exsiliumlogs | (no subject)

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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! ]]

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The man formerly known as Bruce Wayne glanced at the monitor showing the current view of Earth from the moon, considering the sum total of information imparted on him and the rest since they'd all shown up in a confusing mess of people funneled swiftly out of a small, confined room into an equally narrow hall. This was the first room that opened up into a manageable space, a mixture of those who looked hopeful among the ones who looked confused and lost. He'd been taking in what he could of the situation, improbable and ridiculous as it was.

If this was due to some mass hallucinogen, then he wondered that so many were acting coherently under its influence. The whole of the location felt industrialized, and on the whole it was more believable that they were being held in some industrial complex, though the predominance of English speaking persons was suspect. The few with fairly radical appearances were something else to consider -- Bruce was almost certain he'd seen a woman completely in green, which was either a dedication to make-up or an extreme and unfortunate trick in lighting.

The empty tea cup in his hand, Bruce continued to observe the room, letting his expression fall into something of concern and disbelief. Shock, in a sense. Any sane person would be in shock if this was true, and as far as he could tell, for as ridiculous as it was, he wasn't currently operating under the influence of something identifiable. He felt in control, and the ache in his leg was a sort of comfortable reminder that he hadn't escaped his usual state of being.

If the thought was one that made him half smile, eyes glancing down to the empty cup as he listened to what people said in the crowd around him, he had to be amused at what that state of being counted as. He'd left Gotham behind to heal, and to find a life in the world. Selina had been pleasant, usually amusing company, someone also set on her own reinvention away from what Gotham had allowed her to make herself into. There was no sign of Selina here. He wasn't surprised.

Leaning on his cane, more for show than necessity on most days, Bruce considered what he was going to choose to believe and what he wouldn't, though he knew that would be a matter of observation and deduction on his own. Disbelief was strongest in those who'd been ushered here, where something more like resignation and hope echoed through those who'd already been waiting.

Time travel, dimension travel, a moon base, a promise to get back to Earth.

"They couldn't have arranged this for after coffee?" He asked, eyes coming up to focus on the person stopped next to him, scanning the crowd. "Feels silly to be standing here with the cup, and nothing in it." Considering the robe he wore, casual sleepwear underneath, and how he had the morning newspaper tucked up under one arm in addition to the teacup and his cane, the joke slid right into place. An interrupted breakfast. An interrupted life.

He would keep learning, and keep his eyes and ears open. Whatever the truth or actuality of this situation, the knowing came with doing.

"There's some over there," said a voice just behind, carried in a tone somewhere between timid and distracted. Martin peered past the arm and cup of concern, looking at the gathering crowds before thinking to glance up.

"You get some if you're new. And food. Someone always has some. Uh–"

He straightened up, having to scoot up a little close to let someone brush past him before getting pushed over himself. "Excuse–"

Bruce shifted the cup, as if there were something other than the filtered air filling it at the moment. There's an awareness of this teenager in his personal space, but outside of a subtle shift in stance, it doesn't look like much is penetrating the look of befuddlement turning his expression quizzical.

He smiled, in that half distracted way of someone responding to a social nicety without much warmth behind it. Appreciation given off the cuff, but readily given nonetheless. "Nothing to excuse. You say it's over there?"

With a gesture of the teacup, Bruce quirked up an eyebrow to go along with the weak smile. The where for this kid's "over there" remains implied by tone, rather than directly stated in words.

Edited (stop html why) 2013-12-01 20:57 (UTC)

"Mm, yes, it's..."

Martin was looking one way, thinking of another. He had to stop himself to actually pay attention, squinting at the people in the room, the small glimpses of things behind them.

"Or, uh," he mumbled, still searching. Soon, though, he glanced back up at Bruce, mouth tugged on one side, a dubious smile. "I can show you. Want to follow me?"

"Looking for someone?" It's not much of an answer coming first, but it did seem to break into the confusion he showed on his face. He was somewhat curious as to the who, but given his dearth of experience with teenagers (roughly coming in to about "the last time was when I was one,") he doesn't particularly expect an answer. "I wouldn't want to pull you away from whatever you're doing."

Her first instinct is to walk straight up to him and punch him square in the jaw, like she'd promised herself she would after realizing how badly Bruce had screwed Dick over, but the cane gives her pause. He's not the right age for it to be from Bane, which means its either something coming in her future, or this is a Bruce from a different universe.

