Let it Snow: Red Start

[voidtreckermods]

The doors slam shut, the train moves. Through the snow this time but the shuddering is almost worse that entering the void. "Red team to doors." The visibility out of the window is low but they are moving further up the mountain.

The doors open, allowing red team to jump. The snow here is thick, there is little protection from the howling winds and biting cold.

Their SCA shows a route, following it will, presumably lead them to the gang that caused these problems. Here on the low slopes of the mountain there are some homesteads. Much fewer than in the town itself but cottages and small farm houses. All seem abandoned.

For now there is not much to do but to walk, forge a path through the snow. Fight the snow and ice monsters that attack and do their best to survive as they follow the map towards their goal.

Comments

[knifewithnoname]

"The emptiness do be being a warrior trick." She told him with a shrug, "No an illness." Despite what Peter thought.

She frowned. The problem of Peter was not one that was to easy to solve and it is no surprise that Tony was stuck with what to do with him.

"I do no be knowing. You probably did be needing to be training him better when he did be being small."

He was an adult now, much harder to train. Probably.

[runs_on_batteries]

"How do you do this trick?" He asked, unsure of what she was referring to. He raised an eyebrow at her. "Peter called it an illness?" That just seemed strange to him, although he knew he didn't have all the facts yet.

"He wasn't born to be a warrior," Tony explained, hoping this might help Buttercup understand Peter better. "I only met him a couple years before he.. well, he goes away for about five years in my time. I think we talked about this before." If nothing else, she knew of how many nightmares he'd had where Peter dies.

"What were your lessons like? Maybe I can get some ideas for him." Hardly. He was pretty sure whatever she described was going make him sick to his stomach and ready to blow up her planet.

[knifewithnoname]

She nodded, she did know of his night scares and she had pieced together enough from Tony and Peter to understand that Peter had disappeared and Tony had died five years later even though Peter didn't remember that somehow.

"You do be learning it through meditation. That's what I did be trying to be teaching him but he did be going all leaky eyed and scrunch faced mad. But when you do be being good at it you can be doing in anywhere. Even in stupid snow."

She closed her eyes for a moment and took a breath, emptying her mind and her emotions, forcing them into the storm. It was actually a little easier to visualise when she was in the middle of an actual storm. A moment later she was still, she was still walking beside him but all the small twitches and movements were stilled, her breath was even and her eyes were blank. It was how he had found her in the clutches of the eagles.

"This do be being the emptiness. I can be teaching you, but probably no right now." Walking up a mountain in the snow was not a good place for a first attempt.

[runs_on_batteries]

Tony's interest grew as he watched what Buttercup was doing. He wasn't a psychology expert, so he's not quite sure what is happening there. He does know something seems very messed up about it, but he can't deny how useful it seems too. He might need to take some time to think about what he was looking at.

"I've seen you do this before, but I didn't know what it was." He watches for another moment or two. "Are you able to pull out of it okay?"

[knifewithnoname]

"You did be seeing it before." She nodded, her voice was still complete blank. She nodded again and let the bubble around her burst, grimacing a little as the effects of the biting cold hit her once more.

"It do be being easy. For me anyways, I did be practising a lot."

It wasn't an easy trick to learn, but once you knew it it wasn't so difficult any more.

[runs_on_batteries]

Tony winced when he realized she hadn't been feeling the cold until she'd stepped out of the emptiness. Oops.

"I've done some work with meditation, but never quite like what you did." He wasn't convinced if anyone should be doing that meditation, but it was tempting if it could block everything else out but the immediate danger.

He was quiet for a few minutes as they continued to trudge up the snowy slope. "I've underestimated you." He'd also underestimated how screwed up the world she was from. He decided to go for humor since this was awkward with a capital everything. "Guess you're our tiny secret weapon."

[knifewithnoname]

Yes he had. But that had sort of been deliberate on her part. But it's hard to hide what she can do, when she also needs to be useful in missions. So it is perhaps a good thing he knows she is stronger than he thought.

The situation is still in her control, not half as much as she would like it to be but she's not completely out of her debth.

"I do be guessing I do be." She grinned. "Professor Chill will never be expecting it."