No Place Like Home: The Return

[voidtreckermods]

---

NO PLACE LIKE HOME: THE RETURN

---

a silence broken...

It's been a very difficult few days. Rocking and rolling into the void and out again. Watching their friends out of the window as they wander from world to world. Meanwhile those lost on worlds continue to wander unable to return to the train at all.

"All attempts at returning those who left have failed. This voidcraft cannot do it alone. It is lucky that unlike those that have left before them, I can still sense them.

But I cannot bring them back alone. This is perhaps too advanced for Voidtreckers, but you have done the improbable before. You say you wish to help. This is how you help."

Their SCA's light up with a message. Or rather, a series of instructions:

In the unlikely event a tether gets stranded on a liminal space platform or between their own world and the platform space, you should, in the first instance, contact the Void technicians who monitor their non-travelling self. However, in the case they cannot be reached or there is a mass displacement of tether, an anchoring procedure can be carried out.

Ideally, this will involve two fully tethered individuals to retrieve the lost tether. One should be a stationary anchor. They should be outside of their void craft, if possible, and in physical contact with it. The second should be a roaming anchor reaching to draw the tethers back. In situations of mass tether displacement the stationary anchor can hold mutiple roaming anchors but it is recommended to not exceed five. In this situation, it is recommended that anchors rotate between stationary and roaming.

To start an anchoring of this kind, those anchoring should activate their anchoring program. Those staying station should reach out to the tethers of those they plan to steady. This might cause some emotional upheaval, and they will need to stay steady, especially if connecting to more than one roaming tether. Roaming anchors then must hold the person they search for in their thoughts and move towards them. It is recommended that the lost tethers activate their emergency beacon to facilitate being found and returning but this is not a necessity.

Once the roaming anchor has found the lost tethers they must keep hold of them and guide them back towards their craft, the stationary tethers must draw them back, pulling them through.

There is an additional note at the end, in different font.

It is as Anan told you. Your minds should visualise it. Be strong Voidtreckers.

... a short-lived dream

The doors open and anyone who wishes to try this can leave onto the platform. It is empty, devoid of the figures they had seen before; and, beyond the fog, devoid of anything. But searching requires their SCAs, not a path, and as people get into teams, they can activate their anchors and begin.

For those who will roam, their minds become filled, visualising light, void, voices and chaos; their bodies feel less stable, like they might unravel if not careful. But for those who will stay, when they touch the Voidtrecker Express, they will feel more stable, grounded. The fog shifts, but the world moves around them without pulling them in.

Thinking of the person they wish to keep stable, a mental and emotional link will be established, and they will feel each other as the roaming anchor sets off to find their missing crew.

---

Outside the train...
For those that had left - either by choice or by strange happenings - they have found themselves back at their anchor point during Poi 26, regardless of where they were before. For those unfortunate enough not to have a world to return to, or those who were stuck between in the first place, they will find themselves alone, in a fog filled space where no matter how far they walk, nothing greets them.

All those in fog or back in their world receive the same message from their SCAs.

Hold fast. Press your evacuation button. Your friends come.

---

RETURNERS: FLEETING HAPPINESS

But it's likely before the message arrived, that something wrong has been noticed by those outside the void. More than the bizarre ability to travel between existences, an inability to move far from where they appear. Back at their anchor points, they may notice - in time - colours sometimes flash across the sky, streaking through clouds or making trails in a night sky. At first not much, something to be easily dismissed but it builds. People talk, wonder at what is happening.

For the colours aren't the only thing. Across worlds, in cities, kingdoms, villages, underworlds and space stations, people are dreaming. Bright colours, vivid dreams. Prophets spring from nowhere, people claim to know the future or to have seen the past. Some talk of places and worlds they could not have seen.

Perhaps at first it can be explained away, there are always such people. But more people talk, from urchin children to commanders, people dream and the colours dance.

ANCHORERS: A STEADY HAND

While the stationeries will feel grounded, they aren't blind to what's happening to their roamer. It's as if they're both linked, intimately, meshing together, and they will need to work to keep their feelings separate; hearing each other's thoughts, their feelings. Images of what the other thinks and memories shared between them.

And then there is the search for their teammates, amongst the multiple of realities. Existences move past the roamer, threatening to lose them in the mess, but they must persevere, keep their thoughts on the individual, their stationary anchor to help them. Until finally, they appear - in a world they perhaps know, don't, the kaleidoscope colours of the void faint above their heads.

Speak to each other, keep each other focused, certain, and find who you came to save.

