September Arrivals Log

[thepull_mods]

Who: September Arrivals, Greeters, NPC recruiters & anyone else who happens to be hanging around the Tower Apartments to 'welcome' newcomers.
When: Throughout September, 2012 (Please Specify Date & Time in Thread Header)
Where: The Sector 4 Baseball Diamond, Parking Lot & Lobby of the Tower Apartments
Summary: This is your catch-all one stop log for arrival interactions! New Newcomers can also meet and mingle in the apartment lobby.
Warnings: Nausea, potential for violence, language- add on any warnings or ratings as they come up.

It feels like a whiplash, like being plucked up into the sky and sucked through a very tight dark space before being deposited rather roughly in the City. Your character will be disoriented, dizzy, slightly nauseous, and very sore upon arriving in Siren's Port It is your choice whether your character arrives during the safety of the day or the danger of night.

Until recently, no one knew why, but every new arrival from another world gets deposited in the dead center of an ill-kept baseball diamond.

Some of the fences and signboards have been replaced with information and welcoming signs, posted by Newcomers as encouragement. However, from time to time some form of degrading graffiti'd tag might appear here or there, 'Go Home!' or 'Now You're Fucked, Newmeat' 'Welcome to Sirens Port, Population: Too Many to Add One More' and 'Attention Newcomers: Please wait here till sunset sirens to receive your welcoming package! =) ')

A person is thrown from their pull somewhere within the fenced-in baseball field, either in the dirty infield or tossed rolling into the overgrown dirty outfield. A recent fire has charred the left side of the outfield, and grass is only starting to grow back.

Standing on second base and facing home plate, one will see a rotten, old and deteriorating backstop and chain link fencing, much like any little league baseball field. Broken down bleachers made of worn out green painted wood can be seen in disarray behind this, and some old trees line the wall and fencing along the right side.

To your left is a walled in Dugout with a secured door. The dugouts are made of thick concrete and set low into the earth. This one has been outfitted as a safe place to enter during the night to hide and wait out the morning. Sometimes Greeters can be found here, waiting for people to show up. The Dugout to the right has also been cemented over and secured with a heavily guarded and armored door.

The Baseball Diamond is held by the Neutral Government, allowing greeters access to the infield to retrieve new arrivals. However, the small building constructed over the right dugout is still guarded heavily by government-controlled Voids, to block public access to the Core. Those who cooperate with greeters will be treated fairly and be given helpful information, lead to the Tower Apartments and offered a month's lodging. Those who put up a fight will be met with Voids and detained by police.

Just beyond the fence, in the Tower Apartments parking lot and lobby, SERO and AGI recruiters will be passing out informational leaflets presenting company propaganda, including discounted coupon booklets and travel-sized toiletries as a "Newcomer Welcome Package".

Other then the lights around the Core dugout, there is one single electric light above home plate that remains on, even in the Darkness. There is an open walkway near the dugouts that leads into the parking lot of the Tower Apartments. The front doors of Tower One are always kept unlocked, but you had best close them again quickly if you slip inside during the night. The office of the Landlord is well marked near the lobby, and you'll receive keys there.

The second tower is abandoned, it looks like there was some kind of bombing. Asking around, you might hear about the anti-newcomer movement and an attempt to blow up both towers. Explosive charges were set up in the elevator shafts, back in January. Tower Two's weren't disabled in time, so the building is taped off, and you'll be advised not to go wandering in there- it's no doubt structurally unsound, though the first tower still stands tall and (mostly) functioning.

Though temporary housing services are funded by SERO and AGI, they are now run buy the Newcomers themselves. With heavy funding and support contacts from both companies, the building is in a state of slow remodeling.

Comments

September 3, night

[comradely]

[ Obito hadn't been able to see the rocks falling, but he felt the tremors of the cave further collapsing in on itself and briefly he even felt the impact on his body before everything went black. This is it, the end, he'd thought, but then oddly enough the sensation of falling hit him. Falling and hitting the ground. Hard.

