A New Platform [Intro Post April!]

[voidtreckermods]

On the Train

Two days after they return from their mission they are awoken as usual "Good morning passengers, it is day sixteen of the month of Egret. The shop has been updated and points have been applied to passengers tickets."

Those that go to check the shop terminals will find they have indeed updated, with the option to buy larger items and also animals. The morning goes on until just after noon there is a second announcement.

"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 they are soon surrounded by the fog that means they are at a platform. Though the fog is thick, thicker than usual perhaps, there are patches on sunlight shining through and it is pleasantly warm.

The doors open and the first few to disembark do so with rucksacks on, hoods pulled up, silent and almost blank faced. Cu Chulain, Dio Brando, Disreputable Dog, Heiji Hattori, Loki Maedhros, Maglor, Naruto, Thor, Tobias Fangor.

They walk to the barriers, show their tickets and disappear.

But on the platform itself there are once again new faces. All are stood, waiting for the train.

For New Passengers

At first all they can see is steam. Billowing around them as they come to their senses. They are standing, in clothes that are not their own, styles 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 but then as people begin to shift or call out it will become apparent they are not alone.

The platform is not large and it holds eighteen figures all facing the tracks, all dressed in cargo trousers and hoodies. It's warm but foggy making it hard to see much, but there are clearer patches bathed in sunlight found across the platform. Both left and right the 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 into the cold step a selection of people. Some are human, some are less so. They are wearing the same hoodie in one of the four colours, red, orange, blue and purple.

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. 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. The store rooms have been restocked with an abundance of onions, in case the passengers weren't bored of them yet.

Passengers who are not brand new will notice that the train has gotten yet longer again with a sixth sleeper cabin for new arrivals.

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. Veteran passengers know what will happen next, they may wish to brief their new companions.

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. 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. The fog from the windows is gone now, replaced with a kaleidoscope of ever changing colours.

Welcome to the Void!

Comments

[irrationally]

Since Xander is an empath, he should be able to feel it very well. It isn't entirely a feeling of someone being upset, but it's like a jolt goes through Alice the moment he mentions being an empath. Because this train is odd enough that Alice doesn't even doubt the fact that someone could exist who could sense other people's feelings.

But.. she really doesn't like that thought. Not just because it's an invasion of privacy, but mostly since she's always so careful to tuck away the feelings she doesn't want anyone to see away inside of her. She can hide it under a layer of disinterest, or anger, or snark. Alice doesn't want anyone to know how sad she constantly is, how constantly ragged, just how much she doubts whether anything she sees is even real or not all the time.

But if what he's saying is true, then he can sense that, somewhere deep down. All of that. She's not angry, since he did say he's trying not to be sneaky about it, but it's still terrifying.

Alice's grip on what's left of her own sandwich tightens.

She needs to switch this subject. She needs to angle it in any direction other than herself.

".. Is that why they experimented on you?"

She thought it was the whole wings deal. But this power sounds like a much more likely reason, knowing what she does about awful doctors and the like.

[emerald_mirror]

"I'm not going to tell anyone," he murmurs. Mostly, it's defensively. He's met plenty of people before who, because he is an empath, think that means he just instinctively knows their life stories and will spill that out to anyone...

Xander would like to point out that that sort of thing takes a level of mental powers that he just does not have. Telepathy, mostly, and he'd probably be even more tetchy if he had that power than he is now with 'just' empathy.

Though Alice's question just makes him sort of snort. "No. I don't--well, some of them might have been aware on some level that I had empathy, but they disregarded it." Part of him was surprised that they just didn't burn it out of him. If it wasn't useful, why keep it? Maybe they thought they'd break him. Maybe the Artificers thought he'd be completely useful if they destroyed that part. Now? Xander really couldn't know.

"No, they experimented on me because I could heal pretty much anything they did to me." The easiest thing was to just show, Xander guessed. So he turns over his right arm--the one with the bar code tattoo on the wrist--and tugs up the sleeve of his hoodie to expose an ugly, thick scar that goes up his arm to be buried again under the bunched purple sleeve.

"I think they were trying to install a gun in my arm, there. I can't really remember? They didn't bother giving me painkillers when they did any of it...so generally after they tried to modify me was a lot of fugue states," Xander admitted. "Since basically my body didn't like their machinery and tended to reject it. They'd see how bad or how well I took things, and decide if it'd work for their willing victims, afterwards."

