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wilderlogs2018-03-07 06:14 pm
wildermods) wrote in wilderlogs2018-03-07 06:14 pm
THE SQUAD DOES AN INTRO - [modplot] [event]
THE SQUAD DOES AN INTRO
In their homeworlds, they suddenly hear water flowing over stone, the wind through the leaves, and the gentle rattling of Kodama. The hushed sound of treetops waving in the breeze lull them to sleep whether they want it to or not, and in what seems like a dream they fall through a tunnel that passes through layers of dirt and roots and then through seemingly endless boughs of trees.
During this impossibly long fall, spirits whisper in their ears. They tell them that they must save the Wilderlands and the Green. They tell them that they will be given the power or weapons to do it - or that they're already strong enough as they are. They tell them that in the times they're not needed, they may find themselves trapped in the faerie realm known as the Brugh, but that the mirrors will let them speak, and the mirrors will let them see.
And they tell them that they're about to become lost in the forest and that there are others like them, just as lost.
When they wake up, they find themselves in the ruins of an abandoned city; the forest has overtaken it, threading new life through the decay, but the green of the leaves and vines pales in contrast with the broken buildings and streets. Every single building in this city was once a vibrant shade of emerald, and even now, after the slow ravages of time, the green ruins glimmer like they're hewn from precious gems.
The only things that aren't that bright shade of emerald are the statues. Countless statues are scattered through the abandoned city, shaped like men and women and children and pets, all dressed in 1900s era Earth-style finery. These figures are extremely intricate, almost too detailed to be believably carved by a human hand. Many of them are smashed and broken.
Some of the statues don't look human. Among the humans are little beings shaped like china dolls that are made of stone like the rest, instead of porcelain. And in the middle of the city, standing near each other are three strange petrified figures: an axe-wielding man that looks like he was made of metal before being petrified, a man who looks like a human-lion hybrid, and a living scarecrow. All three have expressions of surprise or anger on their faces.
When the characters are brought into this place, the magic that brought them in seems to have trouble getting them all in the same place at first. They find themselves spending brief amounts of time in one spot (sometimes just minutes, sometimes longer) before they're teleported again. Each time they teleport they find themselves near someone new, someone just as lost as them. Those that don't speak the same language may find some difficulties communicating, but over time, the magic of the Wilderlands will kick in, and plant a whole new language in their heads. This magic works faster the more they emotionally connect with other and find understanding without words.
The teleportation keeps zapping them in different places all over the city -- and sometimes outside it, where they can see an abandoned road made of yellow brick that trails off into the distance. Fortunately, the people they keep getting paired off with seem like normal people just like them, and beyond that, they're entirely alone in the ruins.
Probably.
✦ Post in actionspam format. Plots and mod-run events in the game are meant to be in actionspam format to keep a brisk pace.
✦ Please see the OOC post linked up top for more information about the event.
Bart Allen [Impulse] | DC Comics
The crack of a gunshot finally going off sounds like a far-off echo, drowned out by whispers he could barely pay attention to as he scrambles to grab at roots, vines, or just the edges of the craggy hole he'd somehow been tossed in to. He even tries spinning his arms at super speed to slow his decent but none of it works.
Instead of hitting the ground though, things simply go black, and when he opens his eyes again it's once more to the sounds of rustling trees.
Jolting up, the first things he sees of his new surroundings are headless figures seemingly dancing around him, and he shrieks. As the noise startles several birds in the area into flying off though, two things become obvious: One - the figures 'dancing' around him were statues, not just your average slow moving people, and Two - those birds were moving far too quickly, which meant either they were speedster birds or he was no longer attached to the speedforce.
Calming himself down, he glared at the group encircling him as if they had startled him on purpose, muttering a quiet "Grife" at both them and the situation before remembering his knee. Groping for the limb and looking it over, it seemed and felt fine. There was no pain and certainly no gunshot. Whatever had brought him here must have gotten in the way of him actually taking the hit, which was some good news.
Pushing himself up, he ducks under the linked outstretched arms of two of the figures, sticking his tongue out at one of them as he passed by before moving further into the shining green ruins. ]
Guys?! Is anyone else here?
