middleofsomewhere | No Place Like Home: Outside

No Place Like Home: Outside

NO PLACE LIKE HOME: OUTSIDE

HOME SWEET HOME

You find yourself not on a wide station platform, in the clothes you last remember, holding what you were when you went through the glas door. There's no longer a train behind you, no sound of its whistle, with no other passengers around you in similar style of clothing to your own.

You're somewhere familiar, or just - the last place you remember being before your life became tethered to the Voidtrecker Express. A field, a city, a kingdom, or perhaps even a space station. You should be nowhere, yet you find yourself somewhere, despite all odds.

People - if there are people - don't at first notice you; but attract enough attention to yourself, and that will all change. Friends, family - are they near, a phonecall away? It's either everything you wanted or everything you imagined (for good or worse), and it could seem unbelievably real. But it is real - you're off the train, back somewhere you know.

Finally - the journey is over...

...If only.
You're moving away from where you arrived, for whatever reason. Who wouldn't? You may be far from home, have business elsewhere, or want to go sightseeing. It's time to return to - and live - your life, and that doesn't include sticking to one place.

But you'll find that when you reach a point, the world becomes...foggy. A fog that you hadn't seen in the distance before it appears, and when you walk through it, you'll find yourself in a place some have already found themselves in.

Because for some passengers, there was nowhere for them to return, and so the barriers lead only to fog, and then straight back onto the platform. The Voidtrecker Express may be stationed, or there may be a blanket of fog where it should be; sometimes, it can be caught trying to leave the station, only to come back a few minutes later. The doors are shut tight, and the windows are obscured, showing nothing inside.

Those who came from somewhere can go back, should they go through the turnstiles again. And if they want, they can take people along with them, too...

But sometimes, they go to a world no one knows. They go through the barriers into nothing, a black emptiness. Not space, for those that know space, and it doesn't seem to be the void either. But it is a void, devoid of anything at all. Just a darkness so complete they will not be able to see anything at all, they will only know their companion is there through touch and sound. How they are breathing, how they are living at all, is a mystery; one probably answered only by the SCA on their wrist.

Being there brings an unease deep down inside them. This place is not natural, not somewhere that they should exist in. Not a place that should exist at all. Luckily they are never there for more than a few moments before they return once more to the station, fog covering them like a safety blanket.

A DIFFERENT CORNER: LOCATIONS

In the first couple of days (whatever that means, when time doesn't match up between most places), the only way to move to another's tethered location is by them leading another there. But after that, individuals will show up in other locations when they reach close to the distance limit. Indeed as time goes on everything gets a lot less stable. They may know their five miles perfectly but still one step to another leads them back to the platform. Attempting to return to their world leads them somewhere else entirely.

And there's quite a few places to end up.

SETTLEMENTS

Buddhist Temple, China ( Koumyou Sanzo | TL )
Rebel Camp, Lothal ( Hera Syndulla | TL )
Homestead, Knoxville, Tennessee, USA ( Nell Ingram TL )
Capsule Corp ( Trunks | TL )
School Grounds, College ( Idia Shroud | TL )
City Ruins, beach ( Najaran | TL )
Hakkei Palace, Tai ( Taiki | TL )
Gusu Lan, mountain sect (China) ( Lan Jingyi | TL)
Lotus Pier, riverside, China ( Jiang Cheng | TL )
The Endless Abyss, Hell ( Shen Qingqiu | TL )
Hyrule Castle Town ( Zelda | TL )
Haven Palace ( TL )

COMMUNITIES

Spaceport ( Yondu | TL)
Mobile Station Base ( Kiyoiri )
Arkwood, Town (Ryo | TL )
Techstead, Town ( Devero | TL )
Tatsumi Port Island ( Ken Amada )
Mor Dhona / Town, Mountain, Lakes ( K'zeka Tai | TL )
Hyrule Field & Lon Lon Ranch ( Link | TL )
Ishigami Village, Japan ( Senku Ishigami | TL )
Aether Paradise/Artificial Island/Natural Preserve ( Katsuya Jonouchi )
Nautilus ( Spark/Clef TL Clef | TL Spark )
The Underworld, Hades ( Zagreus and Thanatos | TL )
Sanctuary ( TL )

