~ Tнє Pαяα∂σχ Hσυѕє ~ now back to regularly scheduled chaos

Sal Fisher | Shapeshifter Room | strider

Sal was hit with the same sounds the moment he stepped through. There was real terror in the screams, and it didn’t take more than a second for him to see where they were coming from.
He ran forward, too focused to see the glass until he slammed into it, hard enough to make him stumble back for a second.
Which meant…
“No!” He ran forward again, this time at the glass. It was firm and unyielding as his fists hit it, the sound dull, as though it was much thicker than it looked.
He swore, looking around for anything he could use to break the glass. Something small and sharp he could use, maybe. He didn’t have anything like that on him, just his prosthetic, and it was both too flat and too fragile to do any good.
“Hey! Back off!” He added, hitting the glass again. Maybe he could spook the attacker…

Sal Fisher | Shapeshifter Room | strider

Sal glanced over as Zuko joined him, but his relief was short-lived. The other boy couldn’t get inside anymore than Sal could.
He looked back at the person, breath catching as he caught them looking right at the two of them. Help.
Only there was no way in, not that Sal could see.
He looked around again, but there was nothing, not even anything useless. There was the two of them, an empty room, a glass wall, and someone who needed help. And that was all.
He turned as the flash of movement caught his eye, and scrambled over to join the other boy, holding out a hand.
“I’ll hold it,” he said, searching his gaze. “You run at it and grab the handle. Maybe the impact can break through.”

Sal Fisher | Shapeshifter Room | strider

Sal moved, holding the sword as steady as he could, the tip resting against the glass. Zuko could have just run at it while he was holding it, but Sal thought this way would mean the sword wasn’t crooked when it landed.
He braced himself. The thought that the sword could skid towards him and take his fingers off hadn’t really occurred to him. All that mattered was breaking the glass.
He grunted as Zuko hit the sword, the impact forcing the sword across the glass, scratching it but not breaking through. He stepped back, dropping the sword and turning away to think of something else, because whether it was a good idea only mattered if it worked.
Then he whipped around at the sound of flames bursting into life, his brain ready to see something else happening on the other side of the glass. Would they have to watch whoever get burned?
But it wasn’t that.
“Woah, what - ” he managed at the sight of the flames in Zuko’s hands. They were aimed at the scratch…
Under normal circumstances, he’d have taken a second to think about how fitting it was that Zuko could make fire. Now, he was too focused on getting through to care, beyond being glad there was something else to try.

Sal Fisher | Shapeshifter Room | strider

Sal stumbled back at the smoke, but covering his face would have been a little bit redundant for him. His prosthetic wasn’t really smoke proof…he doubted it would do anything for him except maybe make it worse…but it wasn’t like his hand would really help. He coughed, but he didn’t move back, because if it worked, he wasn’t going to take a second longer to get to the person than he had to.
The glass charred, but it didn’t break. He stared at it, desperately trying to see if it had weakened it at all…didn’t glass break under intense heat, or something?
He accepted the fabric and turned to face the wall so he could put it on under his prosthetic. Then he turned back, blinking against the smoke.
“I don’t suppose you have cold powers, too?” He asked, moving towards the glass again. “If the heat can’t break it, maybe a temperature change could. At least…”
At least they can’t see us anymore.
He didn’t really think he wanted to voice that, though. He looked at Zuko again.
“This is the House, right? So maybe it’s like the last one, something we’re supposed to solve.”

Hera | Memory room | ®Hawkpath® |

"I - "

Hera had been about to say something when suddenly everything glitched and blurred around her, before finally settling into a new scene.  This was...

"Woah..." she breathed, because suddenly, she was realizing that she'd never been outside before.  In space, yes, but she'd gone straight from Goddard's lab to the Hephaestus.  She'd never seen...outside.

Finally, her attention shifted from the setting to the characters, and her wonder shifted to a sort of quiet, grim curiosity.

"Who was she?"  she asked Kelsier, watching him.

Zuko coughed into his face covering, eyes narrowed at the glass. It should have broken. He hoped Sal didn’t get burned… the last thing they needed when trying to protect this person was for one of them to get hurt in the process. Zuko knew it was a distinct possibility. He was trying to mitigate the smoke he was creating, but… if it was working, there wasn’t much he could do about the smoke. The House might heal them. If the person on the other side of the glass died… Zuko didn’t care if it was a House person. They still deserved to live. They still deserved not to go through whatever was happening. Somehow, it was worse not being able to see them. All he was aware of was their screams.

“Are you okay?” Zuko asked Sal, directing his flames at the glass again. He needed to make sure the other blinker hadn’t gotten burned. If he had… then it was probably Zuko who should be trying to break through. He could at least pick up the armor he’d shed and use it to try to ram his way through. The armor would protect against burns.

Sherlock Holmes blinked into the empty living room. "Drat," he remarked as he realized no one was there to see him die permanently, probably because someone hated him if he had to guess. Then he keeled over from mysterious causes and blinked out. Rip to him.

Zuko appeared, far less decorated than he had been in the previous room. He was wearing looser fitting clothes (still red), and his swords were nowhere to be seen. It seemed the House had caught him in a moment of isolation and reflection, which were rare on board his vessel. He would have preferred to have spent every waking moment searching for the Avatar, but Iroh was right. That wasn’t realistic.
It took him a few moments to register that he had blinked. He didn’t feel the steady rocking of the sea beneath him, nor did he hear the engine going. For a moment he thought the engine might have gone out, but when he opened his eyes the light that met them wasn’t the flames of the candles he had lit, but instead the harsh artificial light of the House. And a semi-familiar face.
“Hi,” he said after a moment, keeping his tone light.

