voidtreckerexpress | Event: Abort! Part Two (day 25, Egret). Luggage carriage

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Event: Abort! Part Two (day 25, Egret). Luggage carriage

They are on world world#27462947582 for about five hours, helping, ushering people out of the city, fighting monsters, keeping guard. All seems well in the city itself, peaceful even except for the slight panic of people being told to move south.

Wherever they are, north in the desert, travelling through the countryside to the south or still in the city itself they will notice from their peripheral vision a darkening of the sky. Looking up they will see clouds. Strange clouds, appearing in the blue sky out of nowhere.

Their SCA’s start beeping, rapidly, flashing red. The clouds are too weird to be clouds, dark shapes in the sky. It might be that the Voidtreckers heed the warning and tap their SCA to evacuate to the train. It might be that they do not.

If they don’t then there is a moment, a moment of absolute stillness as those around them notice the shapes. A confused pause. Children stop their chatter, people stop their complaining, even the monsters seem to sense something and pause in their attacks.

The remaining voidtreckers are yanked away, even without pressing their SCA, they glow gold and disappear.

They all appear in the luggage carriage and not even a second later, with no warning the train lurches, flinging everyone off their feet as it enters the void.

It’s not really easy to tell speed in the void, but they will get the sense that they are moving fast. Faster than before, leaving that world and whatever those shapes were behind.

(OOC: Information on this event is here and part one is here)

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You're a godsend, Piccolo. Especially to the tiny people who have absolutely no way of reaching the ceiling. Madoka in fact does look like she's about to stumble right over when the train starts moving, only to be held upright at the last moment by a sudden hand.

It makes Madoka look up at him in surprise - surprise that mostly only lasts momentarily, since a small smile appears on her face instead a moment later. Sure, this whole situation is overwhelming - and even that doesn't feel like an adequate enough word for it - but at least it seems everyone is here and okay..? And the fact that Piccolo is once more nice enough to help her out helps too.

".. Strange.." She slowly finishes his statement. The smile doesn't fully fade, but she looks a lot more thoughtful as she says it. "R.. Right? Are you okay, mister Piccolo..?" Sure, he's much too awesome for something to have happened to him, but she has to make sure anyway! Someone has to look out for him too!

Piccolo offered her a nod of acknowledgment and a twitch of lips in response to her grateful smile. He made certain she was firmly on her feet before he removed his hand from her.

"Yeah, strange. Makes you wonder just what that was and why the train didn't let us combat it," the Namekain mused out loud. He looked back down at her and then added, "I'm good. You okay? That was a 'bumpy' ride there for a moment."

"I think I'm okay.."

But she doesn't sound too sure about that just yet. Everything happened so quickly that the whole situation hasn't fully set in yet with Madoka. The girl moves her hands up to gently touch the top of her head, like she's checking herself for any bumps she might have gotten without realising. She seems to look fine though.

"I'm just worried about everyone else.. It was such a shock to suddenly end up here again. I really hope everyone is okay.."

Her uncertainly had him looking her over from head to toe to check for any injuries, bumps or bruises or tears in clothing, but he didn't see anything of the sort. She looked visibly fine. Relieved, he glanced around at the rest of the carriage as if looking to see how everyone else was for her concern. From his vantage point a head taller than nearly everyone else on board, he had a good view.

"Everyone looks fine. Just shook up, like you said. It'll take a moment but everything should calm down and then it'll be easy to assess if there's anything more to be concerned about besides the sudden departure."

It says a lot about her trust in him that despite her worry not entirely fading - but honestly, do Madoka's worries ever entirely fade to begin with? - she does look more relieved at his answer, like she immediately believes him despite being nowhere near tall enough herself to look over the crowd and confirm it. Sure, she'll have to seek out some people later herself to ask them how they're doing, but at least it's good to know no one seems majorly injured..

"That's right, we should probably figure out what happened by then too.." Even though she knows she's not really good at that. But there's a lot of smart people on the train, so surely they'd be able to figure out what went wrong, right? "I've been on a lot of missions, but this has never happened before. Usually we just board the train again calmly at the end, like last time."

"Hmm. If we can figure it out. Somehow I doubt the train is going to be forthcoming with information." It hadn't done much to talk to them lately and Piccolo hadn't heard of it doing much in the past either. But who knew? Maybe they would finally get some sort of explanation. At least for this one incident, that would be nice.

Probably too nice. Piccolo wouldn't hold his breath. He wasn't going to rely on someone else to get things done for him, especially someone who couldn't be trusted. His friend were one thing, they proved that worth, this train did nothing of the sort.

"At least we can take care of each other though," he reassured her. "And discuss possibilities. See if anyone got a better look or sense of what that was all about." He looked back down at her again. "We usually win, I take it. We didn't exactly win this time. Whatever that was..."

He didn't really want to worry her so he stopped short. He might have already said too much but she didn't need to hear him say his final thought it out loud. That it was likely that planet didn't survive whatever that was at all.

