middleofsomewhere | What their Eyes See: Start

What their Eyes See: Start

"Good Morning Voidtreckers, today is day five of the month of Llama." The voice echoes through the train as passengers wake up in their beds. Not long afterwards their SCA’s glow with the colour of the void and a holographic image will appear.

Preperation and Arrival

As usual they have a couple of hours before arrival to ready themselves for the mission ahead. As promised the dressing carriage is open for them to find suitable clothing. Trench coats, a lot of leather, a lot of black with neon colours thrown in here and there. There is a lot of choice in a variety of sizes so everyone is bound to find something to fit. Hopefully something they like, though some passengers may be more comfortable with the fashion choices than others.

A couple of hours after the announcement of the mission the voice speaks again. "Shortly arriving in system #93426194992. Arriving in ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one." The train shakes as it leaves the void, colours fading to be replaced to a grey thick smog outside the windows.

The train bumps slightly as it hits rails, snaking its way towards the city before entering a tunnel. A few moments and they come to a stop, the doors open onto a platform. Stepping out into the station the first thing to hit them is noise, it sounds like there are ten different advertisements blaring, someone or something is playing loud music. There's a lot of flashing signs, screens with advertisements, bright lights that change colour for no real apparant reason. Heavy on the senses as they make their way to the gates.

They will find that their SCAs allow them through the barriers and into the wider train station, which is somehow even louder. It is busy as well, people hurrying from place to place. There are signs declaring this to be Tier Three, Home of Manufacturing. as well as signs pointing the way to lifts, to take them to other tiers.

Tier One

Mapping

For those travelling up to tier one the first thing they will notice when they leave the lift is, it is a lot quieter up here. Peaceful even, there are people around, all looking official and busy. None will pay the Voidtreckers any mind unless they are acting particularly suspicious.

The air feels better here, probably because the whole tier is encased with a dome that they will be able to see as they enter, coming from a lift near the edge of the tier. The buildings are all harsh dark metal, almost uniform in design. The streets are clean and there has been an attempt at greenery with some shrubs and simple plants.

The buildings all need to be accessed using their SCA's. Their SCA maps show them where the buildings are but give no information about them, nor do they have maps of inside. Once the voidtreckers enter they will find that their maps fill in as they explore.

There are plenty of different buildings, offices, labs and meeting rooms. There are also a lot of security staff and anyone acting too suspiciously will be approached and questioned. Hopefully they have a plan, blend in or sneak around.

Flickers

Sometimes though that is a little harder, they might enter a room to find themselves on their old street, in a world they have visited before on the train or somewhere else that is decidedly not here. These illusions get more common as time goes on and people will begin seeing the illusions of others or find the two scenes merging together.

Voidtreckers who are immune to illusions will not see these strange visions and those who are particularly strong willed will be able to fight them off. Once people know they are illusions they can focus through them to see reality even if it is overlaid with what their minds want to see. It will take a lot of concentration to stay focused and get an accurate map.

Tier Two

A Mystery

The lift here brings them out into a glass covered corridor. Outside the glass the air is thick with smog but the filtration systems means that the air seems fine inside, especially with their SCA's helping out. Outside the tunnels they will be able to see the lights of hovercars zipping around and the silhouettes of buildings. Office blocks and large houses make up this sector. Large billboards blare out advertisements at all hours, neon lights shining through the smog.

The atmosphere of the sector is one of fear, people hurry about their business, keeping an wary eye on their surroundings. The newcomers won't get too much scrutiny but people are likely to be very wary if approached or questioned.

But they will talk once they guage them to not be a threat. Murders. Six people dead, from inside their own houses. Locked doors, security systems, all for nothing. Is it a serial killer? But the reports suggested an animal attack? From what animals?

Getting access to the houses will take some negotiating or breaking and entering. The bodies themselves have been cleared by law enforcement, caution tape still up to keep out any nosy public.

The rooms the bodies were found in were all rooms that used holograms as decoration and the voidtreckers will realise when they enter them that these holograms seem a lot more realistic than some of the others they might have seen in their stay in the sector so far.

