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TehUltimateMage

X-DREAMERS [IC - BASE]

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Twilight  - Kitchen

 

The general mistrust of the formerly-shackled man was to be expected, but still Twilight was concerned for his well-being. It would not do to have a guest end up bleeding out. It was unfortunate that Gladekeeper ended up coming all this way only to have Jowan refuse her healing, and Twilight concluded that maybe she could try healing him herself when she could gather more energy. Wouldn't want the spell to backfire and do more harm than good.

 

"Gladekeeper, hello!" Twilight greeted the earthen dragon. Remembering the two robots and the goddess' hostility towards mechanical beings, she followed it up with sending the dragon on an errand. "Sorry to trouble you, but could you see if you can find Qaksh in the castle? He might be interested in seeing newcomers!"

 

~~~

 

Tea Party - Dining Hall

 

By the time Twilight settled all her unfinished business, a small purple dragon with green frills pattered towards the table of assembled guests, his claws clicking on the floor with each rapid step. The bright-haired girl, Light, turned around at the clicks and seemed to start before she stared curiously at him, and the silver metal beast was shaken from his own thoughts, and seemed a bit confused by the setup; he didn’t know what to make of the creature’s entrance, nor of the “party of tea”. The table was set, and tea poured around for everyone. There weren’t enough teacups to go around, so some of the newcomers had a couple of Xander’s mugs.

 

The metal beast circumnavigated the table with Okay, but finally settled at the end of it, simply staring at the mug. For a moment Twilight regretted not knowing what he would drink, assuming he could, but relaxed a bit when he allowed Okay to have the tea, as he was paying too much attention to everything else. Suddenly entrusted with two teacups, Fushi found himself sitting on the lap of the metal beast, who had picked a seat towards the end of the table and nestled the two of them quite comfortably there. His ears perking up as steaming teacups were passed around the table, the wolf sniffed curiously at the cup before him. Something told him it might be better to revert back to being the Boy for this situation, but he -- still did not quite know how to eat or drink things properly. Watching as the steam rose up from both teacups, Fushi curiously lapped just slightly at the one handed down to him from Typheus, his new friend. It was a strong, minty taste, and -- HOT! The wolf whined suddenly, drawing back -- the mint taste of the tea was overcome by the strong flash of … what, exactly? He could not describe the sensations across his tongue, only that they were unpleasant, and perhaps he was … could he be?

But no, to Fushi’s surprise, he wasn’t dying. The feeling faded from his tongue, and he stared at the teacup suspiciously.

 

The headphone-wearing boy gingerly took a seat at the table. Glancing at Okay as he recoiled from its teacup, he inspected his own cup of tea and took a small sip. It seemed to be a mint tea of sorts. Figuring it wouldn’t kill him, he went ahead and took another sip. The bright-haired girl grasped her mug with both hands, her attention finally passed from Spike, and read the inscription, a smile creeping on her face before she took a long draught of the hot beverage. The white dragon eyed the hall suspiciously, seemingly unsure about the drink. They gave their tea-cup an experimental push, but pushed a bit too hard and knocked the cup over, spilling tea. The dragon-boy hissed and tried to smell the tea, before they raised their head back up and hissed in confusion. The silver beast noticed this and gave him a long, uncertain stare; didn’t all humans know about these drinking vessels? The bright haired girl looked over in surprise as well, but then stated:


“Let me get that,” and with those words she murmured a spell. The water flowed upwards into a strange-looking ball covered with icicles and blocks of ice with the exception of a “face” with a icicle on the forehead. It blinked and the girl said something to it, at which it floated to her side and remained. The silver beast switched his gaze to her; seems that was yet another, unexpected ability humans had, or at least whatever “human” she was. Twilight tilted her ears, fascinated by the curious display of conjuration.


Duke settled himself into a seat, relaxing into the chair as he watched the other members push around teacups and test out the tea. Holding his teacup up, the blond gave it a curious sniff before taking a small sip, allowing the minty flavour to spread across his tongue. Ah. Homegrown tea -- not bad. There wasn’t much for him to do beyond sit and stare -- he’d heard this speech already countless times. Points to Twilight, however, for having the patience to run through this very same speech with every newcomer brought to their little island.

 

Here you go, Twilight,” said Spike, catching Twilight's attention. Hopping onto a chair to reach high enough, with its tiny hands it placed a disk-like machine onto the table and shoved it so it was closer to the center. The contraption turned on with a whirr. It projected a tiny version of the already small planet in three dimensions, showing all the landmarks such as the Gateway, the meadows, the castle, and a shallow lake. The silver beast watched comfortably; this was at least one thing it was familiar with. The bright-haired girl’s eyes widened. The white boy stared at the display, before hissing again and pushing back - only for the chair to wobble and a yelp of surprise to escape their mouth. Headphones boy goggled at the projection for a moment, before regaining his composure. At the projection, Fushi looked up from his glaring into the teacup to stare at the image of the planet in wonder -- what was this? This was unlike anything he had ever seen, but, considering recent circumstances, the immortal had already become accustomed to accepting there were a lot of things he was still not familiar with on this earth. His ears perked up, the wolf attempted to listen to Twilight’s speech to the best of his ability, with his limited communication skills.

 

“You guys have a pretty high science level too?” the bright-haired girl asked in wonder.

 

Mostly thanks to Pascal!” Twilight replied. “She's amazing with machines, even stuff she's never seen before!The silver beast blinked at this, about to ask if she had dealt with AI before - specifically, self-corrupting AI - but decided to wait until Twilight had explained everything else first. The bright-haired girl cocked her head.

 

Anyway, despite uh, unexpected setbacks,” Twilight began, putting down the teapot after finally pouring herself a cup and waiting until everyone began to settle down. “Let me formally welcome you to the home of the XDRS, or Cross-Dimensional Restoration Squad -- or X-Dreamers, since the acronym kind of looks like that. I think it’s a pretty charming name. Our main objective is to go to different dimensions and fix any problems that affect the fabric of space and time.”

 

“You don’t have any actual somniari, then,” Jowan confirmed.

 

“‘Somniari’?” the silver beast echoed. It seems that word wasn’t translated, for whatever reason; just another reminder about how alien everyone was to each other.

 

Jowan hesitated for a moment, wondering how to explain. “Mages with powers over dreams.” He seemed to want to go into more detail, but held his tongue to allow the conversation to progress. The beast was about to question him further, but the girl interrupted him:

 

“But that’s the job of the Time Lords, right? The fixing timespace thing,” she asked in a confused tone. “Unless you mean something happened so that they can’t travel across spacetime anymore…? Then wouldn’t Siran know something?”

 

There are probably beings in all different universes keeping order in their own realms, and maybe we can coax them to our side," Twilight replied. "The thing is, we’re suspecting that this is something a lot bigger, given that it’s brought together things that shouldn’t be mixed.

 

That had some unnerving implications to the silver beast. He tried to hide his concern; his universe wasn’t being “mixed”, was it?

 

With her hoof, Twilight hit a button on the hologram projector, changing the slide to an image of multiple orbs suspended in the air. “Normally, time-space anomalies aren’t a really big problem. Dimensions – in other words, worlds – rarely collide since they’re each protected in their own bubble and are normally fixed in place. However… Something out there recently is upsetting the balance of these bubbles and making them shift and bump into each other. This causes them to displace, merge, or in some cases, completely cease to exist.” To punctuate her point, she bumped the hologram and some of the delicate bubbles popped with a cartoony bursting animation. The beast’s wings shifted; yeah, that wasn’t good at all. The bright haired girl seemed to have a very negative reaction to the news, judging by the look of horror that came over her face.

 

Headphones’ eyes widened. “What?!” he yelled in alarm, making the beast jump.

 

“A ripple in one dimension can cause a chain reaction that disturbs all those around it, Twilight elaborated, trying not alarm the guests more than she needed to, but the bright haired girl shrank back and her horror seemed to worsen and the white-haired dragon cried out, eyeing Twilight.

 

“Like a supernova?” the silver beast asked, suppressing his annoyance about the loud noise.

 

Twilight paused for a moment to think about the comparison.  It’s similar, she said. “To put it less lightly, everything you might have known up to now is in the process of falling apart. We don’t know as much as we’d like to, unfortunately.

 

"I come from a world that’s been drifting across time and space for eons… Or so I’ve been told…” the bright haired girl drooped a bit. “Are you saying that we’ve been accidentally ruining worlds all this time…?” The question hung in the air, unanswered.

 

At this, Duke’s eyes darkened, and the blond took another carefully planned sip of tea. Twilight was correct -- they didn’t know all that much about exactly why the planets seemed to be aligning wrongfully, causing such disruption within the system, and the implication of the small girl that her universe could possibly have something to do with it … well, Duke was not a man without flaws, and he could admit to wondering -- just how was she involved? Could she have answers to the eternal questions that had been raised by Twilight for so long? And if so -- could he go home?  Reminding himself not to get too excited at uncertain prospects, Duke simply set his teacup down and stared gravely.

 

The silver beast was dismayed by the answer, briefly looking down at Okay. The wolf looked up, raising his tail curiously -- Fushi did not completely understand what had been said, but he knew enough to understand that the atmosphere of the room had changed -- the red-haired girl sounded devastated as she spoke, her words rapid across the table, and as the pony who appeared to be in charge -- was it not usually humans that held order? -- replied with a calm, yet ominous voice.

 

The dragon froze, watching Twilight. They stared, a look of horror and fear upon their face. She gave them an apologetic look, before shaking her head and continuing: “It’s a total disaster, and we’ve taken it into our hooves to clean it up before it spells the end of existence as we know it. Through our investigations, we found one way to keep the dimensional anomalies at bay: and that’s to return to each world what’s rightfully theirs.

 

“Oh…. That’s good,” the bright haired girl seemed to perk up a bit.

 

In other words, there exist important things like relics of great power that literally contain the essence of a world, and by putting them back where they belong we can bring stability back to the multiple universes. That’s our job as agents of the XDRS.

 

The bright haired girl contemplated this for a moment, then asked, “Is it possible for a person or bloodline of some sort to be the essence holder?”

 

“How could a person contain the ‘essence of the world’?” the silver beast interrupted, “and how could you even know if it’s the ‘essence’? Worlds aren’t alive; it’s not like you can inherit their blood.”

 

“Things don’t need flesh and blood to hold spirit,” Twilight said.

 

“‘Spirit’?” he asked. The word translated to him, but he didn’t know exactly what she was talking about. Did she mean a zeitgeist?

 

There are different beliefs in every world, as you might have noticed and it’s a fascinating research subject, but I have a theory that there’s a little essence of our homes in all of us,” she tried to explain. Usually they are items vital to the function of the world they’re tied to, but we’ve had one case so far where it was a sentient being. I think the essence can get passed along, if they were to be killed.”

 

“Then what about the dimensions that ‘cease to exist’?” asked headphones boy. “Are they just... gone forever?”

 

  The beast shot him a sharp look. Cancellation theory, just because some zeitgeist-infused thing disappeared? How was any of this even plausible?

 

“Maybe they vanish, maybe they move elsewhere," Twilight answered uncomfortably.  "Whatever the case, we’re no longer able to detect them. Maybe they are out there, somewhere. We're not sure, and it's our duty to find out.

 

“Whatever the fate of your world, you’re here because this planet decided to save you from a dimensional hiccup," the pony went on. "The Gateway is known to attract heroes, drifters, and those with noble heart, you see.

 

Something in the beast’s eye changed at the words, but it quickly disappeared. The dragon, still watching, whimpered slightly at the conversation. They looked down, whimpering a bit more. Jowan made an odd noise, somewhere between a choke and a laugh. Headphones rolled his eyes, muttering something that sounded like “of course” under his breath.

 