It works. What he's saying - until the end, anyway - is pretty reassuring. Madoka still remembers how overwhelming everything felt back home, when the fate of the entire planet eventually ended up resting on just her shoulders. Compared to that, it's a lot nicer to have dependable adults like Piccolo to rely on here. Surely they can figure it out together.

But then reality comes crashing back in. Even if he doesn't say it out loud, he doesn't have to. Madoka may be young, but she knows.

".. It probably.. destroyed everything," she softly adds. It wouldn't be the first time she's seen that kind of destruction, no matter how innocent she may seem. She looks down at the ground, but doesn't cry. Madoka knows she has to be strong too now.

"We.. abandoned those people, huh..?"

It was an instant loss. Piccolo hadn't even been fighting a battle and suddenly he felt the bitter taste of defeat. He should have kept his mouth shut. The only consolation he had was that she wasn't actually crying but that didn't make him feel better considering the look she now wore. He wasn't built for this sort of thing. Delicacy wasn't exactly his strong suit. It sort of sucked being the good guy with a conscience sometimes whenever one wasn't good at empathy.

Piccolo shifted awkwardly for his own feelings and wrapped his arms tight across his chest. He felt ridiculous. He wasn't going to admit defeat over something so mundane either and instead kept up his stoic demeanor as tightly as he could.

"We didn't have a choice. Weren't given the choice. Whether or not we could have fought it, we didn't get to decide that in the least."

But, she was right. And that made Piccolo feel all the worse. It wasn't as if he could go search for the dragon balls if he was stuck here on this train without any way to control where it led them. Otherwise, that loss might not have felt so bad. It was one thing to run away and save the day at a later time, another entirely to just run away and never look back.

".. Right."

Of course he's right. Piccolo seems so smart, and him being able to stay so calm and wise in the middle of all of this must mean he's right. (Especially since Madoka has absolutely zero idea of everything that's going on behind the stoic demeanour he's trying to cling onto right now.)

But even though he's right, and even though she really doesn't want to question him, Madoka's expression remains rather crestfallen.

"But.. sorry. It's probably really silly." She feels pretty ridiculous for worrying about it so much when he seems to have made up his mind already. Would Piccolo think she's weak? Sure, Madoka knows she's weak, but she'd still rather not give others that impression of her if she can help it. "But I still feel guilty anyway, even though we really didn't have a choice.."

Piccolo didn't think her feelings on the matter were silly at all. She wasn't wrong to feel bad for those people. He wished she wouldn't feel guilty about it since she didn't have a choice in what happened but there wasn't much he could do about that. He wasn't very good at cheering people up either.

The best he could do was quietly offer her comfort by reaching out and, tentatively, patting her on the head gently. It had been a long time since he'd done anything like that but it seemed appropriate right about now.

"I know," he said eventually and his voice was quiet as he agreed with her. "It's all right."

Piccolo is doing better than he thinks he is. Because honestly, it'd be hard for anything to fully clear up Madoka's mood again in this state. There's nothing to be done about what happened, so she's just going to have to live with being sad over the potential fate of the people they left behind.

But just hearing those reassuring words helps a little. Because they at least make her feel slightly less bad over feeling bad in the first place.

"You.. don't think it's silly, mister Piccolo?" It seems to surprise her as she looks up at him. Not because she thinks he's mean, not at all! It's just that he seems so much calmer than she does. "I.. I mean, I'm sure there are plenty of people here who are dealing with this much better than I am."

"No, Madoka. It's not silly." Piccolo's smile was wry, bittersweet, but genuine. She was a kind person and that was sweet. The bad circumstances was the bitter part. "You have a kind heart. If more people felt that way, evil would have a considerably harder time trying to defeat good."

But life did not work that way. And if it did there wouldn't be a true balance. Piccolo sighed.

"It's not your fault though. Don't let the guilt consume you. If there was anything we could have done, we would have done it."

"Okay. I'll.. try."

She doesn't want to lie and say she will for sure, after all. Madoka knows herself well enough. Even if she'll try to keep the guilt at bay, it will inevitably slip through in some form. She's never been very good at controlling her emotions, even though she's slightly improving with Raven's help.

"You'll try too, right?" There's a slight pause after she asks it, and then she laughs - softly and lightly. "Although I guess you're probably good at it."

He seems calm and cool on the outside, after all, and Madoka is most certainly the type who assumes that must mean he's like that on the inside too. Someone who can easily control his guilt.

He smiled down at her, though it was still a bit on the wry side as far as smiling expressions went. She wasn't really wrong, but somehow being here with her made it feel like maybe that was somehow a bad thing. He nodded firmly anyway. He couldn't falter in front of her now, someone had to be strong.

"I do feel sorry for the people we left behind, but I won't let guilt consume me. There are better ways to channel that feeling into something productive. I'll look to the future instead and try to prepare for the next battle so it doesn't happen again."

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Event: Abort! Part Two (day 25, Egret). Luggage carriage

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