[hatch log] pull plug, enter multiverse

[onemind]

CHARACTERS: All
WHERE: The Station + Concordia
WHEN: DAY :025 - :026
SUMMARY: Somewhere deep in Station 72, a hatch happens; new hosts arrive on Concordia.
WARNINGS: Will update as necessary.

YOU WAKE UP and in a very real sense you are born again. You’re not the same person you were the last time your eyes were open. You’ll never be that person again - well, except for you, Jessica Jones. You know how this part goes, don’t you?

You might not know it right away, though. What you do know is that you’re laying down in a place very different than you were before. The walls angle around you, claustrophobic, and they emit a gentle white light that’s faint enough not to hurt your freshly opened eyes. For a moment you feel fine even if you didn’t before you went under. Whatever injuries you might have had, whatever agony you may have been experiencing, whatever fear dogged your heels, they’re all gone. It’s quiet. When you’re conscious enough to take stock of anything beyond that, you realize that you’re wearing your own clothes and that there’s a faint pinch at the base of your skull - notable as the only discomfort you feel. Reach up, feel along the tube running from the base of your neck to the compartment’s back wall. It pulls free without much fuss.

Then it’s not so quiet anymore. There’s the sensation of something more, something louder, something both big and broad and something intimately near to you. There’s the realization that you aren’t alone, that you won’t ever be alone again. You belong here. This is as correct as the murmur of something like muffled voices in the back of your head is somehow familiar, or how the press of emotion that sweeps over you now doesn’t necessarily belong to you but doesn’t feel out of place either.

You can sit up - barely -, and shift out of the pod. There’s a ladder at your feet, and a little cubby just before it with anything you brought with you, as well as a set of crisp, loose-fitting white clothes; while your injuries are healed, whatever you’re wearing is in the exact state it was before. You can hear a sound in the back of your head, a faint buzzing, something like distant waves or the murmur of a party behind a door. Drop down the ladder to the floor of the Nesting Deck and you’ll find you’re not alone - and the those sounds in your head are louder. Other people’s thoughts swim up: some of them seem clear, most of them are a jumbled mess. Some of these people call to you - their voices are louder, their feelings more clear, they feel right. Further, there’s an awareness that there are others like you - not here, not close, but somewhere: an indelible tug at the back of your mind.

Welcome to Station 72. All new hosts will have one day aboard the Station before being whisked off to Concordia to join the others. Get to know the other new hosts, and ask the guardians of the Station - Prince and Cathaway -, any burning questions you might have. By the time the day has passed, Carata will arrive on the hangar to collect you.



MEANWHILE IN CONCORDIA Angel slips into a coma on :025 at almost at the exact same time that some Hosts become aware of missing pieces fitting into place. Those hosts with new brood members waking up on the station will feel somewhere more complete; you might want to let everyone know you’ll be getting new roommates soon.

Everyone might be putting themselves and their broods back together in the wake of the explosion that left the nest down one host and injected everyone with renewed motivation to either find the people responsible or make sure nothing like what happened at Royal Street ever happens again. Things are progressing on multiple fronts, but on DAY 26 there’s an option to put some of those efforts on the back burner...

     ON THE STATION, the new hosts are herded onto a sleek, black brick-shaped transport. Carata, a woman young enough to almost be called a girl, carefully makes sure everyone is seated and strapped in. She’s all gentle, easy smiles and cheerful responses to any questions posed to her. When everyone’s safely aboard, the ship’s landing platform descends through the floor of the hangar. It snaps into place in the airlock and for a moment there’s a beat of perfect stillness, a shiver of anticipation. Then the transport is flung through the shaft, ejected into the wild black of space. There’s a nauseating lurch in your belly as it bursts through the delicate shell of the multiverse and snaps into real space above the blue and yellow marble of the planet Opia. Somewhere, thousands of miles below in the city of Concordia, your brood is waiting for you.

     IN CONCORDIA
IN CONCORDIA, as dark falls, Nirad announces he’s going to fetch Carata and the new hosts from their landing. Anyone’s welcome to accompany him on the hour long drive to the stealth transport’s landing zone. The rented bus - manned by that same (now very stoic) android - takes everyone to the outskirts of the industrial block. They arrive at a different parking garage just as the stealth transport drops out of the sky, shivering into sight as it touches down. The hosts on the ship step down and then the stealth transport lifts back off the rooftop and wrinkles out of sight. It’s unclear how many more time they’ll be able to get away with this.

Get your meet and greets in and stretch your legs; you have a few minutes before everyone piles into the van and takes the long drive back to the Bearings Apartment block where the hosts have rented out the entirely of Level 13. New hosts will find there are rooms there that as of yet unclaimed, and they’re free to begin making this their home in whatever ways they please. Get familiar with your new comrades, explore the city, or maybe just take a well deserved breather. Officially speaking, nothing much happens until--

     EARLY ON DAY 27

A NEW WINDOW POPS UP IN YOUR EXTRANET PANEL...

---

((OOC Notes: This is the hatch log for all new and recently returning hosts; any threads on the Station should be closed to newly awakened hosts or Station-based NPCs; a top level for Cathaway and Prince will be going live shortly. Any threads on Concordia can be open to both new and old hosts! For anything happening beyond these calendar dates, feel free to create your own logs and posts.

If you have questions about the mission specifically, direct them to the most recent calendar post HERE. You can find a more detailed overview of the hatching process HERE; you might also want to take a glance at the MISSION CONCORDIA BRIEFING. For all other questions, please hit up either the FAQ or MOD CONTACT pages.))

NAVIGATION • SETTING • FAQ • MOD CONTACT • GLOSSARY

( CODE BY WHAMBAM )

Comments

[tropism]

All of them. I wanted to go to as many places as time would allow. I want to see as many things as I can before we actually have to work.

