middleofsomewhere | Under the Sea: Conclusion and aftermath

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Under the Sea: Conclusion and aftermath

Ritual

The jellyfish is no more and as red team take stock of their injuries, or collapse from exhaustion the lights zip around them, singing their song of joy. They gather around the light that had been inside the jellyfish and now that it has been released it is obvious this light is different. Stronger. They surround it and the song gets even louder as they begin to move towards the plinth.

In the caverns where the purple and orange team are there is a stillness. For those in orange team still in the cavern they can only hope that the instructions they gave out had been followed. Luckily for them they have been, Purple team have done a remarkable job of defeating the crabs and cleaning the temple. The priests gather around the shell on the alter, arms linked together in prayer as they seek to re-sanctify their temple. As their prayer begins they will invite the voidtreckers to join them, though no one is forced into taking part in the ritual. They suggest that they use their strange wrist jewellery to open communication with their friends in Bui.

The monster on the beach is defeated and though the fight is still raging against the crabs, a beacon has been built and lit. The islanders who are not fighting gather around it, linking arms, drawing any voidtreckers who don't object to joining them into the circle.

The song begins hesitantly, almost as if everyone has forgotten the words and only half remembers the tune. The SCA translates, the prayer is simple, a blessing on the land and its people, deliverance from the darkness and hope for the future.

The light from the jellyfish reaches the plinth and is set upon it. The song heightens and the light shoots upwards, blinding in its brilliance.

Through the dark storm clouds a light streams towards the island, most of it towards the beacon on the island though there is a break away light that goes towards the train, where some of orange team have set up a second beacon. It swirls around those on the train roof, singing a song of happiness and bounces back towards the island.

The light reaches the main beacon and hits it with a strength that lights up the whole sky. The light splits more solidly into two and speeds off over the ocean. Light pours into the underground caverns, not caring about the ocean and rock in the way, the light pools into the shells, the caverns glow warmly.

Outside the storm calms, clouds roll back, the sun shines. The sea stills. The wind stops. The sun is rising, a beautiful dawn. Any monsters left scuttle away, vanishing into the ocean, away from Bui.

Those with any powers that they couldn't reach before find them returned in a rush. Those who can sense life find this world teeming with it. A song that dances between every plant and creature.

Some of red may have evacuated to the train but those who stayed to see the ritual through, the world around them seems to melt away and they find themselves back next to the rock pools. Among their number there are some confused looking islanders who intrinsically draw closer to those who helped free the lights.

Orange and Purple

Down underwater there's noise and a babble of voices as the citizens of Bui wake up. There's a shimmering around the city now, like a shield though they can pass through easily. Parents scramble to locate their children and all check on loved ones and friends.

The familiar voice of train announcements is heard through Orange team's SCAs. Orange return to the VoidTrecker Express. Once everyone is on board it flies low over the ocean, skimming the waves.

In the underwater temple the priests finish sealing the ritual and then it is time to begin the return trek. There are no monsters this time and after a few hours, as they emerge onto the first of the sandbanks they will find the VoidTrecker Express is waiting for them.

Red and Blue

The monsters gone, those of the island gather everyone from the rock pools and for a few hours everyone sleeps.

At about noon the islanders begin to stir, begin putting things to rights. Wood is moved from the strategic points to more communal campfires on the beach. Any dead monsters that haven't been gathered for food have been washed out to sea, disappeared into the depths. They begin to prepare food and won't turn away any helpers. Though those who have been fighting are encouraged to rest.

The islanders bring blankets and start to gather. Everyone is exhausted but the children, in the way of children find the energy to play in the sea and the sand.

Beach Day

Early afternoon the train lands on the beach and everyone gets a holographic message to their SCA.

Mission successful. Well done Voidtreckers. Enjoy the rest of your day. You will find suitable clothing in the dressing room. A new recipe has been added to the kitchen information points.

The dressing room is indeed open once more, this time it holds swimsuits of every style, shorts, t shirts, wraps and beach skirts. Sun hats and sunglasses can also be found. It's a bit of a mush mash but they should be able to cobble together something other than their uniform wet suits.

Time to laze around on the beach or for those who still have energy swim or play. A few hours later a ripple across the water brings some of those from Bui and they swim or lounge on rocks to talk.

Food and stories

Food is cooked and shared, the islanders will happily try the voidtreckers' offerings and share their own. As the sun begins to set they gather around the fires. Stories and songs are shared and there's even some dancing for the brave.

Voidtreckers can choose whether to sleep in their own beds or spend one last night on the island before the train flies off into the sunrise and into the void.

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Daia watches Mami as she talks. Someone else who feels the same way he does - though it was probably foolish to think he was the only one to ever feel like this.

It aches. But at least he's not alone. He can take a little solace in that.

He squeezes her hand lightly, and smiles a little, albeit painfully, as he nods.

"Yea, let's go dig... I'm... sorry that you're like me, too."

