Day 9: Morning

Morning: 6:00am - 12:00noon

[ IRL Timeframe: June 14th - Onward, 2020 ]

When your characters check their phones, clocks, calendars, or any other timekeeping implement they'll find that the year is 00 AW, forty years before the present day. The year before the Wizard's first game was held, the year before it came down to only two knights and the Princess facing off against the Wizard. It was before all of it.

Everywhere your characters go, there are no people. Their devices will not connect to the internet outside of the island, their companions will not appear, the Wizard and Monsters will not answer, but they can text each other without difficulty.

Outside, the heroes will not be greeted with the sight of the sky from Day 3. The sky lacks the massive vortex over the center of the mountain. Honestly, it all looks fairly serene. The only thing that seems amiss is the rumbling of the ground, the constant feeling of an ongoing earthquake. There are no fractures in the ground yet, though, no splintering of the planet.

Because nothing has happened yet.

Ninth Morning Event: The Past, Pt.II

The Weather
Stillness.
48°F
No wind.

Prompts:

6:00am The Arrival, All Cities: Gyre, Olivia, and Luka arrive flat on the ground. They wake on their backs, facing up to the stars, just outside of something that has never been on the island ever before.

They're at the top of the mountain, right beside where the mysterious doors were in the current day. But right now there's a wide-open metallic stairwell. It looks unnatural, like someone copy-pasted it into place. From beneath, there's a blue glow and steam rising up from below.

Guess it's time to wake up, make a plan, and walk downstairs?

?:00am, Unknown Location: This post will consist of one single long thread that progresses through the plot for this post. As discoveries are made, additional information will be uncovered.

Procedure:

Reply to the appropriate toplevel comments for events below. Indicate if a post is a private conversation with "Private" in the subject otherwise all threads should be open to interaction with others. Plan OOCly how you'd like to toss everyone around.

Activity Check: June 2020

[ IRL Timeframe: June 1st - June 30th, 2020 ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

For the knights, it's back to familiar places. Places that none of them asked to see. Places that none of them could forget they'd seen. The knights descend down the stairs, arriving in where they can only assume to be the ring-filled cavern beneath the mountain.

This time, however, there are no bottomless pits in sight.

The circular area in the center of the cavern, however, is still there. It's made up of twenty-seven metal rings, smaller ones in the middle surrounded by one massive ring around the outside. It'd take a lot of counting to see the 27 rings but, believe me, they're there. The heroes will notice two things differently this time. The first is that none of the rings were rotating, and the second was that there was a huge hooded figure seemingly putting the outer ring into place. It's a huge, hulking piece of metal and they would have to be impossibly strong to be lifting and adjusting it into place.

The figure is one that the boar knight has seen before. The defining feature of a giant wizard hat is present, but the characteristic pajamas are missing. More startling than that is that the body is wrong. They don't look like the usual small, petite form of the current year's Wizard. Their body is made up of what looks like solid muscle, standing several feet above the current year's short Wizard. They're wearing black robes decorated with deep purple clouds and blue stars. Over their face is something like a plague doctor's mask with not a single inch of skin showing. Instead of a long beak on the front of their mask, the mouth section is a maw of sharp teeth that, even parted, shows nothing behind it.

Standing within the circle, on the innermost piece, stands another figure. The second figure is completely new to everyone, a face unknown to all. He's standing at four feet high, if that tall, with something that looks akin to a lab coat dangling over his body all the way down to his ankles. It has too many pockets and too many seams, though, looking more like a shoe storage unit for a door than like the coat it was inevitably meant to be. His hair is stark white with black ends, pulled back into a high ponytail behind him. Absurdly, the length of his hair nearly drags on the ground. How it's staying up above his head is anyone's guess. Over his face is a contraption that looks like it's right out of an optometrist's nightmare. Lenses and panels and attachments are covering the whole of his face and eyes, mechanical pieces of it occasionally flicking out or back into place. He's occupied with something in his hands, some kind of glowing blue panel that beeps every time he touches it. The beep, along with their voices, echo throughout the chamber.

"--can't be just another failure." Comes the man's voice as the heroes descend close enough to start hearing the conversation.

