wilderlogs | THE SQUAD DOES AN INTRO

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THE SQUAD DOES AN INTRO - [modplot] [event]

THE SQUAD DOES AN INTRO
OOC POST
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.

OOC INFO
✦ 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.

Threaded | Flat

[Dixon was already almost asleep when the sound of nature came in to drag him under. He had his forehead pressed against the car window, dribbling saliva slightly over his lower lip as he drifted between "conscious, uncertain and queasy" to "asleep and able to ignore the hangover and moral conundrums" in Mildred's car. Then he's dreaming and falling, dreaming and falling, not noticing anything unusual about this particular dream aside from the long and confusing string of whispered directions.

The voice tells him he's about to be lost and find other lost people and even in sleep, Dixon huffs a laugh, because if that ain't so on-the-nose even he's got to pick it up...]

The hell...?

[Even a kid as catastrophically opposed to books as young Dixon was knows the lion, the tin-man and the scarecrow. He blinks and wipes the drool away from the corner of his mouth, squinting through all the sunlight reflecting off the ruins. He tries to pick through his drowsy mind for a few threads to tie into a coherent idea of what the hell is going on.

The only thing that makes sense is if they pulled over here on their way through Kansas, but he doesn't see the car anywhere. Instead, when he sits up, he feels one arm weighed down by something strapped to it - a golden shield with an oversized Ebbing Police Department insignia.

Dixon rubs his face and staggers to his feet, shaking his arm to try to wake it up where it's gone tingly from the weight of the shield.]

We pull over at one of those Kansas tourist traps, Mrs. Hayes? Mrs. Hayes? Where the fuck did you go off to? Why're we out here at a...[he gestures at the frozen tin-man] tourist trap for the goddamn Wizard of Oz?

[ Arturia is a Heroic Spirit normally. She doesn't need to sleep. So when she drifts off and finds herself falling, falling, falling she knows something has to be up. Some strange magic beyond that she has become familiar with and beyond that which binds her to Tohsaka Rin. Still, jerking awake on a soft bed of thick greenery, Excalibur at her side (though with a plain scabbard she doesn't recognize) her world has been quickly turned upside-down. She glances around her at the strange and crumbling statues and scrambles to her feet.

Standing for a long moment and listening--trying to see if she can hear any voices or the familiar noise of city life--she slings Excalibur across her back and begins walking, shuffling through the overgrown streets in silence. ]

Hello? Shirou? Rin?

[ She cups her hands around her mouth and yells in Japanese, hoping that perhaps the pair of them have accompanied her in some way. ]

[On the bullshit life experience scale, this is only the second most bullshit thing that's ever happened to Maril--Revan, and she lies there on the ground, staring up at the sky for a good minute, not from fear or even garden-variety nerves, but because it takes her that long to get her exasperation under control. Sometimes she suspects she sucks at this Jedi thing. When Revan at last rolls to her feet and looks somewhere besides up, her frown returns, puzzled rather than annoyed this time.

Then she shrugs and starts climbing the nearest tree to get a better look around. Jedi robes and stiff knee-high boots make it more difficult, but she's in excellent shape, and more importantly, extraordinarily stubborn.

OOC: Revan speaks Basic, which I'm gonna say isn't English, but has empathy powers described over at her permissions post.]

[ There are a lot of questions Sothe could ask about that dream - what the hell is the Green, what does it need to be saved from, why do they think he's the guy (one of?) for the job -

When he opens his eyes, all of those questions become very, very secondary.

Creepy statues. Creepy statues everywhere. And when the going gets creepy, the careful don't start yelling.

Instead, he keeps quiet. Grabs the knife that's next to him, because finders keepers, and it's not like any of these (formerly?) people are gonna be using it. Gets to his feet, listens, and when he hears someone nearby, he slips into the shadow of the nearest convenient statue and keeps listening. ~~One does not simply walk into the fellowship.~~

Maybe you're sharp enough to pick up on him watching you? Or maybe you're coming from the other direction. Who knows. Either way, there's a tween boy being very sneaky in your path, or just out of it. ]

[Flowing water and wind and the gentle rattling of forest spirits is a strange thing to hear in her last moments, with the sword coming down.