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But that shout...it had sounded like speech, but the words hadn't made any sense. Frowning, Phos cautiously leans over the top of the ruined wall, calling back in their own language -- Japanese, not that they'd ever know it's called that.]
What are you even saying?
[Behind the wall, they keep one hand gripped on their sword's hilt. Just in case. They haven't forgotten their past attempts at communicating with the Lunarians, and they'd sworn that they were going to be more careful about how they go about things now.]
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Hey! It's you!
[Unlike Phos, Bart chooses to show no caution what's so ever. With speeds that were just a little too fast for your average human, but still felt far too slow to him, he zipped over to the half-crumbled wall and with a slight bound, plants his palms on to the craggy surface, pushing himself up off his feet and probably getting a bit too close for comfort. ]
Phosphophyllite, right?
[And just as quickly as he came in close, he's backing off again. Tipping back, he lets go of the wall and lands lightly back on his feet. Not catching on to the fact that, unlike last time, they were speaking Japanese, he keeps right on speaking in English.]
Oh, man! I thought that whole thing was some kind of weird dream or something. Are we back in the same place we were before? Is this the nerd book?
[He's speaking a little too fast, even for someone that would actually be able to understand him, and the stream of gibberish comes with gestures. So many excited gestures. He's grabbing at his hair when he talks about thinking it was a dream, does a quick spin around in a gesture at the area around them, and finally points to the ground when asking if this is the 'nerd book'.]
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[Phos reels back from the wall, the surface of their alloy arms rippling with surprise. They just barely catch themselves before they can stumble, but before they can even react to the threat the person's pulled back again, babbling on with words Phos can barely catch, let alone make sense of. Just watching him is kinda tiring.]
Eh? Wait, wait...did you say my name?
[They didn't understand...well, any of the rest of that, but they could swear they heard their own name. Which...kinda makes all this even weirder than it already is.]
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Whoa...
[ Was that one of their powers or something? Some kind of shapeshifting thing? Did that just happen with their arms? Or were they like Gar? All great questions to eventually ask, but wait, what the sprock? That sure wasn't English. ]
Wait...what?
[ That...sounded like Japanese, maybe? He knew some Japanese. Or actually, that was being generous. He knew how to ask for the bathroom, how to order certain foods and some choice insults. That was about it. But why the heck were they suddenly speaking Japanese in the first place? They were able to talk to each other just fine before. ]
((Uh...speak English any, you?))
[ He tries to say in his very broken Japanese. His accent is atrocious. ]
((Speak only...um...some this, me.))
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[Those...sure are words. Phos recognizes them -- well, most of them -- but they're strung together strangely. It vaguely reminds Phos of when they'd just been born and Sensei was still teaching them how to talk.
They're surprised they can even remember that, all things considered.]
Were you just born recently or something? How old are you?
[Hey, at least it's something. Better than not understanding anything at all. Tentatively, Phos returns to the wall, leaning over the side of it to peer at the weird-looking person.]
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Ouch. Okay.
[ He didn't understand all of that but enough to get the gist. Technically Phos wasn't exactly wrong on that one. But Bart wasn't really up for trying to explain how he was only four but that didn't apply to this situation. Not with what little Japanese he could actually navigate.
This was going to need a different approach.
With a sigh he plants his hands on his hips, frowning as he tries to think, foot tapping impatiently. It doesn't take long before his expression lights up again though and he's back to excitedly gesturing.
He holds out his finger, points to himself, points to a tree not too far off, then points to the ground. ]
((Need second. Go I. But be back. Okay?))
[ And before he can even get a response he's making a beeline for the tree, jumping up and trying to break one of the smaller branches off of it. ]
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[Perplexed, Phos leans heavily against the wall, golden arms outstretched to hang lazily over it. They weren't sure what to make of his grimace, or his fussing with the tree, but they tilted their head curiously.]
...Do you need help?
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[ Leaping up again he manages to get a better hold of one of the thinner branches and successfully snaps it off. ]
Got it!