Either way, she knows she can't confront him in public, not when her identity as Batgirl isn't a secret. Bruce wouldn't want to be associated with her at all, in case that could reflect back on him, and as angry as she is, as much as she hates him, she can't disrespect a secret identity like that.

So she teleports back into her room, writes a quick note (Bruce, come to VR room #3 in half an hour) and grabs one of her batarangs, then heads back to the observatory. She doesn't say a word to him or even acknowledge him, just walks past and slips both the note and the batarang into his pocket. It's quick enough that no one else will see, and a few seconds later she's gone again.

She goes straight to the VR room to wait, leaving the room plain instead of running a simulation, tempting as it is to being up Gotham. There are more important things right now, she just really hopes he shows up.

"Well–" The question stops him from dropping off to look around again, starting to flush. Like getting caught with a hand in the cookie jar, really.

"Well, sort of. But not really." His eyes wince, despite the smile. "Sometimes, when a lot of people come here new...sometimes there's people who used to be here with them. Not always, but...sometimes..."

His gaze drifted again. "And there might be more people here I'll remember."

There was a beat, and then Martin gaze Bruce another look, this one heavy with his own shade of curiosity.

"Are you–? Are you one of them?"

The first thing Nate is aware of is that his skin suddenly feels as if it is on fire with the warmth that hits him like a wave after he solidifies into the room. He can feel the snow soaking into his clothes and skin, right alongside the growing bloodstain in his side and running down his leg. He plays it off well for a few minutes, enough to not draw the attention of anyone who isn't looking at him. In one hand is his .45 Defender -- in the other, a Tibetan phurba carved from gold with a sapphire in its head. He takes the time to secure it in his belt before the tablet is shoved in his bloody hand.

There's a sarcastic and croaked response to the retreating back ("Thanks, asshole.") before he tries to orient himself to a corner. If he could just get that bullet out and stop the bleeding--

He is barely aware of everyone around him until they get too close, at which point he takes a few weakened steps backward and raises his gun until they walk away. He catches words like "Exsilium" and "year 3312", "totalitarian" and "United Earth" from the woman at the head of the group before he has to stop listening as blood loss and temperature shock begin to win the battle over stubbornness.

At least there was no sign of Flynn, Chloe, or Lazarević. That doesn't stop him from leaning against the wall he had managed to reach, closing his eyes so that he might catch his breath while simultaneously covering the gunshot wound. Not that it mattered -- almost his entire left-side was blood-soaked now.

It's his first day back, and already there's some asshole trying to die on the ground. Adrasteius groans as he stalks over to the wounded man, his hand already lifted, already bright with holy power.

"Stay with me, whoever the hell you are! Keep your goddamn eyes open."

"Some asshole" perfectly describes the man on the ground, right down to his reaction when he's told to keep his eyes open. Nate takes the command to heart, which is probably the last thing he should be doing. He spots the other man ("Nice ears, Legolas"), but more importantly spots his glowing hand.

His grip tightens on his gun, but he doesn't raise it. Magic is a little beyond him, but Adrasteius' body language didn't suggest he was moving in to finish the job. Besides, he's pretty sure he's bleeding his last drops of blood -- surely this guy couldn't do worse.

Right?

"Oh, that's fucking clever," Adra hisses. He kneels down beside Nate and presses his open palm to the wound, scowling even as the healing energy flows from his fingers and into Nate's body. First, the bullet itself dissolves; the bones and muscle tissue begin to mend immediately after.

"Verily," he mumbles, letting the tablet in his hand fall in favor of lifting it to rub his forehead. This was it. He was going to die on a strange steel floor with some guy dressed like something out of Lord of the Rings hovering over him. The acceptance only lasts a moment, as he startles when Adra's hand rests against his wound. It takes quite a bit of self control not to pull the trigger, which wouldn't have really solved anything except perhaps put a bullet in his leg.

"Jesus, mate--" The rapid spread of warmth unnerves him, as does the obvious feel of his wound healing in front of him. If he hadn't already been questioning whether or not magic was an illusion with the discovery of Shambhala, this...

"How in the hell did you...?"

Edited 2013-12-02 03:16 (UTC)

"Don't worry about it," Adrasteius says, pulling away. His sour expression hasn't softened an inch. "Any more bullet wounds, or are you fine now?"

Don't worry about it. Don't worry about it. He doesn't say it out loud, but the slightly incredulous expression says enough.

Fine. He had enough to worry about.

"Just the one this time," he offers, giving Adra another once over before looking back down to where there had been a bullet wound just seconds before. "...thanks. I think."