Most everyone who is here already came from that warp, with the exception of me, Pascal, and a couple others. The X-Dreamers isn’t a very old organization,” Twilight admitted. “We just started and we’re always looking for more aid and support. But as much as I would like more help for our cause, a promise is a promise. Once we can locate your homeworld, you have the choice to head back on your own.

 

But please. Consider the fate of the multiverse.”

 

A pause. She let the offer sink in.

 

At this, Duke hummed to himself. Truth be told, he was not entirely selfless -- a part of him wanted to return to the life he left behind, the people that mattered most. But he had formed relationships here, communications with heroes and legends he would never have imagined, and the offer was a heavy weight on all present at the table.

 

There’s a lot at weight here,” he says lightly. “It’s not an easy decision to make, and no one faults you if you choose otherwise.” Then, he crossed his arms and smiled. “But I would certainly be pleased if you stayed to spend a bit more time with yours truly.” Of course, after the prank he’d pulled earlier, Duke highly doubted he was first on anyone’s priority list, but it didn’t hurt to try, right? Plus, the atmosphere was so grimdark it was suffocating.

 

The silver beast gave Duke a flat stare. He definitely seemed to be the more open, social type, but he did cause some… unnecessary strife. He still couldn’t blame him for trying to be friendly though. That aside, would it really be worth it to return…? He and his partner didn’t have much to return to, aside from the fate of an entire war and a rebellion’s cause, of course. He switched his gaze to the holographic projection, pondering the options. He couldn’t speak for his partner, but he also felt it was in her best interest to… but then again… though he also had to consider what happened to their universe... Gah, which was the safest option?

 

Headphones considered Twilight and Duke’s words for a moment. “I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want out,” he said, slowly. “I’m real tired of being yanked around by others just to get a normal life back. And I have to admit, some of you really rub me the wrong way.” He briefly eyed Duke at this, then turned back to Twilight. “But if there’s one thing I know, it’s that the world is worth saving. I guess that’d be even more so with the multiverse. And if my friends are in danger from this issue...” He sighed. “This is a lot to take in.”

 

The bright haired girl finally spoke. “There’s a lot of problems in my home right now. My friends and I had recently… Recently resolved one of the bigger ones, but…. We all need to be stronger,” she closed her eyes and the sparks at her shoulder moved to wrap slightly around the back of her neck. “I’ll stay with you…. If I’m getting what you’re saying, my home would have caused…. Would have caused much more destruction and mayhem than I thought possible… And, and from what you’re saying, there’s a way to restore my world without ruining any others…. I have to know if there is,” the girl looked down at her mug, then looked back up. “Plus, it’ll be a great learning opportunity, right? I’d love to find something that wasn’t already written in the Ancient Library.”

 

Nodding at both teenagers and their noble responses, Twilight thought it would be a good time to have everyone learn each other's names to lighten the mood. “Shall we introduce ourselves?she offered. Tell us your name and a little about your homeworld. I’m Twilight from Equestria—”

 

Princess Twilight,” Spike corrected. The small dragon had been half-listening to the explanation, as usual.

 

She swiveled her ears back, sheepish. “Princess Twilight Sparkle,” she re-stated. “And that’s my assistant, Spike the dragon. We come from Equestria, a world populated by horses and other animals. There aren’t any humans, apart from that portal to that alternate universe…” Indeed, it was always a little shocking to some people that she came from a place where technicolor talking ungulates were the dominant species.

 

Duke gave a wave to accentuate her words, having introduced himself already. The silver beast appeared to be contemplating something grave, uncertain if it should trust anyone, and especially uncertain about the way the slit-eyed boy was behaving. Maybe the human form was just a disguise for whatever creature he was before?

 

The dragon-boy seemed to shrink into themself, refusing to meet anyone’s gaze and continuing to whine. Twilight was a little bit concerned for them and their well-being, though Xander didn't seem to be anywhere nearby.

 

Fushi perked up at this -- he could introduce himself, he knew how to introduce himself. From the pony’s long, winded speech, he had zoned out somewhat due to the amount of words he could not understand and the complicated discussions that had arose between the members gathered at the table -- unable to comprehend much beyond his limited vocabulary, Fushi latched onto what he did know -- that the pony’s name was Twilight, and that the strange little creature by her side, when she gestured to it, was Spike. The wolf wriggled until it was free from the lap of the metal beast, causing him to look down in curiosity, and the wolf paused to press itself against the other’s legs comfortingly before there was a shimmer of light and he was the Boy once more, sitting on the ground. The former watched intensely, making an uncompressed recording of the transformation to remember later; assuming he wouldn’t stick around to see it repeatedly, anyway. The transformation wasn’t quite logical to him... He got up, and picked up one of the teacups. He stared at the table before him, and -- well, this wasn’t exactly a good idea, was it? But he was in too deep now, and the stares of everyone was suddenly unnerving.

 

“Fushi,” he said clearly, pointing to himself. Then he held the teacup up and pressed his face into it to take a drink.

 

The bright haired girl beamed, any trace of the solemnity she was just displaying gone. “I’m Light! And this little spirit here”--She held out a palm and the spark shimmied down her arm to her hand--”is Rao.”

 

Jowan stared at the ‘spirit’ for a moment, but didn’t say anything. It seemed as though some words meant something different to everyone.

 

With the willing introductions the silver beast recognized that, even if he gave his ID out, the chances of it falling into enemy hands were slim to none, and he was being given fewer and fewer reasons to discredit the X-Dreamers. He still held suspicions, but if worse comes to worse, the mechs could escape just the same. Hopefully without blowing up half the place like last time…

 

“Typheus, ID 36-78.” He briefly noted with interest that his “Mn~Raruke-Zeteke” translated a bit differently than he expected. “My partner is 56-767. I’m surprised she hasn’t shown up to eat anyone yet,” he looked straight at Duke when saying those words. “I can’t say we’re ‘noble heroes’ that your gate has pulled in, but if I’m being honest, I’m not very interested in leaving. Let’s just say I have reasons to believe that what I’m seeing isn’t real.” He folded his arms, looking around the table and not caring if it was an unpopular opinion; as a hacker, he had to recognize that everything could be bits-n-bytes at any moment.

 

“You can say that again,” Headphones said, shaking his head. “This whole thing doesn’t feel real at all. In any case, the name’s Neku Sakuraba. Far as I know I should just be a regular Japanese earthling, unless I’ve either somehow gotten affected by a weird dimensional anomaly or died on the way here.”

 

“You don’t look much like a corpse.” Jowan paused, bit his lip, and glanced downwards before continuing. “My name is Jowan. I’m a mage from Ferelden.” He shifted in his seat, then took a sip of tea to hide his discomfort. It seemed like half of the people in the room had openly used magic, and a mage of some kind was in charge. Clearly, magic wasn’t nearly so stigmatised in most worlds. “If this is all true… Please let me stay. There must be some way that I can help.”

 

"Of course," said Twilight. "Of course."

 

Edited by TehUltimateMage

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Stan - Dining Hall - Totally missed the party

 

 

The doors to the dining hall creaked open, and the stout man sauntered in. Both his hands, the normal one and the broken mechanical one, were stuffed into his pant pockets -- there was no use worrying Twilight when there was nothing to worry about. There were many more people than he had initially anticipated, and adding the three others... The base was going to get a lot more lived-in.

 

Two new children walked into the room following them, both with very confused and concerned looks on their faces. Evonna, is it?," said the one in the red cloak and the yellow braid. "This place is so weird! Look- there’s a talking horse!”

 

“My dude, that might not be a good thing to say. I heard something about her being in charge of the base.” The curly-haired girl- Evonna- smacked her partner’s left arm and walked further into the room.

 

Typheus switched his judgmental gaze onto the two of them at the sudden comment; he could already hear his partner’s indignant comeback in his head about how she thought they were weird, but thankfully she wasn’t here to provoke anything. So he simply studied the two, wondering what weird powers they must have.

 

Twilight stood from her seat at his arrival, and greeted him and Xker. "Welcome back! I just finished the debriefing, and we were just introducing ourselves."

 

...J-just finished?! His breath caught short in his lungs at the revelation. Stan had brought these kids here to listen to the speech and wiggle out of needed to explain it himself. Now that it was over...

 

Speaking of introductions, the pony took it on her to introduce them as well. "The man and the beast are Stan and Xker, respectively, and they're both experienced agents. Last I checked they were on a scouting mission. How was that?"

 

"Well, it's a long story..." Stan pulled up a chair from the far side of the room, so he could take a seat near their leader. Metal peeked through his sleeve as he moved and he stealthily concealed his mechanical arm again, hoping that none of the newcomers were as sensitive to prosthetic parts as that tree lizard -- although with Xker in plain sight and nobody attacking yet, he took it as a good sign. He waved his good hand dismissively. "I think we have a good idea of where that anchor is and what it might be, but there's some vicious dudes who don't like having us invade their territory..."

 

Then, to whispering to Twilight, he added, "Hey, maybe I should give the details of the mission to you in private? Don't want to cause any uh--" his stare shifted to the trembling white-haired man that Xander picked up on his travels, then back to the horse -- "more distraught on these alarmed people."

 

"Nonsense," she reassured him. "It'll be useful for them to know what we do as an organization. Not all missions involve fighting, but many times it's an inevitable reality. The Holodeck is already here, ready for you to upload."

 

Stan nodded. Boss' orders. "Hope none of you mind cyborgs?" Producing a cable from his breast pocket, he leaned forth to connect one end to the hologram projector and the other to a port near his elbow. A ring of green light appeared around the brown iris of his right eye, signalling that the connection had been made. "I see we picked up a mech," he commented absently. "A nice break from all this fantasy-magic. There was another robot that got here at the Gateway, too, actually. And, now that I think about it," he mused, his hand on his chin, " Back at the entrance, Xander and Natsuki were in the company of a robot too, that looked really similar to that one!"

 

 

Edited by TehUltimateMage

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Xker followed Stan in, taking notice of... quite an assortment of newcomers. The Volt released a couple surprised clicks on seeing the robot. "Been awhile since I saw newcomers that could be from a magicless 'verse," aer addressed the bot. "I'd be from a universe without magic, myself." The Volt's ears swivelled to listen. Seems like Stan was done talking. And seems like he hadn't yet mentioned something Twilight honestly should hear about. Hell, it needed yo be said, and the commander-sergeant had said the report may as well happen in here.

 

"If we're here, I may as well say you probably shouldn't send anyone metal to that universe, Sergeant." Xker addressed Twilight with a military rank out of habit, no matter how many aer was reminded of the lack of ranks - it was a habit ingrained into the space warrior. "The things in there, they have some form of magnetism. They can bend an' attract metal. Thank **** it didn't pull on the metal bits of my inner workings, or I'd be pretty well screwed."

Edited by DuskOfTheStars

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Sora &  Yusei

 

There was so much information that Sora almost didn't keep up. He managed, though, and sat forward just a fraction. "That sounds like what I do back in my... universe?" He didn't really know how to claim it. So many worlds, so many stars that were connecting when they were supposed to remain separate. "Maybe... the Doorway opened on these worlds too? My friends and I..." Sora paused, frowning slightly. His friends.... Shaking his head, he continued. "We're fighting the Heartless, creatures of darkness born within people's hearts, and locking the doorways found on each world," he explained briefly. "Sometimes we don't make it in time though, and the world is consumed. A star goes out."

 

