A New Platform [Intro Post May]

[voidtreckermods]

On the Train

Like clockwork, the Voidtreckers are awoken by a familiar message this morning.

"Good morning Voidtreckers, it is day one of the month of Llama. Points have been updated on the system."

With points updated, everyone can spend the morning shopping. Most people will 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 air is sticky and warm, the windows almost immediately dewing over with the humidity outside.

As usual the first to leave the train notice nothing, walking silently, rucksacks on their backs, towards the barriers. Azula, Prisoner, Amery Vallet, Dyme Graydon, Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez, Yoite, Piccolo, Bulla Brief, Xie Lian, Kurosaki Ichigo, Hua Cheng, Renee Corbin, and Ran Mouri; 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 find themselves on a platform, rich wood and pale stone forming a natural, tree-like structure overhead. Behind them is a set of barriers, and in front of them is a single set of tracks extending both ways into thick fog. The air is rainforest-hot, and the sound of frogsong can be faintly heard over the drip of the artificial canopy.

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 fog begins to fade and they realise they aren’t alone.

The platform isn't large, and seems smaller with twenty-eight figures scattered around, all facing the tracks, all dressed in cargo trousers and hoodies. 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 pours a strange assortment of people, over a hundred at least. 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.

Behind them, the doors close, and the train is cloaked in the same fog that hides the world beyond the platform.

The Train

After a short time, the fog clears and 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 nori, the ingredient of the month of Llama, as well as all sundries.

For passengers that have bought items, these are also scattered around the luggage carriage in various suitcases and bags. For each member of Purple Team, a small silver box with their name on it contains a glittery cupcake.

New passengers will find their ticket allows them into their cabins. They may need to negotiate for beds, but at least they won't be alone in their confusion - since the sleeper carriages are now double-decker, and experience isn't going to avail the passengers in finding their rooms.

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.

The new double carriage's transfer ICP is active, allowing people to move to a double room should they meet the requirements with another person, though they'll have to move their belongings themselves.

Departure

A second horn sounds to encourage any stragglers taking advantage of the fresh air, 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

[crimsonsnow]

It's... of course Jade knows what this is, what Asch is suggesting. Maybe he already knew it the second Asch asked for his hand. It's not like this is subtle - it never is, for blades. (There's a reason so many blades show their core crystals, too.)

Jade hesitates, but - what else is he supposed to do, really? A storm rages inside him and he needs - (Mythra) - (well he can't have that now can he?) - something to quell it before it gets out of hand. He hates that this is the answer, but it's the quickest one for sure. They can always figure it out later. End the resonance later, if they have to. If Asch needs to.

(Jade will never be the driver who keeps his blade tied to him at all times, he refuses.)

So, yes, they're doing this. Jade knows all the steps. Reach for core crystal, ping.

[oncedriven]

If it was anyone but Jade, he wouldn't.

Ping.

Jade, fortunately but more likely unfortunately, understands all too well why. Jade, after all, understands better than anyone else what Asch will do, to any driver who mistreats him ever again.

Like anything else, it's easier if you've already done it once.

Ping.

The resonance folds into being - Asch was prepared for it, prepared for Jade to be in a bad state, but it's still a lot. He has to close his eyes for a minute, dropping Jade's hand without ceremony, to just breathe, and settle himself, sorting the new emotional bleed out and putting how he feels about it into the concerns for later pile.

He's no Mythra. There's nothing so bright and high-volume about his emotions, nothing so unfettered, but Jade already knew that consciously even if it's escaping his mind right now. The ether he feeds back into it is a blend, but the emotions themselves - there's concern, and some muted anxiety, but mostly there's focus and determination and something just firm about it.

[crimsonsnow]

It's a relief, more than he expected it to be, more than he really wants it to be - because what kind of person is he if he cannot stand without someone else to hold himself up? Asch is offering, but that doesn't mean it should be Asch, has to be Asch. (But Asch is the only one here right now.)

(The thought doesn't echo in Jade's core - can't echo in a room that's full - but it sits, and he tries to work around it.)

It's stupid, really, how much better he can think when the input in his head isn't null, but better not think about why he hates a void in his mind, anyway. Not right now. Not when he's still a step away from a plunge. He breathes in the resonance instead, the taste of Asch's ether; (he knew, he knew, how many elements Asch had to offer, but it's another thing entirely to feel it. He thinks, wryly, they might officially be the blade-driver pair with the most raw power to offer.)

Jade meets Asch's concern with gratitude, with embarrassment; there's still a knot of horror and grief that's dying down - Mythra isn't dead, but he still thought for a second she was, and he will grieve her absence besides. It's cold, but... more like a brisk winter than the arctic, now.