It's a strange thing to even catch Sariatu's attention at all, with her husband dead at her feet all over again, with her son running for his life, and her heart already in pieces even as her sister's blade lands, and cuts her heart and body in two.

The wind and water covers the sound of the sword through her bones. The whispers drown out the cries she can't make in death, telling her things that she has no attention to spare for.

Chosen? No. Let go to my husband.

The Green? No. Let me save my son.

The power to -

She doesn't need to know the power to do what. She wants it. She wants power. No matter why it is given, she will turn it to her own ends, she will turn it on the protection of her son. She wants it. She has a great reason. Yes. I accept this power.

She lands whole. And yet, even in death - still monkey-shaped.

But she can't even care enough to let that appalled observation fill her mind, not when her mind is still full of her death, still full of Hanzo dying in front of her all over again - ]

"Hanzo?"

[She manages one breaking cry, scrabbling on the broken street to get her full height. The deserted emerald city gives her no answers.]

"Hanzo!"

[She shouts at the top of her voice, echoing though the broken towers of jewel. It doesn't matter who else hears her, when she is already dead, when her husband has already gone before her, when her son might come after her soon -

- when whatever destroyed this city might find them before she does.

She spots a sword in the corner of her eye and has her hand on it, pulling it from the ground before she even sees the style of the weapon clearly. When she does get a look at it, she almost drops it again. The blade is etched with open-jawed wolves, running and leaping through thrashing waves, sea creatures with claws half as big as their bodies and eyes that seem black and staring, even though they are only etched in silver. Into the pommel has been carved, with cratered detail, a full and threatening moon.

This is a terrible sword. A strong, sharp, terrible, useful sword.

Maybe as terrible as her need. Maybe as terrible as her grief.

She needs it.]

"Hanzo! Where are you?"

[She screams again, running through the city. Where is he? Where has he gone? He didn't have time to wander far before she arrived. Why is he not here, if she is? Why did she believe he was dead all those years ago?

Why did she just let herself assume that just because she saw him injured within an inch of death, that her father and her sisters would not take it in their awful hearts to do something even worse to him? Why didn't she realize death would not satisfy them, why didn't she know that they would find some way to torture him, to make him suffer all the loneliness and purposelessness he had worked so hard to avoid?

She is a scream away from being consumed again with grief.

In the time that has passed, she realizes, her son has either died or escaped, and if he's died -]

"Kubo!"

[Her voice breaks at even the thought that he may answer her. But she screams her son's name until it echoes through the emeralds anyway.]

Edited 2018-03-08 04:44 (UTC)

[ Simmons is used to weird, inexplicable, stupid shit. The thing is, though, it usually involves aliens or secret military projects or lawbreaking space corporations. This magic forest stuff is very new.

When he wakes up, it takes him a second to remember. He scrambles to his feet, scattering dead leaves that had settled on his armor, then immediately trips over a tree root poking up through the stones. ]

Ow! Fuck!

[ Great. Amazing. Perfect. At least his armor means it didn't hurt much.

Speaking of which, the HUD on his visor is dead. The suit seems to be completely without power. Also great. Also amazing. Also perfect. ]

Huh. I thought the Emerald City was only Emerald because everyone was wearing green-tinted glasses?

[Cassie's not happy about getting teleported into the weird ruins of a story she's read, but it's also not the weirdest thing that has happened to her. Not the weirdest thing by far. Still, there's a supervillain who works with stories and has a particular mad-on for Diana, and Cassie isn't...feeling up to her usual self. And she can't fly. And her lasso is missing.

Best to keep calm for now, though. Some of these other people look a lot more unsettled by this situation. They need her to stay calm, because they're more than ready to freak out.]

What do you think these little doll-things are?