"Estimated time of completion, ▆▋▄▇▚▎." The tall figure answers, voice practically brimming with a crackling energy. The last word, whatever it is, sounds more garbled. But it's followed by a beep from the thing in the shorter man's hands.

"That's too long. Can't you go faster? Bypass protocols. Override all warnings. Prioritize finishing." He says, sounding more demanding than questioning.

"Protocols bypassed, enabling acceleration." The tall figure answers again, starting to mill about faster with metal components and flickerings of light against the floor.

As the conversation goes on, one final aspect of this space becomes clear: The floor of the cavern isn't just solid: It's glowing. A slow, gradual pulsing glow brightens and then fades from within the soil and rock itself, the soft blue of something beneath coming and going. It's almost like breathing.

[As the figures come into view, Olivia quickly and quietly grabs Luka and Gyre, by the hand and the arm respectively, and crouches down, hoping that they will too and that the shadows will hide them.

In whispers, she describes the Wizard, and who she assumes is the Protector, as best as she can to Luka. She doesn't pay too much attention to their surroundings for once, her eyes remaining glued to the two aliens instead as she listens to their conversation. She doesn't know how real the time travel thing is, doesn't know if they can interact with them, but it's better to be safe than sorry.]

Is this the part where they try to "heal" the world? [She whispers, not letting go of the boys - partly to make sure they stay put, and partly because she's scared.]

Luka instinctively follows Olivia's movement into a crouch as she grabs his hand and ducks down. The voices in the cavern take him by surprise - Luka wasn't expecting to run into anyone just yet, and he feels as if they've intruded upon something quite serious.

"Is that them?" He whispers back, his voice quiet but urgent in tone. He's not sure either if the group can be seen or heard by the others. "It sounds like it. No one mentioned him trying to expedite the whole thing. I wonder why he's so impatient?"

Gyre follows Olivia down when she grabs his arm, settling beside Luka and taking in the scene. He remembers the Wizard, of course, and there is an immediate impulse in him to go directly to her. She'd probably remember him, right?

But no, he realizes, this must be before he met her. He tilts his head slightly, answering softly, "It's definitely them. I've seen the Wizard like that before." He takes a moment here to uh stare at the tiny little Protector in his coat and glasses, but he decides not to comment on it.

After a beat though, he starts slowly moving himself down to the next stair, crouch walking his way towards the two of them.

"I'm going to get closer."

The first sign that something is wrong is the low hum in the air.

"The volume of warnings is increasing significantly." The taller figure comments, one fist placed against the ground with a metal rod spinning against something. Locking something in place? The soft whirring of the action is drowned out by the sound in the air, like an engine starting to rev up.

"Go faster. We're so close to saving this one." The smaller figure commands, flicking something open in his hand that glows and beeps rapidly.

"It's no different than the others, seismic reactions to the system." He explains it away, shaking his head before he pockets the handheld device.

The second sign that something is wrong is the prickling electricity in the air, tugging at fabric and skin alike.

"The pressure is rising, unknown source. Ability for living beings to survive dropping." The taller figure declares, prompting the smaller figure to reach into a pocket and pull forth a mask that he puts over his mouth and nose beneath his lens-hat.

The third sign that something is wrong is when the entire floor fractures. Cracks fly outward around the room like lightning bolts in the dirt, they zig-zag across the floor and up the walls. More follow, some flying up the stairwell past the heroes.

From the fractures, arms emerge. They start reaching out, grasping at anything they can. The fracture nearest the heroes bursts open with dozens of arms, each one grasping at all three heroes in an attempt to hold them. If they get touched, it'll be like a jolt of electricity spiking through their body from the point they're grabbed at. How horrible!

In the center of the room, the two figures have visibly started some kind of back and forth, the smaller figure looking like he's shouting while the tall figure remains impassive. But the hum of the room and the rocks cracking drowns out the words at the distance.

What it doesn't drown out is the voice of a child coming from directly behind all three heroes. If they look back up the stairs, there's a glowing blue figure that looks slightly like Sxicq's silhouette. But there are no features, no mouth, only glowing. Even so, the voice comes clear as day:

"Freedom. Stopped. Trapped."

[Olivia doesn't get time to protest Gyre approaching the other two before things start kicking off. She tenses and holds Luka's hand tighter as the weird electric energy starts cracking around the room.]