"That explains why you're not upset by Twilight's words," Yusei popped in. The young man had chosen to be a background ornament, leaning against the wall with his arms folded and his left boot propped against the painted plaster. Sora glanced in his direction, internally labeling the man as the brooding type.

 

Shifting to face the group again, his teacup largely ignored (or perhaps he wasn't even aware of its existence), the boy rested his chin in his hand. "My name's Sora, from the Destiny Islands. But, I haven't been there in a long time. I've been traveling around the worlds, trying to keep their existences a secret from the rest," he introduced. Sitting straighter, a smile started to cross his face, an edge of goofiness making it crooked. "I'll help where I can!"

 

"And I'm Yusei Fudo. I arrived a couple weeks ago, in the general sense of time, from a city on Earth named New Domino," the man greeted.

 

Stan and Xker arrived some moments later, newcomers in tow. As the cyborg and Volt addressed Twilight, beginning to debrief (looks like Stan needs some repairs done), Yusei examined the strangers behind the pair. Two of them looked like human children or young teenagers. The car, however, was mildly surprising. The man opted not to comment about it. He had seen stranger things before.

 

Cuircuitraider

 

Plus one point for respecting her 'no'.

 

Minus one point for calling her 'babe'.

 

Stan was, in all fairness, likely to be a human Circuitraider could live without. However, he wasn't the worst she had encountered before. The front hall was occupied by a few more after she and the man-and-his-dog duo had. Two humans in strange clothing she was unfamiliar with (was that armor on one?) and... another bot? Her fingers curled as she stared with her blue optics. The bot was strange. Certainly not a Decepticon she ever met but, neither was it an Autobot. In fact, it didn't appear to have any sort of insignia on its plating to designate its affiliation with any group. 

 

It was expressive though. And somewhat intelligent based on the minimal speech patterns. Puzzled by the bot, Circuitraider made a mental pin to investigate further at a later time when it was more convenient. The information could be important to Optimus - maybe he would know something she didn't.

 

It was time to move on. One glimpse at the doorway and she immediately knew it wasn't tall enough by the size of a human adolescent. Preferring to avoid the humiliation of hunching over, Circuitraider instead chose to follow Stan on all four wheels. After a quick change with the sound of shifting parts, the Autobot scout began moving, creeping at a rather slow speed so as to not run over her... Well, she wouldn't quite call them companions. Acquaintances, then. 

 

Their destination was a dinning hall already filled with several people. By how things appeared, and the words exchanged between Stan and Twilight, their little group had just missed something. Perhaps all of the answers Circuitraider would have gotten. Perfect.

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   XDRS - Dining Hall

 

   Typheus switched his gaze from the two younger humans as yet another group of strangers entered; although, judging from Twilight's enthusiastic greeting, she knew the trio. She introduced the human male with a mechanical arm as Stan, and the yellow alien quadruped behind him as Xker, but she didn't mention the purple vehicle creeping up behind them: a strangely small, rather smooth Earth car with no passengers. Was it remote controlled? Maybe that's why she didn't acknowledge it.
   Twilight prompted Stan about a mission he and Xker were on, and at the recognition of familiar dialogue, Typheus turned his head to listen. Stan came over to the table and picked a seat, taking care to hide his immobile prosthetic; perhaps it was malfunctioning?
   "Well, it's a long story... I think we have a good idea of where that anchor is and what it might be, but there's some vicious dudes who don't like having us invade their territory..." he faltered off.
   "'Anchor'? you mean one of these zeitgeist-bearers?" Typheus asked aloud. Stan was hesitant to share more, and asked Twilight something in low tones, but she refused whatever it was:
   "Nonsense, it'll be useful for them to know what we do as an organization. Not all missions involve fighting, but many times it an inevitable reality." Typheus drooped a bit, knowing it wouldn't bode well for his partner's health if that was the case. "The Holodeck is already here, ready for you to upload."
   Stan finally obliged, albeit hesitantly. "Hope none of you mind cyborgs?" he asked, and Typheus was quick to respond with a shake of his head; in the proper way for humans to understand, of course. The man procured a cable and attached one end to the projector and the other to his arm, and one eye lit up green in response. The machine was surprised at the reveal of further electronics in him; that was the kind of technology the mechs expected the humans to have! Maybe Stan's universe wasn't too far removed from his own?


   As if he sensed the machine's thoughts, Stan commented idly: "I see we picked up a mech. A nice break from all of this fantasy magic." He then paused, putting his hand in his chin while he studied Typheus. "There was another robot that got here at the Gateway, too, actually," he said, "and now that I think about it, back at the entrance, Xander and Natsuki were in the company of a robot too, that looked really similar to that one!"
   Another brief moment of surprise as Stan correctly guessed Typheus's functionality. "You must know your way around machines," he said, "The first humans I met believed we were armored lifeforms, then slaves." He then caught himself upon realizing he used a plural pronoun out of habit. "Well, me specifically." He then blinked, recognizing the first description as his partner; so she was with a "Xander" and "Natsuki" back at the entrance. So much for her plan to flank Duke, but at least she was safe, in a known location. Who was the third machine though? He didn't recall any other mechanical beings walking around.
   There were some clicks to the right of the machine as the alien spoke up in agreement, "Been awhile since I saw newcomers that could be from a magicless 'verse. I'd be from a universe without magic, myself."
   No magic? Typheus slid his eye over to Light, and the seemingly-alive ball of ice floating near her. I suppose that's accurate.
   "There definitely seem to be more miracle-users here," he agreed. He then checked up on the alien again, trying to figure out the specie. The voice sounded more masculine to him, but the appearance matched nothing in his archives and the accent was foreign. Evidently from another universe, but was it one he knew a little better than the others here?
   Humans with superpowers and unrecognizable aliens; figures that the first impressions and ability expectancy didn't match up.


   The alien stood rigidly to attention, adding onto Stan's unfinished report with militaristic practice. The hints were intriguing: living things with innate power over magnetism? They can bend metal to their wills? Was "screwed" an intentional pun?
   Ugh, Fiddlesticks, why? Typheus suddenly stopped himself at that thought, closing his eye to mentally sigh. I swear she scrambles my logarithms more than she does her own... Quickly discarding the random curiosity about a pun, Typheus finally asked, "Is it a specific magnetism? Something that can be cancelled out with another field? Not to volunteer too early - I would like to know the report first just as much as the others - but my partner and I are built to tolerate magnetic forces because of our own capabilities. More importantly though, she is..." he hesitated, "let's just say she has a lot of energy, and once the tour is officially over housing her would be difficult. A combat mission could cement her... our, loyalty." He turned to Twilight, "If you ever decide that violence is necessary, that is. It is simply an offer."

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~Ed and Ev~

 

Edward hissed at the pain in his arm. “Jesus, Ev, if you could lay off the force…

 

I’ll lay off the force if you lay off the goddamned obnoxious comments,” Evonna hisses, “Now pay attention. If you want answers, just listen to the ‘talking horse’!” Evonna politely took a seat and looked up. Guys. I don’t understand them one bit. How do people just go around talking and making comments like that without getting punched in the face? She noticed the look that someone gave them. It was some sort of robotic creature, with what looked like one eye. I mean, is he wrong? No. Are we weird to some of these other creatures? Um, YEAH? Why is it necessary to be making such comments, anyway? That’s how we get judged. She continued to sit and analyze the room, taking mental notes on the variety of beings in the room.

 

Edward huffed and followed suit, still thinking that the creatures were odd. That thing shouldn’t judge, it’s weirder than Al- that’s saying something. He rubbed his probably-bruised arm. Jeez, she only smacked my arm and it’s gonna bruise. Imagine if she punched me in the face… Ow. It’s like Winry and that GOD FORSAKEN WRENCH… **** . He looked up at the talking horse, mind clouded with confusion and curiosity.

 

...

 

~Lara~

 

Lara shrugged, casually adjusting her ponytail- she felt it slipping and hated losing her hair ties. She only had so many, after all. "Right, right. As certain as I am that it's Duke, we do need more evidence." She took her fingerless gloves off and placed them in a back pocket, not particularly comfortable with the sweat on her palms. Lara wiped her hands on her shorts. "Yusei went to the dining hall with Princess Twilight. I assume he's there to help her out at the tea party, filling in the newcomers and the like. As for the welcome tour, they're there too." She looked at the malfunctioning machine. "Perhaps this one should come along?"

Edited by Mikasa361

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Natsuki [ Main Entrance ]

 

"Of course. Please let one of us know if you do require assistance." While Natsuki didn't believe for a moment that Fiddlesticks was really fine, it was better to avoid making any accusations. The atmosphere was relatively calm for the moment, and they wanted to keep it that way for as long as possible. "No, we don't have anything set up yet. Security mostly consists of various magical wards and Nata, for the time being. What do you need to eat? Petrol? Ethanol?" 

Edited by Zor

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Stan and Twilight -- Dining Hall

 

"It was like magnetism, but... weird." Stan couldn't really think of any other way to describe it. "It pulled on metals even if they were non-ferrous, like brass and copper, and they could attract and repel them like a magnet. With magic in every other world, we can't assume it works how we expect it to work. We'll just need to figure out the place's rules as we go." He shrugged. "An anti-magnet field would be useful, or maybe it wouldn't. We don't know."

 

It wouldn't help to give it a try.Tactically, it might have been a little sketchy to bring a mech to city brawl, but if they were going to brute force it anyway to distract those... things.... And as a bonus, they could solidify their allegiance and see what they were capable of.  "I'm more of a mechanics guy, but I've picked up that every world's magic runs on an internal logic for the most part."

 

On the holographic projector came the image of a dark, dusty city with the sky stained red. The buildings were dense, archaic, and mostly low to the ground except for the majestic ones that rose into gothic points. In the distance was an intimating collection of spires culminating in an elaborate palace-like structure. "We only got attacked when we were going towards that huge building. The people were pretty dreary."

 

The next picture was one within the city, with many humans milling about, all of them dusty and the ground blanketed by the same ash that Stan tried to wipe off from his clothes. Mixed with the black soot, however, were golden grains of sand. "The sand. That's what we're looking for. Pascal's radar pointed towards the sand's origin, but we could only follow it so far before getting chased off by these two dudes with magnetism."

 

He hesitated a moment, but in the end decided to not show the next slide. "I don't know if they're demons or what, but they look like humans, except they have spikes rammed through their eyes, shaved heads, and ritual tattoos all over their faces. Had a real bad feeling about them. The people over there seemed really afraid of them too, and I think they called them Steel Inquisitors. We didn't have the chance to ask about them before we escaped."

 

Twilight nodded at his explanation. "Anything more we know about the sand?"

 

"The sand doesn't belong, but I doubt that an entire desert is the anchor. Before we got chased out, I heard people on the street talk about huge, strange creatures, and of Colossus of some kind. Some say the sand drives you mad if you touch it for too long, and that's even more reason to round up the artifact behind it." Stan licked his bottom lip, and put his good hand to his chin. "We underestimated the danger of this place at first, so I'm not entirely sure this is a good introductory mission."

 

"I trust your judgement, then. There might be something easier that might come up later." Stan was relieved Twilight had made that call. They needed more people for backup and the mission was a little urgent. However, it would probably be a bad idea to send people who literally just got here ten minutes ago.

 

Then, the pony addressed the rest of the table. "Why don't you all get settled into the castle? There's plenty of empty rooms just laying around."

 

Edited by TehUltimateMage

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   XDRS - Dining Hall

 

