THE SQUAD DOES AN INTRO: GROUP MEET UP - [modplot] [event] [free-for-all]

[wildermods]

THE SQUAD DOES AN INTRO: GROUP MEET UP
OOC POST
The Green's binding spell finally works out its kinks and the entire group is teleported into the same area in the center of the city, near the statues of the Tin Man, Cowardly Lion, and Scarecrow.

Everyone in the group feels a tingling sensation as the magic sets in place and binds them. Anyone that tries to leave will now find themselves being teleported back if they wander too far. The group will have to try to stay together when it moves now.

They have a little bit of time to figure things out.

---

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.

✦ Free-for-all Post. This event will be in "free-for-all" format, meaning that threadhopping is encouraged and that threading should be treated in the same conversational way as network posts.

✦ By now, the language magic should be fully in place. By now, everyone should have magically learned Sylvaen so that everyone can speak it fluently and understand each other.

Comments

[invisibleheir]

[ Arturia stares at the mixed group of people that seem to have all materialized around her. She recognizes a few of them. The monkey. Monika. Dixon. Revan. Revan gets a nod, at least, because she seems to have herself together the most of anyone she's met so far. ]

I'm guessing none of us know exactly where we are or how we were brought here other than perhaps 'magic.' The question we need to find the answer to is 'what do we do next?'

[ Let's get down to business, shall we? ]

[awfulcer]

[Since escaping that situation with the weird liquid person, Dixon’s been laying low, sitting with three walls of emerald ruin around him like a toad cozy in its hole. Part of that is strategic - the teleportation will eventually pop him up in front of another person, and God only knows how long this will be going on. He may as well conserve energy until some kind of solution arrives.

It’s also because Dixon feels plastered. He hasn’t had anything to eat or drink since he got here, but he’s pretty familiar with the sensation. He feels warm and heady and way too calm for the situation and like he’ll ramble the ear off anyone who gets close, but also a little too numb in his face and like the world is slow to catch up when he turns his head. It’s not a bad feeling; it’s actually pretty good. He’s just completely confused and concerned about how he ended up in this state.

He thinks about how hard he hit his head on the ground fighting with that thing. Maybe he has a head injury. Maybe he had a stroke. He doesn’t know, and the more he thinks about it the more his head hurts, so he fishes a pack of cigarettes and a lighter out of his pocket and starts smoking.

He’s about twenty seconds into the second cigarette when the teleportation jacks up again and he’s suddenly in front of the Wizard of Oz statues again. He stumbles to his feet, putting his hand on the scarecrow for balance, and sees way too many people, some familiar from, some unknown entities, a good chunk not strictly human, and one the weird liquid person he got into a fight with. He feels stunned for a moment, then realizes Saber has said something and he should probably respond in a way that makes it clear he’s not fucked up.]

Prob’ly take roll.

[Nah he’s super fucked up.]

[balladin]

[ Cue fading teleporter sounds. Robbie doesn't even wait for the imagined copyrighted noise to Peter out, once he sees where he is. Again. Again. ]

You've got to be kidding me! How many times do I gotta walk away from this freaking statue?!

[ He throws both arms to the side to indicate the Tin Man and Cowardly Lion, even though other living people who could respond haven't registered yet. ]

[suckitblue]

Three? Maybe four? Did anybody else count?

[ Simmons. Simmons. ]

[konman]

[Kon doesn't show up alone. He and Tim are still handcuffed together with the bat cuffs.]

Okay, your experiment worked, but everyone's in a group now. The teleporting will probably stop now anyway.

[the_hit_list]

[ Anyone looking might catch a pair of handcuffs slipping off the wrists of Tim and the hulking teen next to him. Tim is giving Kon a smugly triumphant look - he doesn't need to say I told you so.

The handcuffs disappear under his t-shirt. ]

I think we're jumping the gun, but I'm not explaining how I have handcuffs.

[therevanchist]

[Now that the random teleportation seems to have died down, Revan's taking the opportunity to thoroughly troubleshoot her lightsabers--which means disassembling them with the Force while she sits cross-legged in a sunny spot.