Creatures

As they talk to people, or overhear gossip they will hear more about animal attacks. Someone swears they saw a lion prowling the streets. A hovercar crashed and the driver swore they had been attacked by an eagle. Neither of those creatures live in the city. Neither of those creatures exist on this world anymore.

But the Voidtreckers will quickly learn there is something to these rumours, especially as dark falls, the feeling they are being hunted. A paw tread, a tail disappearing around a corner. As days go on they may get attacked by a bear, a tiger or perhaps a creature from their own world, one that should not exist here at all...

Tier Three

A Crisis

Leaving the station brings them into crowded streets, air thick with smog, Up above them is the floor of the plate above, set with bright lights to offset the lack of natural light getting through. Billboards and screens blare advertisements, traders yell their wares. Life is fast and swirls around them as they step out into the streets.

Here also there is an air of worry. The talk is all of Spectura, kids unconcious after playing video games, hospital overflowing. Spectura's fault, there are calls for accountability, claims of sabotage. No person gives the same story and it becomes clear that most people don't know what has happened but almost everyone knows someone who has been affected. Fear, blame, tensions are high.

But life must go on, the factories never stop, people can't not work and with so many people unconscious people have to pick up the slack. The whole sector feels at breaking point.

If they try and buy Spectura systems they will not be stopped though they will need to sign a waiver, to take on all responsibility for what might happen to them if they go into the system.

Spectura

There are a whole range of games to look through, though the two most popular ones where the majority of players can be found are an open-world farming MMO called AgriTopia VI Ultimate, with bright landscapes and calming diegetic music, and Aegis Force, a tournament team shooter with short battle scenarios and smaller maps.

Those entering the system will fall unconscious in the real world and as they enter the problem will be pretty obvious straight away. Red vines, covering everything, tangling trees, creeping up buildings, coming straight for them to attack.

Anyone who gets overwhelmed by them will be stuck, unable to move or progress. It is possible to fight them off and for those voidtreckers who have faced the vines before they will find their soothing powers will work here as well.

People are tangled throughout many different games and once they are freed will need some help to find the next save point or exit. They need to help plant the final hundred potatoes, or team up to take down the level boss or solve the next puzzle, keep the vines away and free as many people as they can.

Tier Four

A Way In

As they leave the lifts they will find this tier is dark, dim lighting barely penetrating the smog. Homes are makeshift and all on top of each other. The streets are crowded, loud and people don't stop to chat. It is incredibly claustrophobic, with large support columns, exposed wires and large pipes running alongside and over the 'roads'.

Here there are plenty of stores selling anything and everything, certainly not above board. Credits are sometimes accepted but more often store keepers will prefer to trade in barters, food is popular. Anything that isn't nutri slime or the even worse unbranded basic version.

Bars and other seedy establishments are open all hours, neon signs beckoning. It is here that they will find the entry points to the fighting rings.

People don't talk about it openly but you look big enough, mean enough or dramatic enough then it will be slipped into conversation. Have you heard? Winners get a dream come true.

The fights are a mix of one on one and group fights. All terms are negotiated before hand with an overseer and fights are to the yield. The crowd wants a show and so dramatics are encouraged.

What was that?

The rumours about people going berserk are spoken in whispers. No one really knows what has gone on. A few fights have gotten out of control, a couple of fighters broke down after fights, at least one has quit for good. Most spoken about is The Crimson Fist. The best fighter in the ring who two days prior just left. Left the city with no protective gear, no word to anyone. No one knows what happened to them.

As the voidtreckers get further into their fights they will begin to realise something strange is going on. That opponent you are facing? They now look like your worst enemy, or perhaps your best friend, your lover. Sometimes you're no longer in the city but in a place of fond memories or your worst nightmares. Fights can very quickly go south when your opponent believes you their greatest foe.

Advancing the ranks now seems like it might be more difficult than first it appeared.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Preparation

As usual when these missions were announced she spent a good amount of time reading all the information. It was never enough, there was always surprises, things they weren't prepared for. But any information was better than no information and everything they knew would help.