Can you feel that? [She asks him in a hurried whisper. Her eyes dart from crack to crack as they start appearing on the ground and towards them.] The ground is— the cracks are forming. There's hands—? shit. [She tries to explain what she's seeing as best as she can but stops herself when she notices the arms reaching for the three of them. She suddenly yanks Luka closer to herself and towards the middle of the stairs so the hands won't grab at him from the sides.

Then there's the sound of a voice directly behind them, which makes Olivia nearly jump out of her skin (probably jolting Luka with her movement, since she was holding him away from the arms - she'll apologize later) and inadvertently cycle through a dozen appearances in a second before returning to normal. Her head turns to give the silhouette a quick look before looking back at Gyre, eyes wide and dilated with fear and uncertainty, searching his face for guidance. This is quickly becoming too much for her.]

"Mm, I can." Luka nods, his body becoming rigid as electricity prickles through the air around them. The rising static was becoming increasingly apparent, and Luka remembers a similar energy when he'd previously been sent to the past.

Just as Olivia starts to describe the ground cracking apart, Luka's able to detect the familiar glow emanating from the ruptures, and his eyes track their movement as they spread and branch around the cave.

"Wait - hands?" That detail was news to him. Was it the children from before? He doesn't have to wonder long before the voice from directly behind them seems to confirm his theory.

"H-Hey, wait. Can you hear us?" Luka makes an attempt to engage the glowing figure, just in case? Maybe it wasn't a coincidence that this child appeared so closely behind them...?

He's about halfway down the stairs when the pressure starts rising. His skin prickles, his hair raising up on the back of his neck, and he realizes all of a sudden that he shouldn't leave their side. He starts creeping back almost immediately, watching the way Olivia pulls Luka closer and keeps him safe.

The cracks break the ground apart, and he meets Olivia's eyes, understanding her panic immediately. He jolts up from his crouched position, and darts towards them. He doesn't care if those two see him down below. He needs to get to his allies as quickly as possible, and he almost jumps past them to put himself between the two of them and the floating figure. His shield flashes up into place around them, looking far sturdier then it has before.

"Sxicq?" he shouts at the new figure, trying to speak over the noise of the cave breaking apart around them.

The three of them get treated to a truly horrible sight. The glowing blue silhouette visibly cracks as the air's saturation with crackling and tension reaches a peak. All at once, the blue figure shatters into thirteen pieces that end up floating in the air for just a moment.

A moment later they're enclosed in glowing blue crystals as the electricity in the air abruptly vanishes. All at once it's like nothing bad was even happening at all! Except that the floating crystal-enclosed blue chunks are starting to disappear, as if they're teleporting away. The closest one, however, opens a single eyeball and looks at the three heroes in front of it curiously.

But they won't get long to consider everything, because it's all about to go wrong. More wrong. They get to overhear the last bits of conversation before they're pulled away:

"What happened? It worked, didn't it? Something's different, explain." The shorter figure demands as he looks up at his companion.

But that only lasts for a few moments as the vision of all three heroes blurs. Blue infringes on everything and practically blinds everyone with pure blue brightness. When it fades, the three heroes are standing in the middle of a street in Far Haven, surrounded by tall buildings. There are numerous traffic cones and caution tape surrounding them and they arrive to find themselves in the middle of a conversation.

"--as I was saying, we're reporters. I'm Jane and these three are with me, we have questions about all of this." A tall woman with dark skin is saying, annoyed, holding a microphone out in the direction of the short Protector.

"The plight of this world is beyond your understanding, you are stopping me from confirming this world has been saved." He answers, sounding annoyed. He casts glances around at the various law enforcement officials who are keeping the public back.

The lanyard around Gyre's neck floats up, his double-sided reporter name badge hovering in the air between himself and the Protector so they can both read that it says "Reporter: Press Pass" in multiple languages all listed beneath a photo of him.... wearing a suit. Olivia and Luka are wearing the same thing, and so is Jane. The Protector squints to read it for a moment before releasing the magic that made it hover as he decides to address him instead:

"Your name is 'Red'? Do you have questions, too, or can I leave?" He says, eyes turning momentarily to Olivia and Luka too. Is he going to have to answer everyone's questions before he can leave?

