middleofsomewhere | Enemy Unknown: Conclusion

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Enemy Unknown: Conclusion

The third night is as long and creepy as the others...

It might be that they found the engine room, solved the puzzles and found themselves in the hangar bay with no way out. It might be that they were still in the station hiding from the invisible monsters. Or it might be that they had been plucked from the mission and were waiting in their holding room.

Either way morning dawns on the fourth day...

ENEMY: UNKNOWN

DAY FOUR

the trapped. THOSE WHO SOLVED THE ENGINE ROOM SPENT THE NIGHT IN A LARGE HANGAR THAT DOES NOT SEEM TO HAVE ANY DOORS. Their SCA's are working, so they can still communicate with those in the station, perhaps talk them through the engine room puzzles or tell them to stay clear. As morning comes all the lights in the hangar come on. Brighter than any lights so far in the station, harsh white light after the eerie red of the rest of the mission.

Everyone still in the station wakes where they fell asleep - if they slept at all. It's not long after most people are up and about that they will hear a high-pitched beep from their SCA, and then a blue light will envelop them and those around them. It might be they spot their friends vanishing before they too disappear.

They arrive in the hangar, reunited with those who spent the night there. All their gear is with them at least, but that doesn't solve the problem of being in a hangar with no obvious way out. Nor are any of those who vanished during the last three days here, their SCA's still go unanswered.

the vanished. FOR THOSE IN THE HOLDING ROOM, THEIR NIGHT HAS PROCEEDED MUCH LIKE THE NIGHTS BEFORE. One of the screens showed the hangar, and those that had succeeded in completing the engine room task. The lights had dimmed for sleeping and turned on again bright in the morning. For those watching the screens they will see those in the station vanish in blue light and turn up in the hangar.

Around half an hour later a voice sounds in the room. "Please gather your belongings and prepare for release."

It's another ten minutes, allowing them to make sure they have all their things before their SCA's beep. They are then surrounded by a blue light, taking them from the room they had spent the last few days in.

REUNITED

reunion. AN HOUR PASSES AFTER FIRST ARRIVALS PASS IN THE HANGAR. Suddenly, there is another flash of blue light, and the missing eighteen Voidtreckers appear with the rest of their crew. They will find they had all their gear as well, including their missing weapons.

They are left to their own devices for a small while, a time for reuniting with friends, but not long enough to exchange stories before a voice rings out in the hangar:

"THANK YOU CREW OF THE VOIDTRECKER EXPRESS FOR YOUR COMPLIANCE. YOU MAY RETURN TO YOUR CRAFT."
There is a loud mass of beeping as everyone's SCA's flashes at the same time, holographic messages popping up too fast to be able to read them in their entirety.

Voidtreckers come in.

All Voidtreckers return to the Voidtrecker Express
Voidtreckers evacuate now

Voidtreckers do you read?

Layers of holographic messages pile on top of each other but a moment later everyone's SCA's glow gold and everyone vanishes from the hangar...

LUGGAGE CARRIAGE

return. EVERYONE ARRIVES INSIDE THE LUGGAGE CARRIAGE, PACKED LIKE SARDINES BETWEEN SUITCASES AND TRUNKS. There is no announcement, no warning of returning to the void; just a lurch that is likely to throw anyone on the train unaware of what has just happened off their feet, no matter the carriage they're in.

They return to the void at what feels like breakneck speed. Colours fly past the windows, and it is a good few hours before they seem to slow to their normal travel speed.

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She had also figured out the engine room. Which was a sign of how much it wasn't real because she comes from a place that doesn't have engine rooms. She shouldn't be able to figure out such things.

What she could figure out though was when people were angry, near violence. She was watching Devero carefully, had been for the last hour or so. She is meant to be figuring out what is going on, but hasn't gotten very far and is keeping alert to threats.

Though angry fellow passengers are as threatening as it seems to be getting. There aren't even any weird spider bots. Soon Devero sits down near to her, she continues watching as he begins to calm. That was good and when he pats the floor next to him she shuffles closer.

"Did you be praying?"

"Hey kid," he says, greeting her with a warm-- if weary-- smile. "No, I don't pray. I'm an atheist." Somehow, still. Ironic, perhaps, on a train with actual gods as fellow passengers.

"I was meditating, though."

Edited 2021-10-23 19:33 (UTC)

She wrinkled her nose at that. She knew the word. Like Peter. Which made no sense because Peter claimed not to believe in gods but then knew a god even before he got to the train.

"I do no be thinking the gods can be hearing us here anyways. Except the ones who do be being with us."

And wasn't that a terrifying thought, that the train could capture gods. She tries not to think about it.

To a lifelong atheist, not so much. His brain has sort of shunted gods into the same mental category as Saiyans and Sanzos-- people with immense magical powers that he'll probably never be able to comprehend. (No matter how much Trunks insists that his abilities aren't magic. Dev's not fooled, buddy!)

