A New Platform [Intro Post February]

[voidtreckermods]

On the Train

Three days after the Voidtreckers return to the void after their adventures on the biosphere world, they are awoken by a familiar announcement.

"Good morning passengers, it is day Sixteen of the month of Jelly. Points have been updated on the system."

They have indeed, and everyone can spend the morning shopping. Those who have been on the train for a while will also be expecting the second announcement that comes a few hours later.

"Shortly arriving into a designated void platform. Exit from void in ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one." A lurch and a jolt and the windows fill with the fog that means they are at a platform. The fog seems thicker than usual and as they step out onto the platform they will find it is cold, very cold. Icy fog sticks to their clothing, makes it hard to see very far; the atmosphere is dark and gloomy.

As usual the first to leave the train notice nothing as they walk silently, rucksacks on their backs, towards the barriers: Alexis Rhodes, Elfnein, Itsuki Myoudouin, Ken Ichijouji, MT, Neku Sakuraba, Nike Lemercier, Noctis Lucis Caelum, Rainbow Dash, Rei Saotome, Taichi Yagami, Tsubomi Hanasaki, Yuri Tsukikage and Zechs Merquise all pass through the platform, not looking back before they disappear through the barriers and into the fog beyond.

But on the platform itself there are new faces. Wearing hoodies in all four colours, in various states of confusion.

For New Passengers

At first all they can see is steam, billowing around them as they come to their senses. As their eyes adjust, they will see they are on a platform, glass and dark stone rising in sturdy arches around them. Behind them is a set of barriers, and in front of them is a single track extending both ways into thick fog.

They are standing, in clothes that are not their own and a style they might not even recognise. They are carrying a rucksack on their back. For a moment it seems to just be them, alone in the white haze; then the steam begins to fade and they realise they aren’t alone.

The platform is not large with sixteen figures scattered around, all facing the tracks, all dressed in cargo trousers and hoodies. To both the left and right, tracks disappear into the mist. Then there is a roaring sound and out of the fog arrives a train. Jet black with gold writing on the side. The Voidtrecker Express. There is a hiss as the doors slide open and out step a strange assortment of people. Some are human, some are less so. Most are wearing the same hoodie in one of the four colours, red, orange, blue and purple, though some are sporting different clothes in a variety of styles.

The Train

After a short time, the doors hiss open again. Those from the train may encourage those on the platform to board. It’s not like there's anywhere else to go and even if there was, you feel a pull. A need to board, a feeling that staying on the platform would lead to something terrible. If that is not enough, there are plenty of people on the platform now, to encourage them onto the train.

Each ICP shows the same message and next to the screens there are stacks of leaflets written by those on the train, with further information (see
'Publications'). The store rooms have been restocked with fresh ingredients, including several crates of avocados, the ingredient of the month of Jelly, as well as all sundries.

For passengers that have bought items, these are also scattered around the luggage carriage in various suitcases and bags.

New passengers will find their ticket allows them into their cabins. They may need to negotiate for beds, especially if they want a top bunk!

Room is tight but there are storage cubbies at the head of each bed, beds fold up and the bottom bunks double as benches for the small table. There is storage under those benches full of spare blankets and pillows.

Departure

A second horn sounds to encourage any stragglers braving the freezing fog, and the doors slide shut. Veteran passengers know what will happen next, but they may wish to brief their new companions.

The train sets off, the fog obscuring the view again as it picks up speed.

"Welcome aboard, passengers of the Voidtrecker Express." A female-coded artificial sounding voice echoes throughout the train. "Please take the time to read the passenger information displayed on the Information and Communication points and familiarise yourself with the layout and emergency exits."

The train begins to tilt, leaving the ground and rising up into the fog-filled sky.

"Entrance into Voidspace imminent. New passengers are advised to remain seated. Entry into Voidspace in ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one."

A shudder, a jolt, a lurch to the left. A flash of light, colourful and blinding. As quick as it happens it is done. The train seems to steady itself. The fog from the windows is gone now, replaced with a kaleidoscope of ever-changing colours.

Welcome to the Void!

Comments

[stopstaring]

Are your coworkers here, too, or is it just you?

[He said it so professionally, but maybe that was what it was to him. Or maybe there wasn't a distinguishing line between friends and coworkers. Did Chrom feel the same way when it came to people like Frederick?

Maybe not. Rules of royalty seemed to work a little bit different and in spite of her exposure to it, she still didn't really understand it. Olivia never had been built for nobility.]

[theturksway]

[His lips pursed briefly, a small (pouty) frown, at the question. Like he wished his answer were different.]

Nah, it's just me here now.

[Elena was gone and no one else had ever showed up. Did he want them to? Mixed emotions over that one. Sure, he'd love the familiar company. But even he, in all his selfishness, didn't want anyone here. No sense in trapping anyone else in this damn situation.