He was suddenly hurting more than when he had been trapped under the rocks, he hadn't even been able to feel the pain then, his nerves had been just as crushed as his limbs. He'd only felt numb and the only pain had been a dull ache where his left eye had been. Rin had done a good job. Now he felt sore all over, the ache of his missing eye seemed amplified and the nauseous feeling he got from the dizziness combined with the pain made him want to throw up. One would think that after dying, you wouldn't feel pain anymore.

More importantly than that though, he found that he could move. His fingers on his right hand curled, feeling the earth beneath him. Gingerly he opened his eye to be greeted by a night sky. Another unusual thing to be added to the growing list of really unusual things in the afterlife. With a little difficulty he managed to sit up and, after the vertigo wore off a little, have a proper look at his surroundings. A stadium of some kind, weird signs and strange lights. He registered all those things with a growing sense of bewilderment.

No one really knew what to expect from the afterlife and Obito was no exemption. However, whatever slight expectations he'd had, this certainly wasn't it. Movement caught his eye and he squinted at the darkness where the light couldn't reach.

Was it his imagination or were the shadows moving? ]

[in_starvation]

[ The shadows were moving, as a matter of fact. Jessica just happened to be one of them. A vampire, monster of the night, blah blah blah. Whatever. That's not important. What's important was that as she can never walk in the sun, she became more than familiar with the Darkness of Siren's Port.

As always, spilt blood always attract her attention, whether she wanted it or not.

She approached the boy, still wearing the clothes she had on before her arrival - a simple pink top and jeans. She felt a little concern for the loss of the eye, but she decided to keep her distance until it felt safe enough. ]

You look new.

Sept. 3 - NIGHT

[hikari_no_kundou]

The downpour had begun shortly after the sirens had ceased calling, and the ground was now steeped in tepid water.

The area around the diamond had become so saturated, the ground had skipped simple 'mud' and sucked feet and limbs down to the floor with almost gleeful abandon. As if the darkness hadn't enough advantages. The flooding rippled under the single beam of light, the rain a steady drum of noise in an otherwise quiet area. Those in the shelters stayed well inside, understandably reluctant to emerge in such weather if there was little need to do so.

So it was that when the air ripped itself open once again, there was no one immediately present to witness what tumbled from the sky.

Impact with the diamond is always expected with any new arrival. With a singular twist, something bright emerged from nothingness and descended at speed. A light, veering between muted gold and ember-red. Landing was accompanied by a massive splash, the force of impact rapidly displacing rain water.

There is no displaced dirt, not in this weather -- just water and light and the steady frisshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhssssssssssss of steam; whatever it was that fell came in hot, and the steam rose in place of fog or dust to blanket the center of the field.

The overhead beam stared, steady and impassive, at the odd shapes and shadows forming within the steam, the light reflecting oddly as water rushed back into the vacated space; the hollow of the crater formed dribbled at the edges, before caving into the weight of tainted water pressing in at all sides. Pooling at the feet of the figure crouched at the center. An oddly still figure.

Which, when it finally moved, strode with purpose. No acknowledgement is made of hanging signs, or of the few figures that may have emerged to peer into the night. No voice spoke, no waves or overt motions; It does not pause once as it exits the area at no slow pace.

If spoken to, it certainly didn't acknowledge the greeting.

Maybe It's been here before? It certainly seems to know where it's going...

Tower Apartment Lobby, Sept 3, 9am

[oujomerchant]

One moment Alouette was heading home and the next she came to at the diamond, ill, exhausted, and extremely confused. She had gotten as much information as she could, but she was just too tired for it to all sink in. So, eventually, she ended up in the lobby of the apartments, her lovely purple dress covered in mud, a large book in hand, and an unhappy look on her face.

It goes without saying that she didn't want to be here, and she no idea what to do, but she wasn't going to throw a fit about it. And she most certainly wasn't going to burst into tears as much as she wanted to.

After taking a seat upon one of the chairs, she stared down at the cover of the book. What was going to happen now? What was she going to do? She'd always wanted to be independant, but she most certainly wasn't ready to lose everything in the process! Alouette blinked in surprise when she noticed a teardrop land on her hard-cover book, then quickly wiped her eyes with her sleeve while looking around to make sure no one had seen.

Worst. Day. Ever.

Ignore this if you weren't looking for a response!

[inthejunk]

Somehow there's always someone to see those moments you wish they wouldn't, isn't there?