There is, as far as she can tell, absolutely nothing wrong with either of them. They simply won't switch on.]

Great.

[She reassembles the second one and stands almost simultaneously, plucking the hilt out of the air and clipping it back on her belt.]

Where am I supposed to find a vibroblade around here?

[It's a rhetorical question. Probably. Maybe.

...Nah, she wants swords and she wants them now.]

[wherenoonegoes]

What are those?

[Hiccup stares at the lightsabers with naked curiousity, itching to figure out what they are, what they do, and how he could recreate them.]

Sorry, I'm kind of a blacksmith and inventor, and I've never seen anything like those before.

[awfulcer]

[Now that things have calmed down and he's spent some time napping off the worst of the drunkenness, Dixon's trying to take advantage of the fact that he's surrounded by other people. The drive to not be alone with himself is hard and real, especially now that his thoughts aren't so scrambled by inebriation.

He was getting along fine with Revan before the whole spat with Phosphowhatever, and he's pretty sure he's mad at the weird gem person instead of her. He ambles over and squats down next to her and the light sabers, still a little unsteady but much more lucid than he was earlier.]

Want me to see if I can help?

[He can't, but when has incompetence ever stopped anyone from trying?]

[invisibleheir]

[ Arturia, tired of the criss-crossing conversations, moves across the small space everyone seems to be confined to and sits down next to Revan in seiza (you pick up some habits when you spend time in Japan, okay?). Her hands placed neatly on her knees, Saber peers curiously at the pair of hilts before speaking up. ]

Pardon, but what is a vibroblade?

[ Talking to someone who has sense is a relief in this place. ]

[the_hit_list]

[ Wandering through the crowd, Tim has been doing his best to be unobtrusive. He’s getting the sense that he and his friends are an oddity – no one else acts like they have well-established bonds, and Tim knows four people here, although one not well (yes, he’s spotted Brainiac 5 in the group).

This has left him with the impression that the mass abduction was targeted on his team and/or universe, or those most like it, because a quarter of the abductees would be too high a statistical grouping to be a mere outlier. The others are a massive amount of statistical noise, which makes some sense. Blinding pulling victims through a boomtube equivalent would lead to unwanted persons being caught up as flotsam, rather than jetsam.

Then, in one word, Tim’s thrown back into questioning the nature of reality. Just as Oz shouldn’t exist, vibroblades are fictional. He stares at the woman’s face, then looks her over, gaze finally settling on the grip of a lightsaber.

As if today couldn’t get stranger, the theorized Oz-themed villain is now a living fanfiction crossover, and it sucks on the merits. ]

I’m going to go out on a limb and say you aren’t going to find one.

[technomagic]

[Sean has been sort of lingering on the outskirts of the group, not quite hidden but not quite revealed either, and keeping a very, absolutely, so-totally-casual ear on the conversation when Revan explains how her lightsaber works to several people, who all equally obviously don't get it. Okay, she could have figured out how to replicate the effects of levitation - or she could be an actual Jedi.]

[A little nervous - and also a little sheepish - he draws out of the shadows and gives her a nod.]

I'm an actual engineer. [ unlike those other chumps. ] I could take a look.

[He keeps the eagerness to help out of his voice. Guess he's just pretending that whole thing earlier near the end didn't happen.]

[loadme]

[Oh wow, there's so many gathered together in one place. Is the teleportation madness finally over?

Please.]

Did anyone else feel that just now?

It felt kind of... tingly.

[She rubs her arms to get rid of the feeling.]

[outofresets]

[ Bart's started zipping around the crowd and comes to a halt near Monica when she speaks up. ]

You mean from the teleportation stuff or something else?

[astrarche]

[In the middle of all these calmly bewildered strangers, Sariatu feels more alien than she has ever felt in her long life. They are all whole and reasonable, the sort of undistracted persons one would expect to be pulled into a heroic mission, but she still feels cut in two.

She still feels as if her heart has been torn out of her body, like her blood is freely pouring out of her, taking her rage, her effort, everything she put into her failed, failed quest to save the all that mattered to her in the world with it.

