middleofsomewhere | Onward: Purple

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Onward: Purple

The second night of their trek is interrupted by the shaking of the ground. It only lasts a few moments and all the tunnels hold, but it is enough to be a frightening experience.

And it seems to have agitated the monsters. A wave of crabs attack not long after the shaking has stopped, emerging from the rocks around them.

They are close to one of the sandbanks and as they emerge, for a moment out of the caves they will find darkened skies and choppy seas. There is a feeling of a storm approaching. It is cooler then it has been.

But that is the least of their problems. As they cross the sandbank, wading in the water a giant squid attacks. Tentacles reaching out of the sea, to wrap around limbs and pull the voidtreckers and those they are escorting off the sandbank and into the ocean depths.

The tentacles at least seem to withdraw if damaged enough, hopefully they can be fought off before anyone drowns.

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"I'm fine!" He called hand briefly resting on where the cut was made, it wasn't deep only a light scratch but his wetsuit was pretty much broken at this point. But he was slowly getting more and more annoyed at what was going on.

Slowly twitching he moved to kick the crab as hard as he could tipping it onto it's back for the time being. "Activate!" He called clearly ticked off at this moment in time and finally, it seemed to work. His left arm changes into a claw-like weapon, a white cowl slowly slumped over his shoulders and a silver mask sat in the front. Even his hair had gotten a little spikey.

"Finally..." He uttered before he could feel himself becoming a tiny bit tired, but he was going to ignore it for the time being as he looked over "Alice! How's it going over there?"

Even as he says he's fine, she's still momentarily distracted from the rest of the battle by staring over in his direction. After all, Alice definitely feels like Allen would say he's fine even if he isn't, so she has to make sure he isn't bleeding out over there.

Thankfully he seems to be mostly alright. Alright enough to be using whatever that power is. That gives her just enough trust in his condition for her to be able to look away from him for a moment and pay attention to one of the crabs approaching her instead. She uses the big hobby horse she's holding to flip it over before slamming the weapon down on the crab's underbelly with a seemingly surprising amount of strength for such a thin teenage girl. "Fine!" She finally answers the question as she does.

Once she's sure the crab is done for, she doesn't spare it a second glance. Instead Alice quickly makes her way over to Allen's side.

"What's wrong?"

He seemed to be struggling earlier, after all.

Well, that was at least a positive. Using his left hand he managed to block an incoming attack from one of the claws and knowing it wouldn't cause any type of damage to it in the long run.

Once it tried to latch on, he moved to kick it over, causing it to land on it's back and letting his arm go in the process. Even though he seemed to be doing okay, his movements were a little slower than usual.

"I don't know actually. But do you feel drained in anyway?"

"Drained?"

Apparently she doesn't seem to notice it as much as Allen - if she experiences the feeling at all, that is - since she sounds rather curious as she repeats the word. Is that why he seemed to be having so much trouble using whatever that power was?

Further questioning has to wait for a moment though as Alice has to slam another one of the crabs out of the way with an awful crunching sound as her hobby horse connects with the crab's shell.

"I'm.. not sure. But I assume you're asking that since you feel drained."

He nodded briefly as he turned to use his cowl to grabbed onto another grabs claws and flinging it towards the closest wall. It seemed like things were going rather well so far draining aside.

"After I managed to finally activate it, I felt drained and I don't know why. That isn't normal."

Thankfully Alice has seen enough weird things in Wonderland that Allen's odd power doesn't even seem all that odd to her. It seems efficient enough while battling these things, at least, so she lets him at it - especially now she knows she's close enough to intervene if something happens and he does end up needing help.

"Perhaps it's since you're fighting underwater."

As she speaks, she's still swinging at the crabs as well.

"I imagine it's your first time doing so." And yes, the implication being that it's not the first time for her.. She's done this rodeo before.

"I'm not sure if where I am fighting really affects it like that. It works more based on how well synced we are." Which admittedly put a little worry on him because it could be for all he knew that. But he was at least aware that he wouldn't let it go too low if he could help it.

He soon used his cowl to grab another crab and sent it flying while using his claw hand to deal with a nearby one.

"Though by the sound of things it's not you're first time being underneath the ocean?"

"Third time," she replies while still fighting. A moment or two later she's managed to hold all crabs around her off for a moment, just enough to give her time to glance over to him and add very, very dryly: "I'm an honorary reptile."

Because that's clearly a normal thing to say out of context, right. Especially when there's literally not a single part about Alice that seems anything other than human. Although at least it doesn't seem as weird when the guy she's talking to is fighting with some sort of claw hand..

Third time? Allen was admittedly surprised. She has fought under the water before. Did that mean she had an ability that made that possible? That's all he could think of because clearly, she isn't part water animal like he would expect.

"So it was normal to be able to in your world?" He decided to ask he he moved to block in the incoming attack. If he had been just a little slower it could have caused a problem, but he managed to use his claw to deal with it.

"Though I would put you mkore as a different kind of animal."

