Invasion!

[goneawaymod]

Who: The New Hires
What: Sudden Memory Share
Where: Their Memory Palaces
When: After Intermission
Warnings/Notes: Possible in every memory, warn in subject lines.

Contact.

It's during a pause in their day. A nap. An idle moment looking across the Top Deck. Taking a slow breath between reps in the training room.

The New Hires are connected. Mental pathways locking together, they're forced into one another's innermost beings. Thrust into one another's memory palaces where the mind collects and stores everything that makes them who they are. The core of their beings are only a few steps away and no one can help the violation.

To make matters worse, it comes with no explanation or no ability to pull out and stop. Once they're through the first memory, perhaps they can find a way out, but they're already witnessing some event from their host's past. And, if they left, who knows whether or not they'd end up accidentally invading another memory palace?

And if they were there, who was in theirs?

[[So, how this works: the memories can either be viewed in spectator mode or experiencing everything themselves. The person whose memories are being shown, the host, can watch as their current self or take the form they had of their past self.

They cannot control the first memory shown, the player decides that, but they can control any other memories they'd like to show people. Of course, there's always the option of an extreme emotional reaction bringing up memories unbidden.]]

Comments

[garmr]

((For those canon-familiar, I am doing the Golden Age Arc and am splitting this up into parts. cw for violence, gore, animal death, some of his time as a child soldier(so violence/injury with children), and nudity. ))

The Band of the Hawk

a. Age 9-15
The years of early adolescence pass wandering from battle to battle. Where was he going? Why is he fighting? He doesn't know. Guts only knew to keep moving forward and surviving as long as he was able. Life was simple when all he had to do was kill enemies with his sword, sleep, and eat. The bleak emptiness of it all could be put aside for the fight of the next day. As long as he was alive, that was enough.

b. Age 15/16
This life ends for him the day he is attacked by one particular group of horsemen. The skirmish is going in his favor until he is confronted with a man that could have leapt right out of a fairy tale. Atop his horse, Griffith's eyes seemed unnaturally alert, like the piercing gaze of a falcon. His sword moved quickly - incredibly so. It was nothing like the other soldiers he cleaved apart. Before he knew it, Guts has inches of blade in his chest and blood spilling on the ground. One good strike is what it took.

Defeated and brought to the Band of the Hawk's camp, he hovers between life and death for two nights. The bloody ghosts of the past torment his mind. Glimmers of wakefulness peek in and out of the dark. At times he notices a warm body next to him. A woman with dark eyes.

On the third day, he finds himself awakening in a tent.

(above link is 10 mins of Guts' introduction to the Hawks + a duel with Griffith for his freedom)

Hundred Years War

Three years later, the ragtag group of mercenaries known as the Band of the Hawk had risen in prominence, making themselves invaluable to their host country of Midland in the war with the Tudor Empire. Undefeated in battle, the Band's string of victories seem to be plucked right out of a dream.

a. Nosferatu Zodd
In the midst of an otherwise ordinary castle siege, something monstrous within the fortress is keeping the entire vanguard at bay.

(Guts gets clapped by the first apostle he ever meets. Get your 10 mins of gory monster fighting.)

b. Bonfire of Dreams (+ some ambience)
In order to buy time for Casca to bring reinforcements, Guts took on an entire band of Tudor mercenaries by himself, earning the moniker the Hundred-Man-Slayer. In the evening following, Guts and Casca contemplate their dreams and purpose.

Moment of Glory

The Hawks reach the apex of their success. Having ended the Hundred Years' War with the taking of a major fortress, the Hawks' commanders are granted knighthood by the King of Midland. It is a time of celebration, but Guts is still plagued by questions about his own lack of purpose, something exacerbated even further with a time of peace over the horizon.

(link is Guts being bad at parties with Casca. They do their best.)