He should use his words, but he tries to bottle up the feeling of 'thanks I'm not about to go absolutely stupid; feeling better now' and pass it along the resonance anyway, too embarrassed to voice it, too off-kilter to try and joke. "Thank you," is what he says aloud. "I appreciate it."

He wants to say 'you didn't have to', but they can have a serious conversation about this resonance later, when they're both no longer in crisis mode.

[oncedriven]

Ice folds into his veins and the cold is suddenly not nearly so bothersome. Asch brushes the snow off his shoulders anyway, before it melts there.

"I'm not - " There's a torrent of constricted feelings, instinctively stifled and then loosened up again. "I'm not going to abandon someone who's helped me," he says. The words are easier to work out than his feelings, because his attachment to Jade feeling like an old friend was already irrational, and now there's the bank of new driver!!! instincts to sort through when he can fucking deal with that. The words, in polar opposite to Jade's feelings-based acknowledgement, are easier. "This is something I could do, so I did it."

It's more complicated than that, and the taste of ice on his tongue is new and foreign enough that he almost does (it's truth, but a truth closer to what darkness is to justice than the wind), but after a moment that emotional bleed refocuses.

He looks out towards the tracks along the open side of the platform, and says, "I don't think we'll be waiting - " long, but the last word is drowned in the whistle of the train arriving, loud enough to make Asch wince.

[crimsonsnow]

'This is something I could do, so I did it.' - hits Jade somewhere he wasn't expecting, because he understands that, of course he understands it, so it shouldn't burn like it does except it does burn. Something warm, something fond, something he cannot place. He really hasn't been in resonance with anyone other than Mythra in a hundred years, huh? There's a lot of new ground for Jade to navigate, too, all the places that aren't light, aren't ice, aren't--

Now isn't the time.

Jade looks up as Asch does, in the same direction - ah. Asch's timing will always be impeccable, won't it? It's probably impossible for it to be anything else.

"A train," Jade says, as if that's not obvious, hadn't been obvious the moment they got here. "...I suppose we're meant to board, then?"

Just because he doesn't like the truth doesn't mean he can't see it. He just wishes he knew why.

[oncedriven]

"Seems like a good idea," Asch says, because it does, "but maybe give it a little bit. You're still snowing."

Their relationship isn't casual enough for Asch to just brush the snow from Jade's shoulder, but it's definitely there, even if the immediate humidity around them has crystallized. Asch pulls at the ether just a little, mixing a touch of wind into it until he has something almost like a snowglobe between his hands, spinning on its own. Little ether tricks are calming, sometimes.

(At least Jade snapped to fondness with the same speed. It's logical that he would - he's a blade at core even if he's in the position of driver here - but it's still noticable, in comparison. Asch can't remember Van ever feeling that way, at least not while looking at him.)

(He breathes out.)

"Do you need me to stick with you?" he asks. Because he will, even if he's more used to wandering around on his own; unlike Mythra's habit of being with Jade at almost all times, Asch has never been a pocket blade.

[crimsonsnow]

"...I suppose I am," Jade admits. He'd brush the snow off his shoulders himself, but that'd be pointless, right now. It'll just pile up again.

He breathes, slowly, trying to at least yank his ether back down to reasonable levels; which might still be absurdly high, but if he can get back to "not snowing", he'd settle. He watches Asch's little trick, finding himself delightedly surprised. He's never thought to do anything with falling snow before, other than the practical things. He watches for a few moments, mesmerized, and... it's such a small, silly thing. But somehow that settles him enough it does stop snowing.

(Of course Jade snapped to fondness so quickly - blades are built to be in resonance, after all, even if Jade is on the "wrong" end.)

The question makes him hesitate - but it's never a question that needed asked, between him and Mythra. Jade swallows.

"Don't feel like you have to," he says, because being the driver who doesn't let his blade out of his sight makes his skin crawl. Still, he knows better than to not be honest. "...but I would appreciate it, at least for now."

[oncedriven]

Balancing it out a little might help, too; Asch continues to feed a bit of wind into the environment, which causes the snow to blow around rather dramatically in their corner but will cut the worst of the ice, and some fire directly to Jade himself. ... And maybe a little dark into the area around them, too, to make them less noticeable. Someone will probably still notice the chill if they come close, but it'll get them less attention from the other people milling around.

"Then I can do that," Asch says. Apparently they're having at least this part of the resonance talk right now, for lack of anything better to do. "I'm used to being left to my own devices to a certain extent, but don't hesitate to call if you need me."

