middleofsomewhere | Fighting Headstrong in our Final Hour: Ongoing

[Ryou slowly nods, his hands up at the sight of weapons being pointed at the group.]

My name's Ryou Bakura. We're from a future version of the Voidtrecker Express.

[Deep breath, trying to find the words.]

The paradox completely erased all trace of your system from existence. Aside from the train, it's like it never existed at all.

Katsuya nods- and his expression goes grim. There's no bringing humor into this anymore, and he almost looks out of breath as he speaks- like he's trying to get as much out as possible with the time they have. "Us? We worked w' yer ministry, after gettin' 'm to even realize this train was real. What yer abou' t' do? It doesn't just fail t' bring it back. Y' erase it. The train? No one knows it exists. Yer planet? No one knows it exists. Anyone who survived tha' lived there? No one knows they exist. An' if that ain't enough?"

He looks across the group, swallowing. "We didn't even agree t' get on that train to begin with. That's how far y' pushed this thing," he emphasizes. "Train couldn't even get help from anythin' that knew what the void WAS. Had to pull all of us in instead, all at random, no warnin', and then let us figure out the rest."

[Yondu ends up looking around for something plantlike. Not that he plans to do anything unnecessary or violent- it's his protective nature and that these kids are doing their best to explain their place. So he's trying to be helpfully protective.]

We're all Voidtreckers that happened after you. This don't work. You're not stoppin' it this way. You're not savin' it. Your minimal chance is a bad gamble. Even Osiga's dead now. I'm not tellin' ya to do nothin'. Just, y'know... somethin' that ain't this.

[But he's gotta ask.]

Is there some emergency contingency that if somethin' happens to y'all this train starts snatchin' people from Void inactive places?

Yugi listened to what the others said first because for him he didn't have much to say beyond what the others were already saying. But he at least admitted to himself that what if there could be another way. He would like to think that but wouldn't say it out loud.

He wanted to wait to see what was said next before speaking again.

There's an outburst of noise as about six people began talking all at once before Vian raised her hand and they stopped. They all look incredulous but order is still reigning for now.

She looks pale, at this bunch of strangers who appeared on a voidcraft in the void- something that should not be possible. At this bunch of strangers who seemed to know what they had just planned to do. At this bunch of strangers who were claiming to be from the future.

"You are saying that we somehow cause a paradox." Xela next to her has a face like ice but she says nothing. "That we caused ourselves not to exist. That you are from a Voidtrecker Express of the future." Those were the facts she got from their explanation though she looked quizically at Yondu's question.

"No. There shouldn't be..."

"Unless we turn off the safeguards for tethering. That would allow this craft to tether from nowhere." That was Xela, unable to stay silent anymore. "You wonder why it is r'ith. This is why it is r'ith!"

"Yeah. And you know what the real shit is? Nobody knew a damn about Enrara when we started showin'. We been chasin' around anything we could lookin' for info. They buried it. Diagad got eat up and there was no evidence it existed. All its stories seemed to get destroyed. We struggled to find a nursery rhyme worth of story on Enrara. You do this shit, not only does it not work but y'all run the risk of gettin' swept!" He emphasizes the idea with a sling of his arm. "The only reason we're findin' out more about it now is because whatever is wrong with the void is past the point of hidin'."

He'd been told that they had ended up all connected to the train somehow, but he'd not been told anything about that firsthand. If it's true, he doesn't think he could adequately present that.

"...What does r'ith mean?"

"I think it means 'forbidden'. O-Or 'taboo'. Whatever it translates to in our languages, they and we shouldn't be doing it." Nozomi said. "And if they do, it's going to fail. And, well..."

Part of Nozomi wants to reveal their fates - that they're gonna end up as souls trapped in the train's frame.

"What he said," Katsuya says, as much as half of Yondu's words were his own as well. "And...what she said," he adds a little more lamely, quietly, between Nozomi and him.

"...Look...I..." The blond takes a breath. What he says comes from older memories, ones from another life. Ones where he died. "...I get...why y' all went for th' option. If there's no way t' known how bad it goes, or why...y' wanted t' bring 'm all back."

(An entire village is nothing compared to a planet, but the sting of a people lost feels the same.)

"...I get tha'... ...But this won't do it. ...An' more than tha', these...things already went after other planets. Th' others are doin' their best to stop them now, but righ' here? At this point?"

He swallows. "...We can't save...the ones we lost. ...But you guys ain't lost yet."

"...so please. ...Don't do it." There's desperation and despair all in one in those words.

(He doesn't want to reveal their fates either. He hopes it doesn't come to that.)

Yugi nodded slightly. "Yeah we get why you want to do it, I mean if I was in your situation... I would understand the thought of wanting to try if it was an option. But you need to trust us when we say to not do it. If there are other ways... I assume you have tried to think of them."

He couldn't think of anything, but he knew they needed to avoid what they were trying to do anyway.

[Ryou nods.]

I'm sorry. I know what it's like to lose people you care about. [In this case, his mother and younger sister. Nothing like losing an entire system of course, but.]

But this won't work. At all.

"Yes." Xela nodded at Nozomi, giving her an odd look. "It means it must not be done."

Vian frowned at them all, confusion clear on her face. She looked from each to every one of them, her face shadowed in pain and loss.

"What's the alternative."

Because here they were, claiming the plan they had cobbled together would not, did not, work. But what else could they do?

"Coming with us, and luring all the world eating shapes bullshit away to save your home, and the systems that fell after." He stands with his tail flicking behind him, otherwise keeping his body posture as relaxed as he can.

For a guy also standing with his arms crossed over his chest.

"We have a beacon. With it set up, and breaches held open, lure them in, seal them off."

