(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

[promises_to_keep]

"Well no, I meant more that the clinic's run by other transports, so they're peers," he said. "Though really, the Initiative is by far the lesser evil if you ask me. Besides the whole borrowing thing, they've done their best to do right by us, at least."

Lea looked a little indignant then.

"And what's that supposed to mean, a 'guy like me'?" he asked, folding his arms. "You just met me like forty-five seconds ago, how do you know what kind of guy I am?"

He wasn't entirely sure this guy was okay, the way he was still gripping his head and all, but if he was going to insist he was fine Lea wasn't about to force him back to the clinic. He shifted his weight where he stood and hummed to himself briefly.

"Well, the earth kinda got nuked," he said, "so they're making sure it's safe before they give the all-clear to head back to the surface. Not sure you wanna go down just yet."

[alightlost]

"Like you-- No, I meant that the only guys at our concerts are brought there by their girlfriends, but nevermind that-" Seiya looked straight at Axel now and it felt ridiculously similar to trying to shout-down Taiki. At least Tenou was roughly her height. "You said the Earth was nuked?"

Panic caught in her throat now. "What the heck does that mean? Huh? The whole planet can't have been..." No, it definitely could have been. Galaxia may have that kind of power now, after devouring Kinmoku's Star Seeds. Maybe she'd even found the Princess--

"I'm begging you." Her eyes dropped to the ground. "You have to tell me it wasn't the whole planet-- at least not Japan."

[promises_to_keep]

"Conc-- Oh, you're a musician?"

He barely got the chance to ask before the man seemed to almost crumple right there in front of him. He shook his head.

"Er-- I actually dunno," he said, looking a little sheepish. Begging? He felt a bit bad he really couldn't answer confidently. "I don't think it was the whole planet. The target was the old city of Exsilium, which was what used to be London, or thereabout. I'm not sure what sort of impact that might'a had on the rest of the world, but I'd be surprised if they'd bombed elsewhere. I think we were about the only rebel territory left."

[alightlost]

Seiya was clearly relieved to hear that. "Thank goodness." She put her hand behind her ponytail. "I, ah... I'm sorry. I have a lot riding on this planet's safety."

Oh no. She hoped that didn't come out as foreign as it sounded to her.

To attempt a distraction, she offered the man her hand. "I'm Seiya. You're very knowledgeable."

[promises_to_keep]

Admittedly it sounded a little odd, but Lea could relate, in a way, to being invested in a world's preservation.

"You don't gotta be sorry," he said, shaking his head, "I kinda like this planet too, if we're being honest here." He shook the man's hand crisply. "Lea. And ah, well, I try to keep tabs on what's going on. It's kind of hard to keep up sometimes."

[alightlost]

"Would you mind telling me how? Back home I could listen to the news or radio and even know what the latest was in America." Funny thing, that, 'home' referring to Japan yet the planet wasn't quite the same status. "If I can, I'd like to manage that here too." Admittedly she was most familiar with pop-related news issues, but the skills were the same at least.

She looked a little more confident, now. "That way I can do my best when I'm needed."

[promises_to_keep]

"Oh, ah..." He reached into his pocket and pulled out his tablet. "They gave you one'a these gizmos, right?"

Opening up the general network feed, he swiped a hand across the screen and messages went sailing by with a whirl of color and text.

"You can scroll back through anything anybody's ever posted to the city's network," he said, and then paused the feed on a particular entry. He gestured to a particular part of the screen then. "And here, if you click on the name of the person who posted it, you can see anything they've posted specifically. Or you can just peruse the database to look for any particular person, and do the same thing, easy peasy."

He scratched his head then.

"Needed, huh?" It was a nice thing to be, sure, but he seemed to be taking this whole Fighting The Crusades thing a little seriously. Or was he talking about something else?

[alightlost]

Seiya watched with rapt attention as Lea explained it. "Looking back like that almost feels like being a reporter doing research for an exposé. Why anyone would put anything very personal here is beyond me, but I guess that's their decision."

She mimicked the headscratch for a different reason. I think I can try to keep up with current events at least. This is very superior technology to what I saw in Japan.

But she put her fists on both hips. "Of course. You said you liked the planet too, right? So don't you feel needed to defend it?

[promises_to_keep]

"Mm, something like that," he said, and then laughed. "Yeah, there's a lot of stuff people say that I can't imagine spilling so carelessly, but I guess there's no accounting for inhibition."

He has to chuckle at Seiya's inquiry then.

"I guess I never really thought of it that way," he admitted. "I'm not really a hero type, you might say, so... It's less that I feel needed and more that it's just kind of something that works out well for both parties." He shrugs. "I get away from home for a while, they get somebody who happens to be good at combat. Symbiosis, you know?"

[alightlost]

"You could have fooled me." Seiya laughed in return. "Especially if you're combat-ready." The old soldier in her was creeping out, but it was clearly not that uncommon here. "I wonder if you can answer, but I'll ask anyway... would you say many people have as much experience as you do, or is it more or less?"

Then she caught herself and looked a little abashed. "I mean, not that a singer would be very good in combat, after all."

wow hi tense changes in my previous tag, sorry about that /)_(\

[promises_to_keep]

"Fooling people is one of my talents," he admitted with a sly grin. Then he looked thoughtful at Seiya's question. "Ah... actually the spectrum's pretty wide. There's everything from mundane kids to dedicated athletes to hyperpowered mages to genetically enhanced soldiers." He shrugged then, hands in his pockets. "So your mileage may vary."

And then he just shook his head.

"Hey, I can sing and fight, one doesn't preclude the other." A snort of laughter then. "Not that I tend to do both at the same time, but... I knew a guy who did."

Oh Demyx. Lea did wonder sometimes what became of him.

np~

[alightlost]

Seiya looked genuinely stunned. "Huh. Singing and fighting at the same time, huh... I hadn't actually thought about that possibility..."

She leaned back against the glass again, arms folded. "Lea, wasn't it? Do you think you could tell me about that guy you knew? You mentioned mages..." She was still kind of dancing around the issue, realizing more and more that this place did have as wide a 'spectrum' as Lea insisted.

Re: np~

[promises_to_keep]

"Well, admittedly he's kind of a weird one," he chuckled. "I think if any of my other colleagues had tried it they never could have pulled it off." The very idea of Marluxia singing at all was enough to make him want to hide his face in secondhand embarrassment.

He nodded then.

"Mmhm, Lea; commit it to memory." He grinned a little, then rubbed his chin, humming in thought. "Oh, ah... I'm not sure 'mage' is even the right word for it, but for lack of a better one. Maybe 'elemental' is closer?" That didn't work so much for Xigbar or Luxord; Nobodies really did refuse to color inside the lines, it seemed. "Either way, the people I used to work with, we all kind of had our own specialty. This guy dealt in water and music. At the same time." He laughed, shaking his head. "He was kind of an oddball."

Re: np~

[alightlost]

Seiya's eyebrows both go up. "Two elements? You call him an oddball, but that sounds kind of impressive to me - you make it sound like he's not that special, though. That kind of power..." She sighed. "That'd really be something."

If she could find a way to merge music and light, maybe her songs could become even more palpable to the audience, really reach the princess then.

Well, might as well broach the topic. "Could someone learn that specialty 'the people you used to work with' had?"