Morning Departure

At the first rays of dawn, Guts gathers his belongings to leave the Hawks and go on his own journey, but gets caught by his companions in an unexpected farewell. It is one that will end in the way it began - with a duel for his freedom.

[fromfryingpantofire]

Hundred Years War - A

This...this is absolutely not what Sam's expecting. Though, really, maybe he should have been. The Rig had brought a lot of different kinds of people, after all. Others who have fought monsters? Yeah, it's not a stretch.

But he's getting the hang of the memory thing now and so he holds back during the fighting, though he does find himself running forward when the white haired guy ends up injured. The creature speaking gets him to look up, though, and he shakes himself as it flies away. "Well. That's not ominous at all, is it?"

[garmr]

In the cacophony of the bloodbath, it was easy to miss one extra person. This memory is the first time Guts encountered a monster like this, spurring a primal fear that nailed him in place when it began to transform. It made his limbs tremble in a way that never happened while fighting men. That shock of the colliding headfirst with the unknown left its mark on his mind. Even as the beast flies away, the lingering dread sits heavy in this memory as they stand in the rubble.

Events proceeds as he remembers it, with the other soldiers taking count of their wounded and dead. A few go to Griffith to help load him onto a crude stretcher made of wood and cloth. The lone female commander that had run to him seemed especially invested on making sure he was properly cared for.

Guts seems to be the only one to hear Sam's voice - one that definitely did not belong to any of his comrades. He looks a few years younger than he does on the Rig. Two eyes, no metal prosthetic, not quite as weary. The greatsword he leaned on was far more reasonable than the massive heap of iron he trained with on the Rig.

"You... I know you."

He looks confused more than anything.

[fromfryingpantofire]

"Only in passing." They'd seen each other, but not really had any conversations yet. It happens. There are a lot of people on the Rig, after all. "Sam Winchester. And you're Guts, right?"

They haven't met, really, but Sam's good at remembering things he might need later. Names, for instance. "And no, you're probably realizing I don't belong here. Which is because I don't. We seem to be caught in some weird...memory sharing thing."

[garmr]

Guts scowls at the realization, jaw clenching. Not because of Sam in particular, but the thought of having his personal life spilled out into the open was... something he kind of hates. Nope. This is just way too intimate for his liking.

"You know how to stop this? I'm not much good at magic," he growls out, sword grasped just a bit tighter.

[fromfryingpantofire]

Sam looks up, where the creature had gone before shaking his head. "No. That is...not a thing that I've ever come across before, honestly. And I'd tell you what works for things like that in my world, but...I'm not sure there's anything like that in my world."

[garmr]

"No! Not that - I mean the memories."

He glares at the ground, frustrated. Zodd's warning always did seem a bit comical in hindsight. An apostle trying to give him a little heads up before everything went to hell. Some kind of bleak, ongoing joke between them. As his thoughts drift away, the setting starts to morph. Guts appears next to Sam as his older self, dressed in the jagged black platemail he wore on his missions outside the Rig. He looks displeased, to say the least.

A new memory - the warmth of a morning sun spills over the courtyard of a stone fortress. Guts in this memory is young, no older than fifteen. His face lacks the sharp angles and massive size of his older self, though he was still lean from his life as a soldier.

He is sitting in drenched armor next to a nude Griffith. The two of them were leaning up against a water well. Griffith's white hair cascaded in locks over his shoulders, having apparently been preoccupied with a bath when he decided to playfully dump buckets of water on his friend.

"It's called a Behelit, or the Egg of the King," Griffith says as he grasps his necklace,"They say whoever owns this is destined to rule the world, in exchange for their own flesh and blood."

He hands Guts the egg-like stone that had would save them from the monster. It was crimson, like a drop of blood, and covered in mismatched human facial features. As he turns it over, one of the eyes peels open to look at him, moving as if it were made of flesh.

Panic gets the stone thrown into the air.

"Neat, huh?" Griffith catches the necklace and smiles innocently.

"It's creepy!" pipes out his younger self.

