Other Worlds: V 2.0

[initiates]

Date & Time: May 21st, beginning at 0900.
Location: The Initiative Hold and all throughout Elmer's world
Characters: Anyone participating in the fighting, anyone staying behind.
Summary: Elmer's world is fought for and lost.
Warnings: Violence, death.

They reopen the portal at 0900, May 21st. The first scientist who stepped through was killed within thirty seconds; the rest who followed made it back through to Exsilium, albeit not unscathed. The portal was shut again by a panicked operator, although a second operator knew to keep the coordinates locked.

Within ten minutes, the alert had been sent out. There's no time to wait for the Transports to gather en masse; as soon as they have a sizable enough force to stand a chance at fighting through and clearing their gateway's location, the door is opened again.

Immediately inside the door is a desolate, grim scene. What had previously been the coast of Japan is now scorched earth, blasted sand, and little else. As the first point of contact for this world, it has undoubtedly suffered the worst. Here, the UE didn't stop at governments, financial centers, and capitols — the UE destroyed everything in sight. There are enough UE soldiers remaining in the broken country to give the Transports a difficult battle, although by now the bulk of their forces have moved on.

The Initiative will soon realize the necessity of opening more gateways, just as the UE had done. Transports will be deployed to London, Berlin, Paris, DC Washington, Moscow, Beijing, New York City, Hong Kong, Madrid. Through each of these windows, the destruction is staggering. Buildings are more husks than structures, everything that can burn is alight, and the death toll is off the charts. Blackened bodies seem to line every street, while pieces litter the ground among the rubble. There's no doubt that the UE has no need of the people of this world. They're after resources only, and anything and anyone already here is to be removed.

You can find UE soldiers everywhere. They move in coordinated squadrons of 20, and each of them carries a small arsenal. Even without their incredibly advanced and destructive weaponry, they're fearfully formidable. Each soldier, while still only human, is a genetically perfect clone, further enhanced by technological implants. They're all highly trained in physical combat. Even if you can disarm one of them, don't count on close-range attacks being any easier to handle. They've brought along cannons, small flying craft, and lightweight tanks. Each of these is the top of the line in terms of technology, geared toward destroying as much as it can, as quickly as it can. The United Earth is here to destroy, and they won't stop to wonder why their targets go from being civilians and scrambling, off-guard, comparatively primitive militaries, to trained and powered Transports.

For anyone staying at home, they'll find that any Initiative presence has withdrawn fully to the Hold. All Initiative employees are needed, and most of them in the med bays. The majority of the Initiative focus is on recalling and resurrecting fallen Transports, but attention is still needed for the living-but-wounded. Any Transports who stay in Exsilium and offer their help will have it immediately accepted; they'll be put to work in the medical wings, runnings supplies, or simply set at a machine and told to keep an eye on the numbers: Transport vitals, UE movements, and maps upon maps of changing statistics and colors.

At 1500, the Initiative will recall all Transport soldiers back to Exsilium and seal shut the gateway. The UE numbers are too great, their soldiers too powerful, and Elmer's world is lost.

Comments

[ Locked-ish to Elliot, Gil & Oz. CW Character death ]

[maddeninghatter]

He had come to Paris looking for Oz and Gilbert, to drag those idiots out of harm's way. He'd found Elliot instead. Honestly.

What is it about boys wanting to be heroes? Elliot, of all people, had no business being here. He could sense how inefficiently Elliot was moving, how clumsily he was using his sword (well - perhaps he was a bit better than before, but that's not saying much). He had stepped in beside Elliot, not actually intending to fight by the boy's side, but…

That's when everything changed.

Xerxes Break has been a swordsman for so long that his weapon always feels like an extension of himself, but at that moment, it really felt alive. It moved on its own. Pling! Pling! Those had to be bullets, bouncing off the blade. He could never deflect bullets like that, not even when he could see, not even when he had both eyes. And yet - pling! A sudden slash, and a row of infantrymen fell before him. Their reinforced armor might as well have been cotton, the way his sword rended it to pieces.

This instinct to kill, how delicious. Despite his rising bloodlust, some small part of his mind remained aware of the boy beside him, trying his best to help. Tch. Elliot died once already. There was no need for him to do it again.

"You're in my way, I might kill you by accident! Get out of here! Go!"

There were the usual protests (boys!), but as soon as he sensed Elliot was safely away, he raised his sword again (this is fun) and--

CLLAAANNNNNNNG!

Now. Now. Now is that brief moment of clarity, the crystal-clear vision of a blind man. In the midst of this battlefield he can see a little girl, forever thirteen but already a strong woman. She is chiding him:

"You think you're this big hero, but you're just a middle-aged man who thinks he can do everything himself."

He is alone. With no one standing beside him, the sentience of his weapon has disappeared. He turns to run. He can still escape, he can do this. I cannot die yet!

In a hail of bullets, shot from behind, he falls.

[nobleminded]

Elliot was fully aware of the fact that he was in over his head not long after he had begun battling here. But honestly, after his protests to this plan, hearing that the very reasons he was against it had taken place was something he couldn't just sit by and watch. Good nobles didn't do that, after all.

Even if he had known the full extent of the powers of his sentient weapon, Elliot didn't have much of a chance here, and he noticed this easily. At first, though, he wasn't noticing any other more capable fighters around to protect the people. This was precisely why he hadn't retreated yet.

And then Xerxes Break arrived. The strongest fighter in Pandora, quite possibly of all time as far as Elliot was concerned. This was the swordsman who could single-handedly take on the Baskervilles. Who in there right mind didn't want to be like this guy?!

