voidtreckerexpress | A New Platform [Intro Post November]

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A New Platform [Intro Post November]

On the Train

The morning after the Halloween party passengers are once again woken by a familiar voice.

"Good morning passengers, it is day one of the month of Imagination. Points have been updated on the system and new stock is available."

They have indeed and everyone can spend the morning shopping. Those who have been on the train a while 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 they are soon surrounded by the fog that means they are at a platform. But through the fog comes sunshine, causing patches where the light shines down to warm the concrete. Looking up passengers will not be able to see the sun through the fog, or much of the sky at all.

As usual the first to leave the train notice nothing as they walk silently, rucksacks on their backs, towards the barriers. Bryn Pendragon, Bucky Barnes, Colden Rollins, Elena, Fai D Flourite, Jiang Yanli, Juliette d'Aubigniy, Misa, Peter Parker, Samata Mahto, Satou Kuroneko, The Doctor, Tohru Mutou, Zuko, 10 Vigilant Gaze Purges The Horizon. They all walk silently and do not look back as 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. The second thing they will notice is the thick fog, penetrated by beams of light. As their eyes adjust they will see they are on a platform, behind them are a set of barriers and in front of them is a single track.

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 the steam begins to fade and they realise they aren’t alone.

The platform is not large and it holds five figures all facing the tracks, all dressed in cargo trousers and hoodies. 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 gloom step a selection 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

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 and Honey is the newest ingredient, jars of honey stock the shelves and the ICP's in the kitchen have recipe ideas for the month.

A new carriage has been added, those that go to investigate will find a small but function-able spa, complete with a small hot tub and even a steam room. It is a relaxing room with sun lamps and relaxing music or nature sounds available through the ICP. There are a couple of massage tables, with a course for how to give massages for those eager to learn.

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 braving the snow 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!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"I see." Is that something a priest normally would say? Ken doesn't know enough priests so he isn't sure.

Wormmon, meanwhile, is thinking very hard. A priest....A priest. From the way Ken-chan's talking, it's something important....

Oh, he knows where priests live! And what happens there!

"Hey, does that mean you make the New Year's fortunes?"

"Wormmon, that's not......"

First confessing his sins (accidentally), now talk of shrines. They're just running through a whole list of The Wrong Kind Of Priest.

"Some temples do that! Mine was too remote, although that wouldn't have been a duty of mine anyway."

Nor would he have done it even if it was... Koumyou was more than a bit of a slacker. He'd probably been tasked with that stuff at some point earlier in his time as a monk, before he's become one of the five Sanzo priests of the world... and he'd probably just wandered off somewhere to nap.

"A remote shrine..." Thus especially being above minute concerns. Ken may have a lot to learn from this person. He will keep that in mind.

"This train will likely be a different experience for you. It's improbably large for a train, but we live in close quarters."

Wormmon, meanwhile, is now wondering if someone who doesn't make New Year's fortunes can still do things like make amulets for stuff like "don't get eaten on a mission" or "cheer up, Ken-chan". But he is a polite Digimon and will not ask.

"Kinzan Temple is so far up in the mountains and so far out into the woods, I don't think most laypeople even know it exists!"

It suited him fine. Or had, anyway, up until his gruesome death there.

"I dealt with plenty of close quarters in my past, I'll be fine," Koumyou waved that warning off, "There were eleven of us in the first squad, alone! All in one room. I'd definitely know by now if I had claustrophobia or something!"

"In one room?"

And there's Ken caught off-guard again. Even the train doesn't bunk them that tightly...

"That's a lot of squad. It sounds fun."

"Yep! I don't think I ever had a room to myself until I became a Sanzo," Koumyou thought about it for a second, and then nodded. "Sleeping, bathing, eating, training, we were always packed in together. Big temples like that place can have a lot of decorative gilding and the like, but they're not exactly swimming in luxury even then."

Especially for trainees.

"Whoaaaaa."

Ken feels a little claustrophobic himself just picturing this - nothing against other people, that's just. A lot. Of people.

"I apologize for jumping to conclusions," he says, filing away the name "Sanzo". "The best way to learn about the train is to experience it yourself, after all."

"No harm done," Koumyou waved that away, too, before finishing off his cocoa -- now that it was cooled enough to really go to town on.

"Wow, I haven't had anything that sweet in a long time! I'm going to be bouncing off the walls! Here, do you want the cup back?"

"Ah, thanks." It's a cup from the kitchen, but Ken took it out, so Ken should put it back. He is a responsible young man.

"There's lots of sweet things here." Wormmon, seeing that perhaps even a priest can appreciate the finer points of physical existence, shall finish his personal favorite intro spiel. "The kitchen has ice cream. And we just had a party, and there was candy."

"...Ice cream?" Koumyou gasped, "what are we standing here for? Lead the way! Hurry, hurry!"

Oh, those are the MAGIC WORDS.

"Really?!" Wormmon gets, if possible, even more adorable at the sheer thought.

...Ken, both knowing this pattern and figuring he needs to clean and return this cup anyway, immediately caves to the inevitable. "It's this way."

"I haven't had ice cream in years!" Koumyou, of course, followed right along at Ken's heels, all but vibrating with enthusiasm. "What a wonderful train this is!"