His demeanor brightened again though. He refused to be brought down.]

That's fine. The train gets the ace of the squad and everyone else can handle the jobs back home! That's what needs to be done.

[adregem]

"Well, how about this. Apart from your mom's guac, how else would you eat an avocado?" He leans a hand on his hip. "Shoot. I'm willing to try anything once."

[myblueskies]

Romeo stares at the book for a moment and back at Tidus and the book and Tidus. His eyes filled with tears, but happy ones this time and he turns quickly, flinging his arms around Tidus.

"Thank you sir! Thank you so much!"

They looked like such good books. He couldn't wait to read them. It was so kind of Mister Tidus to buy him them, especially since they had no idea if it was even his birthday. Or if shinki had birthdays at all really.

[myblueskies]

It wasn't so good for a train, a bit big, a bit bulky. But on missions, it would be very cool.

"I'll make sure to work hard, next mission!"

He would be the best motorcycle a book demon could have!

[knifewithnoname]

"That do be being a long time." She hadn't been on the train a year yet, though it was getting close.

But memories falling from the sky? She is pretty used to weird things happening but that sounded... Terrible. It was bad enough that Mami had seen her memories, she couldn't even imagine how terrible it would be to have their memories literally fall from the sky.

But that they had managed to collect them, that was a good thing.

"Did that doll be living and floating too?"

She's willing to believe anything about the place they had come from after all.

[firewalled]

"Yeaaaaah, sorry dude. It's not doing anything for me." If anything, maybe he wants a stick of gum for the bad taste in his mouth? That's all he's got.

"I just would feel safer with a plan B, dude. It's nothing against your super cyber powers or whatever." He glowers, but maybe, just a bit of the tension releases from his shoulders.

"...At least you understand why I don't trust you."

[achickenformylove]

"That is good. I'm sure they will all look good together."

Not that he would claim to be good at fashion, but then again anything looked better than the hoodies.

[gundamofthedesert]

"Hmm..." He thought about that for a moment. "So less on a computer capacity level... and more of an ai that requires more energy than it normally has to communicate?"

[gundamofthedesert]

Oh... I'm sorry. One of the people I know from home is leaving as well. Zechs.

[He really did hope that he would be happy when he got home]

[sos_pilot]

Nah, but we were roomies! I was too tired to get to my bed, so I figured she wouldn't mind sharing. Plus, I've gone without physical contact and warmth for ten years, so who could pass up a chance to share some body heat?

But, hey, it all worked out. She didn't even land a single shot with her ray gun!

[worthallthis]

Privacy was not a thing Soldat had been particularly used to at that point, so at the time, it hadn't been even a little bit upsetting-- except for the programming ones, with the trigger words in them, but those had been promptly turned over to them to crush, so even then, not as bad as they could have been. Even now, they're fairly iffy on the whole concept of having things that can be only theirs, that other people aren't supposed to see.

They chuckle at her question. "Nah, just a cute little soft toy. This little guy is a special case, I think. They're not even actually mine, I adopted them after their former caretaker. Left. But I didn't want to leave them alone in Beacon, so. Here we are."

[runsfast_rollsfar]

Prisoner doesn't know any song these two could possibly reference, but it always tickled him whenever Renee sang. It was one of his favorite things - that she was comfortable enough to do it, and that she didn't have a bad voice was a bonus. Soldat joining in was also a pleasant surprise. He thought they might get along and, well, things seemed okay, at least.

At the mention of needing more friends Prisoner let his body sag as if Soldat were chastising a teenager. It doesn't last long as he signs to Renee with an excited cheeriness.

"Who needs more friends when the best company's right here?" And to Renee he made a small heart with his hands before he continued to sign. "Fighting's the perfect fun! It's a good workout, uses energy, something to do, very engaging..." He sort of threw his hands up in an almost shrug, turning to Soldat as if to ask: what else is there?

[afterburner]

Back home, Renee had a friend who was a floating brain. Hey, Martha couldn't help that people literally cut her out of her body and sold it to people who wanted mutant parts. At least she was still alive...

Though she has to snort at Prisoner again, a little. "I guess you guys better give me pointers, then. You know I'm not much for finesse." Yeah, Prisoner sure does! He's had to deal with that in the past.

"I'm used to dealing more with my powers," she explains to Soldat, a bit sheepishly. She doesn't expect them to just know, even if they came from similar worlds. "I'm what they call a mutant, I have an extra piece of genetic code or something, I guess, and I'm stronger than your average person and I can do stuff with kinetic energy." Stuff. It wasn't a very good explanation, but it was probably easier to show them, than tell them. At least not without taking a detour to the gym.

