middleofsomewhere | No Place Like Home: The Return

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No Place Like Home: The Return

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.

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"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.

Vegeta manages to raise a brow as Yondu started on the 'needed to talk to you' part of all that, knowing how well that went with Bulma... but was surprised to hear what it lead to. "Really?" He was about to question why Yondu was telling him this, then realize that is what friends did. They actually talked to each other. Apparently.

It also maybe helps Vegeta has a variation of this himself with Trunks. "Is he different from the one in your world or is he like Trunks?" It was still Trunks after all, just raised in a very different world.

"Differ'nt kid. Another Terran, from a whole differn't country. He's a real good egg."

His expression is a little distant as the figures on the screen argue about the infected crew, meanwhile they're ignoring the scientist that wanted to research the killer's special tissue structures. He's sort of half-ass catching the plot, missing watching these things occasionally with Siebren.

"He knows some of my worse history too. Still seems to like me. I dunno... I don't think no less of Quill. Just didn't think some version of me would be able of producin' a big damn hero like that. I kinda wanna get to know 'im better but I don't know nothin' about doin' that. If it'll feel decent or if I'll just want to go kickin' my own ass."

But Vegeta does know about it. "His name's T'Challa. He's here on the train."

Vegeta had joked to himself about Yondu acting like Piccolo and having an ability to collect children, having finally met up with Kyoko during this all with the anchoring, so adding another to the list, even if from another universe, causes that eyebrow of Vegeta's to raise higher, silently considering if to say something about it. Then doing so. He's too tired to really care right now. "Your collection of children keeps growing."

"I see." He adds regarding T'Challa being on the train. It seemed like both a good and bad thing; being here to have time with Yondu, but also being away from his universe. Especially if he's a hero as Yondu says he is. However, "I hope you're not expecting some sage advise from me about it all." You've seen what he was like, Yondu, was that really a man who gave a damn about 'getting to know' his own son from the future? Or even his current toddler son of that time?

"I don't need no sage advice or nothin'," he says tiredly. "Just a buddy's thoughts. You know what it's like better than me."

Even if they are two different people, there are commonalities between them. Enough to keep them friends.

"And yeah, I got no idea why. I don't fully know my history with thisn' yet." But it's pointing out to him that all his excuses to keep Peter around to himself let along his crew were probably pretty bullshit. Give him some fake family and he'll desperately cling to it.

"I died just after Trunks was born in his world, died to the androids trying to fight them." Which had burnt with rage when he had found out at the time, to had fallen to an enemy after learning at the chances to become more than he was, to know there was more to reach for, but for that him to had never reached it. Death was just a part of Saiyan life, most died in battle, but to know he could had become so much more than he and his people had realized was possible... it stung.

And only motivated Vegeta to reach for it even more.

"After I had learnt who he was when he came back to our time, I hated him, and I certainly didn't hide it at the time." It was difficult to admit that now, having been through what he had with Trunks, both this one and his younger version, to consider how he had treated his own flesh and blood. "I had no interest in any connections back then, and certainly didn't want offspring that could be stronger than me." A puff of exhale through his nose at those memories. "It's why I wasn't surprised at his reluctance to me when I arrived here. It took me a long time to realize I actually gave a damn about him in any regard." That year in the Time Chamber certainly started that... and seeing Trunks actually grow a spine against him and take him on during their fight over stopping Cell... which wasn't one of Vegeta's proudest moments...

But having his son actually stand up to him through it... that had gotten Trunks some respect from Vegeta. Rage also, but respect.

A long pause before Vegeta spoke again. "He dies in his future. He doesn't know this, don't want to know it," Trunks had made it clear he had no interest in knowing his future beyond the point he had left his version of their world. And what he had just gone back to sounded very different to what had happened for Vegeta. "But he died in battle, and I couldn't stop it. I actually caused it." If he hadn't allowed Cell to become Perfect, if Vegeta had just taken him out then, and he easily could had. But he had wanted a fight, a challenge, to test himself out on Cell before he would had gone and killed Goku. It had cost Trunks his life, Gohan his arm, and even Goku's life yet again.