[ Rushing back he skids to a stop and and quickly settles down on his knees. Again he raising his finger to Phos in that 'one-second' signal before starting to use the stick to draw in the dirt.
The first is a very quick rough doodle of a cartoony Phos and Impulse talking far more animatedly than they really did. The second is a slightly more detailed etching of Phos making a disgusted face at the offer of bread and putting their hands up to refuse it.
When it's done he puts down the stick in front of him, probably close enough Phos could easily grab it if they wanted to, and starts gesturing again, pointing to himself, to Phos, between them, then at the drawing, at Phos again and then at his own head with a slightly hopeful questioning look. ]
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There's absolutely no recognitionnon their face, but they at least attempt a awkward smile.]
Uh...you're a pretty good artist?
[They have no idea what to do with that hopeful look, so they tentatively just. Pick up the stick. And doodle a flower in the dirt. It's kinda shitty.]
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[The figure reels back slightly in surprise when he sees Bart and then tilts his head in a little bird-like movement that seems almost amused, as he tucks his omnicom away. The omnicom is a monster of a thing, bulkier than the Legion's omnicoms used to be and likely unfamiliar due to being repaired so many times with cannibalized alien technology.]
[His voice probably doesn't sound like Bart remembers it. Brainy's a few years older now and his voice has grown deeper than it was in his teens. The voice relay in his rebreather also distorts it slightly.]
Intriguing.
[His words are in Interlac.]
As far as seemingly random interdimensional abductions go, I'll admit that the company is at least serendipitous.
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And, like everything else that's managed to sneak up on him so far, a poncho and gadget covered Brainy suddenly appearing so close, causes him to jump back and shriek like a banshee.
To his credit though, he settles back down fast enough, giving the unrecognizable figure a cautiously curious and scrutinizing look, even as they start speaking in Interlac and talking as if they know him.
It's not until he sees a flash of the Legion Ring that his eyes light up with dawning recognition. He still wasn't completely sure of which Legionar this was, though he had a pretty good idea. There were really only so many of them that would call being stuck with him intriguing or serendipitous, and he wasn't great at picking up on things like tone or speech patterns but they still clicked with someone in particular. ]
Is Jenni here, too?!
[ He had to ask. His cousin was always the first person he thought of where the Legion was concerned. ]
And why are you wearing so much stuff?
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[Brainy tilts his head slightly.]
Given your apparent age, it would perhaps be unwise to fully explain my current appearance. The last time I saw you, you were slightly older, which suggests that time travel is an element to our current situation.
The most I can say is that I was pulled from doing an environmental assay of a planet the Legion hasn't had contact with before and that the team lacks proper transuits at the moment. Standard operating procedure is to test an environment before risking exposure to environmental contagions. I also want to ensure I won't be exposing it to non-native pathogens.
[If there was any doubt at all that it was Brainy...]
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Imp looks a bit disappointed at the news that his cousin was most likely not here, but he bounces back quickly enough to pout over the news that Brainy was from further in his own timeline. ]
Ugh! More time travel within time travel! Why is everyone from so much further in the timeline than me?
[ Crossing his arms over his chest he glowers for a bit before what Querl said finally registers. ]
Wait...so do you think there are contagions and pathogens here?
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[As for the answer to the question about pathogens, the real answer is that there could be but with Bart not in any sort of transuit, Brainy doesn't have the heart to cause him undue concern.]
It's unlikely, given the readings I've taken so far. The atmosphere has a normoxic concentration similar to Earth and my scans indicate the plant life is similar to native Earth flora. At this point, I'm more concerned about introducing harmful microbes.
[A pause.]
The Legion...travels more in my time, leading to a higher risk of the team acting as carriers. [That's the easiest way to explain it without revealing the future.] We currently lack the resources for proper transuits.
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Similar as in it could be a version of Earth? Or similar as in, it's only similar?
[ Hearing that the whole team has been on the move more, with fewer resources to work with, was more than a little worrying. Especially as he finally took in just what it was Querl was working with. It wasn't exactly up to the standers of the kind of equipment he generally saw the Legion utilizing.
