middleofsomewhere | Crashing Down: Conclusion

Time ticks down, five hours turn to three hours, turns to one hour, turns to mere minutes. All the while the Voidtreckers rush to tether people to void craft. All efforts are now on reaching the furthest communities.

The effort is monumental, an evacuation that was improvised at every stage and yet was successful. The planet quietens as its citizens vanish off into the void, villages emptying, creatures gone too.

By the final half hour they can be pretty confident that on Osiga at least the only people left are those who have chosen, for whatever reason, to do so. Even now it might not be too late to save them, the right word in the right ear could change everything.

Minutes tick down, and the question becomes: Do the voidtreckers evacuate, or do they stick around to try and convince that last person? Do they save lives by force? Leave them to their chosen fate?

Whatever their choices, time is rapidly running out.

CRASHING DOWN: CONCLUSION

HOUR ZERO

As their timers count down into the last two minutes, their SCA's begin to flash amber. Danger is approaching.

Some of the remaining citizens hunker down, awaiting what comes. Others gather, weapons in hand to face this foe they have been told to flee from.

Danger is indeed approaching. In their peripheral vision they will see a darkening of the sky as strange shapes begin to fill it; too weird to be clouds, nothing that can be accurately described. For those inside, even those with Anan in a space station, they will sense this shadowing. Almost as if shapes are crowding in on reality itself. An extremely unnerving experience. The shapes fill the sky, fill the system, and their SCA's flash red.

It is time to go.

It might be they try and fight, just to see if they can. It might be that they scramble to tether the last couple of people, people who have just rapidly changed their mind about staying here. The train lets them. Anyone who doesn't evacuate themselves will be allowed to stay until the last possible second, as their countdowns click down from 00:01. Then their world glows gold as the train yanks them back, landing in the luggage carriage with barely time to draw breath as the train lurches into the void violently.

For the first time, anyone looking out the window as the train enters the kaleidoscope of the void will see other void craft. Trains, ships, planes, weird orbs. Just for a few moments these craft fill the space, and then they move, the train as well, bringing colour back to the void once more.

OOC NOTES

OOC Post ~ Questions ~ Shenanigans ~ Tasks Check-In & Rewards

This post can be used for any last minute rescues as well as their return to the train and any reactions and debriefing that characters need!

If your character wasn't wearing their SCA during the very last second, please notify us of their death over here.

Art Credit: Header

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Hopefully the world can tolerate my absence for a few months," Thomas said. "I don't exactly have a choice here." But he is feeling guilty about abandoning them, even if it wasn't his choice. "I'm told that it looks like my body is just asleep, which is at least some explanation."

Ah, so thankfully it seems like the entire world's existence isn't relying on him being there.. That's a bit of a relief to know, at the very least. Madoka is so tired of hearing about worlds that got all messed up, just because the train pulled people out of them.

She seriously hopes that Thomas' is still more or less the same, ready for him to return to his body.

"Yes, it does seem to be that way.."

Not that Madoka would know, since her body is gone, but. You know. Other people were saying it was true, after their little outing back to their worlds.

She gives him a tiny smile, though it's a little sheepish and worried at the same time.

"Hopefully it means that you will be fine right away once you return, sir. You can just get up and get back to work, and back to the people you care about."

This gets a sad smile. "Only some of the people," Thomas admitted. "I've been away from three of the people I care about most for a long time before the train found me." Or four, but Alice had still been pregnant when he'd been pulled away; Thomas assumed he had a second child, but the child was still an idea to him, not a person. Even Kevin had been young enough that Thomas didn't expect to even recognize the adult he'd become.

"B-But..!"

Madoka can't help but protest. There's still a little bit of hesitation in it, because she knows some situations are just too big or too important to overcome so easily. But even so, she can't help but hope.

"Couldn't you go see them once you go back? Even if it's just for a little bit..?"

If Thomas taking a break from his work due to this kidnapping won't destroy the world, then surely him going to see the people he loves for a day or so couldn't destroy it either, right?