Beyond the barricades around the intersection, three things can be seen, and felt in three different directions. The first is the tall figure that was with the Protector, the Wizard, standing just past some traffic cones. The second is the crackling blue crystals that had been floating around on the third day. The third, and last thing, is a figure of a child wrapped in black, tattered robes. Their face is primarily taken up by one massive eyeball in place of where two eyes and a nose would be on a human. How bizarre!

[As she's blinded, Olivia panics when, after a few moments, she notices she's not holding onto Luka anymore. Yet, when she opens her eyes, she finds that they're in an entirely different situation. What the fuck happened? What? What? Her breathing picks up, trying to calm herself down. They're not in danger, at least they don't seem to be- wait, where the hell are they?

Her light blue eyes are as big as plates as she takes in the situation - they remain glued to the Protector, right there in front of her, even as she tries to make sense of what this Jane person is saying. Her eyes are then drawn to what she can feel is in the area, observing the crystals before landing on the form of the Wizard and the one-eyed child. Her mind feels a little numb as she tries to parse just who it is that she's seeing.

Lastly, as if suddenly jolted by the realization she's not supposed to be alone, her gaze hurriedly moves to find her friends, and her eyes widen even more - which should have been impossible, but the situation just demanded it - when she sees that both Luka and Gyre are wearing suits, looking all professional and tidy. As she looks down at herself, reading her own badge, her brain slowly makes the connection between what the woman was saying and what she's seeing.

When the Protector addresses them, the simple question bouncing in her mind comes out in a squeak before she can contain it.] What's going on?

A lot happens in very little time: there's overwhelming energy, and then there's not. That voice in the distance that Luka has barely a second to acknowledge. Sudden, intense brightness.

The city street is a far cry from the mountain cave, and the abrupt transition is uncomfortable and jarring. But, at the very least, Far Haven was less foreign than the cave interior at its most chaotic.

But Luka is no less confused than he had been in the cave, despite being somewhat more comfortable now. He slowly realizes that he's changed clothes, and that he's standing beside an unfamiliar person - Jane, she said? We're reporters, she said?

"My name isn't Red-" He starts to say in the quiet, confused manner of someone who's been woken from a dream. But he trails off when Olivia speaks up, practically reading his mind with her question. Something akin to it would have likely been the next thing he said, and so he holds his tongue and waits for a response.

Gyre is no more prepared for the breaking silhouette, the voices, the blinding light then the others, but going from cave to city is jarring in a way that puts him completely on edge. His pupils dilate into enormous white circles and he begins to bare his teeth to defend himself. He's taken note of everything around them in just a few second, his skin prickling, his body coiled up to defend himself.

Instead, there's a badge in his face, and the Protector's strange, small form just right there in front of them. He shakes his head to get the badge out of his site, grabbing the lapels of his suit coat and uh immediately trying to tear said coat off. He didn't choose to dress like this, and it freaks him out that he's in something wrong.

He's in the middle of yanking the coat off and throwing it onto the ground when Olivia asks the most important question, but he follows it up by pointing down the street at the crystalline shapes he remembers from last time.

"What are those? Why are there children in them?"

Jane nods in agreement with Olivia's inquiry, but she's jarred out of her calm demeanor as Gyre rather forcefully makes a mess of himself here.

"What are you doing-- Wait, children?" She questions Gyre first, before turning like a lightning bolt onto the Protector with her attention.

"What does he mean, children?" Her voice has gotten a lot colder all of a sudden, like she's on to something awful here and she's just spotted the tip of it.

To his credit, the Protector doesn't even seem to be bothered by the question. He reaches up to flip the lenses up and out of his eyes, revealing the intense gaze of the Protector that the three were used to seeing in the modern day. His eyes look first to Olivia, then to Luka, then to Gyre, and finally to Jane as he answers all of their questions.

"The crystals do not contain children. They contain fragments of magic that display something you are weak to. It is a self defense measure of the threat that this planet must be saved from. I do not yet know if they will fade in time or if they need to be eradicated to keep this world safe." He explains, reaching up to pull the lenses off of his head, apparently content to not put them back on. They disappear into nothing with a crackling pop.