Hanzo died in her sight all over again, murdered for the crime of being her love, and the afterlife has not given her the kindness of a reunion.

Kubo may be dead, or worse, punished for the crime of being better than heartless, and the afterlife has not given her the kindness of even a window to know whether or not this is so.

The afterlife has instead set a task before her, and the idea of being asked to care about any of it, to stand around and be calm and reasonable like a whole person, relating to these strangers who aren't already dead and yet still dying of grief all over again - they might as well ask her to muster up the strength to rebuild this entire city by herself.

The others are gathering, as heroes ought, but Sariatu has fallen into silence, her sorrow and her rage burned all out. Her shoulders shake, silently, as she curls in on herself, her sobs quiet but wholehearted.

Once she never would have wept in front of strangers, but there is nothing left in her to care about showing vulnerability.

Everyone she has ever loved is lost to her. Her face is not even her own anymore. How can she care about losing it?]

[shipoftheseus]

[Phos notices when the fluffy thing (person?) hangs back, silent and practically exuding unhappiness. They've at least met this one before, if just briefly, and they're one of the few who seem as unique and out of place in this group of whatever-these-are as Phos themself is.

The sounds are strange, but the body language is so clearly despairing. Phos pauses for a moment in front of her, hesitant and uncertain, but eventually crouches and leans in with a concerned expression.]

Are you okay?

[awfulcer]

[By now, sobriety's back, and with it all the stuff Dixon was more than happy to avoid. It's not as bad here as it was last night back home (like his house's walls were constructed of sheer shame and failure and futility), but it's still not fun to sit around feeling a step behind everyone else and with a burned, painful face and hands and the certainty that you just made an ass out of yourself and alienated a bunch of new people you just met.

It's still better than circling the drain back home, he guesses. But he needs company. He's going to just crawl out of his own skin if he sits here thinking. He lights up one of his cigarettes and paces around, then sees the monkey who threatened him earlier. He doesn't know if she's actually a person, but there's a way she's weeping that's entirely too human. It's something deep and broken.

And you know, there's a certain comfort in finding someone even more miserable than you.

He takes a deep drag and comes over, taking a seat down next to her. The whole way he sets down is like someone cut a string holding him up. Holding his limbs together seems like it takes effort, rather than being the natural construction of the human body.]

Hey. Sorry for calling you Mexican earlier.

[suckitblue]

...So. Does anyone else have any technology that should be working and isn't?

[ Thus speaks the man in the futuristic space armor. ]

Revan's lightsabers aren't. My armor has no power. [ ...There's an actual viking here, maybe he should clarify. ] It's not going to be doing anything but being heavy and made of metal.

The extra weird thing is I've got some robot parts, and they're all working just fine. I think. All the important ones, anyway.

[ Not even Simmons knows exactly what's going on in his stupid body at any given time. He's too used to this to be troubled by it. It's the inconsistency of things working at all that's worrying him. What if he walked into a make-stuff-not-work field and now that his armor's out, it'll hit the rest of him if he walks into another? ]

[loadme]

I'm sorry, but what was that last part?

[Did she mishear?]

You've got what?

[shipoftheseus]

[It had occurred to them while meeting a few people at random before this, but once in the group it's painfully obviously how out of place Phos is. To them, anyway. Whatever these gem-shaped people are, it's clear that many of them look like members of the same species. It's a colorful group, but the details that had looked strange and off somehow on individuals are the same for many of them. Most of them seem unaggressive, if not outright friendly, but even still...

Phos is definitely the weird one here. And not even for the usual reasons.

They hover for a while, self-consciously gripping one golden arm with the other while they try to hop in on the conversation where they can, but eventually they fall quiet. Frowning, they scan the trees and ruins surrounding the group, and at a moment when everyone seems wrapped up in something else they peel away from the group and head back in. Cairngorm is still missing, after all. They could be looking for their partner instead of awkwardly hanging around here trying not to sound like they're as confused about everything everyone is saying as they are.

