A new Platform [Intro post~ August]

[voidtreckermods]

For those on the Train

"Good morning passengers, it is day sixteen of the month of Apple." The train announces as always as everyone wakes up the morning of the sixteenth. "Due to your success on Hub World #5739 your team points have been updated on the system. The on train shop has unlocked new stock."

For those going to investigate it might seem like the boredom of the last two weeks will be alleviated a little. More so after a few hours when there is a second announcement.

"Shortly arriving into a designated void platform. Exit from void imminent."

By now they should know to hold on as the train jerks and jolts. There is only fog outside the windows but the train soon comes to a stop. The doors hiss open.

As they exit into the fog they may notice Hibiki exiting from the luggage carriage door. She hasn’t been seen since the Hub World and they might be forgiven for believing she stayed behind. But here she is, backpack on her back as she walks through the station. She heads no call, reacts to no words and cannot be stopped as she walks to the ticket barrier and disappears through it.

It is impossible to follow. But you soon may be distracted because this platform is far from empty.

For new arrivals

At first all you can see if steam. Billowing around you as you come to your senses. You are standing, in clothes that are not your own, styles you might not even recognise. You are carrying a rucksack on your back. For a moment it seems to just be you, alone in the white haze but then the steam begins to fade and you realise you aren’t alone.

The platform is not very large, but it hold twelve figures all facing the tracks, all wearing similar clothing, even if one of them is a spider. The tracks stretch left and right into steam, or perhaps fog. Nothing can be seen to either side. There is a wall around the platform and the only entrance is a ticket barrier. It cannot be open, nor do there seem to be any staff.

What there is, is a train. Jet black and gleaming where it stands on the rails.Voidtrecker Express is emblazoned in the engine in gold. There is a hiss as the doors slide open.

Out step a selection of people, wearing clothes just like yours.

The Train

The doors hiss open. Those from the train may encourage those on the platform to board. It’s not like there is 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 not be a good thing.

Once on the train there is plenty to explore. A new sleeper carriage has appeared as has a medical bay. Neither were there before those already on the train had disembarked to meet their new travelling companions.

Each ICP shows the same message. The food stores have been topped up with new fresh food, though it seems that eggs are still predominately on the menu.

New passengers will find their tickets allow 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 and you will hopefully find a pillow for your bed if it has not been nabbed by a roommate, there are also spare blankets for if it gets cold.

Departure

A second horn sounds to encourage any stragglers and the doors slide shut. Those who boarded two weeks ago will know what is coming next.

The train sets off, the fog obscuring the view 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."

Hopefully someone warns you that you really want to heed that warning because a moment later there is 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. The fog from the windows is gone now, replaced with a kaleidoscope of ever changing colours.

Welcome to voidspace.

Comments

Departure

[hashtagparkerluck]

Well, he tried to warn her. Peter, being ready for the jolt, plants himself firmly in place by use of his sticky powers. He watches her carefully though, ready to spring up and offer help up if she needs it.

"Yeah-I got slammed into a window the first time. It was.. uh. Embarrassing." He glances over at that pole she was holding onto because there seems to be some visible damage there. "Uh... anyways..." He tears his eyes off it. "I'm Peter. Peter Parker."

[afterburner]

Renee made a face at that. "Damn, that sounds like negative fun. Did you hurt yourself?" Oh, right, she still was hanging on to that pole, wasn't she? Oops. She let it go, and rubbed a hand down the front of her khakis. Yeah, that was smooth.

"Renee Corbin. And this is a train. Although I suppose it could also be Jackass, since I'm apparently pulling stupid stunts...if it was anywhere else, I'd say nice to meet you, but I'm kind of not sure about this."

[hashtagparkerluck]

"Not really-I mean a face plant never feels great but I'm-uh-I'm pretty durable." He explains, not really hiding that he's a super powered teen but also not really up to just out and out telling everyone ever.

"It's not bad-I mean it's inconvenient 'cause I was in the middle of a thing before I got here with Mr Stark but now we're here. And I gotta say it's been mostly fun." He says honestly, not counting how bored he was.

"I mean... I did kinda get bit by a uh-uh thing last week but that's all healed up now." Peter shrugs it off, not mentioning the thing that bit him was a bitey-goat.

[afterburner]

His 'pretty durable' comment has her chuckling, just a little. "Nice to know there's a few of us like that here, then." Considering a lot of times, Renee's job--well, Afterburner's job, was to take punches to the face. She tried to see the humor in it, at least.

"Mr. Stark?" Since she hadn't run into that good man yet, she had to arch her brows a bit. "Musta been an important thing, if you were running with him--if he's who I think he might be."

Renee blinked, then. Bit by something? "What were you fighting that bit you?" Feel free to make up a story. She'll probably believe you...

[hashtagparkerluck]

"Oh! You've heard of Mr Stark?" Peter perks up at that. "Uh-Tony Stark-Iron Man also own Stark Industries-although Pepper Potts is the CEO. And yeah-really important but we didn't really-or at least I didn't make it that far. I wound up here." He rambles.

"Anyways, uh the thing I was-uh I wasn't really fighting it-it was-I was trying to relocate it but it had other ideas."

[afterburner]

"Yeah, I'm not sure we're from the same world or anything, but we've got a Tony Stark, et cetera, on my world too." Renee nodded at that, more than a little excited. It was Tony Stark, after all. Iron Man, Stark Industries--well she didn't know if there was a Pepper, but it would make sense if there was, and she just wasn't aware. She could've kept up better with the news, but her life tended to get in the way.

"Oh, no. Not one of those." Renee actually winces, and bites her lower lip. "Did you get it where you wanted to go? Or um. Not?"