   Typheus was disappointed by Stan's description of the magnetism; seems it bent the rules of the world he knew. That made it incredibly dangerous for Fiddlesticks. It would be in her best interest if they stayed here... but he couldn't lie to her if she asked, and keeping the hostiles a secret... Why was managing her always so hard? She's just one mech!
   The image of the hologram changed, revealing a city in perhaps the Forging Era - that is, before computer technology. It was a rather ragged, miserable-looking place, but as far as Typheus was concerned it looked normal, if a bit odd with how short all the buildings were. Towards the back of the city they became noticeably taller, merging into one, larger structure.
   "We only got attacked when we were going towards that huge building," Stan explained, "the people were pretty dreary." He changed the image again without even uttering a command, telling Typheus that he had some kind of console built into him. Most of the beings in the image looked human, albeit clothed with heavy, soiled fabrics. They nearly looked burnt, aside from the odd glint off the weave. "The sand. That's what we're looking for. Pascal's radar pointed towards the sand's origin, but we could only follow it so far before getting chased off by these two dudes with magnetism." Stan hesitated again before further describing the so-called "Steel Inquisitors"; absorbing all of this information and comparing it to the possible capabilities of Stan and Xker made the Inquisitors sound like worthy foes.
   Worthy enough for a challenge, but were they a risk worth taking?

 

   Typheus ran some more comparisons as Stan and Twilight spoke on, exaggerating the likelihoods of success. The odds that the mission wouldn't be a good one for the newcomers weren't very surprising, but it still worked against his hopes. He was painfully aware of what happened when Fiddlesticks became antsy, and being overwhelmed and suppressed by these people because she decided to have a fit wouldn't just be inconvenient, it would be downright stupid. They had their trust so far; no need to squander it. It begs the question though: could they even stay here safely? Or could things only grow worse?
   Typheus stashed away the information in his head when Twilight changed the topic. He wasn't sure how to "settle in"; typically he just did whatever his charges did. With that logic, the first thing he should do is locate his partner, and make sure she hasn't broken anything yet.
   "I will go acquaint myself with Xander and Natsuki. Twilight, I... may have to disclose some things with you before we go poking around afterwards." He wasn't quite comfortable with everyone else knowing the full details yet, and the horse seemed level-headed and experienced enough. Stan and Xker just returned from a mission, so they would want respite first.
   He excused himself, rising from the table, and stiffly walked to the door just to pause and look back at Fushi. For whatever reason he expected the wolf boy to follow him, as he seemed very comfortable around the machine. Weirdly comfortable.
   Not important, he dismissed, and continued on into the hallway. I need to find Fiddlesticks.

 

   -------------------------

 

   XDRS - Main Hall

 

   Her escorts were surprisingly courteous for what she was used to, even though the one seemed rather high-strung, but what was more important was the answer: and that was that there was no security system.
   Fiddlestick's disbelieving thoughts lingered on that for a little bit, supposing that they simply had no threats to warrant a system even though every building as big as this one had at least a nerve center. Also interesting that the human knew what she meant. Also that he was familiar with combustible liquids. What was ethanol though? Was that... no, that was diesel... both burned weird though.

   There was a click in her brain. Burning. Burning was fun, she knew that.... No, focus. Fuel is important. They might have - stuff to burn! I like burning things.
   Burning weird field. With caterpillars. Caterpillars? Caterpillars are cool machines - focus! Fuel... eating... They ate diesel. Eating is fun. Caterpillars.
   Fiddlesticks jerked her head to try and organize her flaking thoughts as her temperature only rose. An answer was expected of her, darn it! Why couldn't she think straight? What was going on with these threads?

   "Um... I don't knoooww..." she drawled. Another jerk, and she said more clearly: "BONES! I like bones. Combustibles. Maybe milk? Broccoli. Or is that potassium?" She shook her head, as if it would help. "No. Petrol makes me feel funny." She suddenly paused; it was a short "e", right? Pea-troll? Peh-troll? Burning things?

   "Peh-troll," she tried aloud, "peeeeeh-troll. Pea-troll? Bones. I'm sorry, the service you requested is no longer functioning. MALFUNCTION. AA!" She suddenly yelped and gave herself a more violent shake at the automated response; closing the vents off was a really bad idea! Overclocking! Need air! Need to pretend to be fine! Caterpillars? OH RIGHT!
   "Calcium! I use calculus," she finally said more clearly. The severe movement only made her engine work harder, and she now visibly drooped. "Calculus? I mean, calcium. I'm sorry, I think my circuitry is melting. I'm fine though."

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Natsuki [ Main Entrance ]

 

Fiddlesticks' head jerked oddly, and Natsuki took a startled step backward. Immediately after they cursed themself for making such an obvious mistake. One didn't show signs of weakness when facing unknowns. As unpredictable as being a robot made her, Fiddlesticks' probable lack of a chase reflex was fortunate. 

 

In any case, Fiddlesticks' clearly wasn't fine, whatever she said. Why, though? Why was she suddenly not fine, and why hide it? The fan noises had ceased, but that didn't make sense if she was overheating. Slurred, disjointed speech was far more noticeable and worrisome than some panting.

 

"Calcium?" they said, failing to keep the skepticism out of their voice. It was important, of course, but for biology- they'd never heard of a machine using it for anything. Admittedly, they didn't know much about machines, but calcium wasn't even an energy source. Surely Fiddlesticks consumed something else as well. "Broccoli has both," they said slowly. "But perhaps not as much as you need. Bones certainly have more calcium than vegetables and milk. Is the air too hot for you?"

 

They grimaced at the reminder, but nodded. "Let's go, if no one has any more concerns that must be addressed here."

Edited by Zor

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Cistina ~ Gateway

There was someone else with Pascal when she got close enough to the Gateway. That seems unusual; this is quite a big ripple. The two were near the table that manipulated the gate's warping functions, and there still was not a Luma in sight. Pascal seemed to have saw her, so Cistina waved as she flew. The man with her did not appear hostile, but his skin was cracked with glowing blue--similar to veins of lava straining the earth--and that same light shone from his eyes. As she watched, there was yet another anomaly—How strange!—which deposited a wolf person on the ground nearby. Cistina paused, watching him warily, but he didn't seem to even be awake, so she turned her attention to the man next to Pascal.

 

He looked dangerously unstable--there was a strong, raging aura around him, but at the same time it seemed to be... Channeled. Mayhap one of her sisters would be better to discern these matters.

Despite all appearances, however, there was no evidence of a fracas of any kind, at least from her cursory glance. So no harm befell Pascal. Cistina relaxed slightly at the realization that was not another Nata situation, but the manner he radiated power still rattled her. She lowered her altitude, but didn't land completely, especially as the wolf person approached, asking if any of the two knew where a road was, then spoke of falling asleep by accident. Cistina couldn't help but smile slightly at that.

 

"And who might you be?" Cistina asked the strange man and the wolflike person. "I am Cistina, one of the agents here at the Extra-Dimensional Restoration Squad."  She bowed in midair after speaking, then addressed the wolf person. "Unfortunately, the road of which you speak of does not exist per se. You had been taken from whence you were by a ripple in space of the multiverse." Cistina paused, then added: "forgive me if this seems difficult to understand, I am not the best agent to ask for these explanations."

 

Lightpon ~ Dining Hall

 

As the man—Stan—turned on the holographic device and showed the table what the world looked like, Light felt a chill race down her back. Is that Pandemonium?! Could... No. There's nowhere I know of that looks like that... But there are other worlds just as ruinous as ours? Light looked sadly at the projection, spacing out until the picture changed to a group of soot-covered people. 

"The sand. That's what we're looking for. Pascal's radar pointed towards the sand's origin, but we could only follow it so far before getting chased off by these two dudes with magnetism."

With that said, Light's attention was drawn towards golden grains scattered on the ground. After contemplating them for a moment, she looked up, fully expecting the man Stan to show a picture of the "two dudes with magnetism," but he instead described them. "I don't know if they're demons or what, but they look like humans, except they have spikes rammed through their eyes, shaved heads, and ritual tattoos all over their faces. Had a real bad feeling about them. The people over there seemed really afraid of them too, and I think they called them Steel Inquisitors. We didn't have the chance to ask about them before we escaped."

Oh. Maybe it was for the best there were no pictures, then.

"The sand doesn't belong, but I doubt that an entire desert is the anchor. Before we got chased out, I heard people on the street talk about huge, strange creatures, and of Colossus of some kind. Some say the sand drives you mad if you touch it for too long, and that's even more reason to round up the artifact behind it."

Madness? I can't help with that. Wonder if Issa's around here somewhere? She disappeared from Behemoth recently, after all. "Do you have any pictures of those? Or did you get chased out before you can get any?" Light's mind started to race. Maybe she could start off by helping with this! 

Stan put a hand to his chin thoughtfully. "We underestimated the danger of this place at first, so I'm not entirely sure this is a good introductory mission."

.... Yeah, he's probably right. Why are you trying to plan for this when you don't even know what's going on here and now?... But my question still stands...Brief memories came to her mind again. Sharan advising her to stay back and plan in a fight, Issa advising her to watch and learn. Light sighed and turned her attention on the two newcomers. A feisty looking girl and a feisty looking boy. They seemed to squabble before sitting down.

"Why don't you all get settled into the castle? There's plenty of empty rooms just laying around."

"Do you have a library on the base?" Light spoke up as the giant silver robot stood up and left. With any luck, she could be able to get a start on learning about.... Anything, really. What information would I be looking for?.. Oh! And if some of my friends are here...  "By any chance, have you found a purple lady named Isadora or a turquoise haired shy telekinetic named Michelle anywhere?"

Edited by Pyrowings

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Twilight (and Stan) -- Dining Hall

 

The pony's ears swiveled up when Light's description jogged her memory. "Friends of yours? I recall Qaksh, one of the dragons here, mentioning meeting a woman with long, green-blue hair at one point. I'm sure he can tell you a lot more about it than I can. He's big and orange and everyone knows him! I keep telling him to stop working his magic so hard, but he keeps insisting it's fine." Twilight was acutely aware that she did the exact same thing. "He's always sleeping to conserve his energy, so you could probably find him deeper in the castle on the first floor."

 

"And, there is a library on the highest floor," Twilight went on with renewed enthusiasm. "It shouldn't be too hard to find. The door to it is pretty majestic. I've tried to collect all sort of literature from all sorts of places. The cross-dimensional shift seems to have made otherwise very different languages legible but there are still a good dozen books that haven't been deciphered. They also have this device not much bigger than a box that contains all sorts of information from everywhere, which you can look through if you'd like as well."

 

"Only if the internet is working," Stan added, then began to slip away. "Anyway, I better get myself fixed and fill out that paperwork Natsuki insists that we all do." He got up from his seat and waved goodbye without looking back. "I'll be in the workshop if you need me."

 

Twilight gave him a parting wave even if he couldn't see it. "Spike, since you're here, why don't you show Light around to where she wants to go?"

 

"Aye-aye, Captain!" The small dragon gave a salute and hopped off his seat. "Come on! Did you want to see Qaksh or the library first?"

 

~

 

Twilight turned to the white haired human who could transform into a dragon -- and she had only caught a glimpse of that form, but the cloudlike shape of its white fur reminded her of something she had seen in a book before... She made a note to check the library later. The human-dragon was quite agitated and she didn't know if they could understand what they were saying or what was happening, and it seemed like no one had really managed to talk to them ever since they were rescued by Xander. She was learning her human body language, though this human was hunched back more like a terrified animal.

 

"Hello," she began calmly. "Can you speak? Don't worry, it's safe now."


