(no subject)

[initiates]

Date: December 1st
Location: The Observatory.
Characters: Everyone.
Summary: New Transports arrive and are shuffled into the Observatory after their initial briefings.
Warnings: None.

Your arrival here has been very unceremonious. One second you were somewhere else, and now, very suddenly, your feet hit the glowing white of the Transporter pad, and you're here. You aren't alone, either. There's a crowd of others around you, each seeming just as bewildered, angry, or confused as you might feel. At the head of the group is a woman in purple robes, solemn and taciturn. She hurries over a quick overview of your intended purpose here, and gives direct answers when asked for them, but to most things she simply shows you how to access the tablet you've just been given, or tells you that the DITR's greeters will explain everything. On the tablet, you can find the history of this place and a record of what your new cohorts have experienced. Someone stands on hand to give you a weapon, and though the armory is now greatly reduced, you should be able to find something to suit you.

You're shepherded down a walkway tunnel and into the Observatory, where you will find screens mounted on three sides of the wide room; they show multiple variations of satellite images, focused on... somewhere snowy. It's difficult to say more than that, but those that record heat readings seem to suggest there are people there, where ever "there" is. It's night outside the great wide windows, and the lunar landscape isn't much to look at right now. But, hey, at least all the lights are on, right? No more creepy red emergency lighting upon arrival — not that you'd know anything about that.

You're free to explore the base, visit and use any of the VR rooms, or discover your new room and roommates, but try not to step out of any airlocks if oxygen is a requirement for your system.

Welcome to the moon base, and to the remains of Exsilium.

[[ ooc; As a note for players of current characters: please keep your root comments confined to the various groups and organizations that set up root comments to greet new characters! We highly encourage tagging around here, but since it's a log meant for new characters specifically, we ask that they be the ones to set up root threads to the entry. Thank you, and happy playing! ]]

Comments

[redsea]

Why do you say that? [ Tatara is nice, but why is he nice by association? She doesn't get it... ]

[heartsink]

She doesn't—can't—say anything. It's not the abandoned name, but what he says about her that has Ruka's attention shooting up, expression open wide with surprise, uncertain shock. Her? Her, Ruka, did something like that... on purpose?

Surprise hardens into disbelief, denial. It doesn't make any sense. No matter how bad things have gotten here, for all Ruka's big talk about wanting to stay dead, for all her evaluations of the worth of her life compared to another, for everything that says she finds no value in herself... she can't think of any suffering great enough that she'd take her own life.

Not as she is now, anyway, hollowed out by distance and loneliness from the people most important to her.

"... Why?"

[crab]

"You wouldn't tell me why," and there's a sting of bitterness, of audible hurt to the words. They still hadn't made up, after that fight. They never would, now, he realizes. He was right, about not letting her walk away from him like that, he was right about what might happen. Why is he only ever right about the things he doesn't want to be?

"She nearly ended up cutting that whole friendship thing we had going on short when I kept asking."

[heartsink]

"... I can't say that surprises me, either." Quieter, now; as if only now fearing being overheard, or perhaps being heard in the first place. "If that's really the truth... I would be ashamed of myself, too."

[counterattacked]

"That's it?"

What she's told. Just like that? He tips his head to study her, like he's looking for more. It's a lie to say that Eren understands why Annie does everything she does. She doesn't even seem to think too hard about it.

(If he were to think critically about it, what the Initiative is asking of him isn't all that different than what the Commander has. Be our weapon. He hadn't had much choice at home, either. Locked up in custody, it was join the Survey Corps or die at the hands of the Military Police. But he hadn't cared, because joining the Corps had always been his intent anyway. The biggest difference is in the face of the enemy. If he were to think critically about it. He doesn't.)

He doesn't have it in him to pace right now, so the hand not bracing him against the wall fidgets, blunt nails worrying down into his palm. He seems to arrive at something.

"We can't stay here," Both agreement and argument at the same time. We, as if he's already adjusted to and accepted the existence of Annie as a comrade again, no matter what her attitude or the emblem on her jacket might say. They can't stay here, they can't defeat the titans if they're worlds away. And he has no intention of running away from them either. It's their world. If they need to fight to get back to it-

[hoody]

She locks her gaze back on him, but this time there's something sharp in it. As if she enjoyed taking orders from some mysterious 'Initiative,' trying to save some people she cared nothing for from an enemy she knew nothing about. The whole thing irritated her, and nothing about it made her want to play along. But there was no room in this for dissent, just as there was no room for the same in the military. Perhaps, if they fulfilled their mission, they'd be able to go home. It was the same back on their world as well—if she fulfilled her mission, she'd get to go home.

Annie notices her inclusion, the use of the word 'we.' She resists the impulse to smile at it. He'd always been far too quick to trust people, not unless they outright presented themselves as an enemy (and sometimes, even then). There was no reason for him to mistrust her, of course—she was a friend and comrade, a fellow soldier and a mentor. Yet, if he thought she'd just tag around on whatever boneheaded idea he concocted, he had another thing coming.