A teenager with a black eye and a cast on one arm -right from his palm up to his shoulder- approaches carefully and offers a tissue.

"Hey. Are you alright?"

September 4th, afternoon

[businessman]

There was pain, but that didn't bother Gustavo much. He could manage pain. He frequently saw it coming.

This, he had not seen coming, and that unsettled him much more than the pain. The surge of feeling that came with opening his eyes, equally unsettling. It was almost enough to make him react, there, in the open, in ways he knew he would come to regret... But he knew he would come to regret them, and that was not what a cautious man did.

He had already been too incautious.

Gus Fring looked up at the clear sky and around the baseball diamond, one hand coming up to ghost over his face. He turned it into a gesture, taking his glasses off, wiping them briefly on a handkerchief, replacing them. Folded the handkerchief, replaced it. Cautiously. He breathed in, once. Breathed out, once. And then, shoulders squared, cutting a sharp figure in his slim-cut dark blue suit, he strode purposefully towards the walkway.

To what purpose, he expected, he would find out shortly.

[hostage]

Jesse's attention was on his NV as he left the apartments. He'd just put his earbuds in, scrolling through for a playlist to keep him entertained on the walk home. As he opened the lobby door, he could see someone approaching in his peripheral vision. He didn't quite look up for a second or two, but out of polite habit he paused to hold the door open for whoever was coming up to the building. Only once he was satisfied with his selection and had hit 'play' did he finally lift his gaze.

september 5, afternoon

[rewritter]

Somehow, he couldn't help but feel a little deja-vu. Sprawling on the ground, head aching and opening his eyes to a different place than he'd closed them... but the warm fire was missing, and he felt considerably less dying than he had the last time this happened. And instead of seeing his friends by his side, the concerned faces looking down at him were those of total strangers. He blinked, sat straight up, and banged the top of his head right into--

"Agh!"

What even... he could barely hear the hasty apology of the greeter over the ringing pain in his ears. Holding back curses and the overwhelming urge to punch the idiot in the face, he turned his attention to the object he'd smashed his head into and just. Stared for a moment.

The Lohengrin sword. Where did that come from? Well, it was true that it belonged to him, as the greeter guessed, offering it out. He thought he'd lost it in the fight with Mytho. It felt like forever ago. How did it show up here? But he numbly accepted it, the familiar weight of the weapon and the familiar leather of the sheath. At least he hit his head on the flat of the blade.

Still, there was obviously something strange was going on.

... But maybe he could worry about the sword and the annoying buzzing in his head later.

Priorities. Wherever this was, he didn't belong here and he should be heading back to Kinkan Town. He'd be late for school, and for feeding the ducks at the lake. That is, one duck in particular. Still wincing at the headache--both the buzzing and the self-inflicted one--he stood up, unconsciously tightening his grip on the sword. Fine, he'd ask for directions. And then get out of here. Maybe stop at a bakery on the way home for bread. No big deal, but he couldn't help but feel uneasy.

[motioned]

It's by chance that she'd come this way at all. In fact, passing by the diamond always made her uneasy, with the companies gathering nearby and the possibility of a particularly hostile.

That's why when she hears the cry of pain from the field, she almost starts to walk quicker - but it doesn't take more than a second for the voice, brief as the exclamation was, to register. And even then, she doesn't go to the field immediately; in fact, she doesn't move at all, after her head moves a fraction of an inch towards the noise. She doesn't let herself complete the motion. She's probably imagining something, after all. It's been ten months now, so what's the chance that he'd show up today? If she turns her head and sees it's nothing more than someone with a similar voice, that all too familiar ache in her ache would intensify.

But as someone who thrives on hope, who drew her power from the faith she had in her friends, she can't make herself take the first step to leave the area. So, swallowing sharply, she steals a quick glance towards the field, hoping to at least get that sinking feeling over with.

