[Video]

[callmegladio]

[The feed opens on Gladio, sat in his garden, the sun shining down on him. The sky is bright, the weather warm but a cool breeze ruffles his hair. The garden is well tended, green and well kept. The scene might have been a lovely and calm one if not for the serious look on Gladio's face. He's not quite looking at the screen, but off to the side, seemingly lost in thought for a long moment before he heaves a heavy sigh.

Still not looking at the screen, he starts to speak.]

It's been long enough. I've had time to think, so I'm going to tell you why I did what I did.

[He goes quiet again, considering his next words.]

I know... some of you are pissed we did this. You were happy livin in blissful ignorance, trusting this world without question. And for a while I was too. Till I realised how messed up that was.

I was so desperate for a peaceful life I didn't think...

[Gladio glanced at the screen then, his eyes narrow slightly.]

When did we all just roll over and accept this insanity? We were kidnapped from our homes, our families, and trapped in this bubble. We were given the most basic info and told to accept it. The most basic food we can't even really call 'food', and we accepted it. We were given tasks and rules and hoops to jump through, and we accepted it. We were forced to touch, kiss, hold and reveal secrets to strangers, and we accepted it. It was the 'will of the Gods'. We all just nodded and accepted it. Why? Why have we accepted all this? Why do people keep coming and going? Where do they go? Do they just go home? Or are they taken? Are they being hurt? Experimented on like the animals they had us catch? Why do these weird things keep happening? Why can't they answer our questions?

And why are we terrorists for wanting answers? We hurt no one. We destroyed nothing. We're the heroes of this world, right? Here to save the planet. So what are they keeping so secret?

Why aren't you all asking questions?

Why're you just rolling over and accepting their truth?

[Again he looks away, heaved another heavy sigh and brought a hand up to rub tiredly at his eyes. He definitely looked tired. Stressed. His tone shifting from angry to confused to desperate for people to understand, and for himself to understand why no one else was fighting.]

We're forced from our homes... Our families. We form bonds with people only to watch them vanish. And... I don't know bout anyone else, but I didn't consent to this. I never signed up for this world.

I want answers. We wanted answers. And we weren't gettin them. So we went looking for them.

[Here he laughs, low and without humour. A shake of his head and a sardonic glance at the screen.]

The fact the natives reacted the way they did should be a red flag. What're they protecting so badly? What's so secret? What aren't they telling us? Is it about what really happened to this world? Who these 'Gods' are? How we actually got here and why? Where our friends go when they suddenly disappear?

And we're the bad guys?

How's that make sense?

[Gladio shrugged and with one last sigh he reached out and switched the feed off. He'd said what he wanted. Now he would lie down in the sun and try and calm down.]

Comments

[Audio]

[original_is_best]

Never forget that we have been in jail since we arrived. On occasion the walls are just slightly narrower...

[callmegladio]

Yeah, I agree. Can't leave our bubble? Sounds like a prison to me.

[Audio]

[original_is_best]

It is, at least, enough of a violation to bring Lucian and Niflheimian together. Which I would say is a sign that it is rather egregious.

[text]

[pinkmin]

I went back home and died again, to answer one of your questions.

[video]

[scourgingstars]

[Ardyn pressed a hand to his eyes, choosing his words very carefully as he spoke. It wasn't anger straining his voice, but definitely a tone of stern disappointment.]

Did you then also stop to think that perhaps this realm's natives know little more than us? It's been clear enough to me that the populace didn't expect our arrivals, and I have noticed nothing indicating that to have been some elaborate deception.

I'll confess myself biased in the respect that coming here has only been beneficial to me. For you and others less inclined to go along with such a situation, I do have little else but sympathy. But you can't just go around demanding answers that others likely don't even have. Did it not once even occur to you that the answers you seek are not being concealed, but instead simply do not yet exist?

Consider it this way--in antiquity, were the people of the coastal villages blamed when an ocean wind brought storm and ruin to the land? Of course not--we sought to placate the Hydraean or the Fulgurian. We of all people should understand what it is to be held to the ever-changing whims of the unreachable divine, and I for one fail to see anything unbelievable about such a concept.

You are not wrong to feel frustration. But you are acting on it in entirely the wrong ways, and casting suspicion where we have no reason to cast it at present.