"They will be gathered by sunset and dealt with." He adds, expecting that to reassure all of the ones he's facing. As he does, he motions a hand to force Luka's name badge up to float between them. He takes note of the braille on it and scrunches his eyebrows before he comments:

"And you, Eutychia? Any further questions or may I leave?"

Luka's listening with intense curiosity at the Protector's detached and impartial description of what he assumes is Sxicq's many pieces - who they'd come to know as the monsters in present day. He isn't expecting to be directly addressed, and when he is, he snaps to attention with surprise.

"Yeah! What do you mean dealt with? Elaborate on that." That was suspicious terminology if he'd ever heard it, and though he'd come to expect nebulous answers of the Protector, he's not just going to let that slide so easily. "How do you know that those children are a threat to the planet for sure?"

If anything, Jane's annoyed that she was bypassed here. But she wants answers just as much as her coworkers do, so she keeps her attention on the Protector the whole time. Give her the answers, weird magic man!

"Dealt with. In a manner that I have not yet determined. After verifying that they are a threat." He clarifies, rummaging in a pocket for his pipe so he can take a moment to himself before he gets his hands dirty again. The scent of unburned tobacco wafts in the air as he pulls it out.

"Eradicated. Exterminated, if the threat is severe enough." He adds, before turning his head away from the group.

"Begin collection procedures." He states loudly, his gaze and voice very much aimed at someone who isn't a part of their group.

At the edge of the intersection, the tall figure that was with him in the cave leaps over the cones and caution tape and starts a heavy-footed advance towards the floating blue crystal on the other side of the intersection. Their entire body is humming softly as they move closer, a huge hammer manifesting with a 'pop' in one hand. That's. Probably bad?

Fury fills him as he listens to the Protector talk, and before he can think about it, he lashes out and uh yanks that pipe out of his mouth. This nasty little man doesn't get to have a break before he tries to kill people! His brow furrows, his lip curling into a nasty snarl. But before he can say what he thinks of this fucking man, the Wizard starts moving down the street.

"What-- you--" he starts, his eyes widening as he looks between the Protector and that giant figure. Collection procedure is a pretty ominous phrase, especially after the man just promised to eradicate them if he felt like he had to, especially when Gyre knows how he is in the future. He opens his mouth to protest, only to see the hammer beginning to manifest.

A hammer means there's no more time to argue, and he drops the pipe onto the road, jerking suddenly out of the line of reporters, dashing down the street towards the strange Wizard.

"Stop!" he shouts, and since he doesn't expect them to listen to that, he leaps at them once he's close enough, trying to tackle them to the ground. He steels himself for the inevitable rush of cold, trying to wrap his arms around them so they at least can't swing even if he doesn't take them down.

[Olivia watches Gyre snatch the Protector's pipe and she opens her mouth to... she doesn't know, really. Warm him against antagonizing him? It's far too late for that. She doesn't need to think about it further as she sees the Wizard manifesting the giant hammer and then Gyre dashing towards them.

She fidgets, her eyes finding Jane's. She doesn't know who she is, but it seems she's on their side - hopefully she'll know better than to get in Gyre's way. Olivia moves to confront the Protector, hoping to drive his attention aware from the wild elf - although she realizes that's gonna be very hard with him trying to pin down the Wizard, or whatever it is he's doing.]

You say our planet was in danger and these crystals are a defense mechanism, but what was this threat you speak of? [Her voice comes surprisingly steady as she stares at him accusingly.] Isn't this the planet trying to defend itself against you, and whatever you have done?

That was a very Protector-brand answer, and just on track with what Luka had expected from him. He's also not surprised at Gyre's quick reaction, trying to stop whatever grim thing the 'collection procedure' referred to despite its likely futility.

Luka's caught between the sounds of Gyre moving to stop the Wizard and Olivia's further interrogation of the Protector. He lingers there, trying to get a sense of the situations that both his companion's have found themselves in at once.

He takes a step back toward the Protector.

"They aren't a threat. There's your verification." He says, though he knows its unlikely to sway him in any way. "You say you're trying to save the planet, but eradicating them is only going to make the situation worse."

When Gyre yanks the pipe away and runs, there's a flicker of an expression accross the Protector's face that breaks his calm demeanor for a moment. Jane sees it, Olivia sees it, and Luka completely misses it.

