[IC] Trespassers of the Multiverse: Director's Cut

[GodofGamingRWBY]

Proditor didn't even look back as he suddenly stopped, his voice tense as he spoke to Ren, "... I'm fine. I can understand that you did not mean to unnerve me but... Be wary when using flames, especially around me. No flame is truly harmless" he said simply, then began to move away again, his head as still as a statue... At least until Calvera approached and introduced herself, causing him to turn his head slightly to the side to look at her. Instantly, he remembered the Rig, and the 'Power Testing', and how he had done his best to ignore the fact that she had suddenly turned into bonfire... No, that was putting it midly, more like an actual start.

 

... Damn, of course there would be more fire users.

 

"No, we haven't conversed yet. I am Proditor, a pleasure to finally know your name, Calvera" Proditor replied, his head turning back to face the crowds in front of him.

[Powder Miner]

There were a few stages to Satomi's reaction as she went outside, found the group practically mobbed by a crowd, and then had a giant person suddenly pop out of the air in front of the group.

 

First, when the group was suddenly swarmed by people with phones, with lights going off in all directions, Satomi was confused and a little overwhelmed, putting her kimono-clad arms up for a moment while she processed what in the world those lights were. OK, yet another piece of gaijin technology. Fascinating... and also something to handle later, probably. She was making great strides in understanding this place but there was only so much that even she could do, and this could be a mystery for a little while longer. She didn't understand why their group was having a bunch of lights shone on them, and for a moment she tensed up, wondering if it was some sort of threat... but upon noticing the lack of reaction from most of the rest of the team, she eased up, though the crowd still made her slightly uncomfortable.

 

Then, when an eight foot tall person, or whatever it was, Satomi couldn't even tell the gender, slammed right into the ground near the group, near the crowd, Satomi jumped and yelped a little, startled. Then, calming down, she stared at the being and after a few moments slapped her palm to her face. Great... this would bring up even more questions from the Protectorate/PRT, no doubt. Still, she realized, maybe that would be a good thing, and maybe it would lend a little credence to the whole dimensional thing later on. Still, she was a bit too overwhelmed right now to want to be making introductions, so she followed Proditor until he got stopped, at which point she stood there awkwardly.

 

She waffled on what to do in her head for a few moments, but eventually decided that since her role in dealing with the boat graveyard was in large part an analytical one, she had better get going, and so she jogged off in the direction of the boat graveyard, leaving most of the team alone for now, until she realized that thanks to her path she was now close to Kusuke (the person who suddenly hated her, probably), and she kind of just slowed down, a little bit hesitant now.

Edited October 14, 2017 by Powder Miner

[Yours Truly]

Jun had rather reluctantly spent the time after Director Piggot slammed the door on his face by topping up his suit's oral caffeine intake system. This is why Jun would seem to be especially energetic when he stealthily dashed after Kusuke and Satomi to try and get to the boat graveyard as fast as possible.

[Hal Henderics]

"Simple or Small, yes.  Also, I can do this to stuff which isn't a single object." Soma says, lifting a hand to Ren's demonstration of Holy Fire, having through it to be a simple pyrokinetic ability of some kind.

 

A lick of flame spouts from their example, rushing to Somatotrope's Hand, and coalescing in a slowly revolving ring of the Gold Fire.

 

Still walking, Soma is slowly entranced by the glittering embers given off by the power, before dismissing it with a shake of her head.  The flame does not simply decay, like her power normally dismisses something extrapolated, but instead, it draws into itself, disappearing in a single point.

 

She stumbles to the ground, suddenly overcome with a Thinker Headache.

 

She hisses at the sudden unwelcome migraine, before it goes away slowly.

 

"Haven't gotten one of those in a while.  I should have known better, really."  She grits out between her teeth.

[Strider]

"You alright, Soma?" Harry offered a hand to fallen parahuman. So it seemed that the power was not limited to solid objects. Could it affect anything? Perhaps water vapor in the air could be grown, or even the air itself, perhaps to create or amplify wind. The utility seemed almost endless.

 

At this point, Harry began to scan the passersby, something he should have done far earlier. With the number of people taking pictures on their phones, there was not much that could be done. But at the very least, he could look out for suspicious figures, and anyone who might be affiliated with the numerous gangs in the city.