[ One moment he was frozen with the barrel of a gun pressed to his knee, the inexplicable sounds of rushing water and rustling trees that had been so quiet when he'd first rushed into this situation, suddenly sounding as if they were coming from all around him, making him feel light headed. The next moment he was closing his eyes as Deathstroke's rambling started to sound oddly far away, the seconds between the press of the gun and the click of it being cocked seemingly stretching on forever. And then somehow he was falling.

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?

Edited 2018-03-08 06:07 (UTC)

{There's a one-legged young man, tall and wiry, in close-fitting leather armor wandering the ruins. carries a round metal shield and some kind of segmented sword.]

[Also he's being followed by a dragon. Wearing a saddle. This fact might be slightly more relevant than the others.]

No idea where we are, and flying ot try and get our bearings isn't exactly the best idea with us jumping around like this. You got any ideas, bud?

[Toothless makes a sarcastic rumbling noise, and rolls his eyes.]

Yeah, didn't think so.

Edited 2018-03-08 06:47 (UTC)

[It's strange, really. What catches her attention most of all is the sheer amount of color that her eyes can see.

Vibrant. Cheerful, even.

She reaches out, her fingers brushing against any surface she can get close enough too. The sensation, the feeling of it all. And not only that... There's also the smell of fresh air,and the way her ears picked up the sound of her own footsteps and voices of anyone nearby.

It felt like all of her senses were being assaulted all at once. Well, except taste.

The way it registered in her brain.

Depth.

None of the flat lifelessness that she had come to expect.]

Oh, sorry! I didn't mean to...

Ahaha! Whoops.

[A bit of nervous laughter after making eye contact with someone.]

Don't mind me, I'm just a little disoriented.

[One moment they were walking alongside their partner heading out to patrol, and the next it seemed like they'd somehow dozed off on the way and fallen straight into a weird dream, earth and roots and leaves and a voice--

They wake up to so much green they think they must still be sleeping and lay on the ground a bit longer. When they open their eyes again, all the green is still there.

It's...buildings. So many of them, and in such disarray. It takes Phos a moment too long to realize that all that green is trees, too. But the trees are are strange and numerous as the buildings, thick and tall and heavy with leaves like bushes to the point the sky is hard to see in places. Phos picks through the mess of green with awe, beyond confused.

Wherever they are, it sure as hell isn't anywhere on the island.]

Cairngorm? Hey, Cai--

[Their voice chokes off very abruptly as they catch sight of the white figures, and they instinctively stumble behind a tree for cover. They wait for a few moments, mind racing through all the awful possibilities of why there would be Lunarians on the ground here while their partner is missing, but none of them come to investigate all the noise Phos had been making and eventually, Phos peeks back around the trunk of the strange tree.

The figures aren't moving. And at second glance, they don't look like Lunarians. Cautiously, Phos creeps forward, gaining confidence the closer they get without prompting any kind of reaction.

Up close, the white figures definitely aren't Lunarians, but Phos sure as hell can't tell what they are. Some of them are shaped a little weird, and the clothes and hair are as stiff and strange-looking as the figures themselves are. Close inspection reveals that they're stone, but not why they aren't moving. One or two are missing heads, but the damage on the others shouldn't render them immobile. And why are they all the same stone? Phos pokes at the odd, dull stone of one figure's broken arm, disconcerted but concerned.]

Can you hear me? Hey. Hey! What's wrong with you guys? Hellooo?

[Anyone stumbling into the clearing will come across a...pretty bizarre sight. A delicate-looking person in high heels and hot pants prods and shake the statues with golden arms, their mint green hair brilliantly refractive in the sunlight coming through the trees and scattering fractals of tinted light across the scenery. They're speaking in Japanese for some reason, because this clearly wasn't weird enough to begin with.]

[ The last thing he remembered was the sensation of searing flesh. The sensation of his nerve endings lighting up like a campfire, as a barrage of energy blasts tore through him like a hot knife through butter. The image was clear as day to him, burned into his mind as it happened. Lifeless monsters, bearing down on him, cutting him down with all the effort of an elephant stepping on an ant.