[fromfryingpantofire]

"Ah." Sam grimaces. "Wake up? Assuming you were asleep when this started, at least. I was."

That's about the only advice he has to give as the memory changes. The much younger Guts is a sight, though the naked white haired guy is a bit...well. It's not like Sam hasn't seen guys naked.

At least this one isn't his brother.

He steps closer to look at the amulet and takes a step back when the eye opens and shudders. "Yeah. I was already of the opinion that anything a creature like that was amused by was a bad idea. That just sealed it. That thing is probably the worst sort of mojo."

[garmr]

Guts watches behind him, finding himself oddly fond of the little memory. It was strange seeing Griffith as he was before, as a human. Despite everything that happened, Guts couldn't bring himself to hate him when he's like this. What he wishes more than anything is to be free of this damn obsession with him, but here he was.

"That thing is a stone fetish that turns humans into monsters," he says flatly, "- for a price."

[fromfryingpantofire]

Sam takes a couple steps away, wiping his hands on his jeans. Because the ill-fitting jumpsuits aren't a thing for him here, either.

"Yeah, things like that usually don't do anything good, at least in my experience." Sam steps back to Guts' side, shaking his head. "It seems innocent when it starts out, but the more it works on you..."

It's a different sort of thing that worked on Sam, but he feels the memories heading that direction and consciously wretches his mind away. Demon blood and Ruby, the obsession and damage it had caused? All a really bad idea.

Instead, he focuses on something else. The amulet. Or a different amulet, at least. Something more innocent. The kids in the memory aren't even teens yet, though Sam remembers Dean's not far off from it. But it was one of the few good Christmases they had and it's good to remember it.

[garmr]

Guts watches the memory, glad for the break in having to go deeper into his own. There is the time difference, of course - his world doesn't exactly have a 'Christmas' as Sam would know it - but he understands the basic gist of it. Two siblings comforting each other in lieu of where a parent should.

"Family gift, huh?" he sounds calmer than before, now that he isn't quite so exposed. "Hope it didn't bring too much bad luck with it."

[fromfryingpantofire]

It's close enough for Guts to get, which is the important part. There's a feeling of bitterness that comes with most of it, but that's aimed at their father. For Dean, there's only love and belief in him.

"No, it didn't bring any bad luck. No more than we were already due." Sam huffs a half laugh, shaking his head. Keeping a tight control on his memories. There are darker memories associated with that amulet, after all. "It kept us both going sometimes when things got dark."

[garmr]

"Things often do when you're fighting monsters. It's good that you have your brother with you," he says knowingly.

Most of his life had been steeped in horror and despair, despite his mind hovering on the happier memories of his time with the Hawks. He learned the value of companionship the hard way.

Hundred Years War prompt b aka PAYBACK

[wheyoftheadept]

Saturday is standing on a hillside on a warm summer night. The breeze tugs at her hair, and teases her nose with the scent of a thousand campfires. There's an army camped below her. She squints, trying to make out flags, and doesn't recognize any of the ones she sees.

"...you could scatter them all just by blowing, the little flames," someone says from a little ways above her. Saturday glances that direction. A man - Guts? - and a woman are under a tree, the woman standing. Saturday moves closer on silent feet, confused and instinctively wary.

"Maybe they've all brought their own individual little flames together, here," the woman is saying. "Throwing themselves into the biggest bonfire."

"The blazing inferno named Griffith," Guts finishes for her, and there's something odd in his voice. Not quite anger, or awe, or regret. But whatever it is, it's very certain.

Saturday furrows her brow and keeps listening, until she realizes that Guts is pouring his heart out to this woman. Then she retreats, silent as a shadow, waiting until Guts walks past her hiding place on his way back down the hill. Then she slides out, ghosting to his side.