"Really? You taught them a whole new game!" And him too, technically, but it's impressive either way. "What was it about that one? You don't play it back home?"

Even if Piccolo wasn't into all the sports, he was familiar with that one. What made it special? Did the guy just pick up on things he saw in passing? With the way he makes weapons, that might not be that out there.

"I'm not really good at explaining." Another wince. "The whole thing was kind of a secret back home. But basically? I was in an accident and I didn't die all the way. Probably." Danny shrugs, rather awkwardly. "And now I can be a ghost, or I can be like this."

"It's...all right. You might have better luck than me someday, we'll see. But for now, let's play."

She's built a lovely little dome-shaped...thing that will someday be a castle. It's decorated with little flowers she's made out of shells...at least, one side is. She kneels to work on the other.

"It helps me to remember that even if I feel alone...there's still a whole world out there of people I can help.

Daia follows, crying along the way. He tries to do so quietly, but the occasional sob escapes.

Once settled in and Joss offers him the bottle, Daia begins to wipe off his face and remove more of the sand. He finds it strange that so much can stick to a tear-stained face. But then, he's not used to crying in the sand.

He bites his lip as he tries to reply.

"Kaiba..." is what he starts with, and he pauses before he continues. "I really like him, but... he chose someone else. Another boy."

He whimpers a little, trying not to sob again.

"I really like him... It's stupid for me to want him to pick me, but I do..."

When Eva finds out...

As it is, she shakes her head with a laughing grin. "'Certain definitions'? Gods, maybe I made a mistake and he's corrupted you."

At first, Daia jumps a little at the cloth that slid over his arm, but then he nuzzles against it and opts to bury his face into that instead. It's much nicer than the sand.

When he feels the cloth against his cheek, he peeks up a little at Glorfindel. He didn't recognise the voice, and he sure doesn't recognise the face. It's like the man before him is almost glowing? There's no way people glow, right? But then, this is a place of many species.

"Pretty..." Daia says under his breath, before lowering his eyes again, thinking how to, or if he even wants to, answer the question. "...I like someone. But I just saw him kissing someone else... It hurts, but... it wouldn't have worked anyway..."

...Well. At least that's evidence that the place crawling with monsters affected more than just Purple. Not that that's a shock. "What else did you end up with? We got giant tentacles, too. I'm not much of a fighter, so I let people who knew what they were doing handle those." Given some of the people he had on the team with him, it didn't really seem like it was much of a problem having him leading people to safety instead.

And as for the person following him around....

"I don't think he even looked to see what Red's job was, to be honest," Sam admits.

At least he sounds... well, not happy about it exactly, but more like he's just accepted that this is the way things are. "I don't know him very well, but that's never stopped him before. He's pretty good at drop-kicking crabs, though."

Duo leaned back and dropped his hands behind him into the sand and then stretched his legs out in front of him.

"... You didn't die all the way?" Duo smirked. "Wouldn't that make you a zombie and not a ghost?"

"Well... no, not exactly... I didn't tell him. I..." His voice cracks, and he blushes a little. But... "I didn't know if he would feel the same, and I didn't want him to hate me. I was just happy being close. And hoping if... if maybe I showed all my care for him, he would tell me if he liked me, too."

A pained sigh, he looks to his lap, fiddling with the hem of one of the frills on his swimsuit.

"I know. That's my fault..."

There's the smallest of pouts -as if she's 5, not 23- then it's gone. He does have a point and she'll give it to him.

"Food, mostly. As nice as swimming is, it's hard to do it on an empty stomach." She peers at him and decides he's likely happy because he can sunbathe like dragons do under the suns. Maybe she should look into getting him one of the smaller dragon-types....? "What about you? Planning on sunbathing forever like a dragon?"

"All worlds have a Song, then?"

Gods, she wonders what Arkea's would be. Probably something peaceful and harmonious. "Ah! I spoke to him a few times. He was nice enough, but I think that's true of all elves."

"I saw some rolls up that way," Kaiba points to a spot behind him. He'd be comfortable lounging a while longer, but...maybe it's time he looks too. He sits up and presses a hand against his chest. He's not sunburned yet, but...yeah, maybe he should move.

"We almost never see the sun anymore. I have to soak in what I can get." But he throws on a pale blue shirt and stands, stretching to the sky.

"So what's your favorite Pokémon type?"

She considered him for a moment. She knew what it was like to get too caught up in a role, even if she suspected his job was rather different from her old rank in the GC. But something had passed over his expression, so she nodded seriously in response to it.

He might not have opened up about his past, but she'd seen him work. Enough for an echo of the meaning behind his declaration. She could respect that.

"It's... the same for me. I won't let you down, then."

And she looked back down at the pot, probably breaking the moment. Letting him gather himself.

"Perhaps," he said. "You'd have to ask the High Lord. Or actually, better, Lorn and Draca. They were ancient before Geoffry was born and Geoffry makes the High Lord's fifty thousand years look like an eyeblink," he said with a chuckle.