Overall, the abduction doesn't come as a surprise. It follows the pattern well enough, and while it's certainly bizarre that the others who arrived with him aren't those he's used to, it's nothing more outlandish than what he's already experienced. The apparently never ending parade of alternate universes Lachesis appears intent upon inflicting on them all continues. The lack of surprise doesn't constitute a lack of irritation, however, and he seethes through most of the robed woman's overview, occasionally interrupting to slip in a snide or mistrustful comment, hardly paying attention to what she tells him -- he's aware that he must be here for a reason, but he isn't quite enough of a gullible wriggler to immediately accept that it's the reason supplied to him.

Upon entering the Observatory, however, there is a tiny flicker of excitement he feels upon the confirmation that he is in actual space -- real space, not the Incipisphere or the miserable void of the Furthest Ring. Space colonization was one of those things he was sure he would never live long enough to experience on his home planet, and it's with a begrudging fascination that he approaches the window to observe the lunar landscape, rudely shoving people out of the way with a barked insult or five.

What he can see is, as a matter of fact, fairly disappointing. Just rocks and night. Nothing like it's cracked up to be at all. He lets out an impatient snort, and his gaze drifts from the window to the screens, the satellite images they display, and upon paying those mind, his heart sinks with realization.

No, it's not like an Alternian space station at all. The screens, the corridors, the miserable planet below them, the proposed (and laughably terrible) solution this Initiative have devised for it, this is just another hunk of space rock to be stranded on, waiting for inevitable doom to claim them. This is the meteor, all over again. He feels cold inside. He feels-- a lot less than he should be feeling, actually.

With a start, Karkat whirls to face the number of abductees swarming through the Observatory. A crowd this large should have him overwhelmed, should have him fighting to keep a hold on his sense of self, but the only feelings he struggles with are his own shock and bewilderment. For the first time in nearly a sweep, he is utterly alone in his emotions. She took his empathy.

"Fuck," is really all there is to say on the matter.

Edited 2013-12-02 04:52 (UTC)

Ren approaches curiously, drawn in by the the grey skin and the expletives that make Karkat hard to not notice, even in a room full of new Transports and the ones that always show up to either greet them or look for their friends in the sea of new faces. Ren always shows up to try greeting new Transports, since Kido had asked him to do so many months ago. It's the least he can do for all she did to help him find Aoba when he first arrived.

Ren isn't sure if Karkat is a new Transport or not, but he looks so different from everyone else that he feels compelled to investigate him anyway. So, please excuse the dog sniffing at his feet before backing up and sitting on his haunches, looking up at him. When Ren speaks it's with a mechanical and comically deep voice for such a small dog.

"Greetings. Are you a new Transport? If you need someone to show you around, I can provide that service for you."

Kanaya wasn't sure at first if she was going to come out to the observatory this month. The imprisonment of the erstwhile welcome tent manager puts a bit of a damper on the event. Footage from the recently frozen Earth, however, compels her physical presence. And the tablet tells her there is an interpersonal reason to attend as well, with a new name in its directory. Though it's an old moniker, used before more than once, isn't that just all the rage these days? She puts on her old default outfit underneath an unbuttoned black coat, wanting to be recognizable, and her jade eyeshadow, wanting to feel presentable.

When she enters the observatory she stays near a wall to avoid impeding any of the new arrivals - of course, thanks to the identity of the troll she's seeking, there is no aberration in the sea of original flavor Swedish fish to guide her to him. The walls, at least, are home to the fenestrated planes, and eventually she glimpses a patch of gray skin between all the old and new bodies. Aha! It could belong to someone else but that's incredibly unlikely... In all this commotion, nobody will notice a misspoken call. She'll take the risk of attempting to get his attention.

"Hey, Karkat." She is trying to greet him with a bright raised voice instead of just a bright raised hand, and scores about three out of ten points for pity and effort.

Walt was still learning the patterns of this place, but this one was familiar from the month before. His own arrival on the moon base had been tense and confrontational. His marriage was still in tatters over things he couldn't even understand. He was understandably a bit tense as he scanned the crowd, and it probably showed in the way he swiveled to face the man addressing him so abruptly.

"There's coffee in the kitchen."

Beans, anyway. But it didn't seem important to make the clarification. Anyone who drank coffee knew how it was made.

Many of those things were hinted at during the introductory ramble, and pointed out as being in the files on the tablet folded up inside his newspaper, but Bruce wasn't inclined to believe anything shown to him was inherently true, simply for being shown as such. The teenager he was speaking with seemed sincere, offering a glimpse of that hope he'd seen on other faces in this room.

