ROCK 12: Stand

"'Now face north.' -Stand, by R.E.M."

Stand is the thirteenth episode of Eidolon ROCK and the twenty-sixth episode of Eidolon Playtest Season 1. It covers the Alta Drive Jawbreakers as they continue to escape from the police, encountering an enemy Eidolon user who tries to get them caught by controlling their movements.

Summary
After the events from last episode, Maxie Knightley updates Harvey D. Godlove's greatest fear from 'becoming a loser' to 'being alone'.

The Alta Drive Jawbreakers are driving a stolen car on State Highway 94 out of Colorado Springs towards Kansas, trying to keep a low profile to avoid the police. Chris is driving, with Cecilia Citadel in shotgun inspecting the Fortune Teller app on Chris' PSP. Fortune Teller remains functional, producing a fortune that says "Always aim ever upward". Virginia, Harvey, and Chili are in the back, with Virginia looking out the window.

After everyone is settled in, Chris awkwardly strikes up a conversation with Harvey. Chris apologizes to Harvey for yelling at him in Colorado Springs but insists that it's hard to tell when he cares and is frustrating when it feels like he doesn't. Harvey explains that he finds panicking to be unhelpful. He understands the stakes, especially given the clock on his chest, but tries to keep a cool head about it all. They both reach an understanding that Harvey's pinball analogies are, at best, unhelpful in times of high stress. Harvey then tries to get some sleep in the back.

Virginia deals in as a Navigator, gaining the power to perfectly sense police in the area around her. Only The Good Die Young takes on the appearance of a sonar readout beneath her, pointing in a direction if it detects something. At this time, it only picks up the normal ambient background presence of police. Virginia takes this opportunity to check in on Chili, who thinks she's doing ok, all things considered. Virginia, Chris, and Chili all offer to be there for each other in case anyone's Eidolon freaks out again. Given the Eidolon drug is stored in Fortune Teller, which is stored in Chris' PSP, Cecilia inspects the Fortune Teller app for any information on why Eidolons seem to go berserk. All she locates are instructions on how to use Fortune Teller - press to generate a fortune, fortunes can only be generated once an hour, and have fun.

After an hour, they reach a rest stop. Chris removes Fortune Teller from his PSP, investigating the briefcase of Eidolon drug manually for any further information. All he finds is that one of the vials has broken inside the briefcase, causing it to reek of blood. Chili can tell that this is human blood specifically, raising alarm among the Jawbreakers as to what's been injected inside them and whose blood it is. Given the number of vials of Eidolon drug, Chris concludes it either came from multiple people, or one person had all of their blood taken.

During this discussion, Chili sneaks into the shop itself. She steals some novelty souvenir shirts and drops them in Cecilia's lap. Chris puts the briefcase back into Fortune Teller and both back into the PSP and gives it to Cecilia so she can go and change. While she does so, Chris goes and purchases a metal pin and transfers Fortune Teller over when she returns. The pin changes appearance to an image of Fortune Teller with its latest fortune captioned below.

Eidolon Battle
After they leave the rest stop, Chris notices that the car is ever so slightly pulling to the left. As they continue forward, this effect gets worse. Ironspy inspects the car, but finds nothing wrong with it physically. Instead, it notices a magnetic field. Chris notifies the others and they quickly conclude this is probably the work of an Eidolon. Harvey and Chris experiment with Here It Goes Again. Due to his familiarity with the pinball, Harvey can tell that it slightly starts and then stops rotating. As Harvey begins to explain this may mean the Eidolon user knows they're aware of it, the car suddenly staggers 90 degrees to the north.

The sudden jolt causes the car to roll and tip over. Everyone can escape from the car except for Virginia, who is trapped in her seatbelt. Chris rescues Virginia with Ironspy but gets hit by a car that was unable to stop in time. The driver does not survive the collision. Lexi Waltner informs Luke Varner that foxes can naturally sense magnetic fields, and so Chili senses that the source of the magnetic interference is above them. Before anyone can look up, everyone is violently turned northwards. They can't see anything above them, but Chili can faintly hear a plane fly around.

As Virginia is currently a Navigator, Luke Varner asks what her area of expertise is. After some encouragement from other players to choose magnetism, Molly Rhinebeck selects 'light'.

The Jawbreakers experiment with the new conditions they find themselves under. They are unable to turn in any direction that isn't north, but they are still able to walk sideways and backward. Virginia picks up Chili and attempts to rotate her manually, but this causes Chili great discomfort. Around this time, Virginia detects approaching police. While they do not want to head north, thinking that's where the enemy wants them to go, everyone decides to head north into the cornfields just enough to get out of the police's sight.

Before they can get off the road, a cop car arrives at the accident. Virginia is compelled to shout out their presence and that they killed the cops in Colorado Springs. Everyone is alarmed, and Virginia feels sick. Next, Chris shouts that they shot down the helicopter, but Harvey muffles him before he can finish the sentence. One cop says something on his radio and gets into his car to drive towards them.

Everyone continues into the cornfield and note an aurora borealis in the distance as they crest a hill. An airplane is visible amidst the lights, and Harvey immediately shoots it with Here It Goes Again. However, before the pinball can reach the airplane, it reverses direction and flies back towards Harvey, landing in the dirt. Harvey shouts out to the cop that they were already wanted criminals. It is unclear whether he was compelled to say this.

