You find yourself awakening in an unfamiliar location. Even if you don't sleep - even if you weren't sleeping in the Void, or even if you weren't in the Void - you find yourself here now. Your head feels fuzzy and you struggle to remember. Where are you? What were you supposed to be doing? Who are you? The exact extent of this is up to you all, but regardless, waking up is a struggle.
Getting free is going to be even more of a struggle. You're suspended in a glass tube of some kind, bound at the ankles and wrists keeping you aloft by mechanical shackles. Those will break fairly easily even if you aren't the strongest; the glass tube will be the bigger problem. It's thick and not the easiest to break - although those of you with enough strength can shatter it, and if you remember how to use your shards, those could come in handy.
Speaking of, you still retain your shards on the backs of your hands where they should be. You can still make use of them even here... wherever "here" is.
It seems to be a laboratory of some sort; aside from the glass tubes housing all of you individually, there are several more filled with liquid and dark objects within... are they people? Regardless of what they are, they fill you with dread. You don't want to end up like them, do you?
The laboratory is dimly lit. You can only see a few feet in front of you, making it difficult to tell what else this place has to offer aside from your fellow shardbearers and those ominous tubes. Strangely, any attempts at creating light - whether that's through anything you have on your person or through use of your shard powers - will simply fail. You're stuck in the dark, it seems, and even if you were once capable of seeing in it, you aren't able to now.
Focus on getting free first, then let's see where this leads.
We were were in a lab and split up four ways. Some of us went south, but that then somehow send us back to the entrance because we took the wrong way, I think...
Then we tried to go North to help the group there, but then we all got attacked by clones of ourselves with claws.
...I was wondering if it might have been one of you yelling at us to get out.
[thank you for doing the lord's work knuckles]
At the very least, I can say this much; what we faced in going west was a terminal that seemed to want to show us our failures on loop. It was...quite terrible to try and get out of.
...It's good to see none of you were affected, at least.
[Usually dreamscapes have the person causing them within... at least, that's how he's witnessed your all's. But it's not like he has any experience with this, and it does sound fairly similar to his own in uncomfortable ways...]
Regardless, I've seen what I need to, and I've no more use for this thing.
[So he just sticks the Phantom Ruby pieces back into his quills?? Okay. Infinite is not allowed to have them back.]
[Oh boy, here we go again with the headaches and waking back up in the tube--
Oh. It's not the tube. They're back! There's Sonic and the gang!]
Finally.
[Raven flops back and basks in the void anti-gravity, waving a hand at Shadow.]
Just another one o' those head dreams we've been dealin' with. Kinda surprised ta hear ya didn't plan it, though. Didn't ya tell us ta prepare fer yer test?
[the only person who knows how the phantom ruby works is infinite, but he has no rights.]
...He was aware of you all? That's...
[Well, it definitely wasn't Shadow, then. Though that really makes him feel uneasy.]
Another reason not to use this any further, then. You all have proven yourselves to me anyway. Your struggles together will have improved your control over your shard; that's the most I can do for you.
[Pressing a hand to his forehead, Viktor dragged it down his face with a whirring machine sigh that was equal parts relief and exhaustion. The headache was gone now, but the spike of panic was taking a little longer to fade.]
There was a computer screen, showing several of us our past failures. A voice that kept telling us to get out of their head. And just now, I saw...myself. Expelling us from wherever that was, with glowing red eyes.
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