[Chevaleresse]

Kusuke glanced over his shoulder to see who was following him. Satomi. He turned back, continuing to stare forward. She doesn't seem that bad, but that line of thinking. . . It's as disgusting as it is dangerous. I honestly don't think I can trust somebody who's so willing to dismiss most of humanity as not having souls. I suppose it's better than what the One thinks. . . but not by much. To Kusuke, not believing in other people having souls was tantamount to thinking of them as animals at best. At worst, it made them objects. Tools to be discarded after being used up. . . that seemed to be the direction that this thinking seemed to go.

[Hal Henderics]

"I have a minor Thinker ability that helps me see what my power is doing.  Sometimes, it can be a bit too much."

 

"I should be fine in a bit.  Thinker Headaches are not common for me, but it's happened before.  One time, I attempted to grow a Tinkertech Computer, and the same thing happened the first time."

 

"It usually happens when I use my power on something unique."

 

With his help, she pulls herself to her feet.

 

--

 

Before Long, those who are trying to reach the Boat Graveyard make their way there, one after another.

[Strider]

Harry made a point of supporting Soma, on the off chance that the level of pain increased for some reason. Wouldn't be good for her to go fall on her face and get a concussion or something.

 

"That's interesting. A common thing for thinkers then, when they overdo it? Something to remember if we come up against one." They seemed to be nearing the bay now, a run down section of this town to be sure, with old shipping containers, aging docks, and abandoned warehouses dominating. They were going to try to clean this up, right? Get the sunken ships out, and. . . were they planning to sell them for scrap, or were they actually salvageable? Harry wasn't sure of the answer, and only briefly considered asking Soma before thinking of something else.

 

"Do painkillers help at all with the headaches? Either administered before or after? Might be worth thinking about to prevent face planting in the middle of combat situations."

[Hal Henderics]

"Nope, Nothing safe makes the pain diminish.  I've heard rumors of people who had embolisms from tinkerdrugs designed for these." She says.

[Strider]

"Well, shit." Harry shrugged, disappointed, then stuck a hand in his pocket. "Guess it doesn't matter much if they don't last too long? Some time, maybe once you've got reason to trust me, I can try some stuff out? Pretty sure I could completely deal with an embolism completely with just what I've got here, so it wouldn't be too dangerous. Any problems, we could probably have Kusuke turn back time. I think it's something we should definitely figure out, at least the mechanics of it; don't want to get one of these thinker headaches after you've taken any sort of treatment for another problem."

[AbstractTraitorHero]

2 hours ago, GodofGamingRWBY said:

Proditor didn't even look back as he suddenly stopped, his voice tense as he spoke to Ren, "... I'm fine. I can understand that you did not mean to unnerve me but... Be wary when using flames, especially around me. No flame is truly harmless" he said simply, then began to move away again, his head as still as a statue... At least until Calvera approached and introduced herself, causing him to turn his head slightly to the side to look at her. Instantly, he remembered the Rig, and the 'Power Testing', and how he had done his best to ignore the fact that she had suddenly turned into bonfire... No, that was putting it midly, more like an actual start.

 

... Damn, of course there would be more fire users.

 

"No, we haven't conversed yet. I am Proditor, a pleasure to finally know your name, Calvera" Proditor replied, his head turning back to face the crowds in front of him.

Ren gave a small sigh feeling...a little bad truthfully they had already gotten off on a pretty bad foot and Ren had not intended any of this. Ren would have to be careful they needed to work together as a team if they were going to complete the goal's that needed to be done.

 

"Either way Ren is sorry. Ren has not had many bad reactions from the use of holy fire and assumed all but occultist's found it comforting. If you are someone it negatively effects then Ren will try to stay back."

 

Ren then turned and looked towards the rest of the group following the group as best as they could their voice was inquisitive.

 

"Ren would like to be filled in. What are we all doing right now? Or well Ren would like to know where we are going and what our plan is. "

[Hal Henderics]

"You're the genius doctor from another dimention.  I heard about that Not-Tinkertech you guys were throwing around."

 

"Sure, if you think it will help.  I think Thinker headaches are caused by some kind of swelling, maybe start there?"

 

she says, struggling slightly to remember exactly which rumors she heard.

[Powder Miner]

Satomi twiddled her thumbs as Kusuke looked back at her and then (probably pointedly) looked away. Silence... oh, kami, Satomi was already feeling the need to-- to try to clarify, or something, because she was getting the feeling that she was making people within this group angry and she didn't need to be hated by everyone else in addition to being confused by the bizarre world that they were in. Really, it would be an awful level of isolation, and she couldn't help but shudder at the thought. After a couple of moments of the awkward silence, Satomi spoke up hesitantly. "U-um... um... about the souls thing... I don't know how it works in your world, but, um, it's..." Satomi paused for a moment, not sure what to say, "Um, it's... not my fault," she finished lamely.