[callmegladio]

[The video feed just shows the sky. Gladio has his phone in the grass beside him, he's not bothered to pick it up as he listens and then, after a pause to gather his thoughts, he replies.]

Point one. What are they keeping so hidden and secret if they don't know anything? What're they hiding from us? Why the hell can't we demand answers after most of you guys have been here for a year or two? I think it's about time someone demanded answers.

Point two. This isn't antiquity. I'm not about to bow down and placate a god because I know what it's like. I'm tired of being subject to their whims.

Point three. I don't blame the natives. Most of them, at least. I think there's some that know more than they're letting on. I'm suspicious, and you should be too. I don't get why you're acceptin this, Ardyn. Why you're not saying "hold up, just what's in that second research tower that's so secret?". You're not curious?

Maybe we could have gone about it another way. But asking would have gotten nowhere.

[scourgingstars]

They're hardly obligated to inform us of every single thing about the world and themselves. This is their territory we've intruded on, no matter how unwillingly--do you often speak of every intricate detail of your life to everyone you meet on the off-chance it may become relevant? For that matter, what reason have they to trust us any more than you trust them, especially after this charming little trick you've pulled?

And that was merely an example. I don't truly know what I think of this world's deities, but I am accepting it for now because I am used to my life being dictated by a higher power and a little handholding to improve the realm is far better a purpose than slowly killing myself helping one person at a time.

[...The last part came out more than a little bitterly, Ardyn pausing to take a breath and collect himself.]

Did you even try asking?

[callmegladio]

Oh sweetheart, I'm sorry. That... that should never have happened.

Threadjacking with permission!

[runs_on_batteries]

[The text back has been set to private]

Again? That's terrible. Here I thought it was bad enough knowing when I return home I'll die. How is it that you've died twice?

[callmegladio]

'Intruded'... Brought against our will. I think we have a right to know what the fuck is goin on and what they're hiding. I'd argue they are obligated, if they want our help.

Hah, and don't we have to do that? Every time this world goes haywire we have to spill our innermost secrets to get over it. We can't keep anything hidden here. But you guys have had two years to build up trust enough for them to tell their secrets. And they haven't.

Look... I... am sick of fighting. I'm tired. I am done. I'm sick of the games. I'm sick of not knowing. I'd give anythin for a peaceful life. But there's too many questions here to truly relax.

[There's the sound of laughter, again low and without humour. Very tired laughter.]

Others have. Why would I get a different answer to them?

[pinkmin]

That is what life does.

Bonds vanish whether you are at home or not. You do not get to choose that.

But I went home and picked up where I left off.

[runs_on_batteries]

Damn you're sexy when you get mad.

1/2

[scourgingstars]

You don't know they're hiding anything.

[His voice turned sharp briefly, followed by another pause. Frustration was a difficult thing to manage, for someone who purposely kept an ironclad grip on anger out of fear for what might happen if he didn't.]

Why do you assume malice where there is no evidence of it? It is within reason to assume the actions of the gods of this realm to be what force such things, not their adherents. And for another thing-

-> private

[scourgingstars]

[...you know what verstael talking is public and he's just going to have the tact to remember how locking things works before continuing.]

For another thing, do I dare assume Verstael had a hand in this? And you think anything from him is a sane idea worth acting upon? Gods, Gladio, I thought you wiser than that.

[pinkmin]

I went back to where I left off. That was dying.

[callmegladio]

Heh, you dork.

But I'm not mad. Just tired.

[runs_on_batteries]

Alright, a little less sexy, but still hot.

[callmegladio]

I've no idea what you're talkin about.

But at the risk of annoying you more... I've listened to you. I trust you. By all rights I shouldn't, but you tell me you're different. Noct tells me you are. So I believe that.

Sephiroth and Cloud vouched for Verstael. I don't know the guy, only met him that day. I know he's some big dick for the niffs when he's old and gray, that's about it.

[scourgingstars]

[Another long pause. Collecting his thoughts, evening out a temper threatening to flare, and preparing to explain a lot of things he'd tried not to think about.]

Verstael is part of the reason I turn into what you know as 'Ardyn Izunia'. I won't assign blame to him alone by any means--a great deal of it remains my own fault, or will be in the future. But without his influence I imagine the matter would have been less immediately drastic.

It was he who went poking around Angelgard in search of some terrible legend he knew only as 'Adagium' and chose to prod it in the direction of vengeance. He who kept a slumbering god in the basement of his facility hoping to have him daemonified.