BOTH: HOLDING ON

Searching for individuals, the anchorers will find themselves at a character's anchor point; if they haven't moved far from here or another world, it will be easy to locate them. Now is the time to convince them to come back, and then the eventual work of doing so.

It can be in agreement, or force. Taking a hold of the person, the anchorer can pull them into the mass of chaos. Just like when they helped the guests return to their worlds from the false Diagad, all parties become battered by images, voices. Voices like sirens; 'Just stay,' the voices encourage. 'Just let go and drift into the chaos. It will be easier.'

But they must be strong, move towards their anchor and towards the craft. The crossing doesn't take too long, perhaps ten minutes each way, and once they get to the craft the person they are rescuing glows gold and vanishes. The anchors will know instinctively that they are safe on the train.

And indeed, the rescued will find themselves within the luggage carriage - exhausted, but safe.

TRAIN: AN INEVITABLE RETURN

Exhaustion is something all parties will experience, once everyone is returned to the train and the adrenaline wears off. Those who anchored will be hit with a total exhaustion, leaving them unable to do much more than eat and sleep for a few days. Those rescued won't be as bad, but if they decide to join in with the efforts, they'll too face the soul-tiring experience that other anchorers are.

There's likely to be efforts, to help soothe people over this time. And as people return to their life on the train, they will see the marks of the last few days for those who stayed behind. Broken ceramics, books out of order in the library; the ICPs in the standard coach, storage, sports and games carriages broken, and some damage to furniture.

But for the scars brought on by this event, surely, they will heal - eventually.

OOC NOTES

OOC post. Ask questions here. New second part OOC post here.

First phase of the event took place during Poi 22 to 25; the second phase takes place during Poi 26 to 28 (20-25th February).

VISITING WORLDS: While during Poi 26, it will be possible to go back to wherever they were, or other spaces. However, they will have increasing difficulty doing this, and will feel themselves getting more lost if they try world hopping too much over the next 3 (void) days. It's like something is trying to pull them back, or pull them, but into nowhere.

SCAs: The SCA's comms will not be active at this time.

Comments

[badassfreakingoverlord]

"I said for like five minutes, for Magog's sake!"

Hmm. The whole alternate idea actually had some pretty good logic behind it, except for the whole 'weakened state'. "How about.... I just take a nap right here, and we run with a version of that?"

[yondu]

"Yeah, it was a lot more... I dunno. A lot more of everythin' than I was used to." And he'd been stupid at the time and grossly overestimated himself. It's actually good to know that it was difficult even for a guy like Vegeta. Makes him feel less weak for having had trouble with it.

Though, speaking of thoughts and feelings? He reaches over to grab some popcorn.

"So I didn't talk to ya about it sooner, weren't quite sure about what to do. But now I got a son here from a different universe. T'challa. Turns out some other me raised 'im." And apparently his life turned out all the better for it. But now he's seen the range of emotions that Vegeta once held about Trunks.

As he talks he watches the protagonists talk about wanting to study the skin samples from some cryogenically preserved psycho. He cain't tell whether the problem's gonna be this guy, or the other guy that got infected with some parasite at the beginning. Somethin's gonna go wrong, though. He keeps thinking that he would have airlocked that idiot in a heartbeat, even knowing how that feels now.

[unrecovered]

"Right, and how long until that turns into 'I have altered the deal; pray I do not alter it further'? No thanks."

He does his level best not to roll his eyes at the adjustment to the proposal. This guy really does have an easily bruised ego. "Sure. Enjoy your nap." A beat. "Also, what's your name? So I know who I'm 'feuding' with."

[weifinder]

just a top level for closed starters, fingerguns

for sizhui

[weifinder]

He expects it to be Gusu Lan, when he reaches across all that lays between him and this son from a world that needn't be his own. Sizhui is Sizhui, whatever his iteration, and the stationary anchor might feel a twitch of heartbreak, a familiar face if they've seen Sizhui's before, without necessarily knowing it to be for Wen Sizhui, for a Lan Sizhui on a world no one but Wei Wuxian has seen.

No matter. He's an easy anchor, so self-contained there's little he shares that isn't deliberate, and being connected with him is akin to being connected a general feeling of focussed motivation. With a mental voice that will travel back both directions, welcome to the lockdown compartmentalisation that is Wei Wuxian's life.

Still.

