHOMP DOWN/. Emma takes Goblin's distraction and uses it as best as she can, pressing into Norman's mind gently, remarking quietly to him, << I just need to see how deeply he is rooted. Please be patient. >> as she does, taking a quick catalog of all the connections and the strength of the cord of connection like she did with the initial memories of his father. When she finishes, if she can finish unhindered, she starts looking at some of the memories close to those connections and yet utterly unaffected. What exactly protects Norman Osborn from the Goblin? Tsss. Parley's closed eyelids flutter, brows pulling down over them to form a subtle frown - all to /control/ the reflex to withdraw, twist free. And with a brief shortening of breath, that compression of BITING will find -- sssss, an exquisitely /willing/ surrender, as he hands over this perfect victory-invasion. A token offering to pay for Emma's passage, crumpling like little delicate bones and pouring blood down a terrible throat. --... and, twitch-spasming to remain slow, deliberate, he in turn constricts /back/, a delicate little *squeeze* that softens into a shaky grooming. Passing raspy mental tongue along Goblin's sides as he's bitten into, combing lightly through those terrible fragmented /chunks/ of minds. Soothing them and sorting them into as much order as the broken-fractured madness might allow. Easing the endpoints where rushed stitching joins them. << (--shh.) too (-n-!... h) (hard.)(i can't help)(if you destroy me.) >> He tries to pinpoint a few individual (screams?)voices. To clarify them specifically. << (are parts of)(Him)(here as well?) >> Him... is Norman. Or an embodiment of. It's a strange composite picture, not the usual suggestion of that striking red hair, or those churning mechanics. His presentation of Norman fucking Osborn is curiously... sedate, composed. Standing behind his desk, a grim self-aware man with a fractal mind that isn't /exempt/ from the word 'beauty'. Or horror. << (take the time you need.) >> To Emma, his voice is detached and calm. Maybe, just maybe, even riveted. << (he's /strong/.) >> Like this was an /exciting/ development. Just. Exciting-with-gritted-teeth. At the root of Norman’s memories with his father, the Goblin and Norman are inseparable; entwined so deeply one rapidly becomes the other. But as memories move toward the present, divisions become apparent - cracks and crevices that separate their desires, their /ends/. Norman’s initial horror at discovering the Goblin’s acts of violence against local wildlife - the half-devoured corpse of a dog. Minus its /brains/. A bully, disappearing. Norman, not remembering what happened the night before. Norman’s palpable terror at the possibility - was it the Goblin? The Goblin, just grinning silently in response. Norman /struggled/ with the Goblin, then. Each gnashing like wild dogs over a piece of meat; entwining even deeper - united only by their contempt for failure and their ever-growing ambitions. Norman had the advantage, but the Goblin was always there, struggling for more control - /feeding/ the fires of Norman’s ambition. Norman, going to college. Norman, rebuilding his father’s dessicated company after the man’s death (a funeral he did not attend; a grave he has never visited). And then -- Norman, finding love. A brief, powerful flicker of warmth - of /joy/ - in an otherwise affectionless life. Burning brighter for perhaps the lack. And with this discovery - the Goblin’s presence began to shrink. And then, Emily dies. Cracks appear in Norman’s mind - and the Goblin once again begins to gobble up territory. Norman’s depression leads to poor business decisions; vultures circle Oscorp, picking apart his legacy. Again, he is surrounded by bullies - this time, they are not his father, or thugs at school. This time, they are businessmen and investors, wearing smiles as they carve apart his livelihood. Trying to tear asunder the very life Norman has built. Until finally - the Goblin swells back with strength. Whispers to him, that he is here to scare away all the /monsters/. To make sure that nothing will ever hurt Norman Osborn again. And Norman, in a moment of child-like weakness - reduced, perhaps, to that very same little boy who found comfort in a yellow-eyed monster - /agrees/. Norman Osborn and the Goblin become, again, nearly inseparable. The memories here... are not pleasant. Norman Osborn knows what human flesh tastes like. And, in his weakest moments? He /likes/ it. With all the confidence of an animal which is either unaware of a nearby threat or has long decided it isn't a threat at /all/, the Goblin's presence around Parley's clamps down further. It's an explorative thing, and it does not ease up when the constricting is returned. It gets worse. So much worse. Unstoppably hungry to