"These people brought us here to fight; they aren't just going to put us back if we ask." It seems obvious to her; if they offered that option, would any of these people be here? "Opposing the would only alienate us from both sides here, in this world." She sighs, closing her eyes for a moment as she exhales. "I don't like taking orders from strangers any more than you might, but we don't have many other options."

[crab]

"If nothing else, it should put into perspective how indescribably horrible New Vesuvius was."

Evasion, unwilling to delve into the details of their conversation, of what the Ruka in the City had been feeling, of the reason why that situation and confession of hers had come about. Maybe it's better that the Ruka in front of him doesn't know him. He can do what he should have done before, and keep her from getting too close, this time. She doesn't have to ever know him, now. He has a choice, this time.

"I thought this place was like that one."

[heartsink]

"There's similarities," she concedes, shrugging her shoulders. "The UE has done to Transports what Vulcanus has done to imPorts, so their motives, and their future plans, aren't always surprising."

Abductions, experiments, that quest for their power... of course they would desire the same strength. Of course they would use whatever means they could.

"Humans are the same everywhere."

[hoody]

Bombs, plagues, spies. What on earth had they gotten themselves into? Seeing Armin speak of all of this ridiculous history between their summoners and their enemies was surreal, but, then again, he said he had been here a good deal longer. She wonders how it must feel, that another war was becoming just as familiar to him as his own. If he stayed here longer, longer than he had been in the military back home, even longer than that, would he even remember the war against the titans?

Annie is even more removed from the plight of the people caught in the crossfire. She had heard mention of the even more grievous bombing, the one that had sent them all up here—of it, and what it had done to the people they couldn't transport here to this base. She couldn't bring herself to feel anything for them; she was well-acquainted with the innocent casualties of war.

And all of that was separate from this whole time travel business. Despite how much secrecy she's worked in in the past, Annie is a fairly straight-forward person—going back in time to circumvent a certain event to change the present and future takes a moment for her to wrap her brain around. It was a very interesting concept, however. If they could change the actions of the UE, if the bombing itself never even happened, then... "Doesn't that mean that the city is in tact once again, then?" Doesn't it mean we can go back? is what she means to say. The thought of staying on this.. moon base for any extended period of time makes her a little more than anxious.

Right. The missions. "They send us on these missions the same way they transported us here, right?" That's the gist of what she'd gleaned, anyway. She's not particularly fond of the idea of being beamed to random spaces and points in time. Or very fond of the idea of being forced to do anything at all. She is almost missing the tedium of the police beat back in Stohess.

[crab]

"It might still be a parallel," he muses. "Just not one Lachesis can pull us back from. Out of reach."

[knightofcourage]

Right. It would only be a matter of time before they found our worlds anyway. I don't know how long it takes, but...

[Well, he'd live to see it anyway.]

nope this is too much for me

[acemedium]

[No, he's definitely the weird one here. She's pretty sure he's a teenager, but he's all worked about phone lines and wars]

You don't look fine to me! And there's nothing to fight right now, anyway.

[And that, she's not sure about. There have been some people who've been here for an awfully long time, from the sounds of it. But this weird new guy is worked up as it is....]

Just throwing yourself into their war isn't gonna get you home just like that, anyway! You should probably relax a bit.

[acemedium]

Oh... you mean that big long boring speech about how we've been dragged here?

[You were paying attention??]

[acemedium]

[Something similar went on; Maya processed the new information and came to a (just as erroneous) conclusion]


Oooh, so you're a pirate fan! I think it's neat.

[heartsink]

"If you leave here, you won't go back."

She doesn't mean the words to be harsh, but there's no helping it. She'd had hopes, theories, possibilities before, but with Karkat here, now, so many of them have crumbled into nothing but the dust from which they were crafted. No structure, no substance but wishful thinking. For someone who claims so frequently to have given up on hopes, the universe finds a way to those small pinpricks of light, and snuffs them out.

Her hands curl in her lap. "I'm sorry."

[crab]

He knew that already, of course. Even if the place they called Exsilium happened to be an analog of the world of the City or New Vesuvius, a different sequence of events resulting a different Earth altogether with only similarities retained, there were too many factors -- Ruka's presence and the date she had been taken, the excessive use of time travel, that they had arrived alone and not grouped together -- that screamed doomed for him to think he ever had a hope of return to the City. Out of reach hadn't simply meant they were out of reach of the City -- it had meant that the City was out of reach to them.

If he leaves here, he will disappear, or find himself standing in front of someone else's Porter, ready to start this entire process all over again. He won't go back to the alpha timeline -- not as himself, anyway, and isn't that loss of identity the same as vanishing, even if the time stops, memory loss explanation is true? It's the same as dying, really dying, the way he'd imagined it to be on Alternia, before the game and dream bubbles and dreamselves and god tiers, before the City and Lachesis' capricious resurrections. With so many different versions of the same people, how else are you supposed to define your identity, your individuality, if not by your memories?