The plane flies away, causing both the aurora borealis to disappear and the magnetic forces on the Jawbreakers to weaken. The two cops reach them, and luckily they did not seem to clearly hear the compelled confessions. Harvey and Chris deny involvement in the car accident, claiming instead they were hiking along the highway. The cops ask for ID, and as people go to hand them over, the plane comes back into range and makes everyone twist away. Harvey attempts to explain the situation but interrupts himself with a compelled confession that they've murdered at least ten people within the last day.

One cop radios for backup, and Ironspy incapacitates both cops in response with electric shocks. Potentially due to the magnetic field trickery, Chris has less fine control over Ironspy and instead sends out a shockwave that damages everyone. As more police are likely on their way to this location, Virginia folds and deals in as a Virtuoso. Only The Good Die Young becomes a laser pointer that Virginia is so good with that she can shoot down planes.

Virginia bombards the plane with her laser pointer, disabling the engine. The plane drops right towards the Jawbreakers. Chris runs ahead, attempting to cut the plane in half before it can hit them. Instead, Ironspy is repelled from the plane and Chris is blown back onto the road. Chili runs backward to check Chris is ok and manages to fight the magnetic compulsion enough to turn, grab him, and drag him back to the hill.

While Chili is gone, Harvey walks toward the crashed plane with violent intent but finds himself unable to go within five feet. Harvey taunts the unnamed pilot, who taunts back via Virginia. Chili returns and sends Little Lies (who is not made of metal) into the plane to scout. She finds the pilot nursing a head wound.

As they are unable to attack the pilot directly, Harvey pulls out Jack Flash's lighter from his pocket. Catching on to Harvey's intent, Chili stops him and instead uses Little Lies to convince the pilot that the plane is already on fire and he needs to run away. The pilot is not fully convinced and moves to investigate the imagined fire, so Harvey starts setting corn on fire anyway. The pilot and his eidolon rush out of the plane, only to be soon surrounded by Chili and Harvey. While he is taunting everyone, Virginia uses Only The Good Die Young to shoot a laser directly into his eyes and temporarily blind him. The pilot's eidolon attempts to shoot lightning back but is luckily also blinded by the laser pointer.

Lady Luck appears in response to Virginia's good luck. She compliments the Jawbreakers on their efforts but refuses to offer any help. Virginia asks her how to get past the enemy eidolon's influence, but Lady Luck notes they already seem to be doing the best plan - killing him. They realize Chili has managed to make another attack - when the enemy eidolon was knocked back by the laser pointer, its powers flicked just enough for Chili to leap forward and overwhelm him with a bite and tackle.

This assault leads the magnetic force to flicker further, allowing Harvey to kill the pilot by shooting him in the head with Here It Goes Again. The enemy eidolon and its magnetic force fade away.

Lady Luck confirms that she will need to deal with the dead enemy, and evades questions about the origin of the Eidolon drug. As her previous question about defeating the eidolon user didn't produce any new information, Virginia asks instead where they can find the nearest non-cop car that isn't on the highway. Lady Luck points out that cornfields usually have someone who tends them, and the Jawbreakers head off in search of the farmer.

Ending Scene
32 hours earlier, in a Berlin hotel room, a woman is talking on the phone to her mother. She apologizes for not keeping in touch, and explains that she's met someone special: A casino consultant who is traveling across Europe, who right now is on the phone with his boss. The consultant returns, she ends her phone call, and they chat about it. The man asks how close she is to her mother and where she lives, before changing the subject and confessing that he has to kill the woman. He is not a consultant, but a hitman, here to kill her. The woman is confused but not bothered.

The hitman apologizes, saying that he usually prefers to spend more time with his targets to give them the best last hours they can. He'd planned out an entire week with her, but alas his boss wants him back home to the United States of America urgently due to an emergency. The woman accepts this apology, noting that she doesn't mind but feels like she should. The hitman says he has a talent, Mr. Brightside, which allows him to make people near him unable to be upset about a specific thing of his choosing.

They then discuss the means of the woman's death. The assassin states that he can't let anyone know he was here, so gets her to help it make it look like a suicide. They discuss potential flaws in the plan, and ultimately the woman lays in the bathtub as he slits her wrists. The woman asks him to stay with her until she bleeds out, which he agrees to. Fifteen minutes later, after her death, the man calls her mother and claims to be from the U.S. Census Bureau so he can verify her address. He then leaves for the airport.

Appearances

 * Cecilia Citadel / Fortune Teller
 * Chili The Fox / Little Lies
 * Chris Masters / Ironspy
 * Harvey D. Godlove / Here It Goes Again
 * Lady Luck / Poker Face
 * Richter Dreamwake / Stand (Last Appearance)
 * Steven Percival / Mr. Brightside (First Appearance)
 * Virginia Valentine / Only The Good Die Young

Trivia

 * Chili tries to wear one of the novelty souvenir shirts she got for Cecilia Citadel. It's adorable.
 * Maxie Knightley attempts to introduce into canon the fact that Kansas absorbed Nebraska, but other players shoot this down by in-character stating that Harvey D. Godlove is always wrong about this.
 * When the cops ask for Harvey's name, he tells them it is Gregor Samsa (the protagonist of Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis).
 * Somehow, Harvey has an ID under the name Gregor Samsa.
 * After victory, Luke Varner reveals the Eidolon is named Stand.
 * Stand is the term used by JoJo's Bizarre Adventure for its Eidolons.