A Long Walk...

<snip>
“Jay!” Jade warned, as she hauled Cass aside “Keep them away from each other”
The sound of Plisken’s gunshot tore across the situation, followed immediately by Eve’s screams and an almighty crash as Jaxx smashed Plisken down into the buffet with his holowhips.
</snip

"What was that?" Jamie asked, his mind re-wired for survival far more than most humans. He was still growling, deep in the back of his throat.

"Who cares?" came Cass's response back at him, still in his own mind. Flashes of images pulsed through Jamie's mind, images of Cass, the things she'd do, the things she'd done...

Jamie was stood on the roulette table. Well, stood was subjective. His feet were on it; he was crouched there, two fingers touching the table in front of him, giving him the stability of a tripod as he leaned onto his hand. At any moment, he could lunge forward like a tiger, and no one there was strong enough to stop him. He knew it, and the feedback was still there, in the forefront of his mind.

"Go on, Tiger, you know you want to."

Jay was holding Cass back, and everyone else was stood between them. No one had tried to climb onto the table with him, the momentary pause had given them hope that they'd break themselves out of it on their own.

Jamie glanced to the left, to the buffet table where plisken was slowly pulling himself up. The holo-whips crackled as they slid across the holographic floor of the Casino, leaving burn marks, before they retreated as Jaxx carried Eve off.

"They must have been drugged somehow." Jade said at that point. She was eyeing up their glasses, wondering why no one else was showing any strange effects. She looked at them both carefully, the obvious inability for them to properly focus on anything, and their complete reckless abandonment of any semblance of sanity. Anyone could see it. Anyone external to the situation, of course.

"Drugged?" Jamie queried, inwardly.

"Do you care?"

In a swift movement, Jamie was sat on the table, facing away from Cass. He forced his eyes closed, and flooded the psychic link with images of a clearing in the Jungle. No deadly creatures, no power armour, no gunfire. Nothing like anything they had seen in their visits, but something Jamie had experienced many times.

An old Ssala male was stood next to him in this secluded area. Cass could see it now, and her own rudimentary understanding of their language, coupled with Jamie's own translation of what was being said gave both of them the perfect rendition of the memory.

"Seclusion from your own kind will drive you to insanity, given time. You must distance yourself from these feelings. They do not control you." Elder Scanlar said. He used his walking stick to stir embers burning at their feet. Scented smoke drifted up from it, and calmed the nerves. Muscles loosened, tension disappeared. Through it all, Jamie fought to ignore the images flooding from Cass, but given a bit of time the images

"Turn your mind blank. Think on your situation. Think on who you are, what you can achieve by yourself."

"what's this rubbish?" came Cass's voice through the memory.

When Jamie opened his eyes again, everyone was pulling Cass away from Jay, her amorous intentions had been passed on to him when Jamie wasn't paying attention to her. Still, it had potentially saved their lives.

"While I'm still thinking, I'm going to go for a long walk on the beach, as far away as that might actually be..." Jamie said, and got up from his place on the table, exiting.

"As much as we could do with everyone here to help sort out what's going on" Jade began, "In this case, it would be best if you two weren't close together, just in case."

Jamie nodded, and left as quickly as he could, while still maintaining the composure that he was barely clinging to, until he grabbed hold of a railing out of view of everyone, trying to support himself as he breathed heavily, sweat pouring from him, making his torso glisten and accentuating the lines of his musculature...

"Goddammit Cass, get out of my head!" he called up to the holographic starry sky.

<Tag. Ok, we're apart for now... How long will this last, considering the drug effects are still there? Tagged those mentioned, in passing or otherwise.>