But that sinking feeling never comes, because as soon as she turns to look, all she really feels is an overwhelming sense of breathlessness. And as stupid as it is, she still can't force herself to move for a moment; maybe it would break whatever illusion this is. But a few seconds pass, and she's grounded enough to take a breath, and—

Before she really realizes it herself, she's running towards him as fast as her legs can carry her and launching herself into his arms as her own tighten around his neck, half convinced he'll disappear if she releases her grip for even a moment. She's not even aware of the Greeter, who seems to be making an exit now, apparently assured that the boy would be getting ample help.

to Chuck

[servingmichael]

[Raphael had arrived a few hours before. He'd sat with his brother, taking in information from the Port. Now, he was ready to get to business.

He landed in Chuck's living room, glancing around with barely a tilt of his head.]

And here I thought I had lost you.

[paterelohim]

[Chuck abruptly falls the fuck over, and the girl (of the evening) in his apartment (lighting up a cigarette while balefully eying the smoke detector) shrieks and falls back in surprise. He gapes at the angel, stunned.]

Raphael-?

September 7; moving towards sundown

[hungryanhorny]

It wasn't the first time Faith went tumbling to the ground; though usually she had more of an idea of where she was and how she'd gotten there.


Pressing against the ground, she let her muscles tense as she stood. Grass and ground grit between her fingers, crumbling between the digits. Her muscles stayed tense, at the ready.

The signs of "welcome" caught her eye - the bit about a welcome package in particular; like hell she was going to stick around for that. "Got to be something around here..."

[mulletrock]

Dean's got an eye open for the Port's new recruits. He's about ready to take a break when someone shows up in the distance. He hustles over, suddenly pretty friggin' aware of the time.

"Hey," he puts his most charming smile on. "Need some help?" Hopefully this didn't go as badly as meeting Prue did.

She was a tall drink of water, and that definitely helped. He just knew better by now. The cute ones were usually the ones that could do the most damage.

September 7th - Afternoon

[charmedson]

Dying had been surprisingly easy, all things concerned. Once the pain had stopped bothering him, he had managed to get one last word in with his dad (to try and encourage him to never give up) and then it had been quiet...

He hadn't really been expecting anything. He didn't know if he would wake up back in his own time, or end up in that place where Grams and Aunt Prue were, their glowing forms doing whatever it was that ghosts did wherever it was that they did it.

A baseball diamond was nothing near what he had hoped for though and it was confusing and disorienting to find his body, lacking any sort of stab wound, suddenly smacked down in the middle of one. He swayed a bit, and made a face as he fought the nausea that was settling over him.

Ignore this if you weren't looking for a response!

[inthejunk]

There's a teenager standing not far away, watching. He takes a step back at the familiar 'I might throw up on you' motion. It's not his first day on the diamond, after all. But he waves with his other hand anyway, clumsy ad it is with the plaster on it. Yosuke holds out a cup of hot tea, offering it. When the weather is chilly, it's nice to bring one of those along, he likes to think. Who wouldn't want one after a big fat dimensional face slam, right?

"Hey. Watch the first step, it's kind of disorienting."

September 10th - Day - Yosuke

[kicktomorrow]

[What the everloving mother of fuck.

The first thing Jane does after--whatever the fuck just happened is throw up, retching facedown on the ground somewhere. She sits up and wipes her face on her hand, her hand on the grass, and this is not Kansas, Dorothy. She's had blackouts before, but this was just...something else. She was still too high to do anything but blink muzzily and throw up again, this time curled on her side when shaking forced her down.

It occurs to her that Jesse...Jesse isn't--

She left Jesse, and that slams alertness into her like a spike hard enough to push her back upright. She needed--she needed an address, and she clung to the thought. Address. Address. Get an address and get home.]

Re: September 10th - Day - Yosuke

[inthejunk]

[Not only is Jane randomly thousands of miles from the bed she left Jesse in, she's also not alone. A teenager is kneeling beside her. He's kneeling in a puddle of ginger tea that he had intended to give her-still steaming a little and making his eyes water where it's burning his knees-but dropped in surprise at that violent awakening. Oh, gods. Girls aren't suppossed to throw up like that...]

Hey. It's okay. I've got you. It's normal to feel sick, so don't be scared, alright?

[He removes the hand he'd pressed queasily to his own mouth to mumble a few reassurances over her. Wow. Chunky vomit aside, she's beautiful...and also like half naked. Definitely not wearing pants. Woah.]