"Guts? What the hell's going on?"

he must suffer being known

[garmr]

Guts turns to Saturday, and in his wide-eyed surprise he appears years younger than he did on the Rig. His body was still that of a warrior - scarred and built for killing - but this was a time where he was allowed to dream of the future, of some grander purpose. The weight of his burning hatred hadn't yet snuffed the thoughtful warmth out of his eyes. He could be soft and human without it being quite so painful.

He hears Casca call him, and he turns to face her. It's impossible for him to not look at her when she asks. She watches him with a worry that he might just leave the Hawks that very night. He said he'd stay till the end of the campaign, no matter what, but that doesn't settle the question that comes.

"After the war... what then?"

He doesn't answer.

The image begins to fade away, her body becoming a formless shadow. It was just a memory, after all. All that is left is the grassy hill.

"I.. don't know."

He doesn't say which question he's responding to.

Re: he must suffer being known

[wheyoftheadept]

Saturday hadn't seen the woman clearly until she stepped out of the tree's shadow and into the moonlight. She blinks when she does, baffled. Because the woman looks like her - so like her that for a moment all Saturday can think is that she'd lost another fucking chunk of memories somewhere, and that must be why knowing Guts had seemed so easy and familiar, they've met before and she'd forgotten -

But no, the woman isn't her. Her face is rounder, softer, clearly human. Her ears aren't pointed. And she's actually got curves under her muscle.

Then the images fades. Only the grass remains.

"...who was she?" Saturday asks, totally distracted from her first question.

[garmr]

"She is..."

Guts looks forlorn.

"She is the last flame of the Band of the Hawk, the last one burning. She is the reason I swing my sword. Casca..."

Guts isn't usually one for flowery language, but he finds it spilling out of him before he can stop himself.

"I would have been long dead without her."

Either consumed by his own black flame, or killed some other way. Her absence hangs heavily on his heart, though the feeling is bittersweet. She is fine now, with people who can care for her better than he ever could. He'd mentioned a mercenary band in the past - this appears to be it.

[wheyoftheadept]

"Oh." Oh. Well. Saturday looks to where the woman was, then back at Guts. There are a dozen questions on her lips, and she can't figure which is least personal, least hurtful.

She doesn't blame him. There's no normal or cool way to say "hey bee tee dubs you look exactly like the love of my life (apparently? something like that) from whom I am separated by cruel fate and circumstance." That's not a thing you can just come out and say.

"Is this that crew you mentioned?" She changes the subject instead. "'Cause this looks more like an army, cripes."

[garmr]

"..."

It's awkward, but what can he do? What was seen is seen. So after staring into the sky, figuring any explanation would just make it worse, he manages to look back at her. All he can do is be bare and honest.

"Yeah," he says. "It was a mercenary army I stuck around with for a few years. Life was pretty good, then."

He never really talked about his time as a soldier with anyone on the Rig, but for some reason it didn't seem so strange with Saturday. Maybe it was like Griffith told him once - after someone has seen your sinister side, it is easier to open up.

He sits down in the grass as the scene below them shifts from a black void to a sunny, grassy dirt trail. A few dead men and their horses lay circled around a fierce duel.

Guts and Casca's first meeting is... tumultuous. After shooting him in the arm with a crossbow, he'd taken out her horse with a skillful swing of his greatsword, knocking the other warrior to the ground. He remembers his surprise at seeing a woman leap at him from the grass.

"Bastard!"

With a battle cry, she attacks, and the two of them duel fiercely. They were ten years younger then, still kids, but they would have slit each other's throats without a second thought.

The memory jumps ahead to a fort illuminated by joyous bonfires. Guts sits curled up with his sword in the castle's crenelations, alone, ignoring the festivities of the other Hawks below. He was about a foot shorter and half the weight he would reach as an adult.

"Don't be shy."

Pippin's massive form reaches down to scoop him up like an indignant toddler.

"Don't touch me!" Guts screams, elbowing his captor in the mouth hard enough to make him bleed. But no avail - whether he liked it or not, Guts was going to get plopped into the middle of the celebrations and given a drink.