Once she had read it she headed to the dressing carriage, wrinkling her nose at the clothes, picking a couple of things up and looking at them in bewilderment.

"This will be being a weird world..."

She was sure of it.

Arrival

It was a weird world. The air thick with smog, everything was so loud and bright. A thousand things to see, all moving far too fast. An attack on the senses. She stepped closer to the nearest person. Despite the electric blue braids she had clipped into her hair, the leather jacket and very cool boots she looked for a moment exactly like the overwhelmed twelve year old she was.

She tried to focus, breathing, trying to pick out individual sounds. There, an advertisement for roller shoes. She stares at it, trying to pick out all the words, trying to tune the rest of the noise out.

'B'

This world might be very different in terms of noise and technology but she had grown up in the underworld of a very different city. She knew how to survive there and the skills were at least partly transferable.

She had never done an awful lot of undercover work before, but arguably she has been nothing but undercover since she arrived on the train. So she can do this. B can do this. B sounds more a name that fits in this world than Buttercup. So B she is.

B isn't afraid of anything, B can scramble over the pipes and get around the streets quickly. B can fight and challenges the first person she thinks she might have a chance of beating.

The hardest part is talking. No one here sounds like her, this has been the case since she first got on the train but more so here, when she's pretending. She's used Peter's voice as something to mimic, as it is one of those she knows the best. He talks a lot after all.

"You've find anything?" She asks, as she gets close.

Fighting

They put her against other young people, other kids. She doesn't do too badly, even if straight up fighting is still something she would rather avoid, preferring to attack from behind. Still she wins some, she loses some and she gets better at putting on a show.

Then it all goes wrong. She's in the ring, an unnarmed fight, against a boy not much older than her, even if she is physically much smaller. She is used to fighting larger oponents thought. That's not the problem. The problem is that all of a sudden he ceases to look like himself and instead he looks like her.

She pales. He reaction might not be obvious to the crowd at first, but to anyone who knows her, her hands are trembling, her eyes look almost glazed as she stares at the fighter who is closing on her.

Now that she's finally stopped lying to the younger girl - or, rather, begun aggressively gaslighting her, but who's counting - a-Qing feels no shame in pulling a fluorescent jacket out of one of the drawers, and holding it up for Buttercup to see.

"Here, try this one on." It's got tubing running down the arms, and she has no idea why. "It's made of something tough, could probably take a kick or two."

What's a little fake blindness between friends. If they just never mention it, it will be like it never happened.

It does prove how sneaky Wei Qing is, it's a useful trait.

"It do no be looking like armour." It looked like nothing she had seen before. "Will we even be able to be sneaking in these?"

She's found another one, in a bigger size, which she tosses at A-Qing.

"If everyone's dressed like this, who'll be looking out for us? With all the colours, we won't stick out at all."

She catches the larger jacket, and throws the smaller over in return. Hm. The pockets are nice. She's not sure about the shimmery layer, but it's pretty. And at least there're a lot of places to hide things. Her hoodie comes off, and she starts rooting in a neighbouring chest for some thinner layers, tossing likely-looking tops out into the growing pile between them. "Hot or cold, what do you think?"

"You do be being right." She concludes as she catches the jacket and looks it over. She takes her own hoodie off and tries it on, it fits well and will allow more things to go under it.

"Probably cold. Everywhere we do be going do be being cold unless it do be being on fire and the brief did no be mentioning volcanoes."

The fighter is closing . . . but suddenly, at the last moment, something goes wrong.

There's a small pool of water on the floor in his path -- strange how no one noticed it prior to the fight. The fighter's foot catches it squarely, and he slips headlong, yelping in surprise as he topples, cracking his head hard on the floor at LO's feet.

The crowd erupts in surprise and jeers (some hoping that LO will go ahead and finish things off while he's down).

The only person who doesn't seem particularly surprised is one of the dancers near the bar, apparently on break -- a young woman with short blue hair and blue skin. She watches the proceedings quietly, cradling her glass in her hands, the unmoving stone in a noisy, rushing river.