"Have you had ice cream out of a MACHINE?"

Wormmon is on Ken's head now. Backwards. Ken is basically having to trust he knows how to navigate the train well enough to deal with having half his line of sight blocked by abdomen. "That's what this is. Madoka bought it. She's smart!"

"I haven't!" Koumyou was practically vibrating with enthusiasm, here. "This is going to be so cool!"

Pun absolutely intentional.

He's got an easy audience: Wormmon shakes in a series of extremely goofy chortles at that joke. Or perhaps he's just excited about ice cream. No, gotta be the joke.

Ken reaches out a hand and navigates a coupling.

"It's not much farther."

In fact, here is a....surprisingly practical and homey dining area! WHY NOT.

"Wow, it's so different!" Compared to a temple dining area? Or a camp fire in the middle of the woods? Definitely exotic, to the high priest.

"We're definitely well-provided for." Ken works his way to the food prep area as best he can with his current navigational challenge. But he's done the "where's the ice cream machine" tour enough times that he's starting to suspect he'll be able to fetch Wormmon a midnight snack while still asleep.

Wormmon, a Good Tour Guide, gestures to the machine. Behold, there are bowls over here - and there's a button, and nozzles.

"See if you can guess how it works!"

Except he's quivering in that way a kid does when he can't WAIT for you to guess what he wants for Christmas - and get it wrong. The quiver of a bug Excited to Correct.

"Well? Uhhh..."

Koumyou eyed the machine up and down, and then leaned to the side to look at it from over there. And then from this side, too. HMM.

"...No idea!"

He could guess ice cream came out of one of the nozzles, and must be controlled by the buttons, but it was more fun to just throw the towel in.

Wormmon lights up. "Then, take a bowl, and put it there, and then press that!"

Looks like Koumyou's suspicions were correct, and Wormmon has not the faintest idea such suspicions existed. Ken is trying to politely keep a knowing smile off his face, though. He appreciates it when people indulge Wormmon.

Koumyou did what he was told, and when the machine began to fill the bowl with ice cream he gasped.

"Wow! I'm going to live right here, in front of this machine!"

And take a glop of ice cream with his bare fingers, and eat it.

...Priests are very dignified, don't you know?

Whoa! Spoons are optional? Wormmon did not know that. He wonders if he would fit under the nozzle on the ice cream machine, and if it tastes better coming right out....

....But then Ken-chan wouldn't be feeding it to him. That's an important part of the process. (Unless Ken-chan presses the button...?)

While Wormmon engages in this extremely pertinent mental exercise, Ken fetches Koumyou a spoon in case he decides that's...preferable.

"I'm glad you like it."

People he never expected to remind him of his best (not-Wormmon) friend: Priests.

Koumyou gladly accepted the spoon, and dug into his bowl. He was absolutely going to get an ice cream headache, and there was no real way to stop him from it.

"Of course!" the blond walks away from the machine with his bowl and spoon, and gives a little twirl. His braid, and the ends of the sutra on his shoulders, really emphasize the silly move.

"Electricity is kind of rare in Shangri-La, so freezers are hard to come by, and definitely not in the temples -- let alone Kinzan temple!"

So it's easily been years since he's had ice cream. Decades, perhaps.

"Maaah, if only Kouryuu was here with me. I don't think he's ever had any!"

"Never?!"

Wormmon is so sad for this person he has never met, because he remembers what it's like to live in a world without ice cream. It's very lonely. (A world without ice cream is also a world without Ken-chan, you see. Nothing but good things can come of having met Ken-chan!)

Ken continues to have a conversation on a completely different plane than the one Koumyou and Wormmon are having. He can't say he's completely familiar with anything Koumyou is referencing - not surprising, their being from different worlds - but from sheer context, and the connotations of some of the words...

"I might be presuming again," Ken ventures. "But could you be a priest of some importance?"

One doesn't just happen to be from a place called Shangri-La, do they? And Ken and Wormmon have already met people from worlds with multiple afterlives. Cosmology must vary.

Koumyou latched onto this topic shift, before he could start to really make himself sad over all the things he'd never get to show his precious son.

So, for once, he'd introduce himself properly. With his spoon-hand pressed delicately to his own chest, "Toua Koumyou Sanzō Hoshi-sama the 30th of Shangri-La, protector of the Seiten and Maten Founding Scriptures of Heaven and Earth."

A beat.

"...Well, just the Seiten, now. Maten didn't follow me here, but that's fine. It has a new Sanzo to guard it from here on out."

.....

.......Perhaps this person's attitude is a result of being so far from earthly concerns that he has learned true authenticity. That is merely a theory, but Ken might go with it.

Wormmon's also impressed enough that he stops trying to figure out ice-cream-machine-and-mandibles logistics. "Whoa! Ken-chan, he has a long name, too!"

Wormmon is glad they didn't have to put that on their roommate sign. It was hard enough figuring out if they were going to fit "Waver Velvet, Lord El-Melloi II." (They cheated. The sign says "Professor.")

Oh, speaking of. Wormmon pats what would be his chest, if he had more easily identifiable body parts. "I'm Wormmon. Ken-chan is Ken-chan."

"....Ichijouji Ken."

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