~~~

 

Pascal -- Gateway

 

The new man seemed to calm down a little even though he was still glowing. He demanded an explanation and Pascal was keen to give it to him. (Not that there was anyone else to give that explanation... Cistina was still a few seconds away from impact.) "I just told you -- you've been pulled here because the universes have gotten all loopy and stuff and separated you from your world!" Pascal repeated. "So, pure chance is your answer. To add on that, technically it's because we turned this planet into a magnet and so you landed here instead of in a black hole which would have killed you instantly."

 

She leaned on her staff and swayed absently from side to side, as if her explanation was the most natural fact in the world. "Look, there's someone else who was dropped here too!" This day was getting more and more exciting! The more the merrier. Even if it was temporary, more people meant the lonely planet was a little more lively. "Welcome back, Cissy," she greeted the agent, "And welcome to the gateway galaxy, dog boy! Can I touch your ears?"

 

Without waiting for an answer, Pascal wiggled her fingers and made a grab for them to pet Keaton's fluffy appendages.

Edited by TehUltimateMage

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[ Anders ] [ Gateway ]

 

A satisfactory answer. Nonsensical, but most human things were. The 'pulling' had been unintentional; at most, the mage's crime had been negligence. 

 

With some effort, Anders pushed Justice to the back of his mind. The glow faded from his eyes, the bright cracks in his skin closed, his voice returned to normal, and he stumbled. Pressing the heel of his palm into his forehead and closing his eyes until the dizziness cleared, he said, "That was not a satisfactory answer."  He considered sheathing his staff but decided against it. The mage seemed harmless enough (if a bit loopy herself), but that by no means meant that she or her companion were safe. "You expect me to believe that this is some alternate universe." He paused. "What do you want from me?" In an ideal world he wouldn't have had to question the motivation of someone who believed they were saving lives, but it was rare that people didn't want something. He just hoped that it didn't have anything to do with the blighted Deep Roads again. 

 

Surely that man hadn't been there before. Distracted as he was, he was getting sloppy if he had failed to notice a wolf-eared man. There went any poorly-developed theories about being drugged and dragged out into the middle of nowhere. He had hoped that the other newcomer might be reasonable, but apparently he was the type of person that regularly forgot where they had fallen asleep. 

 

At least he seemed friendlier than the other white-haired, pointy-eared, wolf-themed man that Anders knew. 

 

"I'm Anders," he said, cautious. 

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   XDRS - To the Kitchen!

 

   Fiddlesticks didn't even have the internal temperatures to nod in acknowledgement of the armored one's words, only mumbling "it's fine" and standing numbly until she noticed the party moving again. She lazily swung herself over to follow them, staring at the ground, each footstep heavier than the last. Heavy, like Caterpillars. Diesel? No, calculus.
   Her vision began to flake out; a good indicator that she was trying too hard to be inconspicuous. She simply looked past the static though, even as her pathing began to waver. I'm fine. No worries. Just follow the people. Why am I doing this again? Oh right, the disappearing machines... with-!...Pea-troll? Peas? Snap peas. Break things. Oh, are we going to go break things?! Why can't I breathe? Oh, right.
   The rambling of her own thoughts as the signals grew fuzzy made her blind to the wall, until she ran into it. There was a loud thud and a yelp, and she traded some paint with it; all that was exchanged though were some concerned looks and her own mumbled apology. She certainly felt awkward about her faltering guise, but no one mentioned it, not until they had arrived to a rather spacious kitchen with all manner of concoction gadgetry.

 

   The last time Fiddlesticks was in a kitchen, she spent hours burning old documents on the stove. The scientists had let the machines wander within a quarantined area on the base, once they were trusted - they called it "behavioral science" - and at 2 pm on the dot, they would all migrate to the kitchen, and made things called potatoes, and instant noodles, and sometimes steak dinner. It was really weird to see something eating exclusively the flesh of other living things, but Fiddlesticks didn't care at the time; she was playing with the stove gadget because it burned things and she was bored.
   It took two fiery heads of broccoli and a half-melted fork for the scientists to learn to keep stacks of paper there. She missed those useless sheets of printed paper, with half-inked pages like they were part of a puzzle game. It didn't quite click at first, seeing a stove with no paper nearby. Still, it was familiar enough, and she simply stood to the side as she always would, next to some kind of brick oven... except drooping and unable to parse what she was seeing.

 

   She wasn't paying too much attention to what was going on, only hoping she could see well enough to scan the purity of whatever they fed her. They were nice, for feeding her... Maybe Typheus was right in that they would make good allies. The algorithms dictated that just eating them all would give her the fuel she needs (and remove her "suspicion" anxiety so she could breathe properly), but the odds were bad in the short run. She has overheated in the past anyway, right? This should be easy. She just had to hold on for a little longer...

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Hush, Child of Void

 

(The scarf-child returns, ladies and gentlemen!)

 

After disappearing when it saw Sora, Hush went to the emptiness that lay in his Corridor of Darkness.

 

There it sat alone, surrounded by the swirling energies between worlds, not knowing what to do with itself.

 

"I'm bored."

 

For the first time in a while, Hush had the time to think about how unhappy its life was, compared to how things were before it was a Nobody.

 

Even life at the castle was better than wandering the worlds, for all the mistreatment he'd been subjected to at the hands of the masters.

 

Finally making up its mind, Hush turned back, and exited the portal, aiming to reappear next to Yusei, who'd promised he would try to help.