"Sizhui." He steps out from the light and chaos of what is the void, what he's heard talked of from Diagad when people anchored, when he was instead serenading Chaos, that time. "Bet you've figured out half of what's gone wrong already, ah?"

for jin ling (crau)

[weifinder]

When it comes to one of his nephews, it's slightly more complicated. He knows there's some desire for trust, but he also knows the stronger relationship is between this young man and Jiang Cheng, or at minimum, the fox eared version of himself. Shared terrors cement relationships, just as shared joys can, but that's not anything he needs to comment on.

Only that he needs to find Jin Ling, that he has the young man in his mind's eye, that he crosses the chaotic swirling of voices and light and colour all telling him this isn't worth it, to let him leave, that staying is fine, as if the void is an endless appetite, yearning to be filled.

As if the void is what it is named, and he smiles, grim, thinking of Yiling, and the void that it was, in its dark-stained, decaying way.

The problem, perhaps, is where he finds Jin Ling.

"..."

Which is to say, wherever he ends up, he doesn't immediately see his nephew. So he cups his hands around his mouth, and calls out, "Jin Rulan! Where are you!"

wildcard; rescue

[jingyeets]

Lan Jingyi noted the shifts in world stability alongside his sect leader, his seniors, his best friend. The dreams were catalogued, and based on some descriptions, he could pick out where they might have been from. Cynically, he'd been saying goodbyes as soon as he'd said hellos, the moment he stopped being able to leave his world and the fluctuations in normalcy grew more pronounced. Beautiful at times, with the colours that swam through the skies at times, but dangerous nonetheless.

He's sitting, playing a borrowed qin, next to a path through the woods on the backside of the mountain his clan's situated within. Practising perhaps, but the song isn't one of the trained ones, is something he's picking out on his own based on music heard on train in a meditative sense, unsmiling, brow furrowed. Every so often, his tailtip thuds against the ground, an unnamed emotion behind it.

Your friends come.

They damn well could hurry up already, he thought, playing on. Sizhui approaches, settling down next to him as he plays, simply listening.

It's the two of them, not any Sizhui that Tidus has met before, that he'll find when he arrives. Just two young men, their horns visible and arched in similar ways, familiar white scales and light blue fur of Jingyi, smoky scales with an opal sheen and dark fur with hints of red highlights for Sizhui, and the song, on qin.

*grabby hands* gimme all the words

[crowneddragon]

There's too much that is spilling across them all, things Esteban does not know, cannot understand. Pieces, shards of them in their individuality, perhaps, but this is-- far greater. Too much. He's trying to keep his head out of the water, to keep his hold onto them both. And to keep his hold on the train because all Esteban wants to do is reach and hold and pull.

The odd sensation that Tidus does not like stone. He's grabbing on too hard, too greedy, and slowing them down instead. Fleeting faces of people he doesn't know, flashes memories of brief happiness overshadowed by horror. By grief. Trying to find the right words to say.

But Esteban can never say the right thing, not when it matters.

So he pushes everything that he can in between them all, colours and sunshines and clouds of silver outlines, bright in the dawn. It's so little, too little, but there's no words that he can convey that might matter at all, and yet he can't not try. He can't ever not try.

He doesn't know on who to focus, this tumble of emotions spinning out of his hands, wants to offer comfort and warmth, but feels the stretch between them grow quiet, grow still if he shifts his attentions too much from Tidus. There's sunshine in his hands, but it feels fragile, weaker, intangible and Esteban can't let it go out, won't let it go out.

Focuses less on the memories, more onto the person. The smiles and the casual talks. Kindness and caring and reaching for sweets he doesn't particularly like to give to Inigo. The mischief in his eyes, the effort he went through to pull Esteban back on his feet when he got just a bit worried.

'Come on, Sunshine.'

[nell_of_soulwood]

SHe looked at his outstretched hands and wanted to go to him - and she also didn't. She looked back towards her house and up at the trees of Soulwood, silhouetted against the wildly changing colors of the sky.

"I don't want to leave my home," she said, feeling as if it would tear the heart out of her body to leave. But she took a step toward him.

The hurt was so strong that she felt it in her bones. "I'm afraid if I leave that I'll never get back. But if I stay..."

Nell reached up to try to brush the tears from her face, but they were falling too fast. She touched the tree beside her, then put her arms around it. The feeling she got back was blurred, uneasy. Even Soulwood knew it was wrong.

She stepped away and then reached out to take Wei Wuxian's hands.

[invigorates]

Confirmation was good to have regardless, on the very off chance that active boy yelling about ghosts wasn't the one she had seen in Tidus's mind.

"They will be." She said, sounding confident enough, brows furrowing when she heard the question echoing in her mind. 'Such is the way of heroes' came an unconscious reply. "It cannot move, and those like yourself that returned to their worlds are in need of aid. You need to come back, or you will be lost to the void."