[ giorno just looks at him. he can touch it, if he wants? there's really nothing so special .... it's soft and curly and stinkin' blond. ]

It's just hair. There are other places to hide knives in.

[inflori]

Oh, so you're like a tourist.

[ or it could be reconnaissance, which Petre obviously knows nothing about, because he's an idiot. ]

Okay, so where do you hide your knives?

[tropism]

For now. Yes.

[ a tilt of the head at the question. ]

I don't use them, in general. But if I did, probably wherever they'd fit on me.

[inflori]

[ Thus Petre continues to be the worst tour guide by not being a tour guide at all. ]

What do you use, then?

[tropism]

[ bellamy was recommending you too.

and giorno's frowning at that question. he's not too fond of showing off his powers - usually, that means trouble from back home, and he wouldn't discount that here either, so he settles with, ]

Show me what you can do, first.

[inflori]

[ Bellamy my buddy. ]

What I can do? Like - [ That could mean a number of things. With weapons, without weapons, using his powers... ] What am I getting done?

[tropism]

Your abilities.

A condensed version of your CV, basically. [ a tilt of the head. ] It seems most people get more than what they bargained for after these connections.

[inflori]

Hm.

[ He stares up at Gio like he's scrutinizing him, but he smiles. ]

I had stuff before I came here. But they gave me a new thing, yeah. I can change.

[tropism]

You can change. [ he sounds thoughtful and amused as he says it, if only because the idea is so charmingly useful if utilized properly for a mission, though giorno here is thinking too highly about petre's relative commitment to The Cause. in any case his concern is his power and not the other boy himself, for now. ] Into what? Or ... is 'who' more appropriate? Either way, that's very interesting. Does it hurt when you change? Is it visceral? [ do the bone shift and crack, do the veins snap and pull back, do the muscles peel apart like when you open a banana and you find it's dark inside and you gotta decide whether to eat it or not. inquiring minds need to know. ] Can you turn into anything you want, or are there limits?

[ so many questions. there is a hunger in him that is very clinical, scientific in its curiousity. petre can sense that it is by no means cruel, but has the potential to be inconvenient. ]

[inflori]

[ Well - on one hand, he knows he really likes the attention that his answer gets him. One question after the other, though, he realizes that he doesn't know what to do with it, because it's still such a new discovery that he's hardly explored it at all. The first time it happened, in fact, was when he was in a state of berserk, so there isn't even a lot of memory to go on. ]

It's - well, it's still pretty new. And yeah, it kinda hurts, but I don't care. I don't know all the stuff I can turn into yet.

[ Hmpf. Not how he wanted to impress. ]

Have you met other people who could do the same?

[tropism]

Not really. [ he tries to think about the people back home, if any of them could physically transform, and comes up with a rather short list. soft machine counts? maybe? but how does he explain that .... ] Not like yours.

Do you remain as yourself, when you transform? Do you have control of your mind still, or do you become the other?

[inflori]

I - I guess I'm still myself? I didn't think about that.

[ And it's. A surprisingly good point. How does he do that? ]

[tropism]

... well, it's a new ability to you, isn't it? There's plenty of time to discover. It's not like they intend to keep us inside all the time.

[ there always seems to be missions going on; giorno is more interested in watching and observing, for now. ]

[inflori]

... No. I guess not. I go out all the time.

[ Which is. Probably not the point, but it's something? ]

Can I turn into you?

[tropism]

If you want.

[ it'd be interesting, if anything else. ]

Do you need to do anything - ? [ a lock of his hair, fingernail clippings, that kind of thing. ]

[inflori]

[ It's a good question - and yes, he does. But Petre doesn't let Giorno learn about it until his hand is snapping out to grab his wrist, holding on tight just in case he tries to yank it back. This power requires a lot of concentration, and even then it doesn't always work out; one of the side-effects is his other powers kicking in, among them the heat of his skin increasing bit by bit. It wouldn't be enough to cause burns, only some concern.

His hair shifts first: tones turning lighter, ends growing out. His eyes darken, his lips become just a little more plump as his features harden and his body grows out. Should Giorno be perceptive enough to look for signs, he'll be able to tell that this power requires as much observation as it does physical contact. Like he's draining the shape and adding the finishing touches with his mind.

And after a few more grotesque moments, it's done. He steps back, now a perfect mirror of the younger boy, smug grin ill-fitting on his brand new face. ]

So? What do you think.

[ His voice is changed, too, but the accent remains. ]

[tropism]

Oh ...!

[ it looks like he's looking at a mirror. his fingers move to touch petre's face, the side of his jaw. it was a bit disgusting to watch him. for a moment giorno was certain that his fingers would sink in to the hollow of his cheeks if he pushed, but no such thing happens, and giorno thinks: how convenient is that.

but the novelty wears off after. giorno is impressed, but giorno is also used to being admired for his looks. someone trying to look like him did not exactly have the kind of impression he thought it would have to him. it seems that the ability does exactly what petre needs it to do, though there is a greater question as to whether or not he can mimic his abilities. giorno raises an elegant eyebrow after, and asks, ]

But is that all?

[ is that it, you just put him on as a costume and call it a day? ]

[inflori]

[ The initial surprise pleases him - but once it apparently wears off, so does his smirk. ]

What do you mean, is that all? You're not impressed or something?

[tropism]

Well, I mean - the symbiote gives us abilities too, right? You can't copy that along with the look?

[ not a bad mirror otherwise. ]

Mind you, you look very convincing as me.

[inflori]

[ With a shrug that's very much him, ]

I don't know. I never tried. I'm still practicing.

[ It would be cool, though... And now it's just going to leave him wanting. ]

Yeah? What, you wanna give me a kiss or something now?