He had screwed up in a big way.

It's brutally honest, and Yondu appreciates that. His expression is it's normal gloss of vaguely unhappy, but that's the case of his resting bitch face rather than judgement. He's just listening, appreciating that the man next to him is admitting his mistakes. And he knows that they were mistakes.

"I know it ain't blood, but I wanna see if I can see anything of myself in 'im. I could see it in Quill. When he was gettin' up in folks faces, backtalkin' 'em. Had no shame in who he sassed at. For all the hell those years were, I wouldn't trade that. So if another me that made one single change found this boy... I wonder what I taught 'im that stuck."

An adopted child is no less a child, right? They carry a bit of you. Not just something you teach like a mentor, but mannerisms and fondnesses. They take your presence. It sounds a lot like Vegeta took too long to see Trunks as a continuation of the best of him and instead just saw him as another rival. At least that's Yondu's read on a very sad state of affairs.

But that Trunks dies? That's heart-breaking.

"Might not be the case no more. All the worlds had time pass with people down. I mean, you mighta heard already, but things are gonna go differ'nt. So his future might still be up in the air. Could be what he makes of it." At least he hopes so. Trunks is a good egg, and even if it took Vegeta a while to see it, considering how he was raised? Well, Yondu just figures Vegeta is a little like him. Doing the best with what he knew.

He pours himself some more rum, adds some soda to it, and sinks down into the seat to watch blandly as an alien creature bursts from the infected man's back, breaking through some of the important wires in the lab. There are a lot of mistakes being made on the part of the fake crew and that's difficult to watch. Especially as they're not quick enough to catch it before it slips into the vents. Not one goddamn guard on duty, and none of the scientists properly taught to shoot as there weren't even weapons in the lab at all, you know, where they were studying hostile organisms. Could at least use a taser of some sort.

It's just a moment that he lets himself get distracted, dulling down any chance for a flood of emotion. "I don't wanna mess it all up again. I don't expect to be forgiven twice in a row."

"Considering how he described his time there I am assuming it has branched off from our own. In Bulma and my time he was never in a coma. After we defeated Cell he returned back to his own time, though he showed up again years later when another threat came to his world." Really, time travel, multiple universes, it was easier just to go along with it rather than question it too much. Vegeta leaves that up to Bulma to try and work out the hows and whys behind that.

However, back to Yondu, and something that needed clarifying. "Mess up? Do you mean what the you has already done to this new son in his universe, or do you have concerns for what you may do with him here?" Not intentional mistakes, but they could still happen.

"Apparently I didn't mess up with him... not as far as I know." He did, actually, in a big way. But otherwise had been supportive to T'challa for much of his life.

"I was an asshole to Quill. I hade to protect 'im from my own crew and his father. They hated him, and the more it looked like I favored 'im? They hated me. And his father woulda killed 'im. His father was real powerful, so I needed my crew to keep 'em at bay.

"So it was a case of not bein' too carin' towards Quill, makin' 'im strong enough to take care of himself, not lettin' 'im know his blood father was out lookin' for 'im 'cause if he went to 'im, he'd be dead. So to Quill I was just some asshole that kidnapped him and beat the shit out of him..."

Everything good that happened was after his death. What little he could find was that Peter called him a good man. An asshole, but a good man. It wasn't a lot, but it was about the best he could manage.

"So yeah, it's concerns about what I'll do here... Honestly I don't know why I picked up this kid instead of Quill. He ain't one of Ego's."

Yondu says that, but... "Earthlings, ah, Terrans," As Yondu called them. "Tend to be a soft species for the most." Then again, they seemed like those who had no clue of what was going on in the universe and hadn't had a need to fight for their planet's survival. That will toughen up a world real fast, or find a way via technology to protect or fight.