It happened in an instant, but to him, it felt like it all happened too slowly. Like he had been watching his own death in slow motion, the events so unreal to him, that it might as well have felt like an out-of-body experience. But no, being outside of his body would've been a blessing. Instead, he had been trapped in it. Brought back to the reality of the situation, as that searing pain made it all too clear to him that he was going to be meeting his dad soon.

And just like that, everything had gone white. A sense of weightlessness coming over him, as his senses all dulled. He could hear the running water, the strange whispers, but he didn't listen. He didn't need to, because he knew it was finally time for him to sleep...

Instead, his eyes wildly shot open, his breath coming to him in a sharp gasp. The fact that he was even capable of opening his eyes again enough of a shock on its own. For a moment, he simply laid there, his chest heaving painfully with each breath he took. But once the adrenaline that came with the shock wore off, his body made it a point to remind him of just how bad of a condition he was in.

The pain flared up the instant he so much as moved, with Gohan instinctively gritting his teeth as he did his best to stand up. The best he could manage was to wobble against a wall, the dizzy spell that came from standing up making it very clear that he was in no condition to move past that. But he obviously couldn't stay here, he needed to find Trunks, or Bulma. ]

N-Need to... move... [ He murmured to himself, bringing one hand over the stump that was his left arm. Completely missing (or choosing to ignore) the copious amounts of blood that he was both covered in, and probably losing. ] Need... t-to find...

[ He tried to take a step forward, not even bothering to look up to see where he was going. But that one step was as far as he got, before he toppled forward, and fell back down on the ground. Of course, he could feel the pain flaring up the moment he hit the ground, prompting him to grit his teeth. But at the same time, he felt so numb, that he wasn't sure he cared. ]

...Tr...unks...

[ He just wanted to sleep. ]

[He's met one person so far and the language difference and his nonfunctioning telepathic earplugs were immediately obvious. If anyone else speaks English - or any other language besides Interlac - he's at a disadvantage, especially without his powers. He only remembers bits and pieces of English from his time on 21st century Earth. His arrogance had led him to decide that learning a dead language was a waste of his time, especially when he'd been so confident he'd eventually find them a way home to their own time.]

[So he's stranded, without the team, in a strange world, possibly with people he can't communicate with. This random teleportation thing could take him anywhere and there's always the possibilities of encountering hostiles. And his earplugs were impossible to fix when he tried - they were in perfect working order and it seemed to be some kind of magical interference causing most of the technology on his person to become nonfunctional.]

[This is why Brainy is very careful as he moves around the ruins, each time he's teleported. The Legion's had more than one bad first contact with the various dimensions they've visited. So he moves around slowly, with his omnicom in hand, scanning his surroundings and trying to determine the source of teleportation - and source of power nullification.]

[He cuts a strange sight as he does, his clothing alien and made from strange synthetic fabrics. Through the gaps in his poncho, some kind of thin environmental suit is visible, one that extends up into a hood over his head. Goggles and a rebreather form a tight seal over his face with the hood, hiding everything, including his eyes. The rebreather's tube goes down to a filtration device at his waist. Another clunky, boxy device with strange dials and numbers and digital readouts attached to the worn belt at his waist seems to be measuring something.]

[Whenever he's transplanted near someone else or they come upon him, he freezes in place, holds up a hand in a placating way and places his omnicom in a pouch on his belt so both hands are free in case there's need for a fight.]

[The language he speaks is entirely alien, and full of sounds not used in many Earth languages, like hisses and click consonants. It's warped slightly by the voice relay in his rebreather. It makes it somewhat hard to read tone but the times it dips into softer sounds, his tone is tart and annoyed.]

((I mean you no harm, and sincerely hope you're harboring the same sentiments -- though if you happen to be a murderous, cannibalistic degenerate, that would certainly be my luck.))

[His movements when he speaks are strangely precise and almost bird-like. Alien.]

[ Tim woke up with the sound of running water fading from his ears. He must’ve been dreaming about a waterfall, but the dream's already slipped away.

He was falling, but there was no fear in it. It took so long the drop feels slow. Wilder lands, save the green, talking mirrors. Tim tried to ask what the Green is, but the sound was lost in the rush of air and crash of branches.