“You’re remarkably calm about being blinked back into the place that proved it could do its best to murder you last time,” Zuko commented, but his tone wasn’t as dark as his words may have implied. He was calmer than he usually was, if only because he wasn’t on edge, searching over the side of the boat for any sign of the Avatar. That sign was never going to come, but if it did… he wasn’t going to miss it. He had to be out there, and that meant Zuko had to be on his guard every minute of every day. For now, though… he had been given the rare chance to actually relax. It was kind of nice, but he would never admit that to anyone else.
“But… yeah. I guess… it gets kind of boring in the living room.” He stood, stretching for a moment before he turned his gaze back on Sal. “I don’t suppose you’d be willing to try another room after the last time?”

“Waiting room,” Zuko repeated, a bit of humor in his tone. He hadn’t ever thought of it like that before. “I guess… a lot of people sort of see it as a reprieve from all of the other rooms. I don’t know. It’s not like it’s not, but I’d rather be doing things even if they’re dangerous than just sitting around waiting for something to happen.” He had seen a lot of people just sit and talk in the living room before, but he had never been the type who had been very good at making extended conversation. He was more a person of action. He may not have been as good at action as Azula was, but he had never enjoyed just sitting around waiting for things. Perhaps if he had been better at that, he would still be in line for the throne. Maybe if he had learned to sit and wait his turn, he might still be home. He grit his teeth, shaking away the thought.
“Do you want to pick the door?” He couldn’t remember which of them had picked the last one, but he didn’t think it mattered much.

Zuko had to admit he was rather impressed by Sal. It wasn’t like most people refused to go into rooms or anything, but there was definitely a bit more hesitation with others than there was with Sal. He didn’t know much about the other boy – he didn’t know what his world was like, or what sort of danger he faced on a daily basis – but he had to admit that he was brave. And funny. Not at the moment, but the memory of the first room pulsed through Zuko’s head. It took a lot to make him laugh now, but Sal had almost succeeded at it. He had come much closer than anyone else had, at least.
“I’m not really an expert,” he replied, rolling his eyes just a little as he eyed the door Sal was choosing. He shifted awkwardly, then gave a small nod. “That one’s as good as any.” He met Sal’s eyes for a long moment before taking a breath and following the other boy into the room.
It was warmer than the hallway, though the loose silk shirt Zuko had been wearing had disappeared, leaving him exposed to the slight breeze. They were outside, surrounded by a crowd. Zuko’s jaw clenched as he realized the change the House had made to his attire. His hair brushed the side of his face, and it didn’t take long for him to realize it wasn’t tied up in his usual ponytail. One hand reached up to feel at it, eyes widening as his fingers made contact with finely cut metal. Oh. One look around confirmed it. Oh. This was an Agni Kai. And Zuko was the Fire Lord.

There were any number of reasons that Zuko didn’t want to be in this room. The first and most obvious was that it was clearly meant to be a callback to the first time he had ever participated in an Agni Kai. From Sal’s new hairstyle, it was obvious which role he was meant to be playing. Zuko knew he was at an unfair advantage here. He knew what the House wanted of him, and he was in a position to deliver it. He could do it, and then the room would be over before Sal even had time to question what it was. The thing was… it wasn’t really an advantage when thinking about what the House was implying he should do made him sick to his stomach. He had never wanted to end up here again. He would fight an Agni Kai if he had to, but he didn’t want to. He especially didn’t want to fight it against someone who hadn’t done anything wrong. Something about that thought tickled at something in the back of his mind, but he shoved it forcefully away. Now wasn’t the time to consider whether he had determined his punishment or not.
“You, too,” Zuko commented thinly, trying to sound less perturbed than he was. His voice came very close to shaking, and he couldn’t help the way his hands bundled into fists at his sides.
“So, uh…” he paused, then turned to look Sal in the eyes. “How much would you object to just… staying here and not doing what the House wants us to do?” He knew that was a risky decision. Whether the crowd was real or not, they were still there. Zuko knew how eagerly large groups of people craved violence. If Zuko didn’t do what he was supposed to do here, would the crowd attack? His gaze flitted in their direction for a long moment before he turned back to look at Sal. Not for the first time, he had to consider if it was possible he really, truly hated the House.

Zuko thought he preferred Sal when he wasn’t being serious. Or rather… he didn’t think he liked that Sal had been so quick to pick up on his feelings about this room. He didn’t really want to talk about them, and he certainly didn’t want to be on the other side of the situation. This was cruel, and he had a feeling the House knew it. He had a feeling the House had done it on purpose. He forced himself to breathe, wishing his binder made that a little bit easier. He wasn’t going to take it off, though, so he would have to make do with the amount of oxygen he could get.
“It’s… from my world,” he said finally, letting the silence hang for just a moment too long. He didn’t want to talk about it. He needed to give Sal an explanation. Part of him wished he could find a way to explain it to Sal that wouldn’t involve telling him the truth of the room. There was no way to explain that he didn’t want to fight him without explaining the goal of the room in the first place. The reason he felt that fighting was their only way out.
“I think there’s only one way out,” Zuko added, purposefully not looking at Sal. He was watching the crowd, trying to make sure they weren’t yet too far on edge.