(no subject)

[initiates]

Date: February 1st
Location: The Initiative Hold & Courtyard.
Characters: Everyone.
Summary: New Transports have all arrived and have been shuffled into the Courtyard after their initial briefings, while older Transports are returning from the mission to Uruguay.
Warnings: None.

While those who have been guests of Exsilium since at least the last wave of Transports return from their desperate mission and are pressed out of the Transporter room and into the Courtyard, the Initiative prepares to receive a second wave at the same time. And if you're in that second wave, the fresh meat, then you've just been hustled and bustled through mazes of information and literal, wide corridors of the Initiative Hold and you've been equipped with your weapon—be it a gun, a sword, or even your existing powers. They've handed you this light netbook and a small pouch of coins (or a debit card, if you're more inclined), and there are several Transports before and after you going through the very same motions. You can hear the Greeter's voice as she walks alongside large groups, telling them all about the history of this place and sharing with you your purpose here in a hurried and urgent tone. "You're in luck that we have enough rooms for all of you; the housing building is getting awfully full. Please, let me show you into the courtyard."

You pass what looks like huge gymnasiums, all with dummies and targets strewn and splayed around the room. Training areas. There are even classrooms, and a few small offices. You're rushed past a large library while the Greeter informs you that you can find almost all your information there, if you've got the time to look—and trust her, you'll have time. You don't spend a lot of time in the bank, and it's a bit of a blur of exchanges with more and more of these strangely-accented and oddly polite-seeming members of the Initiative.

Soon enough, you're in a massive courtyard bustling with all the other Transports. It's not exactly what you'd expect, and it looks more like barracks than anything—huge walls of concrete and stone, separating you from all of the hallways you'd just passed through. It's raining heavily, and dark clouds loom in the air, though it hasn't turned to snow. It's a chill cold, and there are shelters—long cloth hangings that extend from the walls of concrete to house you from the rain, but not enough. Most notably, the courtyard is filled with a marketplace. Even in the cold and the rain, there are several citizens seated at their covered booths and tables, bundled up against the weather. They're selling all manner of their own handmade goods and foods, and citizens and Transports alike are traveling from one small covered shop to another in search of all manner of necessities.

The Greeter's voice has become so faint now, but you swear you can make it out in the back of the crowds as she tells you, "Good luck. Be safe!"

Her voice is drowned out by the busy marketplace, though even the transactions taking place are somewhat subdued. Nobody is overly happy, really, though most citizens can be found with smiles on their faces. It doesn't seem like they're that shocked to see you, either; even if you're not bound in tattered rags and wrapped in heavy shawls as they are. You're welcome to walk up to a shop, and find yourself something to eat—hey, maybe you'll even find something akin to a raincoat. Or, you can join the others under the coverings against the walls. Where am I? What war? She was talking so fast, and it didn't all make very much sense… did anyone else catch it all?

Welcome to the courtyard. Welcome to the Initiative Hold—and most importantly, welcome to Exsilium

Comments

[justthedriver]

[ It's the kind of grin Nikolai has seen it before. He wonders if he'll ever get the stink and dirt of being street trash from his skin. (His father is an auto mechanic. Not a very good one, doesn't deserve extra rewards. Nikolai has gone hungry often. He likes to say he sells auto parts, but it's more like- he steals them, and he sells them, and he keeps the money. Or what served as money. It's no different in the end. Paper, paper, endless reams of paper.) But sometimes the dirt serves a good purpose, because dirt recognises dirt.

The mask surprises him, however, and Nikolai reaches out with his fingers. He's going too far, he knows he is, but he darts out quickly enough that his fingertips manages to graze the boy's cheek, right underneath the mask, before he lets it drop back to his side.

He takes a drag. ]

Dobro poʐalovatʲ. [ You're welcome. He chuckles quietly. ]

Going round with mask makes people think you up to no good. [ He tips his head to the side, the question obvious though it remains unspoken: Are you? ]

[justthedriver]

[ Who indeed? Nikolai cocks his head and for the first time since he's come in here, he realises that something is wrong. It's not the fact that he's in a new place - that much he's grown used to. But there's people. Whom he doesn't remember. His mind slips away from them, his memories growing slick. And as he tries to capture them, frowning, he realises it's like trying to grab hold of mist with his bare hands.