CITIES & KINGDOMS

Saillune City ( Zelgadis | TL )
New Mantle, City ( Ruby Rose | TL )
Brooklyn, New York City, USA in 2017 ( Jake Peralta | TL )
Azabu-Juban District, Minato-ku, Tokyo, Japan ( Usagi Tsukino | TL )
Hau'oli City ( Eva Iden'no | TL )
Gauig City ( Little One/Buttercup | TL )
Kyoto, Japan ( Masumi Sera | TL )
Shinjuku, Japan ( Yosuke Otoha | TL )
Kingdom, Evermore ( Roland Crane )
Garlemad, Kingdom ( Zenos | TL )
Kingdom of Knothole ( Mina Mongoose | TL )
Domino City ( Yugi Muto | TL )
Amnity Park ( Danny Fenton | TL )
Garlemald ( TL )
Lothal ( TL )
Los Angeles ( TL )
The First - Crystarium and Lakeland ( Elidibus | TL )

OOC NOTES

OOC post. Ask questions here.

LOCATION TOPLEVELS: Since it'll be easier for players to engage with settings presented by those offering them, when we see a toplevel for one of the above locations put up, we'll add it to the list! We've also included the OOC comments for settings to the side, so any questions can be left with the player, as well as extra details. Please always speak with the player first if you intend to do anything drastic to the setting!

A REMINDER: Time of log is Poi 22-25, but time within worlds can last up to a maximum of two weeks. Minimum is whatever you want it to be.

During Poi 22 and 23, characters will need to be led to a location to be able to access it. From Poi 24, people will show up in locations regardless of invitation.

The second half of the event will go up during 20th to 25th February (Poi 26-28). But as always, play around in here and do as you like!

If your character's setting isn't above, link us to it in the Questions post, along with your toplevel! We'll add it.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

It's a good thing that Jingyi doesn't hit the platform in dragon shape. Even if it might not always be busy, since plenty of people seem to be heading off into worlds, that could still flatten some people! Turn them straight into Jingyi-flattened pancakes!

.. Like Inigo, who was also pretty close to the train before it suddenly tried to leave again. He does try to move back when he witnessed the sudden impending dragon dumping on the platform, but thankfully witnesses the other catching himself before things fully go wrong.

Or.

Well.

More wrong than they already are, anyway.

"Jingyi," Inigo says, speaking up to the other. "We've got to do something."

They can't just let things be this way, right? The problem is just that Inigo has done pretty much everything he can think of doing out here on the platform, so.. "Do you think the solution to this might somehow lie somewhere else? Have you seen anything at all in your world that might help, or that could be a clue?"

Inigo is trying his darnest to sound calm here, trying to take this situation as seriously as possible, but there's an edge of desperation to his voice that ought to be clearly audible to someone who knows him as well as Jingyi, no matter how much Inigo has tried to harden his gaze.

He has words, he almost always does, but right now, he also has other priorities. Neither of them asked off the train, and both of them are trapped off train, but that's the thing. They're all trapped still. They're all tethered, and that's both key to why this can be solved, and part of why they're forced into the waiting position.

But that's not what he feels Inigo needs to hear first, or at least not like this.

"Inigo, turn around. I need to shift."

A warning, and then he's following through, silver light encompassing his long, muscled form, to condense back down to a bipedal, human version of himself.

Inigo would have a lot more protests to that need to part of what Jingyi is saying, if it weren't for the fact that Inigo quickly turns around, not wanting to be left in a position where he has to see even an inch of Jingyi nudity against his will. In fact, he doesn't just turn around, he even holds his hands in front of his face - despite clearly not being able to see Jingyi at all while he's turned like this.

But it's a safety measure. For his heart.