There was definitely a temptation to ask further into it, but he knew the rules of time travel well enough to hold back. ]
You have to travel more with less equipment? That sounds rough...
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The shriek makes him freeze, and Tim stands stock still, listening for what he might have only imagined. He's come upon people, or they've found him, in each stop so far. This is the first time he's heard screaming, and, now that he has, it seems bizarre that more of them aren't screaming. Sudden and disoriented teleportation, with no warning or apparent cause, and repeated random encounters? Everyone should be screaming their heads off.
There - that way. He has nothing to distinguish direction here, so Tim mentally calls the dead end south and populates directions from there. North east. Someone's speaking - it sounds familiar, but distance and echoes make it a muffled, generic male - and he can hear footsteps.
He runs, but only to the intersection of alley and paved road. He hasn't heard further shouting and wants to know more about what he's heading into before he rushes in, so Tim presses himself to a wall and waits for the footsteps to come closer. ]
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He'd caught bits and pieces, but then, how much could he really even trust any of that? He wasn't sure of exactly how many villains were out there that could do stuff like cause hallucinations or teleport people to pocket dimensions, or whatever this was, but he was pretty sure it was more likely this was the cause of one of them than this being an actual "quest" of some kind.
There was a time he would have easily believed that or at least would have wanted to. Grife, admittedly part of him still did want to and it wasn't completely out of the question, he'd been through weirder, but the fact of the matter was, it still wasn't likely.
The place did strike him as oddly familiar as he made his way further through, following the paved path. Some stuff seemed to emulate things he'd seen in comedy skits or cartoons. Something about emerald places and yellow brick roads. All references to a movie, or book, or something he was pretty sure, though he'd never actually sat down and seen or read the source material yet. He didn't remember anything about weird creepy statues or stone doll baby things in any of the stuff he did see though. So maybe the resemblance was just a coincidence? ]
Hello?
[ It did strike him that continuing to call out in a place that was more likely to be hiding enemies than it was to be hiding friends probably wasn't the best idea, but even if it did bring some big bad barreling down on him, it would give a pretty quick answer to what he was dealing with.
Coming up to what looked like the entrance of a narrow alley among some of the less dilapidated walls, he slowed down some, trying to be at least a little more cautious of his surroundings, since he was powerless and his shouting was like waving a giant 'come get me' sign into the air. ]
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He doesn’t hear a second set of footsteps, and so abruptly steps out of the alley. The blowback of Kid Flash racing past him doesn’t ruffle his hair. Today has that much in its favor. ]
Over here – hm.
[ He’s gone three shades paler in that little hum. Bart Allen is coming up on the left – his hair is too long, his face is too young and round, and his uniform is about two years too old.
But Tim keeps a thin, calm smile on his face. He holds both hands up in a joking and placating manner, one of them is holding his now-collapsed staff. He knows how different he must look to a time-travelling speedster. ]
Don’t worry. It’s me.
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Tim?
[ When he'd met Kon the first time they'ed ended up here, he hadn't seen much of a difference from how he'd looked back home, easily mistaking him for the Superboy from his point in time. He was maybe a little taller. Hair slightly different. That was about it.
With Tim, he doesn't even have to ask if he's from further in their timeline. He's definitely taller, his hairs longer, almost as long as his own, and he's definitely older. Maybe not by much, but enough to be evident in the sharper jawline and angles of his face.
He definitely recognized that voice though (it was changed a little too, but that Jersy accent was a dead giveaway), and he'd know those Flash pants anywhere. ]
Hey...so you grew into the pants.
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Hey.
[ He doesn’t tack on a name – Tim Drake isn’t supposed to know Impulse, and, while the cat's out of the bag on Kid Flash’s identity, Impulse somehow managed to hold onto the secret. Somehow occasionally goes by the name of Max Mercury.
Then again, it’s a lost cause pretending they don’t know each other. Tim was taken from his bed. It doesn’t matter who’s supposed to know who anymore: like the cat, the Bat is definitely out of the bed.