"I'd appreciate that, thank you." No, he'd still miss it on his own. It had been vaguely mentioned to him when he first arrived, and he still never found it. He will also have to be shown how to use it.

Tidus is less reserved about his exhaustion, though he's done well to keep it in check around the kids, even if they weren't taking no for an answer anyway (and maybe he's his own enemy, when he thinks alright, five minutes--how bad can it be?, and he knows it's never really just five minutes).

But he's slumped down on the sand with Inigo, arms propping him up from behind; groaning as he lets his feet ache in their relief. He's been on them too long, being on the train's made him weak...! Or the constant fighting has. One or the other.

"Not even one?" Tidus asks casually, lazily. Surprise somewhere in there, but he can't be bothered to lift his tone.

At the call from Taiki, Drizzt wrestles himself free from Guenhwyvar, but really only because the great cat allowed it. He rights himself, running a hand back through his hair to rid it of the collected said, grinning.

"Well met, Taiki, Gyousou." He nods to each in turn and makes a deft and quiet way over, the panther padding along at his side, eyes wide with curiosity at these newcomers. Drizzt trusts them, and so she is at ease. "This is Guenhwyvar." But he can't conquer his curiosity. "What is it you two are doing?"

"The stories tell that revenants are the spirits of those who refused to stay dead. People who met cruel and undeserved ends, who cling to a state between life and death because they've yet to fulfil their final mission."

...Wait. Would that make Sven a revenant? He kicked that thought into the back of his mind. Troublesome shit to ponder upon another time.

"I don't know what else it could be, if not magic." He tapped his toast-crust against the rim of his mug and furrowed his thick brows in thought. "Though, saying that, I'm realising that things that were givens back in my universe don't necessarily hold true for other people's."

So, basically...

"Basically I'm saying I know jack all for certain. I couldn't even begin to guess, but, if you wanted my spin on things--bodies are physical and the soul is spiritual. When we die, the soul departs and the body is left behind...usually. If your body switches between corporeal and incorporeal, then to me that implies that your physical and spiritual selves have been somehow merged and are now in flux."

"...In short, yes, that's weird. I don't know what could cause something like that beyond perhaps the meddling of an Elder God. You're sure you didn't have any dealings with the divine before your 'accident'?"

"There are enough true wizards on this Train," for he does not truly consider himself on a level with Mithrandir, despite having the power of a Maia, "I am sure they have offered to help it with that. We shall have to wait and see what comes of their work."

"Huh. That actually sounds a little like ghosts. If you add in ectoplasm and the ghost zone." It was definitely something to think about. He knew some ghosts who fit that description just as well as they fit his parents description of ghosts as odd manifestations of ectoplasmic energy and post human consciousness. And he knew other ghosts who had always been ghosts.

"At home ghosts are considered science. Fringe science, but still science. What I use is an energy called ectoplasm. Its what ghosts are made out of." Granted, it was a kind of science that had made his parents laughing stocks in the scientific community for years. But it had a lot more plausibility now that Amity Park had dozens of ghost sighting ever day.

He makes a face at that. "Ugh, things like that are why I try not to think too hard about what I am. And no, I never had any encounters with any gods or anything before I was a ghost. I always figured it had something to do with me being inside a portal to the ghost dimension as it was opening."

"Well, near as I can tell... you now have that chance."

Nita is submerged enough that the water muffles any giggles on her part, which is good for them both!

But she's quick to recover, and smoothly asks, /Ready to get going, Inigo? This is the Nita Express,/ she affects. /No seasickness possible!/

With clear waters and a steady heading, Nita takes them back out enough to sea to start them along the beach.

"It's going just fine, rufflehead," she said, firing back with a grin and a nickname of her own. "And... I guess? You'd have to ask my parents. I'm pretty good at controlling it, though."

The next time Daia hears that voice, it's coming from a young - human! - woman, dressed in blue shorts and a white t-shirt with no shoes, a still-embarrassed smile on her face.

"Again, sorry about all that. Really should have been looking behind me," she says, coming to kneel down in the sand by the ruined castle.

"Now, how did you want this to look?"

The ring was old and looked like it had seen some things. But it was obvious that Joss valued it for more than its intended purpose. "If it has such meaning to you, why should you remove it?" he asked. "People hold onto items all the time that have outlived their function. There is no harm to you as you are now, I trust?"

He smiled tightly. "Well, that would account for why I have never met one before coming here. Whether my world has any or not, I could not say, but they would not be able to stand in my presence without a ring like yours. And if they were evil, unlike you, they would flee my presence regardless."

He thought about it for a moment longer. "Actually, perhaps the Ringwraiths are the closest things we'd have. And they do not like me one bit."

"Do you need help applying the sunscreen? It can be tricky to get the middle of your back, or so I've been told."

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Under the Sea: Conclusion and aftermath

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Re: YAY!Re: Bonus AC time!

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You activated my trap card!

There is a reason 'Finwean' is almost a swear word among some elves

Oops

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Daia: Reality Shattered! XD

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