"Do you really need to do that right here on the platform?"

Okay, maybe he will whine. But just a little bit. Inigo does realise that there are bigger and more important things going on here than Jingyi being a naked danger to Inigo.

"I'm not flying off to a world to do this, so yeah." Said as his feet touch down on platform, and he summons his robes out of the qiankun pouch attached to his horn. He pulls his outer robe on, quickly wrapping his waistband around so he's decent as far as people concerned about seeing more than the hollow of his throat or his hands and wrists are concerned.

Leaving Inigo turned around, he simply steps forward, and... hugs him from behind.

(No one said it was necessarily helpful, and still, contact was important for Inigo, right?)

Pending Inigo doesn't flail out of this or turn around, it leaves Jingyi talking by the side of his head, cheek pressed to Inigo's hair.

"We're tethered to the Voidtrecker, Inigo. We're not free, and the train's not free, even when it's being a jackass and tries to leave like it does. It can't, which means we can get back on there, and it's going to probably be up to Tidus and whoever else was allowed to stay to open the way back. Maybe to anchor, like we did back in Diagad, I don't know."

Which dances around the supreme annoyance of their present powerlessness, that they are people forced into a state of waiting.

There's a brief moment where the guy almost freaks out, but then thankfully realises that the Jingyi who's pressing himself against his backside is thankfully not naked. Because that might just have caused Inigo to expire entirely, right here on the spot. On the middle of the platform. Just dead. Suck on that, train.

But thankfully Jingyi is wearing his robe, which means that Inigo may live a day more after all. And that he will at least enjoy the comfort that this backhug brings, because there's so very little else about this situation that does, really. He just lets Jingyi stay there, perhaps even leaning backwards very faintly, just to lean into the hug a little bit over here.

"I don't want to just leave it up to them."

Even though Inigo knows Tidus is probably in there breaking down the entire train in order to try and find a solution. But it doesn't feel fair to let the people who stayed behind handle all of this. Especially when there's got to be so few of them, judging by just how many people Inigo has seen out here at this point.

Besides, he sucks at just sitting by and letting others do the work.

"There has got to be something we can do too. The train just keeps repeating the same thing over and over, so it's apparently not realising by itself that something went wrong. We've got to force it to pay attention."

Look, is this a full on plan? No. But it's a show of determination, and Inigo hopes at least that Jingyi - of all people - is willing to go along with that.

What do they have to lose out here? They might as well try out some stuff. It's better than sitting around and feeling miserable.

Jingyi dislikes waiting as well, up to and including claiming he'd prefer to be eaten by demonic entities than continuing to have to suffer listening to other people whine about an abduction scenario none of them could directly effect faster than outside forces.

... Wait...

He really wishes some things weren't so unfortunately familiar. For Inigo's sake, and for his too, he simply stays hugging him, shifting so Inigo's leaning back is better accommodated.

"We could try killing each other and seeing if we reform on platform or on train." His tone remains dry, nothing at all serious about him, only: "Making sure no one tries that has been important."

Mentally, another sigh, though he doesn't clarify what in the world he means.

"What were you thinking? Wanna send fireworks? Have me attempt to shove the train? Get everyone to attack it at once? Not sure that'll be a good response, but probably it'll notice that too."

"I was more thinking of the latter, yeah."

Because-- please, Taiki, no murder on the platform? Not that Inigo wouldn't be willing to put his life on the line in the most extreme scenario, if they had no other options left.. But he likes to think that they at least do have some less dramatic options left first. Before anyone dies for absolutely no reason at all.

He slowly breathes out, just lingering in the hug, and then continues to speak.

"I've tried prying the doors open, or ramming them open, but that's not helping. The train doesn't seem to notice that. So maybe we just need some bigger force than just me hitting it." Because Inigo is well aware that he's only one guy, and not even a guy with the kind of supernatural strength that a lot of people - Jingyi included!! - seem to possess on the train.

He's probably the person in this situation who can do the least about it all. But he's still not willing to give up.