[worthallthis]

Prisoner you're a floating fiery crystal on a dead body, you really shouldn't be so cute. Soldat is kind of looking at him like he's cute, though. "Yeah? I'm enhanced, though I don't know the details." They're not even going to question the idea of mutants. They're a supersoldier assassin who used to know a floating cat person and a wide array of spirits. Each world is different. "No powers. Just strength, speed, and healing factor. But my favorite person in my last place was a witch, so you don't need to worry that I'll have a problem with it." She sounds kind of apologetic, which means they have to reassure her.

For Prisoner they add, "And you. There's other things besides fighting." There's only one that they think Prisoner would immediately enjoy, based on those traits: "Dancing is better than fighting, I'd say."

[radishlobbyist]

And there goes her distraction.

With Wei Wuxian a little more himself rather than the fear-riddled mess she so hates to see him reduced to, he is asking the same questions she had been shoving aside herself - and apparently, he has also run into more people from their world on the train. That could make it easier. Could. It could also make it worse, she can't possibly tell.

All she can do is brace herself with a deep breath and then just finally permit herself to really look at him. To feel the solidness of his arm, the warmth of a living body, right here and not just one of the hallucinations and specters they had been tormented with in the past.

"I don't know," she admits, her voice shakier now, a little choked even. "I don't know how or why or... I don't know why I'm alive," she blurts out. "But you." She lifts her hand to his face. Real. He is so real. She takes a deep breath, brows furrowing with emotion. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry that at the end... I'm not sorry I tried. But I'm sorry it wasn't enough."

[bodyoftheseus]

V supposed it made sense that the yakuza may not exist in all places, but they had become such a global force that it was also a little hard not to imagine them in a place. Ghosts might have been a surprise, but they just took a different form in Night City...

"Why you gotta protect them? They're dead, aren't they?"

[bakegarasu]

"They're not dead, they're on... it's sort of like another layer of reality on to p of the human one? Most of them were never human in the first place, I think there's a few who were." As far as he's aware, anyway. He still has a lot to learn about them.

[theimpatientone]

"Things that are not alive, then," Merwen clarifies. 'Hologram' is a new phrase but robots aren't. "Things that don't think that you must defend against."

She's cautious, but that's better. "Are you ever expected to hasten the death of people?"

[bodyoftheseus]

V blinked at him, then decided to simply take it at face value and tuck this fact away nice and neat in a box somewhere in his head to deal with later. So he had a friend who was normally a cat and could turn into a person. Okay, sure.

"Wish I could turn into a cat. Save me a lot've trouble in my life, I think. Though I imagine it's got its own difficulties."

[theimpatientone]

"Learnsharing is a noble purpose. You were supposed to?"

This is fascinating. It's worlds different from the history she knows; she can make comparisons between Elves and the Ancients, but she can't imagine an Ancient would be so peaceable a person to chat with. Well, maybe that's unfair.

"Do you mean you did not learnshare?"

Re: Library

[wizard_redfive]

"Hey, you can't just say that and leave it there!" she exclaims. If he has an idea on how to game the system, Dairine wants to know. "Share with the class, what's your plan?"

Nita has given Dairine a run down on life in Nautilus, including Bending. She even provided her Wizard's Manual information on the subject. Yet Dairine has continued her nasty habit of skimming over the reading material in favor of asking more directly.

"I mean, those are all important parts of wizardry too. However, a spell isn't gonna work with only willpower and knowledge alone. We need something to power it." She frowns, her face scrunching up, "I thought Bending was tied to Nautilus. So the skills you had in your home world worked similar to Bending? That must'a helped smooth out the learning curve."

[theimpatientone]

"There is a difference between avoiding danger from an unthinking force," Merwen says, more philosophically than all-out lecturing, "and in hastening the death of a thinking being. One is survival, one is cutting short the life of something equal to yourself. In sharing violence, both are affected."

This girl seems so young to carry the seeds of sickness inside her... but then, Merwen knows they all do.

[foxyou]

Oh...he didn't mean to intimidate her......Shen Qingqiu immediately looks awkward himself, his ears doing the fidgeting in place of anything else.

"There's nothing to apologize for, I'm just..." He cuts off, unable (or unwilling) to explain how lost he feels at the moment, and instead chooses to go with "Your world sounds about as different from what I'm used to as the one we're in right now. So I suppose something considered important in my world being relegated to a hobby or a...temple task...in yours, should be no more surprising than everything else so far..."

Still kind of a blow though.

[foxyou]

The pity(?) makes his ears twitch slightly, unsure whether to feel offended or grateful or both or neither or what--but he does perk up again pretty quickly at the spider's offer.

"Transformation spells? Is that how you have your current form, then?" But if she still has a spider body, does that make her spells weak or strong...not that it matters, he doesn't know any at all.