eradicate this THING he's found, wandering around where it does not belong. But it lasts only a second, in reality. Then, Parley suddenly finds himself utterly free again. The metal shavings corrode and rust into nothing, before the darkness around Emma's poking and prodding damn nearly /solidifies/. Becomes like swimming through molasses while pointy crocodiles composed entirely out of teeth brush past her skin, drowning hazard and all. The yellow eyes make their return, but WIDE OPEN NOW as the memories touched upon light up in response: Connections so fickle but yet unquestionably belonging are brought to life all at once: colleagues, competitors, wild animals, bullying children and neighbour's pets alike -- Everything and everyone these shared minds have ever heard scream for mercy or in agonising pain, every last attempt to push air out from crushed or slit throats, every last blood-laced gurgle that surfaced in an attempt to bargain or protest. All of it, at once, pours down like rusty-coloured rain, clinging onto both Emma and Parley in order to be heard. LOUD, AND CLEAR. It isn't often the Goblin gets to entertain visitors. He intends to make the most of it. << I guess now is as good a time as any to make a stand. Did you find anything familiar, Parley? Anything you might have left behind? >> Emma strengthens her shields and stands firm, facing the oncoming storm and taking it. Her mind begins to push and pull at the screaming voices, pressing them together by sounds, trying filter out minds and create more coherent individuals in the muck, beings in the mind of the Goblin, not necessarily to alter them, but to clarify them for the time being. Is Norman in here at all? She'll find out when she finishes this high speed jig saw puzzle. Where Emma stands, tall and powerful, resistant to the blackened touch, /protected/ further through the silent clingwrap covering Parley grips /tight/ around her, the empath himself... Does not stand. He kneels in his darker hole of these dual minds, not as a wall against the darkness but a wide open highway inviting it in deep, drinking in the screams, the terror, until they fill him to brimming, the sheer force of their volume roaring so loud as to be deafening - and, easier. For him to hear. To filter. To lay down beneath. With a deep chunk of him bitten through, some small leakage of him can be felt. And this leakage is only a barren, hardened familiarity to sounds of dying minds, a gentling to their battering. Like cupping palms under a shower of fractured cathedral glass, where they shimmer /fiercely/ as they pour their way through. << (it's all too) >> He saturates, his body slowly exhaling in the restraint chair he's still sprawled in, fingers knitted over his abdomen. << (... digested.) fragmented. i would need (much time/his cooperation) to make sense of it. (...possibly later...) but. (we'll find nothing more here)(even if we dig.) >> And, raising his eyes up to the black terror pouring down across his face, closing his eyes to it, he wonders. << (...can you remind him?)(of the things he loves?) >> Norman is there, somewhere. Distant. On the surface, withdrawn from the tempest of collective anguish and murder - the last thoughts of victims before those jaws closed upon them - that encloses around the two mutants. When the Goblin lunges, they might even feel him - tug, tug, tug - ever so gently, trying to pull the Goblin back. But it is a tiny gesture, more of a suggestion, a /reminder/ to the Goblin. As to an agreement. It’s hard to say whether or not - at this stage - Norman could hold the Goblin back without his permission. There is one more relevant memory; a point where the Goblin and Norman, once again, divide. The Goblin’s hunger for Norman Osborn’s own child - Harry. A moment when the Goblin attacked. Norman, suddenly horrified, slamming down. /Reeling/ the Goblin back. Norman, flinging himself to his death. And the Goblin - bringing Norman back. The Goblin, for what might be the first time, actually experiencing /fear/. The torrent of tortured noise quivers at Norman's tug, tug, tug. It pours down with its strength doubled for a moment, then-- ceases entirely. The eyes squeeze remain, still wide open, still looming, but... hovering with considerably less confidence, now. An extremely large amount of tension promptly starts to build up in the shared mindspace, shaking both the Goblin's and Norman's mind at their very cores as that darkness recedes but looms overhead, concentrating into a writhing, eager mass. Coiling around all that is-- not the visitors, but /Norman/ now. Harmlessly, but pressing nonetheless. For attention. Though it is not fear outright, the darkness that latches still bears a resemblance to a dog with a newspaper raised up in front of it in threat - or a dullard and his