Jingyi lifts his head enough to look beyond Inigo, toward the train parallel to the platform. He's tried low level things too, even his napping is an ongoing, silent protest of proximity and weight that covers a whole carriage of the stupid Voidtrecker Express, to no effect other than him getting teleported away when the train tries and fails to leave.

Some bigger force, huh?

"We can try Clarity to reach through," he says, "Then follow that with my wind, if you want. Wait a moment for fewer people to be on platform so it's less complicated if it all rebounds on us."

A good reason not to use fire, he adds to himself, or fog, which won't help in this present situation anyway.

At least Inigo will agree with that. They're not sure how this plan will turn out, because.. well, are they ever fully sure how plans will turn out when the train is involved, and when that thing is sometimes more unpredictable than anything Inigo has ever encountered in his life?

(And, mind you - the things he has encountered in his life involve huge dragon gods and temporal shenanigans.)

So if they've got to put anything on the line here, they should at least mostly put themselves on the line, rather than involving anyone else. So they can wait a few moments, just to make sure they've got a clear platform to work with. .. and so Inigo can indulge in this Jingyi backhug for a few more moments. Sue him.

"Let's just throw everything at it."

.. which will mean mostly Jingyi's everything, since.. you know. Inigo is just a regular human mortal guy. There's only so much he can do.

He's totally willing to kick it again though.

"Surely it can't still ignore us then, right? We just have to let it know that we're really here. Maybe then it'll stop to think for a moment."

"... Sure, but stand behind me, or I guess stay like this, so I can cover you if there's any backlash."

Rebound effect or the train not noticing but the platform acting as a containing agent, he doesn't know. He lifts his head mostly to eyeball where everyone else is, watching as some who'd been on platform walked off again, talking with another Voidtrecker, probably off to eat, or bathe, or sleep on something other than hard, unforgiving platform.

"Decide which, because now's when we should let loose."

You know, summoning hurricane force winds and all.

"I'll get behind you."

Not even because Inigo is particularly concerned about himself, mind you. It's just that he doesn't want to make things harder on Jingyi by forcing the other to have to think about how he's going to cover Inigo while attacking the train at the same time - especially if Jingyi will have to deal with some sort of backlash as well.

A slight pause, and then he adds: ".. so you should probably let go of me."

You know, not that he isn't enjoying the backhug.

But the entire dragon transformation thing and Inigo getting behind Jingyi is going to be a little bit harder while backhugging him, huh.

He sighs out, rolling his eyes as he literally opens his arms from their closed embrace and shifts his chin up so Inigo can walk out like he'd left some sort of coat shaped like Lan Jingyi behind on an invisible rack.

"Hold on, let go, so picky!" Without any weight to his voice, and his eyes still trained on the Voidtrecker Express. He'll wait for Inigo to get behind him before lifting a hand to his mouth, biting into the pad of his forefinger to draw blood. It wasn't the preferred way to do any of this, but any supplies he had were on the train, and nothing from his home world came to the platform beyond what was within their bodies, being incorporated into them.

Perhaps to Inigo's surprise, Jingyi doesn't shift. He stays human, dressed in his one layer of outer robe (which will wear on him eventually, he doesn't enjoy being underdressed) and uses his blood to write a portion of script on the back of one hand. The three seals he forms with his hands, ending with the backside of his hand facing the train, calls on the wind, sends his qi into it, and the pressure of it all is enough to drive down bodies if he weren't being careful in aim.

Even taking care to shield Inigo from the worst of it, there's more disturbance that makes it through than on any of Jingyi's flights, whipping at Inigo's hair, tugging at his clothes. The wind howls, the platform darkens so considerably, it's as if dusk has arrived. There's even a scent of rain that doesn't bear fruition, and then this localised, miniature hurricane is sent directly at the train.

Wind is hard to see without witnessing what it interacts with, but it can be heard, and felt, and the light having changed gives it that element of visibility. Just as it's visible that when that force of wind hits the Voidtrecker Express, nothing happens, beyond the wind continuing to exist trapped within a finite space.

