middleofsomewhere | Conclusion

Conclusion

Thank you.

For those inside the system the voices of the Great-Seasons ring out around them once the red mass has vanished and the blue plinth it was smothering is freed once more. They don't have all that much time to reflect on that before they find themselves waking up once more in their bodies around the tree trunks.

Or at least, around the tube that is the Great-Season they entered through. All illusions have vanished now, all that is left are pipes and metal.

The Great-Seasons allow them passage out from the centre, no sentries or pipes attack them this time. Everything seems to have been put to rights, the walls in the Autumn sector have stopped moving, there is no strange weather effects in the Summer Sector, no engineering problems in Winter and all the camaloid creatures in Spring are calm. Any Helpmates they come across are doing their jobs and no longer malfunctioning.

After a small amount of time, enough to check that all is well, their SCA's light up. All Passengers are to return to the Voidtrecker Express.

Considering the vast distances involved it is probably best that they use the evacuation function to return to the Luggage carriage.

Once all Voidtreckers have returned the train returns to the Void once more.

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"I do, for the most part..."

And Kaiba's flattered that she's noticed. It's a bit of an awkward spot to hold this conversation, but he's fine.

"All right. We moved toward the center of the 'dome', where what is apparently the core of the whole operation was being choked by a red mass. The core glowed blue, like our soothing ability, if you were in the system long enough to see that."

He hooked his arm around one of the bars, stretching his back a little.

"The system continued to attack us as we tried to cut away the infection. The closer we got to purging it, the more the illusion of everything being natural degraded. I'm not sure if that was from the core of the system or the infection..."

Soldat watches closely, and their brows go up, impressed, at the perfect strike. "You're very good," they say. "Strong understanding of ricochet, good body sense, precise control of the ball."

They can probably do that, maybe with a second watching. Kicking rubber balls is not a thing they have ever done before. "Can you do it again?"

"Huh. I'd been wondering about the choice of natural illusion. I didn't know if it was a design choice from the Overseers to encourage us to protect them because people tend to ignore the value of machinery, or if it was because whoever came up with the corruption wanted to confuse people."

She just assumes that everyone is like her and won't mind having a particular conversation while in stressful or unorthodox locations. He's fine, right? Wait. He doesn't have the help with balance.

"Oh, should I go wait with your friend for you or-"

She lifts herself off the climbing structure, held entirely aloft just by her pigtails.

Soldat has to brace themselves on the counter, blinking a few times, at the intense sense of understanding. It's not quite a malfunction-- a flashback. But the memories of various handlers flicker through the back of their brain, threatening to become a flashback, and Asset says, (No.), and... absorbs them, blocking the threat. ... they hadn't known it could do that. But they're not going to turn it down.

"I know," they say again, after maybe a little too long. "It's hard. Trusting is hard. I still don't. I haven't told anyone here everything yet. But there are good people. Who don't do that shit." They think there might even be some here. They're getting there.

(Move.. Right. Right, thank you, Asset.) They shake themselves again and start actually spreading the butter and jam. Movement helps.

Soldat nods. Then nods again, more firmly. "I will try to make the food I cook have interesting textures, then. That might make it easier for you."

He nodded a bit, he might like that. "I um, also like things that smell strongly." Yoite admitted. He had some favourites too, but each of the two were specifically tied to the people that made it for him, so that didn't work so well.

He sprinkles a little water on, frowning. ... No, most of the soil is still dry. He pours a little more on and feels the soil. Damp, but not super wet.

"Like that?"

When no one sacrifices to you, and you're a workaholic, you get a lot of leftovers at best.... But that's just Thanatos's life. It's nothing to complain about.

Right?

His mother has connections too, but he doesn't really benefit from them. Then again, the Olympians are a loud sort and don't want much to do with the Chthonic gods. Hopefully, they will both soon be spared more awkward talk of godly relations for the time being as they get closer to the dining car.

That... he set off something. But he's not sure what, and he's not sure what to do about it. "... I'll listen, if you need. It's not like I can fucking judge." And he won't, because... there's a connection, here. Hesitant, but still there. He's not sure what to do with it, too afraid that it'll break, but he can at least hold it out in case Soldat does want to take it. "Doesn't have to be now. Hell, just wedge a note into my door if you need to meet up."

He's reasonably sure his roommates won't read something addressed to him. "There's... good people here, yeah. It's... kind of hard to know what to do around good people. Not something I'm used to."

It's disorienting, to be one moment in the virtual reality this place had created - and then to suddenly be flat on your back, senses coming back to you as if you'd been deeply sleeping.

Gen rubbed at his eyes as he started to sit up. "I don't want to jinx us, Senku-chan, but it seems that your luck held out this time!"

Well Persephone feels sufficiently awkward enough to stay silent until they end up in the dining car. It's quiet, middle of the night, but it still feels a little weird. She's used to eating late night in the kitchen.

"Ryo? You here yet?" She calls into the room as she heads in the door, "Maybe we should head upstairs, for privacy?"