They don't get terribly far. Once they've gotten a good distance away, there's that sensation again from when they were getting elepoeted around randomly, and with a yelp they suddenly find themself stumbling in a new spot.

Or. An old spot. Back with the group in that same clearing.

Phos stares at everyone for a moment before sighing heavily and just...dropping to sit on the group and flopping onto their back.]

Ugh. Fine. I give up.

[wherenoonegoes]

[With a brief gesture to Toothless to stay. Hiccup walks over to Phos.]

Give up on what exactly?

[followingdawn]

So, since it looks like we're stuck with each other -

[ And trust me, he's not in the least bit thrilled about that, after the dumbass arguments they've managed to have in the first twenty minutes. Congratulations, the party's obligatory kid thinks y'all are childish. ]

We're not getting far if we don't decide which way we're going.

[outofresets]

Aren't we supposed to follow the yellow brick road or something?

[ Bart chirps up from a seat on a broken pillar. ]

That's what I've always heard in the cartoons and it's about as good a way as any.

[awfulcer]

[It's getting to be later in the evening, and as far as Dixon can tell, there isn't any obviously available food or water. People are starting to pair off or hang out in the periphery of their teleportation boundary on their own, no longer so interested in coordinating such a rowdy and tumultuous group. They'll undoubtedly congeal again when there's some reason to work together as a team.

Dixon wanders around. It's not that he's hungry or thirsty - though he does have a hint of a headache, which feels more like a hangover than a result of having hit his head fighting Phos - but he doesn't have anything to tend to his healing injuries. The painkillers he took for them this morning have also long worn off, and healing third-degree burns hurt like a motherfucker. What's worse, with no way to clean them he's thinking they might get infected.

So he strolls up to people hanging out getting their bearings, trying not to look like he's kind of desperate.]

Anyone got anything for burns? Or I don't know, an aspirin or anything?

[googledox]

[Brainy stares at him and draws in a breath.]

[Despite the other man's hostility, he would've offered his services the first time they'd met if he'd thought he could even get in close, but given how hostile he'd been...]

[But now...]

[Brainy sighs.]

I have a medkit - provided you have no qualms with receiving medical care from a Ugandan.

[suckitblue]

So. I don't suppose you know anything about living in the woods?

[ It's light. Conversational. Simmons is just kind of getting the lay of the team's situation here by asking people completely casual questions that are not in any way an indication that he's pretty worried. No sir. ]

Cause I'm not gonna lie, I'm pretty used to having a supply chain around.

...Or part of one that's being screwed up by an idiot.

[ He sighs and shakes his head. ]

Anyway.

[mark_in_the_sands]

[ Cassie raises a hand in loose-fingered wave, grimacing a little. ]

I've got some basic wilderness survival skills, but I'm not sure on their long-term viability. A lot of my training worked off of the assumption that someone was going to be all but punching down trees to find me.

[googledox]

[Brainy is not a very sociable person and that means he hasn't spent much time talking to the others as they try to figure out the logistics of what to do next. Somebody should step up and take on a leadership role, certainly, but just as certainly that someone shouldn't be him.]

[So instead he busies himself with trying to figure out some of the mechanics of their circumstances.]

[He scans them all and their surrounds with his omnicom and then starts experimenting, walking away in one direction and then...]

[Then he appears, teleporting in from the opposite direction. He tries another direction and the same thing happens.]

Magic. Of course. Apparently, we're bound together with magic. Because being spirited to another dimension against our will wasn't aggravating enough...

[He keeps stomping around, going off in different directions to test it, teleporting back from other directions, muttering angrily under his breath in Interlac, scanning with his omnicom the whole time.]

[shipoftheseus]

[Having already made an attempt to leave themself, this whole spectacle isn't really surprising anymore. After dealing with everyone beckmes kind of mentally exhausting, they eventually sit themself down in the grass and just watch Brainy's irritable experimenting with mild interest while they soak up some light in a sunny patch.]

I don't think waving your box around is gonna change anything.

[Whatever said box is. Phos doesn't have the slightest idea, but they haven't observed any change in the last several times Brainy attempted this and it's beginning to cross over from looking determined to looking insane.]