hand, for that matter - crouched down low in what could very well either be preparation to flee... or to lunge for the jugular with all of its combined strength yet unrevealed. When the onslaught stills and recoils, Emma takes a moment to steady herself and perhaps focus less on her shielding and more on the work at hand, finding the attempts to organize what is coming from Goblin useless. She turns back to Osborn's brain, slowly sifting through the more positive aspects until she finds something she hopes is juicy, the day that Harry Osborn was born. She tugs that to Norman's mind, playing out, not necessarily the labor or the actual birth, but the first time that he held his son in his hands, the joy of both parents and blossoming of the hope for the future, the Osborn legacy. << Let's see how this affects things, shall we? >> the message is sent to Parley alone, along with a brief brush to gauge his wellbeing. There's a subtle soreness in Parley, Emma's brush will find, though he's shrugging it off distractedly in the /resounding/ silence that follows Goblin's tactical recoiling. He's moving quickly, rearranging, sloughing off the wisps of gray smoke that are chewed, exposing essentially the tender pink rawness of new skin not yet healed to callus and rolling carefully towards the tight-hunkered, /agitated/ yellow eyes. It's less a touch than it is a surrender. Laying down just shy of him and rolling over, stretched out; letting that mind of lead shavings(broken glass?teeth?THUMB TACKS?) have a tense moment of total control of the situation. Or at least... /his/. << (gently...) >> he whispers to Emma as she finds these precious moments. And, on uncertain impulse, he takes a careful breath, and expands his throat to swallow them /in/ through one side... and on the other, expands to invite Goblin to have a sample bite of flavor of something - warm? loving? from Norman's /own/ mind... Norman Osborn is very slow to surrender these moments to foreign dignitaries. They are guarded; wrapped in barbed wire and secured in bunkers hidden behind minefields - hidden away deep in his mind like something precious. When Emma seeks those memories out, there is an instinctive recoil from Norman’s mind; an immediate attempt to /disconnect/. Norman Osborn does not /share/ with others. But with work, and persistence, the white-knuckled grip on those memories begins to grow slack... and they are relinquished, surrendered up to Emma and Parley’s minds, flooding over them. Yes, Norman Osborn is /capable/ of love; it remains a rare dish - a delicacy he scarcely indulges in. But what memories are there burn fierce - protectiveness and need that burn hot - threatening to scorch the very channels they travel through. There's a tug and pull as the Goblin's presence seems only to want to retreat. Back to safety, back to those areas of Norman's mind that have already begun to falter under his touch. But he was told to /cooperate/. And cooperation is not ignorance. Though safety in his own territory awaits, it is not the solution the Goblin goes for. With Emma and her mental surroundings suddenly somehow so very unappetising and unappealing, Parley wins his attention with ease. The darkness creeps back over to /that/ corner of the mindspace, readily accepting the offer and once more wrapping tightly around the foreign, more empathically inclined entity in order to try and restrict its movements and to /chew/ absently. It is as close to going back to sleep that the Goblin can afford to be, the yellow eyes closing but for one tiny sliver of light still watching. << Interesting. >> Emma remarks, exhaling quietly as she takes in the state of Norman's brain. She pauses to collect herself and begins to withdraw, stopping to collect a Parley on her way. << I think this is all we can do for now, >> She says, trying to lure him back with her withdrawing presence. Soon, she is slipping out of Norman entirely, then out of Parley, and settling firmly in her own mind. Parley lingers back, long enough to cover Emma's exit smoothly. And even then-some, smoothing down the ragged fragments making up Goblin's mind wherever he might reach them through the -- hhh, rather /tight/ clench kept on him. He allows whatever inches are demanded, crumples like a limp chew toy. Or probably more accurately, a captured bird. There is, deep inside, that rapid fluttering pulse of something small and fragile and /alive/, breathing rapidly but holding so... so still... Until Emma is free. Then, his presence fades into a lack of substance. A lack of form. And drifts away like a wisp of smoke. And Parley will probably sit sprawled in his claimed restraint chair with both palms pressed to his forehead, breathing slowly for a while. They'll /all/ probably need a break after this. Parley, for one, brought chocolate. | |