[invigorates]

"Tidus." Repeated, for the record, her hand moving swiftly for her pen so she could check off his name in one quick flick of her wrist. No need to take the book from him either for that. "I am Lioriley." Her own name was listed on the off chance someone found the journal and she was otherwise incapacitated or some such unlikely scenario. She pointed accordingly to assure he could find it quickly of needed.

"I know few aboard the vessel. But there are some I am certain of myself - Zagreus and Otoha, they have gone. Ryo, too, if I recall correctly. Do you know of our Miss Spider, by chance?"

[invigorates]

She nodded. "Understandable. It can be quite difficult - but sometimes we have little choice." Adapt or die - that was essentially the Valsherian motto. "Would you like some water?"

[crouching_sin]

"... Water would be nice." He's not going to shake her, he can tell. Ah, well. "And I know all too well about being backed in with little choice."

He just happens to have a choice here. The choice to not do something is as important as the choice to do something.

Thanatos | needing rescue

[controlsthedie]

[[ OOC: In which Meg makes it easier for Than to get back to the train ]]

cw: death thoughts/awareness on a world scale for the roaming rescuer

Thanatos finds himself waiting in Asphodel. It's not the best place to be anchored too. The flooded, fiery River Phlegethon laps at the ground littered or consisting of bones. The sulfur hangs in the air along with the heat. It's almost as the river tries to warm the world but cannot reach the icy surface. Keeps the Underworld warm from Demeter's winter at least.

Death Incarnate floats above a solid bit of ground. He doesn't want to go back without having fully stabilized the world from his absence, but the choice is not his. All he can hope is that he's one of the last to be brought back to the train, to give his world as much time as he can. And then... the rest is up to those he's leaving behind.

"It's strange being the one collected," he says softly when someone wanders out of the smoky fog and into his view. Thanatos doesn't look happy but is resigned to leave.

Early Poi 27 /kicks down door

[catti]

From the time K'zeka returned to the train, he's been up and about, either helping others try to get their fellow passengers back onto the train or pacing somewhere and debating if he should have tried harder to stay behind.

He's busy enough that he doesn't really even notice whether Elidibus has or hasn't returned until he notices that the man's name is still on the passenger roster but he's nowhere to be found.

It takes a bit, but he finally finds that name is on one of the plates outside of one of the hire sleepers as well and immediately decides to knock on the door to see if he might be in there.

"Elidibus?"

[averyusefultray]

"I've done as much as I can for the fight." At least as much as she could never going more than five miles. NOt being able to fly like they need her to.

"I have one thing I need to do before that," she tells Romeo.

But she does have one thing left. "I need to say goodbye to my family." She can't leave them without a word, not again. Even if she warned them this probably wouldn't last.

Re: Train

[theverymodel]

"Limited." He quickly rattles off what passes for the list. "May be better to focus on those we can retrieve. Difficult balance, need same people for both tasks."

THey can't really spare people to not anchor but it'll also leave them dangerously underserved medically.

hopefully this works!

[to_rise_above]

Complicated, is probably the right word for it. While Jin Ling, doesn't necessarily have issues with this Wei Wuxian, he hasn't spent much time around the other. Even more so, now that he's stuck in the fog, not able to find a place to go to. Maybe, he should have stayed put in Lotus Pier. At least, that is the most familiar to him, or maybe he shouldn't have been hasty and run off from Jingyi's world either.

Regardless, he's not sure where he is and with only his spiritual companion by his side, he wanders through all of this-- the noise being unbearably frustrating to deal with. Colors, voices, and other things. They latched onto him, as if trying to pull him back. He's holding on, and he's stubborn. He knows things like this happen and he certainly doesn't want to fall prey to their lulling. However, it's hard when he can only hear those voices and see these colors. It's as if all of this is telling him that he has nowhere else to go.

There is no home for him right now. There won't be in the future. At least, not if he is here wandering. He misses home. He misses his family and he certainly missed the more simple times in his life. Most of which, he knows he's taken for granted. If only he can--

The sound is faint but he catches a voice. It's different from the noise and it almost clears his mind of the thoughts. The wolf is fighting through all of this as well, trying to keep Jin Ling in check. Of course, he must say-- whoever the hell that person is-- they must really have a death wish for calling him 'Jin Rulan!' How many people here still address him as such? He's tired of it and doesn't want to answer it at all, but he follows kind of.

Who knows what is even happening anymore. Maybe, he's hallucinating all of this too!