In the theory where all this nonsense is true, or at least in following a train of logic that accepted interdimensional travel, it would be incredible to expect that a freak accident such as this Transport Pad could bring back one individual time and again, who may or may not recognize and recall their surroundings.

It's absolutely ludicrous. Martin seems absolutely sure of it.

"If I am, I don't remember," he said. He'd offer that nudge along the same lines of what Martin's offering him. "Who knows,maybe the coffee will wake me up enough to remember whole new worlds of information." Another almost smile, hinting toward the sardonic, and a brief thought that it would be nice if this were indeed some part of Italy still. Much less far to travel to get back on the line with his new state of existence.

At first, Karkat pays the dog little attention besides shooting it a wary glance, paranoia demanding he catalog most everything around him as a potential threat. He fully intends to turn around and begin walking in the opposite direction, however it is at that moment that Ren chooses to speak, and Karkat freezes in place.

For a moment, it might seem as though he's about to question the existence of a talking barkbeast, however what comes out of his mouth instead is-- "I'm not a Transport. I'm an imPort. Get your terminology right, you presumptuous fuzzball."

The lack of enthusiasm for space is shared, at least. It doesn't take any more than five minutes to realize going from an apartment block in a city to a moonbase is the difference between stuck in a small enclosed space with people you don't like to a smaller enclosed space with people you don't like with nowhere to run if it gets attacked and a prolonged sense of dread and paranoia over the limited oxygen.

As Karkat's shoving people out of the way he inadvertently causes Eridan to be pushed as well, not so much shoving Eridan directly but someone standing next to him, who then stumbles into him. He's overwhelmed with indignation and gets ready to start shouting himself, but he loses all interest in the stranger once he spots Karkat a little further ahead staring out into space. He clears his own path with some shoving of his own, deciding on how to approach this as he's walking. Depending on where this Karkat is from this could be bad, worse or awful. With lots of shouting either way.

Once he finally stops walking he decides he just needs to say something less than terrible to grab his attention and work from there. How hard could it be?

"Aw shit." Yeah nice try Ampora.

Of all the voices he'd been hoping to hear, this one ranks particularly high on the list, and so, exactly how pathetic her attempt at a cheerful greeting is escapes notice this time. His head whips around in search of its origin, mouth already open to reply, but when he catches sight of her, the words die in his throat.

She's recognizable, yes. He'd know her anywhere. But she's recognizable in the wrong ways, for the wrong reasons, in that outfit. With images from his hours on the meteor already dominating his thoughts, seeing her as the correct species, in those clothes, it adds something to the illusion of history's repetition.

"Kanaya?" his reply is uncertain, questioning, his expression located somewhere halfway between relief and confusion. He is not precisely what she would remember either-- for one, the cancer symbol is nowhere to be found on his person, and for another, he hasn't had a haircut for over a year. The resulting catastrophic mop of black tousles is a disgrace to look at.

Ren tilts his head to the side a little curiously, looking up at him. Has he unintentionally insulted him? He lowers his head, not unlike a scolded dog.

"My apologies, I did not mean to upset you. I'm not familiar with the term imPort, have they changed what they are calling us now when there are new arrivals? That seems strange."

She has to actively resist the attempt to call out "Karkat" again and start a game of Troll Marco Polo. Tapping into rainbow drinker grace and speed, she bridges the gap between them - flickering all the while, blurry like a poorly edited film fast motion sequence. He's turned his head towards her and she can see his hair-framed face - and her throat closes up. Though the alpha timeline is a six-headed snake completely beyond her comprehension, even now her incorrigible subconscious stubbornly suggests that he would never independently adopt Earth fashion, left alone on the meteor. Maybe, just maybe, he's like her, and will thus be capable of empathy. She can remember Nepeta like this, a few sweet months of uncomplicated understanding friendship.

She is close enough to touch him within seconds but does not do so.

"As nice as it will be to have you around in time for Christmas, I have to apologize for our pumptwisting lunar location."

Karkat stiffens when he hears that all too fucking familiar voice, unconsciously adopting a defensive posture the likes of which would be appropriate for someone expecting physical attack of some sort, fixing his sufficiently grabbed attention on one Eridan Ampora.

"Oh hell no."

Ah yes, these boys are truly wordsmiths of the highest order. They do themselves and their species proud.

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Page 1 of 151

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