She's still going, although Alice's movements momentarily get just a bit slower. It's not even that she's distracted by the conversation. She's so used to fighting that she can easily fight and talk at the same time. No, it's just that for some reason she's also starting to feel more tired than usually.. Alice is mentally still going to blame it on general mission exhaustion though rather than something being up.

"That depends on which world we are speaking of." Apparently today is the day for vague answers. But to be fair, that answer makes total sense to Alice. In London this kind of thing would be unheard of, but in Wonderland it's entirely normal, so...

"Though you now have to tell me what kind of animal you do picture me as."

Allen can't say that and then leave her hanging. She's curious!

"So been to more than one?" He was used to there being more than the one people would be one at this point, after all he had been to many places and knew of just the sheer number of places that could be out there.

Allen soon was dealing with another, a small cheeky grin plastered pon his face.

"Maybe when this is all over and sorted I might."

"I'll keep you to that one."

Because hey, that means he has to get out of here alive enough to be able to tell her to begin with. And for that kind of promise she'll even let him get away with that slight cheekiness. They're too busy fighting to get worked up about that anyway.

"And yes, I have been." .. technically. Do worlds that only exist in your own mind count.. "I technically live in London, but I've often been to Wonderland. In fact--"

She grunts as she smashes another crab out of the way.

"-- they had big angry crabs very similar to these there."

Allen was dealing with a couple more of the crabs and noticed the numbers seemed to be going down. That seemed like a good thing at least. That was a positive.

Just as he was about to attack one from further away he nearly instead found himself nearly tripping over himself, but thankfully managed to find his balence.

Nothing to see here.

"Wonderland? You mean that weird place with the creepy smiling cat? and the card soldiers?" At that surprising moment he possible realization to uses his cowl to pull a crab toward him to deal with it.

"I don't recall any crabs tho..."

Allen is lucky that Alice didn't look at him for a moment since she was too busy dealing with those crabs, or he sure would have been scolded for that near-tripping action! But it seems like he's getting away with it this time...

The last part of what he says though? Now that does draw her attention. Her urgent attention, which is why she stops paying attention for the crabs for long enough to be able to look at him, looking very much confused.

"Wait. How do you know Wonderland?"

That description is way too oddly specific to not be the same one as the one she knows.

Allen had moved to swing across to deal with the crabs that had been rather close by, landing right on top of them and staying on it for the time being.

"In one of the first worlds I went to..." he soon moved to jump over the claw using the cowl to snap it shut. "There were these other worlds we could go to." With that he soon slammed his claw down potentially cracking the shell of the crab.

"One was called Wonderland that hadn't been taken by the darkness. It was a world people could go to freely and I went there at least once." He had finally finished speaking before going past her again to slam into another crab close to her.

"It was such a peculiar little place and honestly a lot of the worlds were in their own way.

"That can't be..."

Alice is so caught up in her surprise that she doesn't notice a crab trying to attack her until it's almost too late. She only manages to last minute swing her weapon at it to knock it away, but her head is still spinning. How could Allen have been to Wonderland when it only exists inside of her mind? Is it since London and Wonderland seemed to merge together right before she ended up here?

She knows she should be focused on the fight, but this feels infinitely more important than any crab.

"A-- And you didn't see me there? Or hear about me?"

"If I could recall... I had heard of someone called Alice." as far as he remembered he had never seen her around, but knew she had been or someone with that name exactly. He didn't know why he didn't connect the two much sooner now that he thought about it.

"But I don't think we ever met in person."

This still feels mindblowing. Alice is trying really hard to keep the full realisation from overwhelming her in the middle of a battle, but she's going to have to stew on this information for a while. For sure. She's never seen any other regular human being in her Wonderland other than herself-- when could Allen even have been there? It brings forth so many questions in her mind.

"Well.. That was me," she says, doing her best to keep her voice level as she whacks another crab. Sure, it could have been the younger Alice too, but from everything she's heard from the younger girl, they're still pretty much the same person. "I thought Wonderland was.. just mine. I didn't know other people could go there."

Flipping over a few more Allen was starting to feel more tired as it went on., which was surprising for the other, but he also remembered that he hadn't eaten in quite a while.

"Yeah, in the first place I went to Wonderland was a whole world of its own along with worlds like Port Royal, Atlantica, places like that. The worlds were all vastly different and some just unusual."

She opens her mouth as if to say something, but then seems to get distracted by one of the incoming crabs she has to deal with first, causing her to let out a groan. Dealing with this battle - and the way it seems to make her feel extra tired in some odd way - and this strange topic is too much at once.

"We really need to discuss this sometime when we don't have hostile company." Wonderland is important to her, after all. So if another world has access to it, she really needs to get to the bottom of that.

"How about after the mission then? We'll have time then." He went dealing with another couple before turning his head slightly. He knew with the way things were going he probably was going to go on and see who else might need his help.

"Right. Let's discuss it sometime after the mission then."

So they can now go back to focusing on the fight instead. With the amount of crabs and other things approaching them seeming like it's neverending, they'll need the focus.

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Onward: Purple

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