Really, sometimes Xander was surprised he still could heal so well, after all that, but then again, the earth tended to heal itself, too, if it was left alone...

[irrationally]

Alice stares with wide eyes as she listens to his words and sees the long scar that had been hidden under his hoodie a moment ago. It's a surprise to her that he'd even share this much with what is pretty much a total stranger, but that surprise is quickly buried under so much else. There's the red hot fury that Alice always feels at the thought of people exploiting others like that for no good reason, but there's also something else that starts out slowly in the back of her brain, but then grows more powerful.

It's her own memories. Something about the way he talks about what happenened to him reminds her so much of what happened to herself. She too can remember flashes of injections and knives and drills and faces hovering over her, and Alice has to quickly push her free hand over her mouth to keep herself from throwing that sandwich she just ate right back up.

It's then that she realises he must have felt that surge of emotion from her too, even if he wouldn't know the details. He'd still know what a wreck she feels like. It's a wave of misery, mixed with intense anger and nausea at the edges.

"I hate people," is all she's able to trust herself to force out after a moment. The people who did this to her. The people who did all that to him. The thousands upon thousands of people out there abusing others.

[emerald_mirror]

"They're gone now. They can't do anything to me any more. Drake made sure of that." It does make him a bit angry, resentful, that he had to be rescued--just one more way he's not his own person, in Xander's mind. One more way he's just a copy. He doesn't say that, though, It's probably not going to help. Drake was just trying to help...

Xander does do his best to project tranquility. Even as irritated as he is about his current thoughts, the way things are now? They're a damn sight better than it was when he was under the Artificers' thumb. And at least the train seems to think--as strange a thought as that is--he can do things to help other people. So it's worth taking the chance, right? Not that he was trying to control Alice's emotions in any way. Just try to take the edge off the anger, and hope it would rein back on everything else. Gentle insinuation.

"I'm not fond of most people myself, but at least most people are merely self-centered. They don't try to go around hurting people for their own benefit. They just don't think, you know? It sucks, but it's not worth harming them for."

Really, Xander felt it was unlikely to change things. You just had to treasure the people who didn't act that way. Most of the people on the train so far? They weren't that type of person. So that was worth valuing.

[irrationally]

She would gladly harm those people too, honestly. Alice is so sick and tired of the way the world is, filled to the brim with people who hardly even deserve to live. (At least she's fair in that assessment, considering she doesn't think she deserves to live anymore than most of them.)

But the way he's projecting tranquility does take the edge of the anger, keeping her from full on lashing out at the thought. And thankfully it's subtle enough that Alice doesn't quite realise it's influence from something outside of her, rather than her being able to slightly reign in her emotions herself for once.

"That doesn't mean I have to like them."

[emerald_mirror]

That proclamation--that Alice doesn't have to like them--just makes Xander laugh a bit.

"No one's asking you to!" Certainly there were enough people back home who he'd thought he liked just fine, and then? They'd turned around and bit him in the ass. Even with empathy, people could be a confusing conundrum. It annoyed the hell out of him when in one breath, someone claimed to be his friend, and then got pissed off at him for...what? Shake that magical eight-ball and get something like 'reasons unclear'.

He didn't expect it to be any different on this train, either.

Nor did he really want to push his soothing of Alice very far, either. It felt too much like attempting control. So he dropped that, pretty quickly.

"No, I get it. Some people expect you to like them just 'cause of who they are, regardless of whether or not they treat you like junk. And then when you get mad when they treat you shitty? They act all shocked! Like you offended them! What bullshit!" he snorted. Sure, Xander might have had a certain person in mind, but he was pretty sure she was still back in Spectrum City. At least, he hoped she was.

[irrationally]

It's easy to notice he must be having a very specific experience in mind when he talks like that. Not that it's too surprising. Once you've been stuck in a situation where you could get experimented on to begin with, you usually don't end up in the highest parts of society afterwards from Alice's experience. You end up somewhere near the bottom, where plenty of other people are able to wipe their feet on you as if you're their personal doormat.

"Far too many people act like that. They seem to think that respect or kindness isn't something to be earned, but something naturally given. They are wrong about that." Hence why Alice seems so cagey even now. She's very much like a cat in that sense. Closed off until she deems you worthy of more than that. "It's good that you do seem to understand it though."