Slowly, that scowling and lonely kid eases up a bit. He takes a few drinks and settles in. The other soldiers were around his age - most of them were just kids, really - and he finds himself feeling strangely at home. Casca watches them from above, the only woman in the entire camp. At that age, it was easy to mistake her for any of the boys.

Not the most dignified time in his life, but Guts can't help but smile somberly watching the memory unroll on that grassy hill of his. These moments were treasures to him.

[wheyoftheadept]

It is awkward, but there's nothing to be done about it, or about her chest hurting as she suddenly rearranges every interaction she and Guts have ever had. It's not even a bad thing; there's been nothing strange or concerning about his behavior. But some things can't help shifting a relationship, and it hurts when the ground shivers under you no matter the whos or whys or hows. She's familiar enough with the process, by now.

It takes her a moment to realize the younger Casca is fighting a younger Guts - from her height, "large" is his dominant adjective. Take that away and she almost didn't recognize him.

She covers her mouth to hide her giggle when the present-Guts-sized fellow deposits baby Guts in the middle of the party. A few leak out nonetheless when he eyes every offered drink like poison.

"...you were so stubborn."

[garmr]

"Always been like that. Long as I could remember..."

The memory becomes murky as it shifts back, back, back.

---

"He can't expect to keep on eating free meals forever. He's got to earn his own bread around here."

Another mercenary camp - though the faces of the men that inhabited it were blurry and nondescript. Unlike the kids, they were older, rougher, and sleazier. The kind of crowd one would expect from a mercenary army. They were gathered lazily around what appeared to be a sword-fighting lesson.

"Pig-headed little guy, isn't he?" remarks one man with amusement, the others cheering on the boy in the middle of the lesson.

Guts always found himself conflicted when he envisions himself as a child. There was something about how helpless and small he was that rubbed him the wrong way. He couldn't say what or why.

Nonetheless, his child self lifts that adult-sized arming sword with all the strength he had in his tiny body. Stubborn was something that he'd been born with. His opponent's face is clear as day - a haughty man scarred and grooved by his years of war. Gambino's grin was the most vivid thing in that entire memory.

The lesson proceeds, with his teacher barking at him to use his hips more. More projection. Gambino nicking him in the arm or leg or face whenever they were out of line. Guts ignores the scrapes and cuts, and in a burst of speed, manages to give his teacher a small cut to the cheek in return.

Something in Gambino changes as he is overcome with rage, hand clenching that sword.

"You runt!"

The boy is slashed across the face, instantly twisting his perception with shock and pain as blood begins to spill. He falls to the ground and blacks out as the other mercenaries rush to help him.

"Hey, careful - Careful with 'im!"

The memory jumps ahead to Guts retrieving water, his wounds closed but still raw and red. He was swinging his sword with a bit more confidence, learning the soothing way the weapon could clear his thoughts and physical pain.

Gambino appears again, scowling at him the way he always did. Guts looks surprised when he tosses a little pouch his way.

"Here. It's medicine. Rub it on your wounds."

The boy gives a meek thanks as the man turns away from him, growling at him to hurry up and get the food ready. As soon as he's alone again, Guts sheepishly opens the package to examine its contents, and applies the little dab of the stuff to his nose.

A few tears leak out of the boy's eyes from the sting of the salve, but this eventually fades as he keeps rubbing the medicine into the wound. As time passed, the pain lessens. For some reason, he held that little pouch of medicine like it meant the world to him.

--

Guts absently rubs the scar on his nose, smile gone. The old, faded cut was miniscule on his adult face. For whatever it was worth, he didn't seem angry or bothered by what happened. He was more contemplative than anything.

"Yeah. Long as I could remember. Casca really hated how stubborn I could get, sometimes. Can't really blame her."