Strange. And Nikolai doesn't like it. But he doesn't show it. ]

One or two, here and there. [ He makes an oblique gesture with his hand. ] You know everyone in your world? Every name come up with, you know face?

[ They have odd names, Nikolai remembers. Frodo. Aragorn. Legolas. Some more. There are some more. But they slip away from him, and Nikolai's frown deepens even more. He doesn't like it. There's nothing more important to someone like him - aside from his eyes - than his memories.

Stranger and stranger. ]

you are so easily pleased /shakes head at

[justthedriver]

[ He barks a laughter at that. ]

Sounds like nonsense word. 'Jabberwock'.

[ Epic shrug. Yes, he doesn't know what you mean, goddamnit. ]

[justthedriver]

[ Handsome. Now that's a word Nikolai doesn't hear used to describe him very often. Most people don't linger on his face long enough to see it, and those who do see his face tend to not pay such compliments.

You see, no one wants to be a fucking queer. But it seems that he is talking to a fucking queer. Nikolai's lips quirk upwards, and he's amused all over again. This place, it looks like London, but it clearly isn't. ]

Would give back compliment, but I cannot see your face. [ His fingertips tap, very, very slightly, against the tip of Vanadi's mask again. ] May be better, because I am not a [ irony, irony, irony: ] fucking queer.

[ Pause. He cocks his head. Lets his finger slide very slowly down the tip of Vanadi's mask. ]

You always honest, Vanadi?

[justthedriver]

[ Everybody lies. Nikolai doesn't think what's so depressing about it. It's honest people you have to fear; honest people who are too stupid to realise what they're getting their heads into. Who speak their minds not knowing when truth is wanted, and risk their necks and the necks of everyone around them. Lies are nice things, comfortable things, because at least you can trust that it will eventually fall apart. A house of cards is more trustworthy than an stone structure, because you don't know when the latter will fall.

But then again. Then again, Adam isn't saying anything of that sort, so Nikolai only grins. ]

I am from London. [ He drags out the syllables of the last word, wraps it lovingly around his accent, and releases it until it is so mangled that you can barely tell that it's English instead of Russian.

Nikolai might have an overdeveloped sense of irony. ]

If directions don't come my way, I expected to stumble around? [ He looks down at the sad stub on the ground, and grinds his foot on it. ] No monsters at night, waiting for lost sheep?

thanks now we're weaboos. have you see doujin!viggo before?

[justthedriver]

[ How long is it? Nikolai isn't entirely sure. Time is a nebulous thing when you don't have a sun to tell it. There's something unnatural in that. In the North there are more deaths - from murders and suicides both - during winter than any time else. When there is no sun, there is cold, there is death, and there is no more time.

Nikolai shrugs. ]

Some months. [ He laughs at how short it is. It seems fucking stupid, so goddamned fucking stupid, to be half-mourning about the memories he shares with Legolas when those months are not even a fraction of the Elf's lifetime.

Nikolai doesn't like feeling that he's becoming the needy one. He never has. There's something egoistical about it, watching the way Kirill crawl towards him and wrap himself around Nikolai's leg, and Nikolai knows it just takes the smallest move to kick him in the teeth. Like a dog.

He laughs ago. ] Long enough to remember you speak like strange person [ Pause. He doesn't let Legolas reply - he already knows what Legolas will say, they have walked that line of conversation before.

Instead he lifts his shirt, showing the dried blood stains. ]

I know also you lived long. Long enough to know how to get blood out of this? [ He's going to burn the clothes anyway. But Nikolai likes irony, and there's plenty of irony in the idea of working hard to clean clothes only to burn it. ]

[concealingeyes]

[Kido feels a little bad, like that wasn't her place.]

You keep going forward. That's strength to me. Having people support you is good, but... not always enough.