He snapped awake in a rush to sit, with an audible gasp of air and a pitching sensation in his gut that seemed to confirm the fall was just a dream. In that moment, he told himself he was dreaming, twice.

And then the rest of the world slid into focus, and suddenly sitting up wasn’t nearly alert enough. He scrambled to his feet and turned quickly, taking in the buildings shot through with trees and vines, the undergrowth he was asleep in – his belt and his bow stand out against the green, bright yellow and pitch black. Tim picked them up automatically, and the belt disappeared under his grey t-shirt with the soft click of a buckle.

You’re going to be lost in the woods. Think. He was home. He knew he was home – he’s still wearing the mishmash of gifts that comprise last night’s pajamas: a t-shirt reading "Detectives Do It Undercover" and a pair of red pajama pants from the Flash Museum with a lightning bolt down one leg. If he pulled them to the side, he knew they said "Flashpants" in the Flashdance font on the backside. He went to bed. There were other people in the house – some who stay up later and sleep lighter than he does – and Tim heard nothing. There’s a security system that you can hear a mile away. How did he hear nothing?

The city looked like Ivy’s wet dream: a civilization being reclaimed by wilderness. Wilderlands. Save the green. It can’t be that obvious, can it? This much growth is pushing even Ivy to her limits. It can’t have been more than a few hours, and she wouldn’t have drug Tim Wayne out of his bed for this.

Anyway, those whispers were in a dream. He can’t make connections half-based on dreams. This doesn’t look like it was ever Gotham. If he’s going to go around suspecting Ivy and taking unnecessary chemicals because plants, then he might as well suspect the Mad Hatter’s broken out of Arkham because he fell down a rabbit hole.

That wasn’t a bad idea. Tim reached up, although he didn’t expect to find a hat on his head. It was rare to snap out of mind control while wearing a device. It could be malfunctioning, so he ran his fingers carefully over his ears and through his hair to check for the miniature card as he began to walk carefully through the roots and rubble.

After a few minutes of being suspicious of every statue, Tim was growing unnerved by their glossy dead eyes and the complete lack of living people.]

[This was not how Sirius saw this day going. He didn’t make a habit of trusting the voices in his head, but this seemed too real to be a hallucination. Still sporting a bruised eye, he rubbed at the swollen side of his face. Then he changed into a dog.

Scratch that, he tried to change into a dog. What actually happened was he stood in the same position as before, blinked, and looked down at himself.]

What--

[He couldn't change into his animagus form, which meant he was powerless. Standing there, dressed in the same gray robes from Azkaban, looking like he’d spent 12 years in Azkaban and one on the run, he was in serious trouble.]

That voice lied to me!

[Sean's first confused thought was that maybe he'd somehow found himself in the Radical Lands, or was witnessing the aftermath of a Cockatrice rampage. But he gets his bearings fast enough. And by that, he means vault into the closest shadowy corner. Ninja instincts never die.]

[Some unfortunate revelations are made. The hologram module is absolutely trashed. With half of it junked and and the other half just straight up missing, it's a glorified paperweight with no hope for recovery, even with some extremely specialised tools and several restricted parts sourced overseas he's not seeing. Worth keeping to contribute parts for the next one, maybe. His fuel lines are still cut and dribbling, but the wrist-mounted taser and flamethrower might still work with a little help. It's not stopping him from trying, anyway.]

[Sean is fist deep into a bundle of wires on the module on his arm, the other hand this close to tearing his hair out in frustration when the exposed wires start to splutter to life.]

Come on! [he hisses. He has a second to hope, but that's when it decides to spray out an intensely bright shower of sparks. He yelps, and slaps a hand over it. Which activates his flamethrower on his other wrist, which was malfunctioning up till now.]

[Flames shoot up a foot into the sky, and somebody nearby might see a ninja with a theatrical black cape lit up like a Fourth of July display, fleeing his suddenly very compromised hiding space.]

Threaded | Flat

JASON DIXON | THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI SPOILERS

Saber (Arturia Pendragon) ♦ Fate/stay night Unlimited Blade Works