 

When it did reappear, they were in a dining hall this time.

 

And the traitor was still around.

 

Hush hissed at the boy again, hiding behind Yusei once more. It spoke privately in his mind, full of outrage.

 

"Why is he here?!"

Edited by Coryn02

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Pascal -- Gateway

 

Pascal stood on the tips of her toes and gave Keaton's ears a good rub. So soft! So wonderful! She ended the action by patting him on the top of his head.

 

"Phew! I'm glad I got that out of my system. Thanks, wolfskin-boy!" With that done, she calmed down a little and listened in on the conversation again and adding in her answers.

 

"That's kiiiind of the issue right now. We can't get you back just yet, 'cause we don't know where your world is! Same to you, previously-glowing-man." Pascal raised both her hands in a shrug. "If we could, we would've dumped you back where you came from but for now all you can do is sit tight and make yourself at home." Her eyes lit up in excitement. "Today there's been a good number of people who crash-landed here like you guys, and there's usually a couple who choose to stay and help us out. So, if you're suspicious of us being so nice I guess I can tell you that Twilight just wants to make a good impression so she can get some extra aid with our mission to save the multiverse, but like I said, you're free to go when we figure out the where-we-need-to-go-to."

 

Pascal took a deep breath. That was a long run-on sentence. "I'm Pascal, and I'm a mage too! If you want to define 'mage' as an Eleth user..." She put a hand to her chin in thought. "Though a lot of places call it Mana instead..."


 

Stan -- Workshop / Upgrade Shop
 

He felt something was strange when the door handle to the workshop was warm. When he opened it, he was washed with a gust of hot air like a preheated oven, and it dawned on him that someone had set the room on fire while he was gone.

 

"WHOMST!?!?"  Stan yelled in outdated slang.

 

He knew where the fire extinguishers were (and now he was very thankful that Natsuki had insisted they follow safety procedures even if they had water magicians on board). There was one near the door and when he ran to it his feet gave way when he slipped on something on the floor. He caught himself on the corner of a desk and breathed out a sigh of relief. The ground was dangerously littered with ball-bearings -- which, upon closer inspection, were his BB shot balls.

 

A growl escaped his throat. Setting the room on fire was one thing, making a death trap was another, but forcing him to sort through his own ammunition was crossing the line. It was going to take another lifetime to reorganize those by size and type. Whoever did this... would have to re-sort this. The last re-sort.

 

Gripping the extinguisher, Stan sprayed the flames until they retreated enough for him to make his way to a second fire extinguisher. After tossing the spent one aside, he was able to stop the fire entirely until only the sound of a dying sizzle remained.

 

Stan forcibly slowed his breathing and walked by shuffling his feet so he wouldn't slip again. The fire seemed to have started in a few small areas but was left unattended enough to spread. The metal tools were all okay -- at least the ones that kept their shapes. Whatever paperwork existed probably didn't exist anymore. Pascal squirreled her things up in her room, so most of the damage would be on his junk as well as whatever Yusei chose to stash in this room. He stared absently at the charred portions of the wall, refusing to believe this happened while he was gone.

 

He didn't notice before, but there was a yellow Luma slumped in a corner. Poor thing must have thought it was going to die. Stan shuffled over and gently lifted it up into his arms. "You okay, little fella?"

 

The star creature nodded weakly. It would probably be a good idea to find the tree dragon to get it healed up. Stan put a glove over his metallic arm to hide it -- might as well if he were going to see the overgrown bulbasaur anyway -- and shifted the injured creature into the crux of his other arm so he could pick up the bag of tools he stashed under his desk.

 

Good grief... At this rate, he'd probably never find the time to get his hand fixed. Giving the upgrade shop another glance to make sure nothing was burning anymore, he made his way into the hall to seek the aid of the Gladekeeper.

 

((HAH BET YOU FORGOT ABOUT THE PAGE 2 FIRE))

Edited by TehUltimateMage

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Cistina ~ Gateway

 

The man seemed pleased with the answer Pascal gave him. But as Cistina watched, wary with the strange way mana was swirling around him—she abruptly felt something—then a change went over the man as the cracks sealed and his eyes stopped glowing bright blue. "That was not a satisfactory answer,"  the man said, looking over both of them  "You expect me to believe that this is some alternate universe." He paused. "What do you want from me?" He seems very tense, more so than usual for those who had been brought here by the Gate. I do not blame him... If this had not happened to me, I would not have expected myself to be pulled from my own "world."

"I just told you -- you've been pulled here because the universes have gotten all loopy and stuff and separated you from your world! So, pure chance is your answer. To add on that, technically it's because we turned this planet into a magnet and so you landed here instead of in a black hole which would have killed you instantly. Welcome back, Cissy—And welcome to the gateway galaxy, dog boy! Can I touch your ears?" 

"Thank you," Cistina said warmly to Pascal before turning to listen to the wolf-person as he spoke.

“The name’s Keaton. I’ve never heard of the, uh…” Cistina turned towards Keaton, seeing a look of concentration on his face. “The uh… Extra-Dramatical Retribution Squad. Yeah!” Keaton gave Cistina a toothy grin, and she couldn't help but return the smile. Good try. “I’ve never heard of that before, but I am familiar with going between worlds.” He appears to be more easygoing than the other man. Would the prior experience be the cause of that? “So do you know how I can get home?” Keaton asked her, one hand moving back to scratch an ear absentmindedly. “I’m not that familiar with the whole ‘teleporting to other worlds’ thing so I don’t actually know how to get back.” Before she could speak, he turned to Pascal, correcting her on being called a "wolfskin" before "grudgingly" letting her pet his ears, though Cistina's eyes flicked to his wagging tail.

 

""Phew! I'm glad I got that out of my system. Thanks, wolfskin-boy!" Pascal paused to think before answering him. “That's kiiiind of the issue right now. We can't get you back just yet, 'cause we don't know where your world is! Same to you, previously-glowing-man." She finished with a shrug.

Cistina winced, but rather at her own situation than at Pascal. "Some worlds are destroyed by the same forces that would have destroyed you had we not brought you here; others would simply be missing. Assuming it is not gone completely, finding your world may take only a matter of weeks, but it could also span many scales."

When Pascal spoke up again, her voice was much brighter. "Today there's been a good number of people who crash-landed here like you guys, and there's usually a couple who choose to stay and help us out. So, if you're suspicious of us being so nice I guess I can tell you that Twilight just wants to make a good impression so she can get some extra aid with our mission to save the multiverse, but like I said, you're free to go when we figure out the where-we-need-to-go-to.

"Twilight is the de facto leader of our little order," Cistina explained. Should I include that she also happens to be a winged unicorn? At any rate, with what they said, the wary man seemed to trust them for the moment, and gave his name as "Anders."

It was then proceeded by Keaton wondrously speculating what kind of magic-user Anders was. To tell the truth, I am curious myself. Especially with that strange flow of mana. After Pascal gave her two cents, though, Cistina remembered that many worlds had their own internal rules on magic... And goddesses forbid, some even had no magic at all. Perhaps the man was suspicious because their magicks were too different from his own, wherever he came from.

"And I am a spellcaster as well. However, as the shaman of the Goddess of Wind, I have a much stronger base for my spells and deeper connection to the flow of magic than that of many other mages in the world from where I came from."

 

Light ~ Library time!

Light gasped when Twilight mentioned that someone saw a woman with long green hair—could it just be coincidence? But green hair isn’t all that common and…. First, she disappears, then a while later I come across a group of interdimensional travelers who has a member that claims he saw someone that could be her—Hm, that does sound a bit coincidental.

“Thanks! I’ll be sure to ask. And all of that sounds amazing!” Light exclaimed. I wonder what kinds of things I would be able to read now? Would I be able to read ancient previously-undecipherable texts? Would I keep the ability if I headed back home? Twilight spoke to the little purple-and-green dragon, asking him to lead the way for her, and Light tensed despite herself. Stop being childish, how many dragons have you actually met were evil hellbeasts bent on destruction?.... Two, but they weren’t even living dragons. “I’m coming,” she called, getting up from her chair and heading to the door where the dragon—Spike—was. “The library, please.”

“Sure thing!” the small dragon, Spike, said enthusiastically, then headed down a hall with Light trailing a bit behind. As they walked past the kitchen, Light whispered to the Naias and it flew over the sink before she desummoned it, letting the iced water gathered to form its body crack and fall in.
The two walked on, and Light looked around—the halls and rooms further into the castle didn’t seem to be too decorated either.... And on the 2nd floor, everything was very, very dark. There were occasional lamps on the wall that provided light, but the main sources looked to be dysfunctional.

“What’s wrong with the lights?”

“Weird, they were fine before,” Spike looked up at them before shrugging. ”Come on, let’s go!”

Light murmured a few words and a fireball in the shape of a jack-o-lantern appeared in her hands, providing some light as they walked. A few turns later, the small dragon spoke up, commenting “Twilight likes going up there to research about different worlds. We also put together a really big collection of books from across the multiverse!”

“What are her favorites?” Light asked instinctively, before immediately mentally slapping herself. You’re here for research right now! “Scratch that, which are ones she looked at recently and what worlds are they from?”

The little dragon scratched his head “I can point you to some of the ones she looked at, but I don’t know what worlds all of them are from. Some of them we retrieved in one world and—Woah!” Spike suddenly seemed to slip.

”ACK!” Light tried to take a step towards the small dragon, but instead her foot met something hard and round, making her stumble and slip—into another one?! Rao sparked and zipped around her while she tried to catch her footing, but there didn’t seem to be a single patch of ground that didn’t have—”Ow!”

The world flashed as her head hit the floor. It was actually very uncomfortable, especially since she was lying on several of the spheres, but at least she wasn’t falling. Some protection staff you are, Criss. Light sat up and shook her head.

 “Are you alright?!”

”Are you okay?

Light answered first. “I’m alright…Sorry, I should have noticed these things on the ground…” Light looked around, conjuring another fireball—there were small metal balls on the floor everywhere… ”Why are these here?”

“I’m okay too, but I don’t remember these being here before either,” the little dragon said bemusedly. The two carefully picked themselves up, and Light swept as many of them as she could to the side with a foot. “We’re almost there, it’s just up the stairs over there and to the right!”