[She scratches the back of her head.]

Sorry. I don't really know you well yet so it's a lot to say. I'm just getting over being stuck in this still.

[concealingeyes]

So I should try it on you?

[Despite saying that, she turns away from him so whatever this does won't hurt him. She skims it for the first time. There are new options on it. So she just selects one without reading it.

A banner nearby explodes.

Whoops.]

[pixieboots]

You could probably use them more than me. [ It's a little surprising to be asked. Of course he can spare them. ]

I don't get sick too often. Scout's honor.

[pixieboots]

Oh. Yeah, that's the part they don't explain too well.

[ And now that he thinks of it, that was a dumb thing to say. He turns a quick somersault in the air and lands with a little flourish at the edge of one of the nearby shadows. ]

What's your name?

[speakveryclearly]

Just floor two, though three will probably find them by the time Kanaya's done rambling in return. "That's a rather more generous view of me than even some of my friends take." She's smiling again but it's softer, naturally narrow enough that she shows only two fangs. She is coming out of the girl's explanation with a positive, though perhaps somewhat unwanted impression.

"You're really well-versed in the theory of parallel worlds for someone with such a normal life." Her tone is purely impressed, not actually skeptical of the normalcy of Haruka's life. "Many Transports from 'normal' human worlds even blindly assume that this is the future of their own Earth."

[heartsink]

"Oh, I grew up reading a lot, that's all," she excuses, playing up bashful embarrassment. "Parallel worlds and traits surpassing humanity come up often enough in fiction, I suppose I've had much more time to think about it than other people."

She could make a comment on Kanaya's friends, but, whale, that would probably go badly in one regard or another.

"Besides, if this is meant to be so far in the future of my Earth, I would expect the technology to be more advanced than what I grew up with, not less. Wouldn't you?"

[speakveryclearly]

Kanaya can certainly relate to reading a lot about fantastic things that turned out to be real. (After all, she literally is one.) On a conscious level, she's entirely mollified by Haruka's explanation. A small corner of her subconscious still takes a note, Haruka's (theoretical) familiarity with other worlds is unusual, a seed planted in a dark corner of the proverbial plot, not to sprout without further notice.

"I'm kind of a special case. On my home planet--" Augh, a hopelessly alien turn of phrase. "We had far more advanced technology than I've ever known the human race to develop. So I can't really gauge that kind of thing well."

Third floor.

[heartsink]

"Well, in your case then—" She pauses for a breath at one of the turns in the stairwell, hand bracing a little more weight on the handrail. "—If you were to arrive on some, well, supposedly 'future' version of your home planet, hundreds or thousands of years later, you wouldn't expect the technology to be stuff that was obsolete before your time, would you?"

[speakveryclearly]

"This is the last one," she interjects as encouragement when she sees Haruka pause.

"And... I guess you have got a point there. I don't know; I've seen a lot of humans blown away so much by the spatial and temporal travel, and the weaponry, that they neglect the other aspects of our accomodations refugees of more advanced civilizations find lacking." The few humans she can recall who were as emphatically unimpressed as Haruka, in fact, mostly had justifications of a fantastic or science fictional nature, or at the very least unusual careers in the military. She wonders if maybe Haruka's home happens to be a little further into the future than some of her human peers'. It's easy to imagine Earth getting to about this level in a hundred, fifty, maybe even twenty years without a global war, maybe keeping some originally unfortnate great minds alive who weren't before.

Her theories don't get quite this elaborate; she merely continues to think that the distribution of Haruka's discomforts differs from what she's seen in others. She was distressed about her kidnapping, certainly, but more that than disbelieving its remote possibility or denying the reality of her situation. That was probably traceable to her avowed fondness of science fiction, though.

[heartsink]

"I can't say that surprises me." The chime is a little disparaging towards her own species, but Ruka had always gotten along easier with monsters; as is, she probably only sounds anti-social in the way most teenagers are. "Humans are alike most anywhere, I think, and we're pretty easy to shake the ground out from beneath, sometimes. The time and space matters, if you take those, and all the rest of this, as true at face value right from the start, it's very overwhelming. It's easier to adjust, if it's taken one step at a time, but a lot of people don't have the patience for that."