Elliot was definitely in favor of not dying again, so once Break told him to leave, he replied "Er... all right!" Despite the training he had been doing with Asch since he came here, Elliot knew he still couldn't match up to this warrior. And once you've already died, staying alive just feels that more important.

He only lingered for a moment to be sure he had an opening. Finally, when the gunmen seemed thoroughly distracted, he sheathed his blade and made a run for it, periodically glancing back just to be certain none of the aggressors had turned their attention on him.

Elliot had raced inside a building all the way down the block, peering carefully out one of the windows just to be positive he'ss faring well. But why wouldn't he? Elliot is witnessing one of...

And it's just then that Break is hit. Elliot almost doesn't believe it when he sees him fall.

"Xerxes Break!"

With that, he's racing for the door again. He knows he'll probably be doomed out there, but he can't just leave someone to die, especially not one of his idols.

[velveteened]

In retrospect, it shouldn't have been surprising to catch a glimpse of Break amidst all the chaos. If Oz had thought about it (if he'd thought at all) before running into the fray, he might've expected it. Time-hopping and world-hopping, an enemy being an empire in control of the whole world - these are all things that make the playing field nothing like what he's ever seen, a far cry from the fights they'd seen in Reveil. It's not the same leaps any of them are used to making, joining wars and battles against such a numerous enemy. Complacency isn't something Oz would've said he's been afflicted with during his stay in Exsilium, but it only took a matter of minutes for the sense of safety he's (absurdly) built here to shatter.

(Still, some things are horrible and familiar, regardless of world: the smell of blood as it spills and starts to congeal, the look of burnt wood and burnt flesh, the quality of air so burdened with smoke that just breathing in seems to take a gasp.)

It's as he moves closer that he sees Elliot, breathes a brief sigh of relief as Break waves him out of the fight, because it's not like Oz can't join in Elliot's absence so he's not fighting alo -

- it only takes the length of time from one heartbeat to the next.

He's not aware of the way he stills, mid-step; how his breath catches in his throat and for a second he doesn't breathe as if he's the one who was just shot; how his thoughts bunch together and jumble and lose meaning altogether; nor the way the quiet suggestion to destroy, whispered in his ears the whole time, suddenly becomes a shout.

The way nearby remnants of a building (if it can be called that) that had been hiding some UE snipers explodes into dust, though - it's almost satisfying.

(In another moment's retrospect, it's not even close to satisfying.)

[nobleminded]

Elliot only stops at the doorway when the building explodes, which at least saved him from racing out into the open right away and possibly getting hit by another hail of bullets.

He tries to figure out the source of the explosion. He really doubted the UE was behind that particular bit of destruction since that building seemed destroyed enough before then. Who was capable of...?

And then he spots a familiar form off in the distance. Something about the way he looked...it reminded him of that strange occurrence in Sablier. He looked like Shorty, but he certainly didn't seem like Shorty. Despite his concern for Break, he calls out.

"Oz Vessalius?!"

[velveteened]

He wasn't having trouble controlling B. Rabbit before this, exactly, but it was a little reminiscent of how he'd managed at Isla Yura's. The few times he called on his chain in the past few months, it's followed his desires to the letter, never caused more ruin than whatever precisely he wanted to do, come and gone on command. But this place makes his head hurt, makes him feel an itch somewhere in the back of his thoughts and a shudder up his spine, and it's taken more conscious effort (too familiar too familiar don't want to kill anyone).

But now, his grip slips.

He doesn't show any signs of having heard Elliot, eyes narrowing and focusing for signs of more soldiers.

[nobleminded]

Watching him at least reminds Elliot that he needs to be looking out for soldiers himself. Any of the soldiers that had been in his line of sight were apparently spooked by the explosion, so Elliot takes the opportunity to head in elder younger boy's direction.

"What the hell are you doing just walking around in the open, Shorty?!"

[velveteened]

But he's not in the open, he thinks, not really; not with the chains that have reappeared and begun jangling as they circle him mid-air, nor with the overlarge scythe in hand. He is, perhaps, untouchable, and if he's not, he doesn't really care. There's an enemy to be destroyed, here, and maybe everything else with it.

Though not Elliot, not even in this form, so he turns halfway to look at him, expression impassive.

"You shouldn't be out here."

[nobleminded]

Elliot goes tense. It's those eyes again... that's the same expression he had in Sablier when he nearly killed all those people by the Abyss. Maybe his worry back then wasn't unfounded.

"ME?! You can't have a better reason than mine, Oz Vessalius!" Elliot mostly adds his name in hopes that it snaps him out of it, but he's not quite sure what was going on last time so it may be in vain. "Explain yourself!"

[velveteened]

"We're here to destroy the United Earth, aren't we?"

Matter-of-fact. The chains dart out again a moment later, pre-empting what would've likely been another set of snipers to avoid.

"But," he concludes at Elliot, "it's too dangerous for you."

[nobleminded]

...Okay, he did have a point at first, but the chains distract Elliot from any admittance of that he might have made.

B-Rabbit wasn't here, was she? True, just because Elliot hadn't seen her didn't mean she wasn't there, but he was pretty certain that weird chain would have stood out by now. Or he would have seen her with Oz when he wasn't still avoiding him. ...No, not the time to address that now, either.

"It's just as dangerous for you! I didn't even know you still had that Chain with you! You really think using one of those is going to help anything?!"