[...Right, that's a problem! He shakes his head a little to clear his thoughts, eyes lingering on her smooth thighs a few seconds longer than professional, and then a few seconds longer yet. He pries them away a little short of indecently gawking, and hazily shrugs out of his sweatshirt. It takes a little longer than it would if there wasn't a giant cast on his arm, but he manages it anyway, and holds it out to her.]

Here. It's chilly, and anyway you're-um. Don't worry, we can fix that too. Can you stand up, or do you need help?

September 11th, shortly after midnight. [dry-heaving ahead, though nothing awful.]

[bondsoflove]

Sasuke's muscles retained enough memory from his early days at the academy to pitch him forward in a shoulder-roll, almost before he was cognizant of the fact that he was going to land somewhere, hard, and needed to catch himself.

If the instinct to keep his bones in one piece and ligaments from tearing hadn't been automatic and immediate, he would have taken an instant to change his landing and try to absorb the impact with his palms. But as it was, his body did the first thing it remembered, and the result was a brutal aggravation of the cloying sickness gathered at his head and stomach. Shaking, he hunched over and put his hands on the dirt as his last meal, a soldier pill hours ago and well-digested by now, tried violently to wrench itself back up his throat.

Nothing came up, but the spasms were enough to keep him on his knees. When they'd abated some, he began to drag air harshly into his lungs, which cleared his head enough that he could lift it.

This...was not anywhere near the cave Itachi had left him in.

It wasn't the forest outside the cave, either. It appeared to be some kind of abandoned structure--the dirt under him made a sort of triangular pattern, interspersed with patches of overgrown grass.

And something about the energy of the place felt very, very wrong.

[comradely]

Honestly, Obito had no idea who he was dealing with. Obviously it was a clan member who was from the future, like Ino, since he did know Obito, but Obito didn't know him. He didn't dwell on it though, there was no time to. He knew the pain of arriving during the night all too well. It wasn't like it mattered anyway, family was family and as much as Obito clashed with the clan and their ways occasionally, that never changed.

He wasted no time in making his way outside to the stadium, Sharingan activated the moment he left his apartment. It didn't make up for his lost eye, but it did vastly improve his remaining sight and decreased the risk of running into stuff. Of course, it sure made it a lot easier to dodge the creatures that came with the Darkness too and it took him no time at all to get to his destination and spot his cousin.

"Hey! Are you okay?"

September 11th, night

[istheatmosphere]

Mokuren opened her eyes in great surprise.

Surprise was not an unusual reaction for newcomers, but the source of their confusion was generally tied to their abrupt transposition to a new locale. This was a minor concern for Mokuren. So was the sight of the Darkness-shrouded night sky. That Mokuren could see her surroundings clearly at all was a surprise. That she even had the strength to open her eyes was a surprise. That there even was a "her" to make these observations was the greatest surprise of all.

She lay on her back in the baseball diamond, completely dumbfounded. Eventually her flabbergasted mind managed to register three things: one, that she wasn't finding it hard to breathe, and that her fever was gone, two, that she had a headache at least as bad as that hangover she had the day after she heard about the Doyenne's death, and three, that it was extremely uncomfortable lying in the dirt in the middle of the field and a stone was digging into her back. She sat up and nearly fell over again, knocked off-balance by her own momentum and the ease with which she was commanding her body. She had been bedridden for weeks and it had taken a herculean effort to get up and visit the garden on the day she died, so how was it that sitting up was so painless? She put a hand to her forehead and checked her temperature.

"Am I cured?" she muttered incredulously. Had she even died? Maybe a group of Shian survivors had arrived at the last minute and cured her, and any minute now they would burst in and announce that a colony had survived the annihilation of their civilization and they had come to take her and Shion back with them where they would get married and have three beautiful children and that was complete bullshit, as Shusuran would have said. How many times over the course of her illness had she daydreams such unrealistic scenarios? The entire team had spent at least three days in the communication trying to contact someone, anyone, and failed utterly, as Shion would remind her when she told him about these hopes. It broke her heart the day he started humouring her. Near the end she stopped talking about impossibilities and instead started planning for the future.

