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

[miseris_socios]

"... I can get there..." He starts to try to get up from the hoodie pile.

[subcircuits]

"Nope," Devero says, kindly but firmly. "You stay here. It's quiet, and if you lock the door no one will bother you. You can let yourself rest for a few minutes. That sound okay?"

[miseris_socios]

"I... okay." He snuggles into the hoodies and closes his eyes briefly before snapping them open again. No. He can't sleep. Not now, not yet.

[subcircuits]

"Thank you," Devero tells him. "I'll be back in a few minutes."

He really is only gone for a few minutes. It's a platform day, which means people have been in and out of the kitchen all day providing food for stressed-out passengers new and old. He's able to load up a plate in the dining car with whatever's on hand, making sure to grab a handful of cookies from Soldat when the other man happens to enter right then with a fresh tray.

When he returns he knocks, and waits for Ken to acknowledge him before he enters.

[miseris_socios]

"... It's just me." He's mostly just been sitting quietly, not really looking at much in particular. It's too stressful for him to sleep, but he's too tired to be awake. So he's stuck in a weird sort of limbo where everything just feels muted and grey.

[subcircuits]

Shock. Shock and exhaustion. Devero's not terribly surprised to see Ken in the same place he'd left him, given the toll his day has clearly had on him. He ducks inside and sets the plate down on the table in the middle of the car, pushing it over to sit right in front of the kid. The cookies he'd wrapped in a napkin and stuffed in his pocket, so they're still warm when he sets the little stack beside the plate. Tucked under his arm is a big glass bottle full of water, which he actually offers directly to Ken.

"I wasn't sure if you had any dietary restrictions," he says, keeping his voice quiet and even, "so I tried to grab a little bit of everything. Do you have any food allergies we should know about? We keep a list in the kitchen for whoever's cooking on a given day."

[miseris_socios]

He takes the bottle of water, giving himself a moment to make sure he's got a good grip on it. "... I don't. I lived on the street, I ate whatever wasn't rotten. I'm still here." None of it killed him, so he's fine.

Ken takes a drink from the bottle, staring straight ahead.

"... Why?" His voice is scratchy, and he's not sure who or what the question is towards. Why couldn't he kill Aragaki? Why did Sakaki show up? Why did he get shielded? Why is he here?

Or why did all of this start in the first place?

He doesn't know. He takes another drink from the bottle, trying to focus on anything but his own thoughts.

[subcircuits]

Oooof. Devero's face twists as Ken drops so casually that he lived on the street-- bad enough for anyone to be denied housing at all, much less a child...!

But he get it under control again. He retreats to the other side of the carriage, the table between the two of them, and sits. Good thing he does, too, otherwise he probably wouldn't have been able to restrain himself from hugging Ken when he voices that single anguished word.

He suspects the question/demand is more rhetorical than anything else, but he responds anyway. "I've been asking myself that same question a lot since I ended up here," he offers.

[miseris_socios]

"... Probably longer than that." He takes another sip and puts the bottle down before dropping his head into his hands.

"Minato would know what to do... why did they pick... the worst person on the team? It makes no sense..."

[subcircuits]

Oh, if you could have aimed an arrow at the conviction of inadequacy lurking in Devero's own heart, you could not have aimed it more truly than that. He winces.

"If you mean the train, it would tell you it's because you have the capacity to be a Void hero," he says, his voice heavy and sharp with mockery. Despite how hard Koumyou's worked to show Devero that he does have a place and a purpose here, the temptation to slide right back into his old critical self-loathing is very, very tempting.

He almost does. Perhaps if Ken had been older, he might have.

But when he looks up and sees how bowed and upset the kid is, what he says instead, in a gentler voice, is, "And who knows? Maybe it can see something in us that we can't see ourselves. I would have said that almost anyone else in my town would have been a better choice for a-- a big hero, but here I am, instead."

[miseris_socios]

"... It picked someone in the middle of a breakdown after an attempted murder-suicide. Great. Some hero I am." It's fine. He's fine.

He's not fine.

"I... heroes are on TV. Not... there aren't any real heroes."

[subcircuits]

"Maybe there aren't," Devero says. "What I know for a fact there are, however, are people who refuse to quit trying their damnedest, even when it seems like there's no point."

The history of his world is filled with folk heroes like that, the people who seemed to have single-handedly held on to civilization by their fingertips while everything collapsed around them.

"Maybe that's what the train saw in you."

cw: suicidal ideation

[miseris_socios]

"... I lost." He sets the bottle down before he grips it tight enough to crack or something. "I don't have any reason to... keep going. Not with the only thing I had keeping me going in a bloody wreck on the street from someone who wasn't me. I don't..."