Asagiri Gen

[fun_thementalist]

Returners - Fleeting Despair

Everyone is stone.

Everyone isn't everyone - the Perseus is gone, all of its crew are gone. And it's not just Gen's friends who aren't around. That scheming Dr. Xeno is gone; his lackey Stanley is gone; several of his henchmen with him. But enough are in the 'Corn City' in America allows Gen to know - everyone is stone.

The world was doomed once more. And Gen couldn't help but feel the obvious correlation, if not causation; Senku must have died. Something had gone wrong. No-one would be there to save humanity now.

No-one except him, alone.

Returners - Fleeting Disbelief [ OTA ]

Except.

Gen had started to scout for supplies - he needed to find out what he had to work with. Except, he couldn't seem to get too far out from the remains of Xeno's fortress. Trial and error had a bubble roughly 8 kilometers.

Then, noticing one thing strange - the sky began to flicker with colors quite unlike what he'd expect for the southern lights.

It's all a dream or an illusion after all? Frustrated, Gen shouted out to no-one - "You could've given me a nice fucking illusion, at least!"

Gen would press the SCA when prompted - and wait. Someone would find him sitting by the fire, a makeshift little hut of dried corn stalks and branches behind him. The Mentalist would give his rescuer a cheerful grin, completely false, and greet them merrily. "Why, hello! I'd give you a tour of my world, but there's not much to see at the moment - unless you like realistic statuary. Shall we go?"

[monkeyinthewrench]

Whoa...okay, it is him! Running straight into traffic! Jake yells out, tries waving from the curb for people to stop...but his crewmate somehow zips across the street unharmed like Frogger and leaps on him, nearly throwing him off balance. Jake staggers back, reaching up to hold him upright.

"I'm fine. You just almost gave me a heart attack, man," Jake chides gently. "So, uh...did the train send you after me?"

CLOSED (Seto, Senku, Soldat, Leia.)

[mtsilver_conquor]

Good luck; Eva is one of the last to be rescued and you will need that luck. The Void plus psychic pokemon means things will get weird and be so from the outset.

Even with Senku as a handy Eva-waypointer, locating her in the middle of a city will be a pain. She's not at her anchor point. Nowhere near it. It's not impossible to find her, but it will be tricky... If they don't engage the local people, they should, for the most part, be fine.

That said, the locals people have noticed the colours in the sky; they have started to talk. Yet they aren't the only ones...

From the second the group makes contact with Eva's world, they will feel the prick of minds against there own, all four of them. The alien, inhuman minds are psychic pokemon. Instinctive and reactive. Sentient yet far from sapient. It seems the local Psychic pokemon can sense the 'intruders'. They don't, yet, know where they are, but their reactions have placed other pokemon on edge, meaning people notice. They're more alert, more on edge than they typically would be.

If the group can avoid the locals, they should be alright. Seto might even find he can talk to the group, or pick up on things they can't. Telepathtic chatter is useful, right?

It's merely a matter of getting to Eva...

[blue_ice]

Seto gritted his teeth and gave chase. No, no...it was too familiar, he couldn't let his own pain get dragged into the mix. He instead tries to draw on his few memories of Axel.

"No one gets left behind. Not this time," he growls, desperately reaching out again. "Come this way if you want to see Axel."

[springforth]

Persephone had spent the last few days waiting. Waiting for what, she can't name. For her world to end perhaps. For perhaps a train to appear. Deep down, she's waiting for a rescue. And she hates it. She hates feeling helpless and she desperately misses home. Because the train is more home than here, somehow.

It's when she's suddenly back in the spot she arrived that she gets a sense that something is happening. She fiddles with her SCA, turning on the beacon and waiting. Waiting--sick of waiting.

And then--something maybe? The world starts to go misty and she remember this river. From before. And while some struggle to remain, she's stumbling out there to find someone. Hopefully, he can manage against the waves of her life and world. It's not always pretty. Though big stretches of it are, objectively, pretty.

[blue_ice]

"I'll help you next time," Seto promises, his renewed determination flowing through this link. "You won't have to face it alone."

[blue_ice]

[ Seto watches all of this with a frown. It hurts so much to leave a family if they actually love you, he imagines. If he could've seen Mokuba...

No, he can't give up. He has to continue. He coughs lightly and steps forward. ]

I apologize for startling you all, but I'm her crewmate. I've been trying to monitor the situaton from the train since everyone left, and it's become dangerous. There's a real chance Masumi's soul will be lost forever if she doesn't go somewhere more stable. But this won't be the last time you see her---we're fighting to fix all this.