[Chevaleresse]

"Nobody forced you to classify other people the way you do. I don't care what justification you have for it, it's wrong and I could prove it to you if I had the right equipment." Kusuke spoke without actually turning his head toward Satomi, though he did at least match her pace and drop back a bit so they were closer together. "Someone being born in a particular place or into a particular culture doesn't make them better or worse than anyone else, and it definitely doesn't make them soulless. I'm not really sure how you can work up the nerve to tell someone to their face that you don't think they have a soul."

[Powder Miner]

Satomi really didn't know what to say in response to that, and it showed in the flustered nature of her response. "But-- I-- I don't-- I've seen the other things in Rokugan, I, um, I don't..." After that shameful bit of sputtering, Satomi gulped and then managed to speak more coherently. "As I said, I don't know how things work in your world, but, um, in Rokugan, this is the uniform, Imperial view of things. Am I to, um, question the Emperor, and the Celestial Order? That's..." Her voice failed her here, "It's... unthinkable for a simple samurai to... I can't, um, I can't even imagine what would happen if I were to suddenly deny the reality of things, especially because I come from the clan that fights Jigoku and the taint, which is another thing accounted for in the Celestial Order. It's not... some fault, it's simply the way things are." Satomi finished her wandering, unsure rambling on that note, but it wasn't one hundred percent sure.

[Chevaleresse]

"Yes. You are definitely to question the damned Imperial Order or whatever the hell the government is in your world." A rising heat had entered his tone, something that was only continuing to escalate as he spoke. "Especially if they tell you something as hideous as 'only certain people have souls.' A soul is the most fundamental thing a person can have, it's what makes a person a person. They're incredibly powerful, and they hold EVERYTHING about you. Your memories, what you look like, everything you did, all of that is stored in your soul. . ." Oddly, he shook his head a bit, muttering a form of profanity that was likely only understood by himself and Satomi. It didn't particularly slow him down, though. "It is not 'the way things are,' I don't know how many times I have to say it. You're denying reality every time you insist that this ridiculous, disgusting parody of a 'fact' is a law of nature." By this point it was clear that Kusuke was struggling to keep his own voice and speech under control, as a ragged note entered it.

[DragonRage]

IGNORE ME.

Edited October 14, 2017 by DragonRage

[Powder Miner]

Satomi let out a short bark of derisive laughter, or at least she tried to -- she was rapidly getting too shaken to even manage something like that, and it just turned into a formless noise of frustration, followed by Satomi's rattled, angry rant that followed. "Of course, go against centuries upon centuries of history, and everything I've ever known, and the most powerful man of Ningen-do and just abandon my duty in the process. Q-question the emperor, h-hah... if I were to go announcing some superiority to all of the spiritual order of the Emerald Empire, I might as well go spit on the corpses of all the thousands of Crab Clan that died fighting the Shadowlands, because obviously i-it's just a parody of a fact! Then I might as well drop my kimono, pull my wakizashi, and cleanse my shame on the spot, because I'd be lucky if they even granted me seppuku if I went and started ranting against-- against--" Satomi was having very real trouble even putting into words the scale of what ranting against the Emerald Empire would mean, "Everything that every loyal Rokugani has ever known and died for!"

[Chevaleresse]

Kusuke whirled, rage splattered across his face. "MAYBE YOU FUCKING SHOULD! Throw yourself onto the mountain of corpses built from men and women that died for their twisted beliefs, and at least I won't have to be working with somebody who thinks that only the people from her incredibly special homeland are the ones who get the privilege of being more than soulless objects!" He took a deep, shuddering breath, before speaking once more in a much quieter, deeper voice. "Stay the hell away from me." He turned on his heel, and flickered as he teleported forward three times in quick succession, rapidly putting distance between himself and the rest of the group. He half-wanted to continue sprinting off, but settled for the rapid walk of somebody who would probably run a person straight over if they didn't get out of the way in time rather than swerving.