True to his word, the directions the little dragon—his name is Spike—mentioned lead them to a splendid pair of double doors. They’re really big! How heavy would they be? The little dragon Spike took a handle and swung the door out easily. Guess that answers my question… As Light stepped into the dark room, she couldn’t help but smile. The familiar musty scent of aged tomes and quiet air of scholarship—minus one mind-controlling octopus too—was something she was warmly familiar with. Better get started! Over to the side, Spike was fiddling with some switches, but whatever they did, she couldn’t see. Light waited with a curious expression, but he seemed to give up after a few minutes.

”So which books are they?”

“Follow me!” Light nodded enthusiastically as the small dragon Spike scampered off, following him with a new spring in her step.

Edited by Pyrowings

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   XDRS - Kitchen

 

   Calcium... calcium... sine cubed times cosine - wait. Kings. Learned kings? Caterpillar kings?
   Thump. Something closed, and Fiddlesticks twitched a bit to try and remember where she was in this room. The counter iiiissss... here.
   She tipped forward to rest her arms on it, wondering if anything changed, and she fell and hit her head on the counter.
   "Ouch! I'm okay," she mumbled, picking herself back up. She found the edge of the counter, but couldn't see anything past the static. "Umm..." This is embarrassing, everything about this is backfir - FIRE!!... backfiring... she thought. She tried scanning the objects instead to see what they were. Come on now, I'm supposed to be gaining these peoples' trust!

 

   Success! There was... cardboard, some biomatter, and somewhat-more-familiar biomatter. She focused on the most promising percentage she picked up, and reached for it.
   ...Okay, it was around here somewhere. Where did it-? Oh, there we go.
   She picked up something a bit squishy, and a second scan brought back a mixture of muscle, tomato, spice, and a little bit of worchestshire. At the edges of the object were promising reflections of hard bone! There was only one problem: it was one of a series of little nubs peaking out of this large muscle.
   Fiddlesticks's solution was simple: grab it and yank it out of there. So she did; and the friction kept that bone firmly in its place. She pulled harder, but the retrieval arms weren't very strong and her threads weren't doing so well.
   I need to breathe! the machine thought, but it immediately clashed with No! I can't stop trying! I CAN DO THIS!, muddled in with various other, unrelated words like "biscuits", "interloper", and "where's the screwdriver".
   Then suddenly she forgot what she was doing.

 

   "Um... um... umm..." She struggled with the internal nonsense of her mind, still drooping and losing half of her motives in the process; unfortunately, the stubbornness ran too strong for her to open her vents back up. So instead she placed the object back on the counter and wiped at her face as if it would remove the static, unknowingly striking it with barbecue sauce. "Um... that thing is stuck," she said lamely, "I think..."

 

   -----------------------------------------------------------------

 

   XDRS - Wrong Direction

 

   Typheus had taken a rather quiet walk down the hall. He was surprised at the peace here; no tension from being watched, no clunking of other machines, no chatter echoing out from other rooms; just his now-painfully-too-loud walking. He was tempted to start stalking just in case he passed someone studying in a room, but no one came out to interrupt him and no one passed him by. So instead he focused on how to explain the zeitgeist thing to Fiddlesticks; and the only problem there was figuring out how to explain it to himself. He didn't fully understand what was going on, but it coincided with the theory of infinite choice instances and had grim implications; additionally, he couldn't decide if he should disclose Stan's report to her or not. A potential battle she would jump on, and once she wanted it, it would either happen, or she would make it happen; and if she goes throwing herself willy-nilly into danger it was his job to protect her. It would compromise their safety to go to a world full of metal-benders... but if she found out he knew about it and didn't tell her so they would miss it, he knew she would make him regret it.
   Typheus sighed. To be electrocuted once, or to be electrocuted twice with smaller voltages, that was the question.
   This was a stupid question.

 

   A bright yellow object flew over his shoulder, and he looked back on it in surprise. He only caught the tail of it as it rounded a corner, but he heard another one approaching, and managed to stop it before it flew off.
   "Hey!"
   It came to a sudden halt, and he immediately felt bad for sounding so onry. Shouting nicely wasn't his strong suit... Regardless though, the object came right up to him, floating rather jubilantly with large, dark eyes set attentively on him.
   Typheus hadn't seen the Lumas up close before, and now he felt more awkward. His immediate response to the awkwardness was to feel threatened, but he forced himself to relax.
   "They said you were... messengers, right? I'm looking for..." He wasn't sure how to word it. "She's large, and brown. Little on the orange side. A machine like me, I mean."
   The Luma stared at him.
   "I'm looking for her. She's with Xander and-?"
   It interrupted silently by flipping around and pointing at a corner down the hall.
   "What direction is that?" Typheus asked, baffled. It didn't answer, confident enough about its response to simply fly off down the hall. "Wait!"

 

   Too late. It was gone as quick as it came. He pawed at the floor with one foot, looking down at his claws.
   "Did I scare it or something?" he mumbled to himself. He then looked behind him where the Lumas came from, before turning back to the intersection. He still wasn't sure where he was going, but that must lead away from the main hall; it wouldn't be too far fetched that some of the organization's members would quickly escort Fiddlesticks to a different location. As long as she wasn't hurt...
   No. There would be more fire and explosions, he joked to himself, before deciding to take the Luma's "advice", changing course to go back the direction he came. He didn't feel very comfortable, having spoken to the cartoony version of a star, but at least the neotony gave him incentive to believe it.

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Where am I? - Illidan ]

 

Demon after demon after demon fell to the Warglaives of Azzinoth. He was blind and yet he could see them all plain as day, his Spectral Sight working overtime just to keep track of them all. The location was the Burning Throne itself, Antorus. Illidan Stormrage, leader of the Illidari, flew in to slay another demon...

 

...and found himself kissing dirt. The two bright green Warglaives flew out of his hands and to the ground.

 

"What the hell??" Illidan got up and looked around. Gone were the hundreds of red auras his Spectral Sight had picked up. Now there were only four green ones. "Where in the--"

 

He couldn't finish before he felt something land on his back, forcing him back to the ground. "GET OFF OF ME!!" He felt whatever was pinning him down get off and went to pick up the Warglaives of Azzinoth, revealing a fifth green aura in his Spectral Sight. Even worse (to him at least) was that he could only see the auras in front of him - it would seem his Spectral Sight would need to readjust itself.

 

He was definitely not on Argus anymore and he was very much on-edge. All these unknown people! Where was Turalyon? Alleria? Velen?

 

He found the Warglaives and entered a combat stance... one a little more defensive than what he was used to, but he needed to see if anyone else would attack first.

 

What is this place? - Hibiki ]

 

Red dust was scattered all around her feet. The Alca-Noise didn't stand a chance against her. But she wasn't happy. She was hoping that she could talk some sense into the woman commanding them. "We don't have to fight! If you want to help the world, why can't we work together?" Hibiki Tachibana, the strongest Symphogear user in S.O.N.G., was hoping to talk her enemy down.

 

Her pleas fell on deaf ears. The commander effortlessly picked her up and flung her high into the sky. High enough to where all she could see was white...

 

...when she came back down, she ended up landing on top of someone. This was not anyone she knew. This man had wings, purple skin, horns, hooves... Oh my god is this a demon?? She heard him yell at her to get off, and did so very, very quickly. "I am so, so sorry!! I didn't know you were there and--"

 

She stopped and looked around. Where she had been fighting in a part of the city she called home, alongside her five fellow Symphogear users, she now saw herself in a grassy field, with five other very different people. The purple demon man, a woman with white-and-red hair, a warrior-woman, a thankfully-human man, and some sort of wolf-guy.

 

Hibiki dispelled her armor, her Symphogear, and nervously approached the group. "Uh... hello? Where am I?"

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--- (Xker)

 

Xker left to prepare for the mission aer'd likrly be called for. Well, mostly make sure aer weaponry was charged and batteries topped off, but still.

 

--- (Reshiram)

 

The Blitzle-creature turned to them, and they recoiled a bit. They looked around, eyes shifting, searching. Then a voice addressed them. A glance confirmed the speaker, before their eyes were averted once again.  Reshiram growled a bit at the assurance of safety, still leery of all these strange things. Things like the Blitzle-creature and the metal boxes and the magic-using humans and - a hiss. Reshiram pushed at the chair. It tilted dangerously, and the dragon snatched at the table, rocked, glanced up, looked around, eyed Twilight. 

 

Speak? The only response they could muster was a halting hiss-grunt and averted eyes once again.

 

--- (Aeolus)

 

The Espeon awoke with a start.

 

"Where-?"

 

He looked around. Keep a handle. Don't let go. Keep a handle. Don't fall asleep, Aeolus reminded himself. The Dream Mist rippled over his body. There wasa grassy field, several humans, and something... humanoid. The cresture wasn't any Pokémon Aeolus knew of. His ears flicked back. These humans and their friend were all unknowns. Yet they shouldn't understand him anyways. The unknown might, he decided. The Espeon made the choice to watch what they did, eyes open for signs of hostility or a battle.

Edited by DuskOfTheStars

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Stan -- Dragons' Den (???)

 

Following a tip from another Luma friend, Stan traversed the halls cautiously. Pellets were scattered across the hall even around here and he huffed, frustrated at the whole situation and not being able to do anything about it. They'd have to give it a good sweep before anyone else hurt themselves on them.

 

Dropping his toolbag, he gave a knock on a specific door. "Hey, Qaksh, have you seen Gladekeeper lately?"

 

The door gently creaked open with telekinetic power, revealing the orange dragon sitting in the far side of the room, across from the plant dragon. Stan always felt this place a little unnerving -- the Magi dragon had knocked down a partition wall to make the room larger, and decorated it to be more 'cave-like' by bringing in enough mud and stones to carpet the entire floor. He even covered the flickering electric bulbs with paper to make them more diffuse and overall dim the room, and whatever little light reflected off of the dragon's shining scales. Qaksh was anything but cunning and dangerous, he knew, but there was some irrational primal fear from thousands of years ago awakening within him and Stan didn't want to stick around in this den for longer than he had to.

 

"Oh, yes, hello! She's here, and uh, is that a new patient? Oh no! What happened?" The Magi dragon's words echoed in his head in a continuous cascade. Stan just stepped forth and presented the injured Luma to the Gladekeeper, being careful to keep his distance. A few moments later, the room was bathed in a soft green healing glow and the dragon scolding them for not being careful enough.