Edited 2021-05-11 03:09 (UTC)

As the fighter topples with a crash she gasps but then she moves. Because this isn't real. This isn't her. It is just the stupid boy from before. It has to be. But why? How does it look like...

She darts forward to tackle her... him whilst he's down. She can do this. Even if it was her, somehow. She could win this fight.

Knees jab into his ribs and she pins him, glaring at the girl underneath her as if her hatred alone will burn the illusion away. The crowd cheers, she is declared winner and she scarpers, sliding out the ring and towards the bar, almost bumping into that resting dancer...

Gen smiled at her as he looked at some very, very brightly colored jackets that seemed like they were pulled right out of an 80s-sci-fi cartoon.

Sweet.

"I think it might be a bit of fun!" Gen said cheerfully. "I've never gotten to play detective before."

A bit of a lie, but. He turned and grinned at Buttercup. "What are you thinking you'd like to do on this mission, my dear?"

"You did no?" She spun around, holding two tops that she was deciding between. It probably didn't mind, if all these clothes were worn in the world.

"I will be going with red and be investigating these fighters."

She could fight, she was trained in spying. She was pretty sure she wouldn't find this mission hard at all.

"Where will you be going?"

Humming a little, Gen pointed at the blue top she was holding. "Try that one, little Bee. I think it looks rather cool, don't you?"

But he was caught off-guard enough that the Mentalist actually looked startled and worried for a moment, at that news. "Ah. You're not planning on actually participating in the fight ring, are you?"

Gen readily answered, "I'm going to give Senku-chan a little hand in Orange, but once he's off doing his science thing - I'll help investigate the killings we read about with Purple. It's been some time since I've played detective last."

Blue one. She nodded and pulled off her hoodie and polo shirt to try on the blue top, it was pretty bright but so were a lot of the clothes here so she guessed that was just what they wore in this world.

She nodded with a nose wrinkle, "I can be fighting."

She's gotten pretty good, in her time on the train.

"You did be investigating murders before?"

Something is wrong.

Alice notices it right away. Maybe it's since she's paying a lot more close attention to this fight than any of the others, considering there's someone she actually knows and cares for as part of this. So she notices it right away. The girl's reaction.. it's not normal. This isn't how she's looking during any of the other fights.

It can't be her opponent, right? It's not like he looks that much different than anyone else they've put her up against. So what is it?

Alice frowns, before raising her voice and calling out.

"Hey!" And since it's likely she won't get a reaction right away, she continues, hoping that her voice is audible over the jeers of the rest of the audience. "B!"

(Look, Alice is used to people being called a Mock Turtle, she certainly isn't going to protest over how dumb one-letter nicknames are if that's what the girl has chosen to use here.)

Perhaps if it had been anyone else it would not have had the same effect hearing her name, or the name she had chosen for this mission at least.

But it is Alice, one of the people on her very short list of people she actually liked and her voice cuts through the horror at who she has found herself facing.

She glances over at her, her eyes showing fear that she is too shaken to even hide in the emptiness. She does dodge though, diving out of the way as her opponent rushed at her.

She shouldn't be here, she should be dead. Not in some weird fighting ring.

There's eye contact. It's a good thing at first, since it means that whatever got the other girl so spooked, it doesn't mean she can't still tell what's going on around her. She heard Alice, or she wouldn't be looking at her so directly.

But it's a bad thing once Alice realises just how scared the girl looks.

That isn't right. She never looks like that - and she has faced down so many bigger and worse things than this kid.

"What's wrong?!" She calls out, half of a mind to just get into the ring herself. But it's not like the guy has hurt the poor girl yet, so.. "Tell me!"

She stared at Alice in shock, how could she not see? She spins round to keep an eye on the other fighter.

She should just fight. She can do that. It doesn't matter who it is.

But it does. "Can you no be seeing?"

Surely this has to be weird for everyone, after all they are identical. Why was the audience not confused at how she might as well be fighting herself?

Little One | Red | OTA

Preparation

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Arrival!

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Arrival

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arrival

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