"Whatever happens," she told him, "You must not commit suicide. If you take your own life, you won't be reincarnated." She made him promise, and promised him that they would find each other in their next lives on Earth. She had seen it. Would Sarjalim have granted her that vision, only for it to turn out to be false? Could a Goddess be so cruel? Mokuren's thoughts drifted unbidden towards the memory of her father's death. No, don't go there. She shook her head and stood up, in an effort to distract herself from her thoughts. It was no use feeling sorry for herself. She had to find out what was going on. She wasn't even sure if she was alive or dead! After she found that out, then she could figure what to do next.

She wrapped her drape around herself, more for the comfort of something familiar than because she was cold. She looked around, for the first time really paying attention to her surroundings. She was standing in a field covered in rotting grass and dirt. Over the fence she could see buildings that looked like they were of human design. She looked up and this time actually took note of the blackness of the sky as it stretched across the city. She had never head of any place like it in the known universe or in the Kisanado's tales of Sarjalim's realm. There was not a living thing that she could sense. She had so many questions and no one to answer them. Well, she wasn't going to get anywhere sticking around here. She began walking in search of someone. God or mortal, it didn't matter, as long as she could get her answers.

September 12, night.

[revengeisalie]

[The world lurches.

Just a moment ago, what she knew was that her number had probably been drawn. Confronted by Habaki and openly sentenced to death , she knows she's run out of luck. (Though really, how official is his word nowadays? She feels he really just wants her dead because he's on a bitter rampage and has nothing to lose. ) Of course, there's a chance she might make it out alive yet, but she's not counting on it. And she doesn't want to think about the alternative.

Doesn't want to think about Manji dying.

(because without Manji, what does she have to live for)

(she has revenge)

(but that is so)

(empty)

(three years ago she carved her heart into a hollow space and filled hatred inside)

(and then Manji came and let love back in)

And now, what she knows is nothing at all. Feels as if pulled by a strong current, or maybe the opposite of wind, feels herself tossed and tumbled about. Not just her body, her essence. Whatever that may be. What is sure is that nothing is sure, that her whole world consists of dizziness and nausea and has neither direction nor solid ground.

Except then it does.

She's still reeling from the pull and falls to the new soil under her feet as if forcibly pushed there. There's barely time to take a breath when bile forces its way up her throat and she empties the sparse contents of her stomach onto the -- grass.

That is the first coherent thought she can grasp and for some reason, she is slightly comforted by it. Until it dawns on her that there isn't any snow and it's warmer.

For several long moments, all she can do is brace herself tightly on the ground, fingers burrowed into grass and earth. Her own breathing is deafening in her ears, in concert with her heart's staccato beat. She stares numbly onto her dirtied hands, mind too blank with panic to be put off by the sight of bile next to her.

She's never been this scared.

But somehow, that thought saves her. As if putting a name on the thing makes it familiar and manageable. She closes her eyes, takes a deep, steadying breath, and looks up.

Around her is an unkempt lawn, surrounded by grey blocks that have to be houses. She can vaguely make out strange markings on the ground, as well as some sort of fence and mysterious props. There's writing on some of the walls; she'll have to get closer to read it.

For now, all she knows is one thing: something is very wrong here.]

Re: September 12, night.

[reginagloriae]

The falling night had begun to cast the roads of the Port into shadows when Youko left the Cat Eye’s Cafe. ‘It'll be okay,’ she had told her co-workers before she walked outside and made her way into the evening with hurried steps.

It will, she had taught to herself, clutching the enshrouded blade she was holding. In a few days, her commissioned sheath would be ready. She would no longer need to carry that filthy piece of cloth.

But the Darkness had caught up with her when she had been close to the Starter Apartments. She did not know why she wandered close to them. Where she took the bad turn, but she had moved as fast as possible with Last Siren warning ringing in her ears. She had crossed the unkempt field to look for the safety of the dugouts to wait until the Darkness had finished seeping the world outside with its taint. She had no trouble to stay or sleep in the bunker until morning came, but Youko felt increasingly restless. She gripped at the sword and thought at the monsters outside the protection of these walls. It ignited her blood. The idea of cutting her way open, so her skills would not grow duller in her quest for survival was increasingly attractive. But her caution about the dark field advised her otherwise.