 

"Thank you, Gladekeeper. I stumbled on the scene of an accident," he simply said. "I don't know who caused it."

 

Duty done, Stan gingerly backed out of the cave room. "I have stuff to do now though you should really go see the new people. There's a lot of them this time!" He rounded the corner of the door frame and vanished from view, picking up his tools again.

 

The magi dragon suddenly stood up on all fours. "Oh boy! I wonder if there's anyone I know in this batch?" Not even awaiting an answer, he teleported away.

 

~~~

 

Stan -- His room

 

"Good as new," Stan muttered to himself, flexing the joints of his mechanical hand and putting his screwdrivers away. His room seemed like the only place to work now, until the workshop got properly cleaned up. As much as he wanted to catch the culprit that made the mess, it was hard to figure out if getting the anchor from the ashy place was a time-sensitive mission or not.

 

He called a messenger, this time a blue Luma, to announce a message to all agents when it found them:

 

"If you are interested in helping with the current anchor or want a debriefing, please prepare your gear and head back to the Gateway within half an hour! Don't bring any metal items if you can help it!"

 

He thanked it and sent it off to do its job. They really needed to install an intercom of some sorts here.

 

((Once we wrap up...whatever is going on at the Gateway with Pascal and co., we can then debrief and deploy!))

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[ Natsuki ] [ Kitchen ]

 

Natsuki had to resist the urge to huff in annoyance. This was getting ridiculous, to the point where they wondered how they had been frightened of Fiddlesticks in the first place. It was still important to avoid underestimating the unpredictable, sharp-edged hunk of metal that weighed several times more than them, but frustration had pushed some of the caution aside. "Here," they said, grabbing the meat and beginning to strip the bones from it with quick, efficient motions. "Now, explain what's wrong so that we can help. Don't say it's the lack of calcium- whatever you use it for, it isn't a coolant." They were quick to step away from Fiddlesticks and towards the sink when they finished removing the flesh from the bones. Not out of fear- it was simply that Fiddlesticks was emanating too much heat for someone that had difficulties with heat management themself. "I know that this place is strange and that you have no reason to trust us," they said as they ran water over their hands. "But let me assure you that we don't want a half-melted robot to clean up." Perhaps it wasn't the most gentle way to tell Fiddlesticks to cut it out, but they were getting tired of it.

 

[ Jowan ] [ Dining Hall ]

 

Jowan stared into his tea. He was more than a little tempted to follow Light and Spike to the library, but he couldn't. As helpful as it would be (and however much he missed being able to sit down and read for hours) there were more important things that had to be done. Specifically, bathing, finding new clothes, stitching up his wound properly, and finding out if they'd let him go on the current mission. 

 

It was an absolutely terrible idea. Maybe not quite as bad as some of his other ideas, but it was up there. He was malnourished, was slightly woozy from blood loss, and didn't know how XDRE operated. 

 

Even so... it wasn't like he needed any metal. Ideally, he'd have a lyrium staff, but he didn't have access to one and lyrium wasn't magnetic anyway. He could be useful, he was fairly sure of that. Maybe. 

 

"Are you going on this mission?" he asked Duke. It would make sense if he was- barriers of such strength had to be useful. 

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Mud People, Earth and Water

 

On the ground at the gateway, there lay three small piles of mud. A beam of sunlight shone on the ground, and one of the piles of mud grew two brown eyes, which peered around itself.

 

"Huh?"

 

The pile rose into a humanoid form, forming three fingers and a thumb on its hands and rounded feet. In spite of being made entirely of mud, the creature was holding itself together perfectly.

 

It looked around and saw four individuals. Not Mud People, clearly enough, even if they looked like them... Also not frogs or turtles. So were they dangerous?

 

The Mud Person then noticed its compatriots on the floor asleep, and nudged each of them with a foot. Both rose from the ground in similar forms: two males, one female.

 

"No mudpit?" The female said.

 

"Me go find another." The first started leading the way in a random direction, with the others shuffling behind it.

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~Edward~

Following the tea party, Edward sighed and took a look around the dining hall. It was slightly messy- some people really didn’t know how to clean up after themselves. So instead, he decided to go and get a quick snack. Most of the little tea cakes and such were gone by the time he and that girl got here. Learning that you’re not in your home world makes you quite ravenous, and boy was Edward dying for something to eat. He noticed that there was a kitchen not too far away, so he quietly split from his former partner and slipped in.

 

The two men were the first things he saw as soon as he walked in. Edward took a couple of steps back. One of the men was rather short, whilst the other one was a freaking giant. They were working on some strange machine, it was making weird twitches and sounds, and Edward was a bit freaked out by the ordeal. He had seen chimeras, he had seen his brother in a suit of armor, but this was by far one of the strangest ordeals that he had noticed. The clothes on the men, too, were odd, albeit a little tacky, at least for the taller man. Coming from Ed, though, this thought was  bit rich. Making wary glances at them, he searched through the cabinets. He grabbed some random sweets from a rather well-stocked cabinet, and opened the package. Whoever got upset about these sweets would just have to suck it up. Still looking at the motley crew, he slipped back out of the kitchen to go and consume his findings.

 

 

 

~Evonna and Lara~

 

Of course that random guy split from her. Evonna felt the corners of her nose scrunch in annoyance, but she decided to shrug it off all the same. If this was anything like the Academy, she was just going to suck it up and find some new friends. Oh, she quite missed Lavender. Though her old friend was a bit out there, she was the nicest person she had ever met… Not like Evonna was going to find someone that kind here. Was she? She had no idea. Thus, she decided to resign to her bedroom, or at least to find a room to claim. How would she know if she was going to find an unoccupied room? How could she tell if it was? Did some of these people actually have belongings? 

 

Exploring the main hall, Evonna noticed a rather tall young woman, wearing a tan shirt that exposed her midriff and cargo shorts that barely reached her mid-thigh. Oh God, poor girl, she must get bug bites all the time, she thought to herself. The woman turned around, and Evonna noticed that the woman had a quite stern look on her face. Whatever happened, she didn’t look happy. But she was kinda pretty, despite the lack of a smile. She looked at Evonna, and the sudden realization made her heart drop in disbelief. Holy **** ! No way. That’s… But those games are so old back in my world, they’ve got to be like… Over a century old? I grew UP on Tomb Raider though, no way! I’ve… Whoa. She’s even hotter in person? Damn, wow. Her shock and awe made her stand in dumbfounded silence. The woman- Lara Croft- raised her eyebrow with a slight tinge of worry.

 

Excuse me, are you alright? Is there something I can do for you?

 

Y-You’re Lara Croft…?” Lara nodded with a degree of confusion. This girl is… Rather odd.

 

Yes, that is my name. I don’t suppose you’ve seen me somewhere?” Evonna had so many things to say, many of them being sustained velociraptor screeching. Instead, she kept her composure, and oh-so-coherently stated, 

 

H-hi.” Weirded out, Lara sighed.

 

Yes, hello. It’s a pleasure. What may I help you with? Is there something you may be looking for?” 

 

M-My room.” Lara gently smiled and nodded. Oh, she’s lost, Lara thought, I understand. 


Yes, that would be second floor. You may choose any room. In fact, I’ll be getting my swimsuit, so I’ll be going that direction anyway. You may choose any of the unoccupied rooms. Now come along, dear, let’s get you settled.” Lara carefully patted Evonna’s back and led her up the stairway towards the second floor.
 

Edited by Mikasa361

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   XDRS - Kitchen

 

   Fiddlesticks listened very carefully to the words. Through the static and confusion, she could only pick out certain keywords, but those coupled with the tone were enough to learn what the message was.
   She contemplated it for a bit, comparing it to what she could remember of her motives as well as her perception of self-security. She leaned over the counter and swept her retrieval arms over it upon hearing several distorted clacks, and found a small pile of hard objects. She brushed it closer to her, fell down heavily against the counter, and leaned against it, picking up one bone at a time and bringing them up into her retrieval panel where the grinders were. She had no reason to distrust these people now, especially with how nice they were, so whatever she was trying to hide from them probably wasn't worth the effort. All she could remember of it was that she was melting. Thankfully the grinders still worked even if her threads were flying around and crashing into each other like fighter jets, but it wasn't conducive to making a decision. It also wasn't conducive to detecting someone behind her, which was actually for the better.

 

   "Hmmm..." she hummed, a monotone reflection of the indecision. A few seconds more, and she finally decided to open up her air intake, circulating out the old air with a loud whooshing sound.
   Ah, relief! Forget whatever demeanor she was trying to hold; this was much better than possibly-permanent damages. Risky, but worth it.
   The machine lay there for a while, scrunched up between the countertops, finishing off the bones while her temperature steadily lowered. Very, very slowly, the threads began to organize themselves back into coherent, uninterrupted thoughts, the processor cooling down. It was quite a big inconvenience, being unable to "breathe" properly, as the other mechs could have their grills shut for hours at a time. Yet she overheats... and Typheus wouldn't tell her why.

 

   Wait... she was thinking clearly!...-er. Ish. What did they ask again? Something about help? Hm... would it be wise to answer?

   In contrast to her previous decision, she began having doubts again about trusting anyone. She knew she and Typheus were going to be involved no matter what, but if she gave up dignity in favor of staying low, so they could figure out how to go back to Zirhon themselves and detach from these people, it would prevent unnecessary complications in the war and she couldn't be held hostage in case these people labeled them as enemies; and she knew they would target all Xinschi-uual, rebel or not. On the other hand, that was all boring and safe, and she was still missing the target of her mission, so returning early wouldn't be helpful at all. She had promised to help the rebels, and in return they would help her find her pilot. Which gives her incentive to keep this organization out of it, but they also could be useful allies, and the disappearing machine...
   Mmmmmmmmmmff...


   "I remember now..." she finally said, staring at the tile floor, "and... I can't tell you. Please don't be mad at me." She curled up on herself. "Just... don't ask why, but there are little reptilian people on that planet, that the one-armed man came from. Don't hurt them. Please. We have enough to worry about already.

   ...Also, where is Duke?" she recalled, "Weren't we going to meet Duke?"

 

   (EDIT: Bonus old draft post with monologue silliness because Easter Eggs, why not? XD It doesn't apply, it's just there for what my brain comes up with for the same situation at 2 am versus decent times.)

Edited by skwerl56767

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