"What was the alternative if you hadn't? He would had died to his father or your crew." It was a rhetorical question, Yondu no doubt already knew that even if he's regretting it now. You did what you had to survive, and toughen up the next generation to survive as well. In saying that... Vegeta didn't care for his own father, but that may partly be a Saiyan thing. Family relationships between child and parents weren't traditionally that strong, even within the Royal family.

"I treated Trunks like crap during our year of training before our fight against Cell, but it had allowed him to toughen up and learn a lesson before having to face our enemy again." If it had been the Vegeta from now doing the teaching he would had explained why Trunks' form he had focused on would had failed, not just allowed him to put all that time into training, only to lose in battle to learn what he did wrong. It certainly did do the job though, he figured out why it was a flawed form... just... Vegeta could had been better about explaining why it was. "Neither of us may like what we had done to them in the past, but it is because of that they turned into the people they are now." And Vegeta is damn proud of what his son had become.

"I say stop thinking so hard about it," Vegeta starts, lifting his glass back to his mouth, but pausing just before drinking again, "If he is yours then he'll let you know when you step over the line. If you raised him then he has enough of a backbone to do that." Then draining the rest of the drink and angling the glass to signal a refill by Yondu.

Vegeta might be telling him to shut up in his own way, but also he just said probably the nicest thing possible. More than most people have ever said to him. That he made his kids strong- and he would have. Whatever it took, he'd make them strong. Strong of mind, of body, of passion. Whichever came first.

He refills Vegeta's glass and leans back as the woman that seems to be the main character saves the chief of security by bludgeoning one of the parasite creatures. She has to then stomp the infectious creature that tries to rush her. Pretty hot, honestly.

Finally he agrees. "Yeah, he was as strong as he needed to be. Survived what he needed to."

And maybe, even if Yondu left him a little damaged, his friends could give him the support that Yondu couldn't under scrutinizing eyes. So he'll accept it that Vegeta's probably right. No kid of his would be a doormat.

It's less shut up and more for Yondu not to stress over it. It's happened, it's done, nothing can change from that. If he's wronged this new kid somehow then he would just have to repair it, if there was a chance to do so.

"Then you did your job." Though as he says this Vegeta knows there is more to being a father. It had taken time, but he knows that now. "Plus he just got here, right? It takes time to get use to this stupid fucking situation."

"Yeah. I kinda just left 'im alone 'cause of it." Both of them needed time to situate themselves.

"About our universes... I got a little bit of a concern. That the Ministry's gonna make us undo our shit somehow. Make everyone forget or turn back time or somethin'. About like what they did on the last world."

Which will end up in a bunch of broken-hearted folks. Yondu hadn't cared much what happened in his world, but what about all the others? He'd remained pretty silent, but goddamn will that fuck with people if shit goes wrong.

Vegeta pauses in thought of that all, turning it over in his head. "Are you meaning because you will forget all that we did while we were here? Or that they would just erase those who had interacted with us back in our own universes?" It was... not something Vegeta had considered before, and it certainly raises a lot of concerns.

Vegeta has no clue what happened to his world, he had assumed it had been 'on pause' during this time in Verens, but he has no idea how this all worked with him first being taken there, then here to the train. If it wasn't though, if it was like what those who had gone back had discovered... Vegeta has to wonder if there's an Earth for him and Bulma to go back to.

"Welp. We know that they got some knowledge of temporal stability and maybe manipulatin' time itself. We learnt that at the last mission. We know they can decide people seen too much. We saw that, too."

He's frowning extra hard now, thinking of people like Nell who worked out how to keep her land. Or people like Idia or Selenay who left discrete messages after knowing the troubles of their loved ones.

"I hope they don't. I hope they let us have this... But if they've been hidin' somethin' as big as whole worlds bein' lost to somethin' then I don't count on a lotta benevolence outa people." He could stand to be pleasantly surprised every once in a while.

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No Place Like Home: The Return

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