Fortunately, Jane steps up beside Luka and whispers "What is Red doing pissing an alien off like that?" to him, as if he would somehow know?

"The crystals are the defense mechanism of an infection afflicting this world." The Protector clarifies, watching Olivia as she accuses him. As if he hadn't just had it robbed from him, he holds a hand out to pop the pipe back into existence in it. Jane double-takes at where it had been thrown onto the ground and, sure enough, it's not there anymore.

"The infection sensed my attempts to cleanse it and reacted. Look at the fractures in the ground. The storm over the mountain." He explains, referring to the events of Day 3 that had now returned after whatever he and the Wizard had done with the rings at the bottom of the stairs. The storm and cracks were definitely involved. At Luka's counter, though, the Protector's voice takes on a cold edge.

"I advise you to keep your amateur threat analysis assessments to yourself, Eutychia. They would see you dead given the chance." He says it as if it's fact, as if he fully believes it, and he adds in a tone so cold it could freeze fire:

"If you had heard the death cries of thousands lost to threats such as this one, you would not need convincing."

Gyre, meanwhile, is faring pretty well as far as a foolish-wild-elf-turned-reporter could be doing in this situation. When he equips himself to the Wizard like an accessory, he gets hit with that familiar rush of frigid cold. It's like their body was pulled out of a deep freeze and hadn't come close to thawing yet.

A hand reaches back and grips him, the pinky and index gripping over his shoulders while the middle two hook under his armpits. Did the Wizard's hand get bigger? Did it flex in a way that should've broken bones or dislocated joints? Olivia and Jane get a good look at it and: Yes, that arm shouldn't have been able to move like that.

Jane, once again, is kind enough to react in real-time to it for Luka to hear: "What the fuck is that alien thing."

Except she cries out in surprise as the Wizard swings their arm hard around in an arcing swing. It looks like his body is going to get slammed into the ground full-force. But by the end of the swing, the arm has slowed and Gyre gets deposited on the ground like a child who'd just been stopped from getting into trouble. He's left on the ground with a Wizard staring down at him with a hammer in the other hand.

Great?

All three heroes will hear a soft flickering, like static, at the edges of their hearing. Like reality was getting ready to shift the scene again.

Oh dear. Well, he's pretty sure he's about to get very badly hurt when the Wizard grabs him like that, and he tenses his whole body in preparation, his hands jumping up to hold his head place. This still doesn't prepare him for being flung through the air in that way though. He feels his eyes roll back in his head, a thick darkness gather at the edge of his vision.

And then he's laid gently on the ground instead. It takes him a moment to find his focus again, blinking several times, shaking his head. He shifts his hands down, pushing himself up onto his elbows.

"You can't hurt them," he says up to them, and he sets a shield up directly in front of them as he pushes himself up onto his feet again. He's uh a little busy and does not notice the static!

[Olivia looks away when the Protector's tone gets cold, admittedly a bit intimidated. Her eyes find Jane's before the two of them turn just in time to see the Wizard's unnatural moves (to which Olivia reacts with a barely audible "fuck, that's so cool"), and then the violent way in which they... gently deposit Gyre back on the ground.

She may be wrong, but she doesn't think the Wizard'll hurt him. The Protector, on the other hand...]

Okay, so I take it you've witnessed planetary destruction before. [She says to him in a hurried tone.] But how can you be so sure that this is the same situation? Things were fine before you lot came along, right? [She says, glancing back at Jane for backup. She doesn't know if getting bad press on the Protector early on will change anything- hell, she doesn't know if this time travel thing can change things at all, but it's worth a shot. It's then that she hears the static, and she gets the feeling that she's running out of time.]

I mean, it just... it seems wrong! What if there was a mistake? [She takes another step forward towards him, putting all of her experience as a~~n actress~~ professional liar to look as concerned and afraid as humanly possible, big blue eyes locked on him, hoping she'll bring out any sort of empathy he's capable of giving.] What'll happen if you're wrong? What will you do?

"Red?" Luka instinctively questions the unfamiliar name again, until he pieces together who she must mean only a few seconds later. "Gyre? He's, well, they're both aliens, you know - and he's grown protective of those children."