She's figuring not, since Pete got bit.

[hashtagparkerluck]

"Oh, yeah. There's another girl around-her name's Gwen-she's uh blonde and has a side shave-she's awesome." He says a little dreamily before forcing himself back into the present. Please don't mind him swooning over his super cool girlfriend. "Uh-anyways-she told me about stuff in her universe-like the Tony Stark there apparently owns Starbucks but instead it's called Starkbucks." Sorry, he talks fast, the more excited he is, the faster his mouth moves.

"Uh... yeah, eventually-I mean I had to like web its mouth shut but I did movie it. So, if you have Mr Stark and Stark Industries do you have like another version of me? Or specifically Spider-Man? Or Spider-woman? Gwen's the spider person in her universe so it doesn't really have to be Peter Parker."

[afterburner]

All things considered, Renee tends to be sort of jaded and cynical about things, but Peter getting stammery about a girl is...really kind of cute and sweet, and that's not the kind of thing that she wants to dog him about. So she doesn't, she just smiles at that.

"Not my world then, but that's kinda cool--" Wait, he just like outed himself? That was...okay no don't geek out girl, play it smooth! "Yeah we do have a version of you! Maybe he's older, I'm not super sure--I've just seen some of the editorials Jameson has written. He's a creep, though. I mean, you--Spider-Man--does good, it's not like you can help property damage sometimes..."

Better than her, she doesn't mean to, but it just kind of happens...

"Do you know what a mutant is? I mean not just the scientific definition..." As she lifts a hand and concentrates, bringing up one of her kinetic knives, the blade softly glowing red.

[hashtagparkerluck]

"Jameson?" Peter makes a face because that name is ringing a bell. Not a good bell. "Like Jonah Jameson? The guy that runs that stupid dailybugle.net? All he ever posts is like super controversial shi-uh-stuff and conspiracy theories." It's hard to think of him as someone writing editorials. "But yeah, I guess stuff get damaged-I mean try not too but uh, it happens. I feel bad about it. I accidentally webbed a guy to a car 'cause I thought he was stealing it. Turns out it was his car. He locked his keys inside... whoops."

He frowns a little at her question and then his eyes go wide as he watches the knives glow and it hits him what mutant must mean in her universe. "Oh! Yeah, sorta-I mean we call them enhanced but yeah."

[afterburner]

"Right? Guy's a bag of doorknobs, and that's being kind. But he was doing editorials for a paper, so..." Maybe not exactly the same guy. Renee hopes.

"But your webs dissolve, right? It was just a little pain in the ass?" Just cuss, Pete, for crying out loud! She's the last person who'll judge you--and she's not going to go running to Tony to be all 'oooh you cussed', either. "You didn't wreck his car or anything, right?"

"Okay. Man, enhanced sounds so much nicer. Harder to throw slurs at you with that one, too." Renee couldn't help but make a face at that, even as she dissolved the knife. "It's kinda like racism where I'm from--'mutie' is an epithet and worse. I don't really wanna go into it though, you can probably guess." At least if he was as good a student in history as he was in science. 'Cuz he sure seemed smart.

[hashtagparkerluck]

"He called me a menace once. It was really rude but like my fan following jumped on that real quick." One good thing about the age of social media is that his fans will stick up for Spider-Man the moment someone says something bad about him.

"Oh yeah-and I have-had a solvent so I got him free really easy but I still felt bad gave him a packet of my sour gummie worms." He had two and well, he really shouldn't have assumed but he was being shady about it.

"Really? I mean there are people like Secretary Ross that seems to hate enhanced people-but no slurs really. There's also not that many, I don't think."

[afterburner]

Renee gave Pete a dry look at that. "You? A menace? Dude doesn't know you, pal--I don't think you could be a menace if you tried. There's a sweet and kind heart under that nerdy exterior--your heart will always come from the right place."

That's a compliment, Pete. Renee knows she's comparatively not so nice, but she accepts that.

"There were quite a few where I came from--well, at least before M-Day. My two brothers and I were all mutants, but Drew--he's my older brother--he lost his powers during M-Day, and they never came back. So he went to college while he was in prison and he's a video game designer, now." She kind of wished she had some sort of ambition to do something with himself like he had. Or the talent to do like Todd had and go into hockey. No such luck.

[hashtagparkerluck]

"Aww, thanks." He takes the compliment in stride. But uh.. he did kind of crash a plane into Coney Island and wreck a ferry and also accidentally told his friend to carry around a bomb-explosive chituri energy core-same difference.

"M-day?" He makes a face because that's not a term he's familiar with. "The worst we've had was an alien invasion in New York that the Avengers stopped. Which, I wasn't there 'cause I was like... ten. But now we have Thanos who-technically was the reason of the Alien invasion before? And now he's back and trying to find magic stones to literally wipe out half the universe-that was the thing I was going with Mr Stark-or we were on our way to fight the guy."

[afterburner]

Hey, Renee is calling them like she sees them--she doesn't know about all those things! Even if she did, it's not like she hadn't been responsible for some property damage on her own, and those who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones, right?

"Yeah. On my world, the Scarlet Witch went nuts and depowered like 99% of the mutant population. Well, they say she went nuts, but I don't know why, since I was considered too young to do anything about it. So I stayed home." Which was dumb, but adults called the shots and sometimes, all you could do was listen.

"He sounds like he needs a good ass-kicking! Sheesh, if I knew I had a ride back to my own world, I'd come with and lend a hand, 'cause why not?" Renee didn't really consider herself much of a hero, but a dude trying to kill half the entire universe? That was no good. And it sounded like they could use all the help they could get, so why not?