He stared at the rest of the ones who'd been talking, jerking his head particularly toward Yondu. "You all know, you say."

"And that ain't the end of the solutions other people can come up with. Fixin' don't need to end there. We can get ya more intel." About the bastard from Diagad and his abilities. About the way worlds they come from work and the miracles they present. "But we gotta get a move on with this one."

He backs Jingyi's take there, and considering he's been ready to throw himself in front of one of these kids if any reds looked especially spicy the whole ass time, he can't really fault the man on lookin' firm.

[Ryou's been quiet as Yondu and Jingyi speak, but now it's his turn.]

...And the train's been looking for you. She kept telling us to find you, her original crew. She had no idea what happened for a long time.

[He doesn't say what likely did happen to them, but he figures they should know that the train herselfself wanted them back too.]

Sometimes, digression is a better part of valor, gentle persuasion is not in Lan Wangji's purview at all. But this isn't an issue to stay quiet on:

"You should know that you tried, that is admirable. But another way will save many, many more lost souls."
He looks at the faces of those that have been or will be trapped and finds it a little nauseating.
"You have a plan that will fail. Our being here proves that. Now we offer you others that could succeed. Any chance is better than certain failure."

Nodding with the others, Katsuya gestures toward Ryou as he speaks again- what he says relates most to what they said. "...like I said, ev'n if th' planet was lost, th' rest of you guys ain't. ...but...th' reason f'r tha', is the same reason th' train could never find y' guys."

He swallows.

"...We came here t' tether y'. So that... ...In...instead 'f tha'..."

If Nozomi wants to clarify- if anyone wants to clarify, they're welcome- Katsuya at least, visibly can't bring himself to put it to words. He clutches his arms, and wishes there'd been a way to bring his pokemon with after all.

"Come with you?" Vian looked around at the crew, who looked a mixture of shocked and confused.

It was a strange turn of events, but they could not exactly deny what was being said when the impossible was happening before their eyes.

All eyes turned back on Vian and the weight of the decision seemed to sit on her shoulders.

"How? How did you get here? How do we return with you?"

Practical questions were better than the big unanswerable ones she had.

Another lash of his tail, more cat like than anything else, his shoulders hiking up. He's done this anchoring multiple times by now, though this one had been harder, stranger, the river a different sort of distracting call.

Still, it's a duty, and he's not one to neglect. Or hold back when it's easier to say:

"We're anchoring from the present Voidtrecker Express, right now. We've been chasing you down through time and the freaking void itself. It's been loud. We can anchor you, bring you back with us, keep you tethered and stable. We've had to do it for each other before."

It's the closest they can possibly get to pretending there's any practise behind what they do now.

"The Voidtrecker Express has been searching for you all for years. Let us help bring you home." A pause, his tail lashing one more time, line of his shoulders dropping, relaxing. "Please. You shouldn't be all... weirdly merged in with its metal or whatever happened last time, after everything fell apart once you traveled back. It started finding and tethering us against our will because of that. This? Whatever. The time bullshit."

A pause.

"Don't ask me why we're traveling time to save you, I think it only works because you're why the Voidtrecker Express abducted us in the first place. Or because we who weren't here before can take you to there where you haven't yet been? Ugh. Those fated to meet always will, or whatever."

Edited 2022-09-30 09:27 (UTC)

[Well he hadn't wanted to say what became of the voidtreckers, but now that Jingyi said it, Ryou might as well go with it.]

It's true. She couldn't find you because she didn't know what happened and because your...souls, I think...were merged with the voidmetal of the train.

We can bring you to the present - uh, our time - though. The plan is to anchor you up and take you back with us, but you have to agree.

[It all rides on the previous group of voidtreckers agreeing.]

Nozomi sighed as that cat was out of the bag. Now they knew.

“They’re both right, though, honestly, time travel and science makes my head hurt.” She said. “Though I’d take living over this fate, even if things go wrong.”

Between what people said about the train hunting for them, missing them, and what Yondu said about the whole story being buried (as they weren't around to tell it when it was needed), he figured they could do the addition that led to whatever sum of bullshit happened to them was not good.

"We got the other options. This got a better chance of workin' from the fact that our purples are out there facin' someone with void powers. An' we got people here that got a quick rundown on how the available tech works. Someone can give you a better technical explanation rather than promisin' a good outcome. A scoped out plan of attack with allies in the know is better than runnin' in there blind, so let's get a move on."

He's still worried about them working with borrowed time, though, and there's urgency in his voice.

"Merged..." She looked at the others, who looked at her. There was a silence as they waited.

"You're the leader Vian."

Even Xela nodded and Vian swallowed, nodded.

"Alright. It's a risk whatever we do and I can't think of any other way you could be here, on this craft..."

So... She nodded again. "We will come."

Katsuya nods- and says nothing, not until the verdict is made. As he had said- they could do this because they were never gone. Just...

Well.

The agreement comes, and with a sigh of audible relief, the blond nods. "Alrigh'...in tha' case...let's start tetherin'."

Time to make use of these things.

Yondu gestures for them to come over. "Come with some of your reds if you'd rather."

Because some of them might still be on edge, they did just lose everything after all, and the current crew's learned what red team is for.

He extends a blue hand, though. At least his guard's relatively dropped, and he's not worried so much about their reactions outside of that offer for them to supply extra precautions if they want them.

[Ryou is quiet, still uncomfortable after having to explain what happened to the original crew.

However, he does extend a hand, a wordless offer to help get people tethered to the future version of the train. It's what the group is here to do, after all.]

Fighting Headstrong in our Final Hour: Ongoing

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finally is here oops

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