Welcome to Hurricane Jingigo, guys, good work. Jingyi, for his part, throws his hands up in disgust, his tail lashing (and knocking against Inigo, most likely, in the process).

"Oh come on!"

Inigo has absolutely zero idea what is happening here.

Alright, so he knows that Jingyi is using some sort of power. And while wind attacks aren't exactly unheard of in Ylisse, since it's a type of magic there as well, it usually doesn't happen like this. Usually someone would use a tome for that, but since Jingyi isn't suddenly whipping that out, he imagines the other will use that power as a dragon, which would also make sense.

But what does happen makes no sense at all. Inigo has already found shelter behind Jingyi, so he can't fully see what the other is doing with the blood and all, but Jingyi just suddenly summoning a hurricane like this is..

Well, it's something. Something Inigo absolutely can't comprehend.

All he can do instead is try to take cover behind the other guy as well as he can, even as the wind is starting to tug at him. Inigo covers his head, unable to see a thing at first, but then glances up when he hears Jingyi speak.

He raises his voice, trying to be audible over the wind.

"Did nothing happen?!"

That's what seems likely to him, even if he can't quite see it from his position. It's the impression Jingyi's tone of voice is giving him.

Wind can, in some sense, be dismissed again easily, but the energy behind it has to go somewhere. He answers the question Ingio aims his way with a grit-toothed, "Yes, and it's annoying," while he lifts his hands, directing the veritable hurricane upward, in the higher spaces of the platform. He's encouraging the winds to slow and release their energies in a safe way, but it continues tugging at all their clothes, and sounds like being sheltered while a wind storm shrieks past, only the shelter is invisible, and the wind storm carrying on beyond it.

Safer for Inigo to move again as he liked, while Jingyi continues to stare down the Voidtrecker Express.

The unmoved, and unresponsive, Voidtrecker Express.

Safe is a very, very subjective term here.

Granted, Inigo has experienced worse than a hurricane moving overhead. At least it isn't the wind and destruction caused by the wings of Grima, so you know what, he'll take it. At least enough to at least try to move when he can, emerging from his spot behind Jingyi to also look at the train.

At that very unresponsive train.

".. It can't be."

Inigo's expression falls for a moment. He can't quite hold it back - not when this entire situation feels so utterly despair-inducing. It's something he'd hold back around Taiki or Senku, the people so worried about their worlds that they don't need his worries on top of it, but at least it's a little easier to display it around Jingyi when they are on the same level of not having planned on bothering to go home just yet, but having been kicked off the train together.

"It can't not have noticed that." And yet it seems like it. "That's just impossible! That was such a wild storm!"

It doesn't make sense. None of this does.

Jingyi's tail swooshed back and forth, before curling around to the side and attempting to curl around Inigo. He knew what he just threw at the train, and the only escalations he could manage were too unsafe for handling collateral damage. He wasn't even un the class of the most powerful person on the stupid train, but that should have had an effect.

Then again, this was all fucked up. His expression went from disbelieving to sour, glancing toward Inigo and gesturing to the Voidtrecker Express.

"You'd think the stupid Voidtrecker would stop for a moment and realise maybe there's a reason it can't leave the platform any more than we truly can! It found a way to let us through the fog, okay, sure, but that's the problem, we're not following our tethers back, we're just traveling, which means if it leaves, we have to be with it. Or we die, it has to remake us, our tethers might snap—this is such shit!"

The tail will definitely be able to wrap itself around Inigo like this. The boy gives absolutely no resistance to the action - he just stands there, letting the tail do what it wants. It's one of the few comforting things he can have in the middle of this situation, anyway.

This situation that Jingyi, so aptly, is labeling as 'such shit'. Thanks, bro. Really summed it up.

"We're basically halfway to ending up like the people who disappeared, right?"

It's what it feels like. They're still tethered to the train, or they wouldn't come back here like this, but the tether must be weak for the train to somehow be entirely unable to sense them. Even though they're right out here, causing chaos.