Fuck, but he wants Koromaru here too, so he could snuggle into the dog's fur. "No one... needs me around. Not there or here. I'm... I just wasted time. Stole for nothing. If I'd have gone with the relatives that didn't want me maybe I would have made something of myself... now I'm two years behind on school, a thief and a liar, and I've got nothing to show for it."

[subcircuits]

Devero leans forward a little. "How old are you?" he asks.

[miseris_socios]

“I... I’m eleven.” He’s been able to keep track of that much. “Mom was killed when I was nine.”

[subcircuits]

Eleven? And he lost his mother when he was nine? Oh, Devero's heart hurts for the boy. "Ken, you're only eleven," Devero says. "At your age, nothing you do is wasted time-- you're still learning and growing, every day."

He wants to reach out to him, and squeezes his hands together between his knees instead to arrest the impulse. "You can pick something new to keep you going," Devero says. "You can take what you've learned about yourself over the past two years and use it to help you decide who and what you want to be as you move ahead from this."

[miseris_socios]

"I'm so far behind. And the only people in the world who give even the slightest shit about me are dying, apparently. But it's either they take the medicine or their Personas kill them. Where the hell can I move ahead to?"

[subcircuits]

"There's always something."

Devero regards him for a long moment, as if assessing him, then takes a deep breath. "Listen," he says. "Six hundred years ago, the world I come from? Was almost completely annihilated. There was a plague, and between the Pathogen and the systemic collapses in the aftermath, ninety-nine out of every one hundred people on Earth died.

"We call that aftermath the Dark. The world went dark, and I don't-- I don't just mean because of power grid failures. The Pathogen didn't kill every one of those ninety-nine people who died; some of them were killed by other people, and some of them-- when the world collapsed around them, when everyone they loved died, when everything they knew crumbled... They couldn't take it, and they found ways to die too.

"My world almost ended, in the Dark. But you know what? It didn't. The survivors refused to give up-- on themselves, on each other, on their futures, on the world. Some of them didn't even know there were other survivors, didn't think they had a future, but they held on anyway."

Devero stands now, and steps around the table between the benches to kneel in front of Ken. He reaches out and grips the kid's narrow shoulders. "I know shit seems impossibly dark where you are right now," he tells him. "I know there's no light to be seen. But that doesn't mean your life is over, all right? There are other people out there in the dark, and they will help you."

[miseris_socios]

He twitches when his shoulders are grabbed, trying to fight the urge to pull away or summon Nemesis to shock the shit out of this guy. It's hard, and he only barely focuses on that part of the guy's speech.

"You say that. I don't really know if you believe it. Not deep down." He takes another deep breath and stares Dev directly in the eyes. "I'm... sorry about your world, that sounds pretty crappy, but it's not the same. People are literally dying where they sit where they sit because Shadows are eating parts of their mind, but we can't survive if the Dark Hour ends. The others do their assassination when no one is awake so they can pry the target otu of their coffin and confront them. It's always someone who did something really bad, so don't get all weird about it. And electronics don't work during the Dark Hour, so it's easier to steal then if you pry the doors open."

"And SEES is trying to take down things that are responsible for maintaining the Dark Hour. I'm not saying I want most people to die from Shadows and Apathy Syndrome, but none of us could get a job even if we had documentation. That seems pretty damn dark to me." Literally and figuratively..

"If it's dark, you can't really see the other people. Duh."

[subcircuits]

"There are more ways to know a person is there than just seeing them," Devero says. "Even in the darkness, you can hear them. You can tell you're not alone.

"I'm not going to pretend I know what you've been through," especially when it's obviously a lot. Dev can't even begin to piece together everything Ken's just told him; he has too little of the necessary context. He releases Ken, sitting back on his heels; he hadn't missed the way he flinched. "If you say it's different, I have to take your word for it.

"But I need you to accord me the same respect when I tell you that there are people who will help you. You just have to let them."

[miseris_socios]

"... Maybe." His shoulders slump and he takes a few deep breaths. "Maybe. We'll see." They won't He knows they won't. But he's too tired to argue anymore.

[subcircuits]

Devero knows when to press, and when to hold. He just nods. "We'll see. For now, please eat," he urges gently. "And rest. You can stay in here as long as you need. Bring that--" He nods at his hoodie, swamping the kid. "--back to me whenever, I don't need it right now."

He doesn't give Ken a chance to object or try to return it. He just stands, and slips out of the room.