"I've been practicing a long time." Since he'd been this age, the first time. And he'd gotten a lot of practice since then, now that his skill at soccer was one of his best options for dealing with criminals.

Conan eyes the dimension of the room, considering.

This time he kicks the ball straight up, bouncing it off his knee twice before twisting and kicking it straight back at the goal.

"I'll be right down."

Yes, Kaiba appreciates the offer for a more normal conversation very much. He can't be as fast as Entrapta, of course, but he smoothly makes his way down and sits, letting Snapper crawl back onto his lap.

"Confusion seems likely. It was chaos all around, The lasers were coming from red blobs, the wires were lashing...but the helpmates were malfunctioning long before we entered the system. It's probably the weirdest distress call we've ever responded to, based on the terms that we never really got to talk to who we were helping. The system...thanked us before booting us out, but that's it."

"That makes sense. Machines are like that. I'm actually impressed it showed gratitude!

"If I'd been able to take better observations I'd love to analyze what that corruption might have been. It didn't exactly act like a virus. My only comparison was the organic spread of mind control chips that I observed on my own world. People would isolate and infect. But even that's not quite right. It's very curious."

She kneels by Kaiba, looking at Snapper, wiggling a lock of her hair in front of him. She's saying all this while tipping her head, looking intently at him.

"Do you know if the biosphere was intended for settlement? If so, maybe it's supposed to house one of the destroyed location's inhabitants in the future. It seemed to be primed for populating."

"I'd venture a guess we weren't banking on my luck." Senku responded, and without getting up properly because he was close enough, he leaned over and swatted Gen on the hip. Then he sat up.

"That's for your dress comments." He rolled his eyes. "I'm glad you like my usual outfit, since I'm not planning on changing it." He leaned over, offering him a small kiss.

"It was under construction and it appeared it would've had everything to sustain life when completed, so it's likely---but I didn't get the chance to ask."

Kaiba throws a towel over his shoulders and grabs for the water bottle, watching with some amusement as Snapper watches the hair intently. How strange---!

Kaiba has to abruptly pull her back from trying to chew on it.

"No. We play nice. Heh...sorry about that, she's a pouncer. Young dragons usually are."

It takes Kaiba a few moments to catch up. He passed out at an odd angle, and re-adjusting to reality is strange at first.

"Yeah...looks like any damage from the digital world didn't transfer over. Our medics will finally get a break."

He's still a little bruised from the effort to get this far, but that's fine! Totally fine.

"That's alright. I can't feel it. I'm not really experienced with young dragons so I'll make a note of that."

Snapper is very cute, though. Entrapta sits up a little straighter.

"Senku seemed pretty worried about the ministry being after us. There are probably a lot of recordings of us in the Overseers, depending on how much data it retained after purging its system."

Now, Entrapta isn't worried. She does acknowledge, though, that her survival instincts are never her highest priority and perhaps she should ask someone else their take.

It hadn't taken Ryo long to find what he'd been looking for in stores, and once he'd taken the time to relearn how the stove worked - mentally thanking Senku for showing him how the first time around - he'd set about making cocoa. Lia hadn't let him help too often - she was very secretive of her recipe - but he'd picked up enough to be able to make passable cocoa.

He takes a sip from one of the mugs as he pours it. Okay, good cocoa. He can be proud of this.

He's just taking the first two mugs into the dining car when Persephone and Thanatos enter at the other end. "Oh- yes! Yours are here, if you want to come get them."

Ichigo frowned a little. "Who told you that you caused trouble?" He hadn't been around enough for the mission to know the exact details.

"I was scolded for not being aware of my surroundings." Yoite clarified.

"He wasn't wrong, I wasn't. I almost jumped into someone. That's not good. So I...I need to fix the problem."

Kaiba frowns---yes, he should've thought of that. It complicates things.

"He's right. If the ministry catches us, we'll be arrested and punished severely. But I don't know if that's enough to follow us...we'll have to ask next time if void travel is linear or not. I don't think it would be, to the point that we'd leave an easy trail...but again, not enough info to be sure."

Snapper finally settles on his lap, and he pets her gently. "How did you leave the inner system before we finished, anyway?"

"Okay." He takes a seat next to Mami, brow furrowing a bit at the question. "Like a revenant?"

"I'll get them." Thanatos looks at what Ryo is holding and looks for two more like them. (He still doesn't exactly know what hot chocolate is.) Mort rides on his shoulder and has no issue keeping his seat secure.

Then it's up to the upper floor of the dining carriage. There doesn't seem to be anyone there at this hour.

"I wasn't very good at fighting in digital form. I'm not much of a fighter anyway, and without my hair to help me get around I was practically paralyzed. So I was swarmed and overwhelmed and kicked out.

"Then I spent my time collecting scrap from the machines broken during the fighting."

She shrugs. She's not proud of not being able to handle the combat part, but she knows where her strengths are. That's their job.

"It would make a lot of sense if it wasn't linear. We could be fixing something that will be necessary later. There's some way she knows where these incidents happen, and the best way to do that is to know the future."

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Conclusion

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Awakening

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awakening

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