[Powder Miner]

Satomi had been increasingly frustrated before, but the moment Kusuke suggested that she throw herself onto a mountain of the corpses of her own clan and kin, it wasn't a matter of frustration anymore, because Satomi was pretty much going apoplectic. Red-faced, fists clutched behind her, and shouting at the top of her lungs in Kusuke's direction, she screamed: "MOUNTAINS OF CORPSES?! MOUNTAINS OF CORPSES OF THOUSANDS OF MY CLAN AND KIN AND MY FAMILY, AND MY MOTHER?!" She choked for a moment, and then took a breath, and started shouting again. "SOULLESS OBJECTS?! IF YOU WOULD TAKE DEATH SO LIGHTLY, IF YOU WOULD SUGGEST THE MASSACRE OF THE ENTIRE EMPIRE, THEN YOU ARE THE ONLY ONE WHO SEES ANYONE AS SOULLESS OBJECTS, YOU RAVING, LUNATIC, HONORLESS--" Satomi finally pretty much completely cut out of air at this point, and was now hyperventilating to the point where taking breath enough to speak was an impossible challenge.

Edited October 14, 2017 by Powder Miner

[DragonRage]

As Satomi continues to gasp for breath, it suddenly occurs to her that even after all that shouting, breathing shouldn't be this difficult.  Then Mirri steps into her field of view, right hand raised and empty, fingers slowly clenching into a fist.  Fury roils off the armored woman, thick and choking (Ren, Proditor, Lucille, and Lilly might pick it up if they're in range), and when she raises her hand, Satomi lifts of the ground with it.  "Did you just say," The Mandalorian begins, her voice betraying none of the rage she's feeling, "That my clan lacks souls because your government tells you it is so?  That you condemn them as animals to the void because some emperor tells you to?  You dare belittle their sacrifice so because you're just following orders?"  By now, Mirri has lost her control, and sounds decidedly furious, but she finally seems to notice that Satomi is having a bit of trouble breathing.  She throws the samurai back to land on her butt with bruising force, and fires a blistering bolt of Force Lightning just to her left with a wordless scream of grief and fury.

 

Mirri's visor pans from the glassy blast point left in the sand, to Satomi, to her own smoking fingers.  She lingers on her own hand for a few moments, before stomping off, still radiating rage and a sense of loss.  She's looking for someone she can justify venting at, and doesn't much care if they survive the experience.

Edited October 14, 2017 by DragonRage

[kj1225]

Arminius stops blocking his face (though with his jacket zipped as it is his face is still half covered) and runs over to the confrontation between his teammates. After some thought as to how to go forward he goes to help the Samurai up. Fingers is standing by in case Mirri comes back, as much help as that would do.

"For fucks sake, what happened? I only caught a bit about corpses and... what the hell!?"

[AbstractTraitorHero]

It is at this point. That Ren having been vaguely aware something was happening sees a flash of lightning and hears a sound of grief. Choking back a disbelieving cry shock plastered over the androgynous face of Ren. They were not going to let someone just...die like that! People don't generally live when struck by such lightning and Ren had no idea if the person struck had the strength to survive it whatsoever. 

That, however, did not stop him from doing what he did next. Energy...white? Golden? A mixture of some sort..Ren's back shifting as mana collasced into something rather huge..7ft4 almost as big as Ren themselves it was massive the tail that was forming was small in comparison...and the flower on their shoulder was glowing as....Mana collasced on their head...ivory like curled horn's appearing a sound like....A roar? Thunder? As it formed properly golden wings...Aura blaring clearly and more rocks around their form as Ren took off toward's the scene flying into the air and landing by where they saw the lightning strike.

 

Hand's glowing with holy energy Ren....Ren was shaking worried. Terrified they wanted to run they wanted to flee from this scene but...they couldn't just do nothing, could they? Either way breathing deep Ren try's to touch Satomi with their glowing hand's and heal their pain and whatever wound's may have been sustained.

 

"R-Ren is here! s-Stay STILL! Ren will fix!"

 

Ren did not look especially in control right now. 

[Sutoratosu]

Lucille had remained silent, following the events of the lab. The noise of the city and the gawking crowds were just that- noise. Noise that for the most part, she ignored, even as it served as the closest thing to a sun she'd ever known in a world of perpetual darkness, shedding a great and inescapable metaphorical light upon the landscape stronger than any individual sound could've mustered. The entire area for blocks around mapped itself out in her mind practically unbidden as followed at the tail end of the group. Noise wasn't what occupied her however, it was all in the background, just sort of... there, without any true meaning. 

     The response was... not what she'd anticipated, though in all honesty she didn't even know what she had expected, but essentially being called mental definitely wasn't... well to say it wasn't even a remote possibility was lie. Plenty of people in the enclave had seen the little blind girl apparently talking to herself, claiming to see and hear things they could not, despite her lack of sight to begin with. And of course, they'd had no hesitation assuming she'd lost the plot, that whatever her defect had blighted both her eyes and her mind.