Youko had begun to pace, feeling what dangerous beasts did when they were cage. For how long had she already waited? She did not permit thoughts of how worried Loki would be on her behalf. Then she heard the familiar thud on the grassy field. It was unmistakably to confuse that sound with anything else. That was a new arrival. In the middle of the night. The Core really got a poor timing, didn’t it?

If that person wasn’t skilled or snapped out confusing soon, the most likely outcome would end in being devoured by monsters. Unless a Good Samaritan, a Greeter, would be readily available to save them. This is still a world that mistakenly prays for people to save them,she thought bitterly, glancing at the sword at her hand and then at the locked door of the dugout. The steel had begun to glow blue. Youko closed her eyes and then opened them to greet the hideous monkey by her side. His grating laughter filled the empty room.

“If you look you’ll be in trouble,” he warned with an all-knowing gratification, dripped in his voice. “You shouldn’t really be harboring delusions of helping out strangers, little girl. I thought you were looking for number one. What happened to that smart plan, eh?”

Youko snorted and made a hollow laugh. “I’m not doing this for anyone,” she admitted, crushing the small pang of guilt that she felt when she said those words. “I just don't like to be cornered like a dog.” She could not let the Darkness frighten her. She was going to survive it. Fearlessly, she opened the door and took a glance at the dark field. She saw a lone figure standing, ignorant of the Darkness. She squinted. A girl… She looked like a girl of her age.

That fool! she cursed her for not noticing the imminent danger. What was she doing?

“You there!” she shouted at the girl, walking out the safety of the Darkness proofed wall. Youko had unwrapped her blade that shine to help Jouyuu guidance. She was so used to the sensation of his cold tendrils grasping her limbs that she did no longer found it unpleasant. “Run to the apartments and don’t look back!”

She didn’t owe this girl anything. She simply didn’t want someone so powerless looking getting on her way.

Enjolras/Les Miserables Saturday night, late

[antinouswild]

To find heaven would be to find the place where all men are free, and live as equals.

[The phrase ran through his mind as he was about to die. Enjolras felt the world swim before his eyes, and he thought he understood. He truly did believe that he understood.

He collapsed onto all fours, feeling as though he were choking. He felt the bile rise from his empty stomach. As he finished coughing he realized, this wasn’t the floor of the wine shop. He felt earth and grass under his hands. It was dark, and the smell of rot and decay assaulted him.

He had thought he understood. Yet now, now nothing seemed to make sense.

Enjolras raised his left hand and pressed his palm to his chest. He found nothing, No wound, no red stain. No sign of any injury. Slowly he drew the breath into his lungs, and slowly, with control, he released it again. With a forced calm, he pulled his feet under him, and rose to his full height. It was with cool detachment that he let his gaze run over the field.]

If my men’s death are on my hands, I have no place in heaven, but my cause was just, so I have no place in hell either.

[He could not recognize a baseball diamond. Sport was of no interest to him. When he got to the edge of the diamond though, he was convinced he’d fallen into hell.]

SKYLER WHITE | after morning sirens wednesday

[cancersticks]

[ The world is spinning. Her first thought is the baby-- what was going on? What happened? She sways, somehow managing to stay on her feet, holding her stomach with both arms. Bile rises; she covers her hand with her mouth to keep it in.

Skyler closes her eyes, trying to even out her breaths. She leans over and vomits through her hand, letting it fall, opening her eyes and watching it fall onto the grass. She looks up. A baseball diamond? What the hell? She had just been ...

Something registers in the back of her mind. Pinkman. Her eyes narrow and her hands clench into tight fists. That little--

She vomits again before she can finish her thought. ]

[momchester]

[Mary is hovering right at the edge of the baseball diamond, since she knows from intimate experience that usually "waiting in the lobby" isn't close enough for a decent Greeter to be.

And when she sees a pregnant woman fall out of the sky and throw up on the grass, that's all the cue she needs to go running.]

Ma'am! Are you okay?

[Calling out before she gets too close.]

September 19, Night after the sirens.

