entranceway | Astral Destruction

[ Clementine and Mae appear on the screen. It’s a little girl and a cat girl. They’re standing in a room on the first floor. Clem has a crowbar in her hand, slung over her shoulder. Mae has her trusty baseball bat and a very cat-that-got-the-canary grin on her face.]

Hey, so… Mae told me about how she breaks shit sometimes and how it’s… cathartic? [ that’s the word she used, right? ] And I tried it with a light bulb. It felt pretty damn awesome so we thought it might be cool to have an official place where people could break stuff whenever they needed to deal with bullshit.

[Mae immediately picks up the thread, grinning wide.]

So we are super effing pleased to introduce…The Destruction Room.

[She pans the camera over to the sign on the door. It’s generic and straight to the point. Then she pans the camera around to take in the room. There’s rows of shelves filled with china plates, vases, glass figurines and other fragile-looking items. Along the walls are dozens of light fixtures and free-standing lamps, as well as just a metric ton of lightbulbs, both fluorescent and incandescent. All of it is very precariously displayed and it looks like it wouldn’t take much to just knock some of these shelves right over.]

Isn’t it amazing? We stocked it with everything that could possibly go smash.

[Clementine gestures then to have Mae pan the camera toward the wall on the side which has a giant weapon rack with every blunt weapon imaginable from bats to maces to hammers and more. ]

Over on this wall, we’ve got every blunt weapon you can think of so you can really make the breakables crack into a hundred awesome pieces. Also, it’s on the first floor, room 4 so if you hit yourself in the foot or get glass stuck in your arm or something, the clinic’s right next door.

Yeah, we pretty much thought of everything. Because we’re awesome.

[Mae holds out her hand to Clementine for a high-five. Clementine leans over, high fiving her back, with a smile. Totally awesome. ]

Anyway, yeah, come on down and get your smash on. Work out some of that pre-event anxiety or whatever.

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Yeah, but when you destroy shit, this place fixes it in like an hour anyway.

( It doesn't let anything stay broken. It's weird. She doesn't get it. Clementine raises an eyebrow then. )

He's my friend. I trust him. ( And she doesn't trust easily. )

I obviously haven't destroyed enough things. Figured that was just all that event insanity.

[And speaking on insanity, he isn't even sure what to think about that.]

Huh. Well then. Glad to meet anyone that calls Richie a friend.

[It's kind of a new experience.]

No. It is really what happens.

( Clementine frowns, folding her arms across her chest. )

Why do you sound so surprised?

Huh. Going to have to check this out.

[He fall quiet, considering how to answer that.]

Richie's not... social. Not with many. Never has been. I've always been the one to make friends.

I mean, if you want to use the Destruction Room to destroy some shit and then come back in an hour to see if it's all back together, it's not a bad way to use it.

( Clementine bites down on her lip thoughtfully then. It's not like she goes around observing Richie around people so it's not like she'd actually know, but he never struck her as particularly social. )

He's been a good friend to me. So it's nice to meet you.

Hey, that's a good idea. I wonder what happens if you just sit there and wait. Would they wait until no one was there to watch or what?

[All he needs is these thoughts and starting science projects, but he's probably going to do just that.]

I feel the same about meeting you. It's nice seeing maybe he's working those things out.

[And not hurting people, and obviously clearly doesn't have Santanico in his head. Good.]

I never tested that out, but if you decide to try, let me know. It'd be pretty cool to watch everything pull itself back together.

( But maybe it does wait until no one is around before righting itself again, fixing allt he damage that's been done. )

He's told me some about your world.

It can't be easy to make friends there.

Worth a try. What else do we have to do?

[And it means learning something, even if he isn't sure what it will mean either way.]

That's some messed up bedtime stories for kids. Though if it can show up here, its worth being warned about.

Yeah, wouldn't really know. We just kind of had one another. Mostly.

Not a lot. That's one of the problems about this place.

( There's so much time between Events where she's just thinking about all the shit she's been through. )

I come from a messed up place, but yeah, he warned me about some of it.

But you knew you could rely on each other? ( That's important. She's heard some about Richie's relationship with his brother, but just some. )

No shit, right? All of this place is keeping busy and then trying not to die. Sounds like a lot of my life.

[Which is not the most promising of things, but not entirely wrong either.]

Sounds like a lot of us come from messed up places. Sorry for that. No kid should deal with shit.

[Even if that was all they had known.]

We could, and some days here that is all I'm trying to hold on to. You got family here?

Yeah, I'm sorry your world's messed up and shitty too.

( Clementine means that. From what she's heard from Richie, well- She has a feeling Wonderland might be better in some ways, worse in other ways. )

It's good you have something to hold on to. ( Pause. ) No. I don't have any family anymore.

Thanks. I figure it makes things easier here, so least we've got that going for us. All of us.

[Damn but this place has a way of plucking at heart strings Seth hadn't even known he had.]

Yeah well, keep it up and we'll have to adopt you or something. Anyone that can get through to Richie is definitely Gecko material.

One of the benefits of this place.

( Clementine folds her arms across her chest quietly then. She smirks lightly at what she says, understanding the meaning behind it even if it's- even if it's hard for her to attach herself to anything or anyone too intensely. Everyone leaves.

Everyone dies. )

I didn't realize it was that difficult. He makes it easy. ( at least for her but maybe that's because they were both children the first time they killed someone. )</small Thanks.

[Everyone leaving and dying Seth can understand. He just happened to get his brother back after he died, but he was the only one.]

Well good. I'm glad. Keep it up, because let me tell you. You've got to be helping him. Maybe it's this place or something, but all I'm seeing in him is good.

[And it has left them in much better places than they had been in their own world. Both together and apart.]

Astral Destruction

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