Cooperating with our fellow offworlders is one thing. But trusting someone like that is not a mistake I will ever make again.

Threadjacking with permission!

[runs_on_batteries]

Yes, yes we do. Have you been to the visitors center and read the journals there? Because even though that's been available to everyone here I've found not too many people have bothered.

In those records there are things that talk about experimenting on the public and records being deleted. We know that the natives specifically have gaps in their memories. They're being manipulated by someone. That's who we're after. That's why we did this so carefully so no one was hurt.

The only reason to hide information is to hide corruption. And listen, I'm dead. There's no life for me back home because I'm in middle of dying when I leave it and I know my future. This place has been the best thing that has happened to me in a long time. However, it's not worth it if I can't make absolutely certain people aren't getting harmed. I've hurt enough people in my lifetime. I'm not willing to do it again with complacency and being some god's sex battery.

[scourgingstars]

And you think that justifies antagonizing them? If the natives truly are being manipulated, how is making an enemy of them going to help anything? All such methods do is instill fear and distrust; not just of you and whoever else was involved, but all of us. If this is what you consider 'careful' I worry for what recklessness must resemble.

...This place is all I have right now. My past is so far gone as to be immaterial, and my future I know all too well. I want this realm and her people--both native and otherwise--to be safe. But this is not the way to ensure we find the answers we need to gain that end result.

[original_is_best]

If I may, though I know quite well that you do not wish to be contacted by me.

You indeed have many years of experience, Ardyn, and your insights are invaluable. I am truly thankful for all I have learned from you, as I am thankful that I have come here and learned that, while I used to believe that I was reaching for the stars, I was reaching for little more than the lights on a ceiling. There is much more that I need learn than I had ever imagined.

[He gets a little excited here.] Just think, I was considering mere travel by magitek engine, when dimensional travel should have been on my mind!

[But calm down. Calm down. That was not the point of this reply.]

But while I am thankful for all that I have learned from you, I would like to remind you that we are not all immortal. I have already spent a significant portion of my life on this planet, and I already had more than a lifetime's worth of work on my to-do list.

And for all that I have no evidence of what became of Rin.

Nor have we any evidence of what became of Will. Nor others. We have little more than testimonials and observation of what happened to some, and nothing to show what happened to others, and we know there have been differences between experiences of those we have witnessed.

I am not a patron of these gods. I owe them nothing, but they owe us answers that are long overdue.

[scourgingstars]

To my infinite regret, I agree with you that we have many questions left unanswered, especially in the case of those that have left us. Do not presume I am without those that have gone beyond my reach here.

But I fail to see what any of this has to do with the point that I seriously doubt the native population truly understands the actions of their gods any more than we do. And damaging what little trust we have between us is not going to find those answers any more swiftly.

[runs_on_batteries]

Hi, I'm Iron Man. Maybe we haven't met. I'm a superhero and I save people. It's who I am.

I have an obligation to not sit back and cower while enemies reign over us. I don't let fear rule my actions and my life. I step up when there's a chance someone innocent like maybe Will or Cor or Luna or someone else that maybe mattered to you or someone you care about in one of those towers having tests run on them while everyone was just out here hugging.

I also want this realm and her people to be safe. I want the natives to not have information deleted from their systems. I want them to know what happened to them and how to prevent it from ever happening again. How are we supposed to protect this world if we're too scared to do it?

I stand by my actions and I'm proud of the rest of my team for what they did.

[original_is_best]

What trust have we if they hide their research from us?

Ardyn, Experiment 920194 seems to be related to Experiment 1. They wish to reverse what they did to themselves, but they cannot create something from nothing.

When we came here I thought my role obvious. After all, if they wish to create biological forms for themselves, who better than I? I may have no current experience, but I have everything necessary that they would need.

They never asked. Instead people disappear, and we learn of genetic experiments, and they keep their labs from us and don't even provide suitable replacements for what we have lost. Perhaps what they give us access to might placate some, but I know a student lab when I see it. That is if someone asked what you were capable of and you showed them a coin trick.

If anyone here is aware of where this sort of experimentation may lead, would it not be me?

I have my doubts that there even is a native population left. We already know their memories have been tampered with. If their bodies are gone and their minds are gone, what are we left with?