[moveslikestrider]

There was nothing like landing on his ass and feeling like he’d been yanked through a hole too small for his body. Dave cursed while his head pounded and his stomach threatened to rebel against him. Exactly ten minutes before, he’d been asleep. Now he was awake with real dirt under his butt and god damn it was cold out. He wrapped his red cape about him as he glanced around. He’d landed in the middle of a rundown baseball field. He could barely make out a chainlink fence from his position.

Whatever else was out there was too hard to see except for the dugout. He climbed to his feet as he focused on it. A lone light cut through the darkness and he made for it, cautiously. He hadn’t survived this long in Sburb without learning a few things. Usually at the death of a time clone, but details.

[reassures]

[Nill had spent most of her nights wandering the city as of late. Mostly trying to get stronger, hone what skills she had, practice jumping from tall heights and not getting crushed. She was quite good at it, and getting better, so the endeavors were pretty worth while.

But for the past while, Newcomers had been arriving out of schedule. Nill thought, rather foolishly (foolish to hope for it), that maybe if the time was strange, the people would be strange, too. (Maybe they'd be her kind of strange.)

So instead of wandering, she stayed under or near the light by the baseball diamond, and she hoped maybe she'd see a familiar face.

...Well, technically, she did see a familiar face. It just wasn't quite right, or quite what she was expecting.

That was... Dave? But... No. He was older, and he wasn't orange. How was he not orange? And legs?

So congrats, Dave. The first person you get to see on this island is giving you the most confused look when you get close enough for her to see. Sorry if that isn't very reassuring.]

September 20th, nearly sunset

[turnsthewheels]

He didn't understand. Albert had just been going over some plans for a new model of guard robot, the day just the same as the ones before it, and then there had been hideous sensations, darkness, compression, and for a moment he had panicked because his systems were surely failing and he was going to die--

--and then he had landed on dirt, dizzy, dazed, feeling a hint of nausea. All of them sensations he had not had for years.

For a moment it was almost too much to process. Albert's life had been carefully regulated for decades, after all. He didn't know how to adapt.

Finally, though, he stood up, a little shakily, brushing dirt off his fine suit. He glanced around, eyes narrowing as he realized that he was apparently near the second plate of a baseball diamond, of all things. Not quite where he would expect a kidnapper to take him. And, furthermore, not anywhere in the city - he knew all the buildings and streets of his city well, and this didn't match up.

There were lights over the dugouts, at least, shining brightly as dusk began to settle. Maybe he could figure out what his kidnappers were doing there.

He wouldn't panic. He wouldn't. He would stay calm, and he would talk his way out of this, and he would get back to his fortress where he belonged.

He set off in that direction, glancing around watchfully with every step.

Re: September 20th, nearly sunset

[benderisgreat34]

Noticing another possible victim approaching, Bender rapidly assesses the newcomer's attire and demeanor. That's a nice suit. Probably an expensive suit.

Bender steps out from his hiding place in the shadows near the dugout as Albert gets close, aiming what appears to be a white pistol at him. His face is obscured by a black domino mask, but it's still extremely obvious from the shiny metal exterior and not-quite-human silhouette that Albert is now being accosted, even threatened, by something that is not an ordinary person.

He scowls as he delivers his practiced opening line: "Alright, buddy. Fork over the cash."

Crowley :: September 20 :: Late afternoon

[itsjustafruit]

Just because it says Handel's Water Music doesn't mean it's going to st--

[They were in a jeep and the world wasn't going to end yet and all he wanted was for Aziraphale to put that tape in the casette player and hear bloody Handel and then he was falling...

It brings back unwelcome memories, but Crowley has always been one to live in the present and in this present he's landing with an ignominious thump and a cloud of dust.

The cloud slowly settles before Crowley stands up and the dust puffs off of him and out of his clothes, leaving him completely unmussed.]

Right. It's not that I don't like Queen.

September 28, afternoon

[sees_light]

Gaara twisted in the air, managing to land on his feet, grinding through the dirt besides him. He had been going to sleep, when he ended up there. Instinct was all that had stopped him from slamming into the ground.

Standing still, he looked about, reading the signs. "Where am I?" It wasn't anything close to his home. The signs implied danger, but he couldn't see anything yet. Something to do with the night, perhaps?

There was cover not far, but he wasn't sure if he should trust it.