     But What she had said, she'd said because she felt it needed to be. To simply remain silent- to act as if what she had sensed firsthand, and been explicitly told in that situation wasn't a potential recipe for disaster -would've made her even worse than the ones who had brought about the fall to begin with. Antagonizing... perhaps she had gone a bit passionate with it, to the point that at least in some way, some anger had leaked into it. Anger at the ones who had given reason for such a warning to be given in a foreign world in the first place. Anger at the fools who had been in the throws of such gross negligence as to care nothing of the potential consequences, of what would be lost and who would suffer if they failed. 

     It was special type of insidiousness, that apathy. A type that deserved a special kind of contempt in turn, one that she was all too willing to give. After all, it was her generation, and her father's generation before her, who had been condemned to live in the ruin produced by that apathy. And it may well have not been her original intent, but one way or another that contempt had gradually leaked in more and more. And it hadn't been the only thing to go wrong either... the remark about not getting a memo was there as well, though the ire behind it had been far better controlled than girl's comment. And it was right, because whatever it referred to, she had drawn completely blank at it for a while. Even now, she wasn't entirely certain, but after racking her recent memory she had recalled something in that awful recording of the woman's voice, one particular line about using "their best judgement" whether to conceal themselves or not... and it started to click a little from there. As far as she could tell, they had apparently decided to do just that. And of course, she had utterly failed to pick up on any sign of it, or even thought to ask about it.

 

How ironic, that she knew the engineered horrors running around her world almost like the back of her hand, and yet the basic social nuances of her own race so easily escaped her as water passing through colander. In the end... she had to face the facts, she had botched that whole thing up from beginning to end, and it had been solely because of her own social ineptitude.

     

"Maybe I should just keep my mouth shut from now on and stop trying..." she thought, suppressing a bitter laugh, "it would probably be for the better, if it's just gonna to end up like this every time. Not like anything can change being stuck out there for all those years with nothing aside from a bunch of animals for company." Even as she  she had never really... understood the beasts, not in the same way two people can understand each other. They may have had souls, but that was nothing special on arganor, everything that knew some form of life had one... and they may live, breath, eat, sleep, and die, just like her, but the beast couldn't reason.

      "That's right... you can't, can you?" she directed her attention to one of the cats, and all she got in response was the same background noise typical to every beast- base desires, instincts, hunt, kill, eat, reproduce, and eventually die. She simply sighed "exactly, just as I thought..."

       There was no higher mind in this creature. Those of it's kind could not defy the natural... or in some cases, quite unnatural, programming which dictated their functions, and thus they lacked the awareness of self that gave rise to subjective experience, to the ideas of free will, of choice, and other such concepts that made sentient life well... sentient in the first place. "Even with your kind, I've never really understood any of you, and I never will...not in the way actual people might with one another, at least. No, it's more like knowing how a machine works, or how your anatomy is set up... it always how it's been for me, and it always will, doesn't matter whether it's an animal or something that can think for itself..."

 

20 minutes ago, DragonRage said:

"Did you just say, that my clan lacks souls because your government tells you it is so?  That you condemn them as animals to the void because some emperor tells you to?  You dare belittle their sacrifice so because you're just following orders?" 

 

Whatever the hell had just happened up ahead, it had been enough to snap her out of her thoughts, just from the sheer malice that the voice had held alone. But true to her earlier judgement, she elected to speak not a single word, instead looking on in mild curiosity... from the sounds of it (for sounds truly were all she had), things had somehow gotten pretty heated. Had she really been this lost in thought, that she had tuned it all out up to this point? Well, perhaps she was even better at filtering out things than she gave herself credit for...

[Chevaleresse]

With another sort of flicker, Kusuke was back, shouting blindly at her. "HOW DARE YOU!? HOW FUCKING DARE YOU ACCUSE ME OF THAT!? DO YOU HAVE ANY FUCKING IDEA-" His words were abruptly cut off as Mirri tossed a bolt of lightning after telekinetically strangling Satomi, the actions taking a moment to actually pierce the veil of anger around his thoughts. He took a step or two back, breathing heavily, with a brief glance in the direction Mirri had gone. 

 

". . . Don't follow me." He skipped forward again, vanishing into thin air. The surging emotions he'd felt were scattered around in his chest like debris after a car wreck. His limbs still twitched with rage, rage that was lacking a solid target. Of course he was angry at Satomi, but it was pretty hard to continue to want to beat the hell out of a person when you just watched somebody else strangle them. He more or less started to wander the alleyways, looking for a fight, something to work his frustrations out on other than their target, her words still echoing about in his head.