".. maybe the tether snapping will happen first if it does manage to leave." With how flimsy theirs are right now. At least the other people who tried staying behind on the platform had a full tether to count on, but what do they have? "Then we'd just.. be gone."

It's an awful thought. Especially since Inigo wants to be present. He told Tidus just before he was thrown out that he wanted to stay and help people.

And here? Like this? He can't do a single thing. He can't even pull the train's attention. Neither of them can.

"Honestly, I don't think so." His frustrated sigh before he spoke was a testament to angry strangulation noises, but his tail didn't follow suit by turning into an angry strangulation tail. It kept nice and loose.

"I think their tethers were properly severed. The way they don't react to us, we're the ones they can't see, they're getting pulled back, I think. I think we're all supposed to be like them, hearing a call back to our bodies if we have them, or an afterlife if that's the thing. Only we're not. We're a whole other fucked up thing."

It is not, sadly, Jingyi is an uplifting person filled with positive considerations moment, though it is a very... different... silver linings one.

"But they're not going back home either." That's the common thing. Sure, they went home, but they weren't really home either. Inigo might have bounced out of his world as quickly as he could, staying away from anyone he knew, but he's heard enough stories of people from other worlds by now to know that most people don't even notice them in other worlds unless you really try to make them notice you.

And from the information the ministry gave them - well, it didn't exactly sound like it was as simple as those people being returned to their bodies.

"Sure, we're not there yet in our current state. But I feel that's just because the train is still here, or.." He pauses and frowns, looking down before glancing across the platform again. "Well, because it still seems stuck on this platform."

It feels like that's what's keeping what remains of their tether in place. And while Inigo thinks it's entirely possible that it's what's keeping the train here too, there's no saying what would happen if the train did manage to leave. It does feel like it'd have to cut something between them for that to happen.

"It always sounded like those people's tethers were lost. Ours will be as well if the train manages to separate itself from us as we are now." Trust him, Jingyi, he's not saying this stuff on purpose! He'd rather not be thinking about this either, but it's really hard for his thoughts to not go there when it's quite literally a moment-to-moment risk in their current scenario!

"They were lost, yeah, but not snapped. Ours? Ours would be snapped."

If the Voidtrecker Express manages to leave. Or so he feels, the whole of its mechanics a headache he's been wrapping his brain around anyway since information first started truly coming their way. Thank you, Ten-Nank.

"I kind of think it's why they can never hear us. We're still tethered, yeah? Only fully tethered. And they're following their loose tethers back someplace only they see, like when I was carrying people across the void chaos on Diagad." The exhaustion of Anchoring, such as it was. "We got thrown out, to where we were taken, but the tether's still got the knot called the Voidtrecker Express in the middle of it. Unlike them, nothing's calling us. Our spirits are still fucked."

Jingyi, failing at being uplifting, though also pointing out he believes the ones who leave aren't as fucked as they, presently, are fucked.

.. Inigo doesn't know, honestly.

He doesn't know if he's right. He doesn't know if Jingyi is right. And neither of them can know for sure what's going on anyway, because if there's anything the train ever refuses to do, it's to provide them with an instruction manual when it comes to anything at all.

It makes this feel so hopeless.

"I don't want to argue about this. We don't know for sure anyway," Inigo just says, suddenly his voice sounding much more empty as he's stepping away from Jingyi, like he is now trying to escape the tail after all. He takes a step or two in the direction of the train, and then just stares at it.

"I don't want to go to Ylisse either." He didn't want to be there in the first place, and fled away from everything he knew there the moment he was able to do so - so of course he has zero reason to go back there now. "I'll just stick around here on the platform and see if there's anything I can do."

Even if the possibilities when it comes to stuff that might work are rapidly shrinking here. But maybe it's just about endurance. Maybe the train will notice something if he just keeps doing it for long enough. It's the only thing he can do here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

No Place Like Home: Outside

train naps

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