"Then we'd probably be better off just asking the ones onboard directly for godly things than praying, eh?" he asks, his mouth quirked teasingly.

"That do no be being a reason to pray."

Wait. Different worlds. Maybe in his world people did pray to ask for godly things. She tilted her head. "In my world praying do be offering, no asking and it do be being important for discipline and focus. Like your meditation."

At least that was a common ground, even if he disbelieved gods.

"Is that so?" He scoots to face her more directly. He leans in a little to admit, "I don't actually know anything about praying. Where I come from, religion is very private, and I was never interested."

He's also fairly certain that there are no gods on his world, just as there's no magic. Just physics, and flights of fantasy. But it's a different story in a lot of other realities, as he's so amply learned since the train had picked him up as a passenger.

He sits back again. "So you'd know a lot more about prayer and why to do it than I would."

She turns as well, so she is facing him and focusing on him rather than the room at large. She shrugged. "Maybe. It do be different in other worlds, different gods do be wanting different things I would be guessing. But meditation do be strengthening the mind and that do be being true everywhere."

So it was a good thing that he knew how to do that at least.

He nods his understanding, then nods again in agreement. "I'm real grateful Koumyou decided to teach me how," he says. He pauses, long enough to be uncomfortable, before taking the plunge and continuing, "...Especially on Diagad."

You know, where he'd managed to use his mental training to claw out and keep himself free of the illusions of the place. The illusions where Buttercup had been Koumyou's daughter, where Koumyou had been normal, had had a family. Where Devero had needed to be the one who ruined that.

That Diagad.

Edited 2021-10-25 01:29 (UTC)

"Sanzo taught you?" That was good. Sanzo was a powerful priest so of course he would have taught him correctly. He would know good meditation then.

But at the mention of Diagad she frowned, looking down. She remembered, him as the man who stole her dad away from her... Who broke her family apart.

But it wasn't real. Had never been real. Even if Sanzo...

It's all too complicated. "I do be being sorry. For fighting you."

Since she was. And apologising when she was sorry was only right. She had been trapped in a fake mind, all the meditation in the world hadn't helped her.

He reaches out and up, clasping the outside of an arm gently. "It's all right," he says. "I know why you did, and I don't take it personally."

He sits back again. "Have you and Koumyou-- Sanzo talked much since we got back from Diagad...?"

She smiled and sighed, glad that he wasn't mad at her. It had been a stupid time. A stupid time in a stupid world.

She wrinkled her nose at the question. "We did be talking. I have no been seeing him much though."

From a distance yes, but things were... awkward. "I do no be knowing if he do be wanting to be talking to me more."

After all she hadn't answered his question.

She hadn't answered his question, and Koumyou's so convinced that he's a horrible, dangerous person that he's probably been-- not avoiding her, but. Orbiting. Like the moon he always compares himself to, keeping himself aloof to protect both his heart and the people he's afraid to let himself care for.

He looks over at her and sighs himself, before offering delicately, "Sanzo has a hard time talking to people about serious things, even when he wants to."

She sighed again and drew her legs up to her chest. "That do be being because talking about serious things do be being hard."

Especially when there was so much that could go wrong. Even thinking about it made her head hurt and her heart clench in her chest.

"Do you think I should be making him be talking?" She hadn't wanted to disturb him. He's a powerful priest. He doesn't need disturbed by brats who couldn't even give him a straight answer.

He can't help but chuckle at her apt-- if particular-- phrasing. "That do be being well said," he tells her.

He... sighs, actually. "Yes," he says, "though it's hardly fair that you should have to start that conversation...." He trails off, realizing that there is, of course, a neat solution to that particular problem.

"I can help, if you'd like me to?" After all, if Devero can't make Koumyou talk about his emotions, who else on the train is going to be able to?

She smiled at that, both at the confirmation that talking was hard and the way he managed to speak like her, without messing it up.

But then she frowned again. She would have to make him talk. And that would be hard. She doesn't even know how to start it.

But at his offer she blinks at him. "You would be helping?"

"If you want me to, yes," he says softly. "I'd be happy to."

She blinked at him. He would help. That would be easier. Sanzo liked Devero a lot. Enough to break out of the mind spell in Diagad. He could help.

And she has no idea how to do it alone. "I would be liking that." Her voice is small, but she tries to look confident to make up for it.

Devero reaches out to squeeze her shoulder in one big hand. He's not fooled by the facade of confidence she's put on, but he respects it anyway. "Then count me in," he says. "I'll reel that moon down to earth for you."

Edited (realized that last line was OOC bleedover whoops) 2021-11-08 02:53 (UTC)

"I do be thanking you." She smiled up at him.

Now she just... Needed a plan. Of what to say to him.

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Enemy Unknown: Conclusion

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