That's how they say 'I care you' around here apparently.

[crimsonsnow]

"I won't," Jade assures Asch, because to protest at this point would just be rude. And all the things he'd want to protest about, all the fears he has - fears that only Mythra knows, fears that she'd tell him are irrelevant now, anyway. He's gone a hundred years now without channeling his last driver once. What's another year more? Who's to say he and Asch will even need that long? Who's to say they'll even be here that long? Architect, he hopes not.

He runs his hands over the anchor of resonance in his mind, just to feel it. Is he settled enough to deal with the rest of this? A storm still brews in his core, and there's a hole where Mythra should be, but -

"Don't hesitate to tell me if you need space, though," Jade says - (he hears Mythra's voice say 'tell him to fuck off if you need, really' in his mind, and longing wells up in his throat. Belatedly he remembers to try and quell the sharpness of it, for Asch's sake.) - anyway, his way of matching Asch's 'I care you' with one of his own.

...and then, because this is probably going to go in circles if they keep at it, "How did you get here, anyway? Was it as suddenly as I did?"

[oncedriven]

"You know I won't." Jade of all people knows that instincts or no, Asch isn't the sort of blade who considers a driver and a resonance to be something sacred and untouchable. Their blackest sins are the same, after all. "But you need it more right now."

So, don't be stupid.

And he can feel that strangled feeling and - "Don't," Asch says quietly, because apparently they're doing this. "Don't fake it for my sake." The things he has issues with - feeling constantly watched and not knowing if the emotions Van showed to him were ever really real - Jade stifling his end of the emotional bleed might be well intended but it isn't going to help either of those.

But then he lets the conversation move on, with a tired sigh. "Yeah. I came over here as soon as I came around."

[crimsonsnow]

"Okay, I won't," Jade says, immediately taking his hand off the emotion bleed. Asch gets both the longing and the complicated burst of fondness-gratefulness-and several-other-things that 'Don't fake it for my sake' elicited in Jade, full blast.

It's easier, this way. Jade and Mythra weren't in the habit of stifling the emotion bleed, either. Silence is too much for either of them.

"I must've been bad off if you hurried to me first thing." A little self-deprecating humor, just because it's that kind of day. "Wish we knew where 'here' was, though."

[oncedriven]

"I'm just going to reiterate that you're snowing." It has, admittedly, mostly cleared up for the moment, but still.

The intensity is both disarming and settling. Asch, unlike Jade, has only a few days of experience in a resonance where someone actually gives a fuck about him, and by the time Luke was added to the circle, Van had already damaged Asch's ability to be in that resonance normally beyond repair.

Asch watches the people who exit the train as it comes to a total stop and says, "Well, at least there's people we'll be able to question about it." Do they need tickets? They have tickets, don't they. "...Check your pockets," he contributes, fishing for what winds up being his own slip of nigh-indestructible paper.

[crimsonsnow]

"Well," Jade says, and then doesn't say anything, because he was snowing, regardless of the fact the snow now is mostly just from ice ether meeting the surrounding humidity.

He starts to ask Asch why he should check his pockets - though he moves to do so as soon as he's told, really, he knows not to question precognitive blades - and then sees Asch's ticket. Ah. It looks like he has one of his own, too.

"...They knew our names," is what he ends up commenting on. "I guess I shouldn't be surprised," (he is anyway,) "but I'm not sure I enjoy the implications."

[oncedriven]

"I'll take the implications of that over the implications of waking up here in completely different clothes, thanks," Asch says. He squints at his ticket, then at Jade's. "...Same room, at least."

Which has its own set of unfortunate implications. Either their resonance or Jade's need for a stabilizing influence where he sleeps was also anticipated.

What Asch says is, "Well, that's one less person you'll be freezing to death in the middle of the night." And then he shoves the ticket back in his pocket.

[crimsonsnow]

Jade rolls his eyes, exasperated. "I have never frozen anyone to death, ever, in my life," he says, which is a blatant lie.

He feels a bit more settled now; settled, and with a mystery to solve.

"Well. Should we go check it out?" It's not like they'll get any answers standing around here.

WOW I missed this I'm sorry

[oncedriven]

"And this whole time, I thought you were a truth blade," Asch mutters under his breath, clearly not buying that one for a minute. The resonance relaxes another hair. If Jade's warmed up enough for jokes, then they'll probably be okay for another couple hours.

"Might as well," he says, looking at the train. "Figure out where that room is and get our bearings." Or have a continued panic in a significantly less public space, if need be.