It still feels like a punch to the gut, to hear her say it out loud. He steps back, until he hits a wall, and slides down it onto the floor, and the churning miasma of grief and loss and anger and fear finally bursts forth, the dam broken, and the deep breath he takes in some attempt to hold himself together is audibly unsteady. It's not fair. None of it is, none of it has been, why did Lachesis have to take him in the first place? Why splinter him like this? Why did he ever bother growing attached to anything, or anyone, knowing full well from the beginning that he would eventually lose it all? This is not the way he'd imagined losing everything -- he hadn't thought he would have the capacity to miss it, and if presented with this alternative possibility before actually experiencing it, he might have opted to take it, but he was wrong, he was wrong. Forgetting isn't the worst the writhing labyrinth of interconnected universes has to offer. Remembering, and knowing, fully comprehending what he has lost, and with the exact degree of finality, that is the worst.

He would rather lose his identity than feel this.

[hoody]

If he'd tried the cookies that had been offered to her, she believes he'd be of the same opinion. That, and her appetite had a tendency of getting a little bit... off when she was anxious (or more-so than usual). As for attempting to get her to smile, well. He was welcome to try, but wars could be waged for that and no one would emerge the victor. Besides, what on earth was there to distill from this situation which might make her happy? She sighs.

A look of puzzlement settles over her expression at this talk of a drink machine, though. "It... makes drinks? A machine?" If she hasn't tipped her hand from where technology had progressed to in her own world yet, that would probably help. The maneuver gear she is presently strapped into is the pinnacle of human technology in her world; they hadn't had the time or means to invent fancy drink machines.

Questions? It's more like what she doesn't have a question for. She settles on one that seems most pressing. "How do they let us know they have a mission for us?"

[hoody]

The thought of going on supply runs for these people is even more irritating than doing their fighting for them, but if it would both get her out of this cramped box in space and give her something to do, she might very well look into doing something like that. The other things that Lucy offered were strike-outs. Annie was not one for socializing, and reading had never really been her thing. Exploration, maybe, but that would require effort; she could just stay in her room instead...

Something does occur to her, though. "Is there any space for training?" Seeing as though they were soldiers, that seemed pretty important.

[controlledvariable]

She hates how easily she falls into step next to him, feeling for a second like a dog coming to heel, and anger curls unpleasantly in her chest, but Dick is more important than her pride, so she swallows it down.

The thank you for the warning earns a moment of anger, too, as if Dick is someone that needs warning for, but she can - understand what he means, when she stops to think about it for a second, so she doesn't snap at him for that, either.

"Sort of," She considers telling him to figure it out for himself, like her Bruce would but she really needs to stop being contrary just for the sake of it, "He got caught up in the mutiny bullshit, I dunno if you've had a chance to read through the network, but you'll see it all there. He's in protective custody, for his own sake considering some of the threats, and I'm staying with him."

She's let herself be locked in with him, stuck in a cage, and while knowing she can teleport out at any second takes the edge off, she also remembers the fact that doesn't always work. Being stuck on the moon was fraying her nerves bad enough, without the added confinement.

[counterattacked]

It was only hours ago he'd been facing her down in the woods. And in the midst of his rage (grief, anger, a deep and driving need to tear her to shreds with his own teeth, taste her blood as well as his own,) there'd been a split-second's flash of recognition, buried deep in his subconscious, a notion so ridiculous that he'd never bring himself to let the thought form fully. Not through his own power. But it had been enough to pull him up short and give her the opening she needed to (decapitate) incapacitate him.

He doesn't have any reason not to trust her.

"So I'll fight," he bites it out forcefully. Narrowed eyes and tired marks like bruises underneath them. But he speaks with conviction, like a switch has been flipped. Like some part of him has reached down inside himself and asked can you sit back and accept that hand that is dealt to you and found that the answer is always no. He will fight. The titans or the UE or the Initiative or whoever he has to. "But not just because they tell us to. We're still human. We can make our own choices."

[hornedomen]

It's nice to meet you, too. I'm Ico. Do you need help with anything? I've been here for over a year so maybe I can help.

[hornedomen]

[He sheepishly played with the end of his horn, running his thumb across the tip.]

Sometimes I move in my sleep and I hit the bed.

[It was an understatement; when Ico opened the door to their room, there were visible gouges on his bedframe. Aside from that disaster, everything looked clean and organised.]

There's still plenty of room left, so it'll be okay. It won't be like this all the time. We'll have to go back to earth eventually.

[smallest]

He gasped, making a hissing sound in his surprise. Even though he was seeing it, he could scarcely believe what was happening. He reached for the glowing letters, slowly extending his finger out to touch the corner of the W.

Oh, but Medivh was speaking still. His attention could only be drawn to so few things at once. He held his tablet up and tapped the screen. Would it not be enough to write on that?

[protects_no_one]

No.

[The answer to both questions, although he has no idea why he comes to where the new arrivals appear.

IS he looking for someone? Dismissing that notion, he gives her a pointed look.]

You are not from the world below.

[redsea]

[ This being reality is unfortunate news, but at the latter information, Kougyoku's eyes widen. The implications of an empty base don't sound so good to her. ]

Empty? What are you trying to say?

[ She purses her lips into a line for a moment. Does that mean the new Transports will die here before they can even move? Of course, although Kougyoku's had her fair share of bad fortunes that she refused to believe, she has no reason to doubt the woman. ]