"Oh, that one is not because of responsibilities. Not directly. When I was a much younger man, I made a bargain because I couldn't accept that Alice -- my wife, though she wasn't at the time -- would die. Part of the cost was that at some point in the future, I would be pulled somewhere that she couldn't follow and I couldn't escape. Which is one of the reasons I am still working on it."

.. oh.

Well, isn't that awkward. For multiple reasons. It'd mostly just be sad, but given Madoka's own experience with stuff like that, it just puts an entirely different layer of awkward right on top of it.

"You.. can make bargains like that where you come from? Like-- Like making a wish to something or someone?"

"Yes. Do the Crossroads exist in your world?" Because this is a concern. Thomas knows damn well that the Crossroads will try to cause as much misery as possible with its terms, and even having Mary (who was far more anchored in humanity than most of her peers, to hear her tell it) rather than another crossroads ghost had only helped so much.

She shakes her head.

"No, or.. um, at least, I don't think so.."

After all, it's entirely possible that Kyubey - or whatever the species he belongs to is called - is called something else out there in another world. It could be that they aren't just present in the world Madoka comes from, after all.

Hence why she bites her lip, before adding: "What is it like..? That.. Crossroads?"

She thinks a description would help her figure out pretty quickly whether or not they are talking about the same thing. Or even a similar thing.

"The guardian... imagine something that looks like the heat haze on asphalt, but has a presence stronger than any living or dead thing should, that speaks with a voice that sounds more like locusts' wings than anything a human throat can make."

And he catches himself, realizing that this probably wasn't appropriate for a child, but like Hell he knew what that even was. And seeing the loss of Osiga had rattled him. That at least hadn't felt malicious the way the Crossroads had. "It usually uses ghosts as intermediaries, but the bargain itself is made with the guardian."

Don't worry, Thomas. Madoka has seen enough disturbing things by now - both here on the train and back home in her own world - that this description isn't the thing to send her over the edge.. even though she's still having a bit of a hard time forming a mental image with that kind of description. So he's saying it's kind of like.. special air? Some invisible guardian that talks to you with an odd voice?

It.. doesn't really sound like Kyubey, but on the other hand, Thomas is also saying it uses intermediaries.

So who knows?

"I don't think I've seen anything like that, but.. where I come from, there are also creatures who make bargains with young girls for their wishes, so maybe it could be something similar, sir.."

Though that's not necessarily a good thing, she thinks.

"Tell me about them." Because Thomas Price doesn't trust anything that reminds him of the Crossroads, even tangentially. And at least he had been a grown adult when he made his choice; people like Mary or Sally had been teenagers. Teenagers often had fewer other options than adults, and beings that targeted them were inherently suspicious.

"Um, they're a little bit like cats.."

.. yet not at all at the same time. But Madoka doesn't know how else to start her description. How does one describe a Kyubey to someone who might never have seen one before?

"They're entirely white, with pointy ears and red eyes and a very fluffy tail.. But at the same time you realise they're not actually a cat, because they have a second pair of longer, floppy ears growing out of their pointy cat ears. And they can talk in human speech too.."

Madoka looks a little sheepish as she tries to explain, like she expects Thomas to think that she's talking about something totally ridiculous here - even though she's just telling the truth. The weird, weird truth.

Thomas's mother-in-law once named a creature a 'fricken' because it was a feathered frog. 'Like cats, but...' is what he expects from people who aren't naturalists or monster-hunters.

The physical description soudned perfectly reasonable. He pulled out a separate page in the notebook to write this down. "Any other special abilities, beyond speech and whatever they can do to grant wishes?"

Just wait, Thomas. There's a storm of information about these things coming your way.

Like the facts Madoka decides to open with here. To her credit, she definitely sounds more than just a little bit awkward as she's summing it up, since she knows that it sounds like - and it's not like any of it is a good memory for her.

"They can take people's souls out of their body.. And they can also replicate their body and eat the old one after it gets too injured.."

Fun little creatures, clearly.

Crashing Down: Conclusion

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cw: mention of.. self-cannibalism, i guess