[wheyoftheadept]

Saturday... doesn't like what she sees. For a moment it's familiar, and she's ready to smile with him over being a kid who held a sword from the moment they could grip the hilt -

But then he lands a solid blow, one that should make his teacher proud, and instead the man snarls and turns on him, hitting him with full force - like he was facing another grown warrior, not a kid, not his student -

She actually starts forward a moment, before she accepts that it's just a memory. The gift of medicine doesn't make her happier.

"...yeah," she agrees with him, instead. "Looks like you had t'be."

[garmr]

Guts looks down, remembering that he wasn't just mulling over things in his head. There is someone else watching.

"Ah, sorry. I don't have too many happy memories here."

He closes his eyes, trying to focus on a better time. They are few and far between, but the nicer memories were made all the sweeter by comparison.

---

The sun rises over a field overlooked by a grey speck of a distant castle. Alpine forest hugged their flanks. The Band of the Hawk's camp sprawled with hundreds and hundreds of campfires. The same banners rustled proudly over its tents - a sword emblazoned with wings.

A group of Raiders sat around a row of archery targets. It was a different lesson. A knife throwing lesson.

"This ain't really my style," Guts grumbles. It was easy to tell he was older now, with the way he dwarfed his teacher. His target looked a bit pathetic compared to the work of an expert like Judeau.

"Keep trying, you'll pick it up," his comrade insists with a carefree grin. He balances the blade on his finger with ease.

The peanut gallery behind him - all Raiders eager to do a little brotherly ribbing along with encouragement - were putting their captain in a foul mood. Stubborn is as stubborn does, though, and he picks up the last two throwing knives.

>:3c

[wheyoftheadept]

"Ugh, ranged." Saturday rolls her eyes. "He's right, it is useful, though."

She studies the people he's sitting with, and especially the one he's talking to. A wiry man, with yellow hair. "Who's this guy? Is he Griffith? I heard you talking about him with Casca."

uh oh

[garmr]

"No, not Griffith..."

--

There's a minor ruckus between them as the memory proceeds - Guts could barely remember what it was that made him threaten to use one loudmouth Raider for target practice instead. The threat is toothless, of course, but damn if he wasn't tempted to throw a knife in his direction to make his point.

"Judeau. Guts."

The noise is interrupted by a female voice. Casca is at the top of the hill behind them in full armor. She sounds serious. The stern look in her dark eyes might have well have shot knives into all of them.

The Raiders all freeze up, immediately attempting to look less caught in the middle of their fooling around.

"C-Casca."

"Commander Casca!"

"Morning," Judeau waves, awfully chipper for the admonishment that was likely coming for them. Well - one of them, at least.

The younger Guts is silent. When he looks at her, there is something about the first rays of dawn catching on her armor that is particularly bright and vivid in this memory. Even if she was angry with him, the image made its impression.

"I hope the Captain hasn't forgotten the joint drills we were going to do," she says firmly, dangerously,"Unless he was planning to be late."

Guts knows better than to argue with that tone. After a thanks to Judeau for the lesson, he tells the Raiders to get ready before he walks up to join her.

"Griffith wants to see you," she says curtly.

--

"Griffith was..." Guts pauses at Saturday's question. For so long, he'd been trying to rid himself of his obsession with Griffith. Perhaps the fact that he was able to say his name without diving into catatonic rage is an achievement in itself.

--

He arrives at Griffith's tent, where the silver-haired man stands waiting for him, a map and its markers sprawled over the table. He doesn't seem to mind Guts' lateness at all, looking at him warmly as he enters.

The way Griffith smiles at him leaks into another memory. The inside of that tent becomes the yawning green of grassy hills and countryside. Guts and Griffith, three years before, standing together on a knoll. The day their lives would change forever.

"I want you, Guts." he says.

The teenaged Guts squirms at the attention, his scowl broken into a sheepish squint. No one's ever said this to him before.

"You swing that way?" he spits out awkwardly, in a way that makes Griffith laugh in kind.