Tim looks down at his pajamas. They are, naturally, Bart’s fault, and Tim has had a hard time getting rid of them. ]
I have no idea when they started to fit. I think it was around when they would’ve for you, which they… wouldn’t now.
[ Tim looks dubiously at Bart, who seems to have shrunk in both height and musculature since Tim saw him last. ]
Either you got hit with a shrink ray and that’s the only thing that fit, or our space problem just became a space and time problem.
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His expression turns into one of mild irritation at the quip about him either shrinking or being from the past. Not about the comment itself but more the subject. ]
It's a space and time problem.
[ Which was just great. Always fun when you have to tack on 'possibly messing up the time stream' to this kind of situation. ]
And, I'm guessing you either got brought here straight out of bed or your fashion sence took a dive.
[ Not that Tim was ever exactly the fashionista of their group but even Bart knew those pants weren't meant to be worn outside. It was actually a little surprising he'd kept them. ]
That's...not good.
[ For more reasons than one. Best case scenario, whoever was doing this was bringing civilians into the mix and this was a huge coincidence, or the more likely scenario, they already knew who Tim really was. Best to play it safe either way, but it definitely didn't bode well. ]
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Pity. A regular old space problem would’ve been a nice break. Ooh, or a Thursday night stick-up.
[ He’s trying to make Bart laugh. The tiny scowl is jarring on the happy, open face, and Tim knows that he’s about to give the speedster more reason to fret. ]
Yeah, I was in bed. Pajamas, bed head… and my best belt. [ He gives Bart a significant look, but Tim figures it’s a 50/50 shot that he picks up on the implication. ] I dreamed I was falling and woke up here. You?
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I never thought I'd say this, but I think I really could go for a quiet boring bank robbery right about now.
[ The slight improvement to his mood doesn't stick around long though, as Tim confirmes that he was pulled out of bed. Bart nodded. Yeah. That definitely wasn't good. But at the mention of his 'best belt' and that look, Tim gets a slightly confused look back. Followed by what looks like recognization and another slight smile. ]
Hey, at least you weren't brought here naked?
[ Yeah, it's still a crapshoot as to whether he really did get it and is trying to confirm that, or if he's just plain being a smart ass.
When asked about his own pull point, it would have been easy enough to just gloss over exactly what had happened so they didn't have to talk about this right now. But it was clear that Tim asking him what he'd been doing when he was brought here wasn't just about seeing if he'd fallen asleep in his costume. It was about getting a bead on what point in time he came from. Which meant giving specifics. ]
I wasn't asleep, or at least I don't think I was. Unless it was some kinda micro nap.
[ Which wouldn't be a first for him, but man would that have ever been a terrible time for it. ]
We were investigating an explosion on Alcatraz. Our groups first kinda mission as Titans, I guess. I started to hear trees and running water and this rattling, and it was weird because I was inside the building...and the sound wasn't slow like everything else. I started to feel light-headed and then had the whole falling bit happen.
[ So he was still glossing over it a little bit, for now. But if they really were from the same timeline, and he really didn't get out of that unscathed, Tim probably didn't need to be told what was coming anyway. ]
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He chooses to interpret the smile as Bart Getting It. There’s nothing to be gained from beleaguering the point, which was Tim doesn’t wear his gear to bed so whoever kidnapped him knows Tim is Robin, and not much to be lost if Bart doesn’t realize Tim has some birdarangs. ]
Yes, let’s all be glad we weren’t brought here from the shower.
[ Having a conversation with Bart is playing pin the tail on the donkey. Specifically, it’s that moment when the blindfold is removed and you see how off base you were.
But Bart does supply specifics on what he’d been doing. All in all, not bad for trying to will the questions at him, and it was good practice for this moment: having to will himself to not flinch at the memory. Bart had been shot at Alcatraz. It was the start of a long stretch of terrible events. ]
I visited Alcatraz once, but I didn’t like the tour. That was – wow, that was over a year ago.
[ He'll say he's pretending in case someone is listening, but the truth is... Tim wouldn't tell Bart that he was about to get kneecapped and operated on sans drugs if he was on fire and promised water for truth. ]
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