And then the Protector's voice speaks up, coldly addressing those same children as an infection and Luka grits his teeth in frustration. He listens as Olivia tries to reason with the Protector, interested in how he'll respond while thinking of how he can refute his claims.

"You call them an infection, but what if our world can't survive without them? Imagine if.... uh, the solution for a brain tumor was removing the entire brain. Like, sure, it solves the problem technically! But the person can't live without their whole brain. That's like what you're doing here."

If the Wizard acknowledges what Gyre tells them, that they can't hurt the children, they make no acknowledgement of it. At least not outwardly. But they do make a generic answer to him:

"I don't understand." They answer vaguely, what are they referring to? Because this is an anime, the camera swings back towards Luka and Olivia with the Protector.

First, Jane is having her private conversation with Luka. "That doesn't mean he should be picking fights! Pretty sure 'killed by aliens' isn't covered by our insurance!" She insists, sounding quite grumpy as she says it. She doesn't want to have to write up an injury report when they get home from this. But she doesn't get to focus long because the Protector is answering Olivia with his usual coldness.

"Things were not fine." The Protector corrects Olivia without hesitation. Her assumption that because they didn't know about the danger meant it didn't exist was entirely wrong. Jane's mouth hangs open for a moment, she got cut off before she could back Olivia up because of how fast the Protector was with responding. But when Olivia follows with that added commentary:

"Yeah, we have no idea that you're right! What if you're making it all worse!" Jane accuses, pointing up in the Protector's business as Olivia steps forward to put on the perfect concerned act. Jane knew she had a good crew for this, but even she was surprised at how good Olivia was! And Luka is chiming in with a hard-hitting comparison that Jane takes a note to give him a high-five for later. Nice one, Luka! Unfortunately for all three of them, the Protector is ready for it.

"They are comparable to worms. Before they have taken root, they are all pulled free to keep the brain intact. The longer we wait, the more holes are created." He counters Luka's example with one of his own a moment before the static starts setting in. It starts with the ears, then the eyes, then the other senses until everything is static.

And then the three heroes are deposited into individual threads that they'll start by replying to this comment. They'll have no idea what this sentence means, but someone out there will.

Olivia wakes up on her back, directly beneath a floating blue crystal that contains a child. A few feet away, the Wizard stands with a hammer in hand. Their gaze is up on the crystal, watching it. The whole while, electricity is crackling off of the crystal and making all of Olivia's hair stand on end.

Gyre wakes up on the edge of a rooftop, one hand dangling off the side of the rooftop precariously. Floating on the building opposite is a crystal with a child in it. The ground atop the building is starting to crack with blue. Behind Gyre there's a grinding sound of the head of a hammer being dragged on the stony surface of the roof as the Wizard approaches him with it.

Luka wakes up with cool, brisk air conditioning blowing in his face. He's seated at a table by a window, the window-mounted air conditioner humming away as it blasts him. But it isn't loud enough to drown out the sounds of panicked people muttering "it's coming this way!" and "get out the door!". Luka will be treated to gradually increasing and decreasing static electricity and humming as a child, encased in crystal, slowly floats around the room. Over and over again the glowing crystal bounces off of the walls, crackling and sparking each time it bounces and changes direction. There's a loud thudding step as someone large and heavy steps through the front door. Naturally, it's the Wizard arriving here.

That can't be good for anyone, especially the children!

"That alien won't kill him." Luka explains with a certainty that wasn't quite earned from an outsider's perspective.

The Protector, as expected, is right on track with his dismissive excuses. He seems to have an answer for everything, even if it is an unsatisfying one. Luka's teeth remain clenched in frustration as he listens to the Protector twist his metaphor into something more suiting of his own agenda.

"But this planet-" He starts to argue before he's quickly overcome with static. And suddenly, he's somewhere else.

The transition isn't exactly pleasant. The feeling of a window-mounted A/C unit blasting him with all it's got on this already chilly morning is definitely a Thing, and he blinks a few times as the new environment settles in on him.

He doesn't have long to take it in. People around him, wherever he is, are frantic. There's a pulsating sensation of static as something moves moves about the room.

"Hey! Sxicq?" He calls out, hoping the glowing crystal fragment might react to that name.

The Weather

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