Disbelief and caution; they're reflected in the questions she's been asking. Ruka doesn't know what sort of image Kanaya has of her, nor does she for the others she's spoken to thus far, but she didn't have nearly enough time to conjure up her new past and how to react to the world around her. Improvisation will only take her so far, she knows, but so long as the picture she's painted can be believed, she thinks she'll be okay.

It's a little bit of irony, and she hopes pointing out the concept of truthful faces or the necessity for close examination of information doesn't backfire on her horribly.

"The jet-lag wouldn't help much either, as far as all that."

[designatedhealer]

Well, you could give me a name to ask people about, couldn't you? [Her tone isn't chiding - just curious. Really, she does mean well.] If the child is introducing himself to people, they may recognize a name more easily than the description.

[Then she shakes her head.] Not exactly. I know that this place is far in the future compared to where I'm from, but other than that, I was never given many specifics. I'm sure I'll figure it out once I've had more time here, though.

[implying]

[ Now, this is an interesting development. Oh, he's seen plenty of men utterly against the idea of a man flirting with them, that's nothing new at all. But not many of them would call him a fucking queer while tracing suggestive patterns against his mask. ]

That is rather lucky, then, isn't it? Why, once glimpse at my beautiful face could very well weaken that heterosexual resolve.

[ He grins widely under the mask, amused at the question. Amused enough not to lie about lying, even. Although of course he never says anything plainly, and certainly not this, but he has the idea that this man will realize that. ]

Me? My friend, I've never told a lie in my entire life.

1/4

[maddeninghatter]

Why, I'm--

[ For a moment, Break looks as though he's going to lean in, invading Kariya's personal space in an overly friendly way, parking his elbow on the man's shoulder. But mid-gesture, his nose… ]

[maddeninghatter]

[ TWITCHES! ]

[maddeninghatter]

[ --aaaaaaaand that arm-parking maneuver morphs into an awkward flail as he jerks back, away from that awful stench. Euuuuurgh. The man smells like… like a…

Oh. Oh.

He rights himself, and pulls on the brim of his hat. ]

4/4

[maddeninghatter]

I'm Xerxes Break, how do you do?

[ He adds, not unkindly: ]

"Better than when you arrived" - I'm guessing that's a bit of an understatement, right?

[maddeninghatter]

[ Drily: ]

It's a marketplace. People are selling them. Didn't Gilbert show you how to shop?

[ He turns, his hand waving, peremptorily beckoning Oz to follow him; but he hesitates, just so. ]

You… you haven't seen Gilbert about, have you?

[speakveryclearly]

"Jet lag?"

The painfully short pair of words pointedly disturbs whatever development her ideas about Haruka's relative unflappability may have been undergoing, like a disturbance to a solution that might have otherwise crystallized, a metaphor which would never occur to Kanaya herself both because her mental machinations were purely subconscious and her education was ended by interdimensional grubnapping at the rough equivalent of eighth grade with minimal non-biological science study. Kanaya stops walking at the landing of their third and final flight of stairs, and turns around to face her.

"I'm sorry, could you please explain what that means." What's a jet. What's lag got to do with a "jet". It wasn't intended that way, but she finds the foreign term an extremely effective distraction, and her glow even flickers slightly in her confusion.

[sidecar]

[At first Kotetsu nods like he's expecting Sky High to go on, the realization that he isn't only kicking in a good few seconds later.]

That's it?!

[Shocked, he nearly drops the umbrella, fumbling with it just long enough to catch a healthy dose of rainwater to the face.]

Not even counting the time we've been here, that was almost a year ago!

[Sure, Kotetsu was the one just explaining how crazy the timelines get, but still! It's one thing to talk about this stuff happening to other people and another to witness such a huge discrepancy between those from his own world. ...Though after the last couple weeks, maybe he should just be grateful that no one else he knows is showing up as a teenager.]