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(no subject)

Date: June 1st
Location: The Initiative Hold & Courtyard.
Characters: Everyone.
Summary: New Transports arrive and are shuffled into the Courtyard after their initial briefings. Now with 200% more People-Seeking lists!
Warnings: None.

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. Now and then around you you might spot paper fluttering in the faint wind from somewhere relatively dry. It looks like a list.

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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ Oh no Miranda, don't do that. As much as he wants to panic himself, there's no need to do it for him!!

He's reaching up to give her arm a squeeze. ]

I'll be fine. We'll just wait a bit and see what happens, yeah?

[Arm holding is good. Arm holding reminds her that freaking out over it will only make it worse for the other person--and she wants that even less than freaking out.]

I, I want you to be okay.

[Need you to be, more like, but she'll settle for just him being alive if she has to.]

[ Good, because he's keeping his hand there for the moment. ]

I am okay, really. Just tiny, but that's no big deal. [ IT'S A LIE but he can pretend. ]

Look, they even gave me back my Innocence. [ He'll take it from his pocket and hold it up to show her. It's all nice and newly improved (at least to him.) The only bright side to this mess. ]

Eh? It was taken away?

[Did something else happen? Did they take everyone's Innocence away and give it back? She doesn't remember it but--]

[ He hurriedly shakes his head. ]

No, no, it isn't that. Back home it was still being repaired so I didn't have it on me when I got here. But! [ a suspenseful beat. ] It was right there in their armory.

Oh. Oh, right!

[She'd never really thought about it or much about that time, really. Her memories of those days are scattered at best.]

Wh--but how? [Innocence? Here?]

I'm not sure, but they said sometimes objects from other worlds end up here so I guess they took my hammer from the future?

[ He can only shrug. ]

Whatever the case, I can't complain.

'End up here'...?

[What does that mean? How? Do--do dead people's weapons end up here? No. No, that's too horrible an explanation. It doesn't make sense. It's ridiculous.

She blinks free of her thoughts and offers a little smile.]

Ah, yes. I suppose not.

[ He pats her arm again once, reassuringly, before finally dropping his hand.

Although he has no idea how it all works either, he's confident that he'll figure it out eventually. There was no use worrying about it now and so he returns the smile easily. ]

How about we get you inside?

Inside?

[She blinks at him, bewildered. Honestly, she's so used to the dreary weather (both physical and mental) that the rain hadn't even crossed her mind for several minutes.]

[ Lavi snorts, amused, and waves a hand at her. ]

Unless you want to stand around here in the rain, but it's nicer inside.

Oh! Oh, right! [How embarrassing! She should be the one offering--and he's a child right now, it's dangerous for them to be outside in this weather!]

I'm sorry, I didn't even think! We can go right now--

[She stands, determined! But deflates moments later when she realizes she has no idea where to go.]

Ah...

[ Good ol' Miranda.

Lavi chuckles, though not unkindly, before taking a hold of her sleeve and gently tugging her in the right direction of the apartment complex. ]

It's this way.

Is it?

[She follows immediately, letting Lavi take the lead.]

What is?

[ He keeps hold of her sleeve because it's easier directing her that way and so they won't get separated in the crowd as they join it. ]

The apartment complex! They gave you a key, didn't they? We all get a room there.

Apartment? [She blinks, baffled.] Key?

I did?

[Did she? But she doesn't--where could she have put it? She starts to pat down her uniform with her free hand, concern furrowing her brows.]

[ He stops, letting go of her sleeve so she can search for it better while he watches on, slightly bemused. ]

Didn't they mention housing at all?

I--maybe? I think so!

[She's frantically patting down her uniform, trying to find anything in her pockets.]

But they were going so fast and I didn't want to interrupt because it seemed important so I--I--

[OH GOD. She's messed up already! Again! Aaaaaaah!]

[ Oh boy, here we go again.

He hurriedly waves his arms to get her to focus her attention on him again. ]

It's okay, it's okay! I'll take you to my apartment and then you can look, 'kay?

But...but if I left it where I dropped everything...

[Someone could take it. Someone probably already has. And now she won't have a place to live. She's such an idiot.]

Then let's have a quick look.

[ Okay taking hold of her hand this time to tug her with him as he goes back the way they came. ]

Don't worry I'm good at finding keys. [ Har har such a funny private joke. But not really. ]

Oh! Right!

[That's horrifically tragic, Lavi. How dare you.]

You are?

[ It's not like she'll get it, she wasn't there in the Ark! ]

Yeah, I've had to look for a particular key in a mountain of hundreds of keys before. Finding one on the pavement shouldn't be hard.

That's amazing! How did you manage that?

The wood seal! Plus I memorize everything I see to the tiniest detail, y'see.

[ Which is why they're now standing on the exact spot where Miranda dropped her things. ]

So I remembered every little thing about the key.