[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]

That should be my line! [ a laugh that is, maybe, a touch nervous. he is never sure how people will react to him, and only responds in kind if they were a lot more amiable first. he supposes that makes him something like a mirror, but giorno doesn't like to make things any more complicated than they are; neither does he like doing useless things.

besides, if he gets food out of this, all the better. ]

Molto bene. Everything is made a lot better with good food and the promise of an aviary tour.

[ points at sam with a potato that's speared on his fork. ] Alright. Let's talk business, Sam.

[ SRS GIORNO VOICE ] Your favourite bird species, in no particular order. Go.

[sizeofyourbaggage]

[ Don't think he misses that laughter. Sam had been mostly joking, because he's spent a while getting his head on straight and most days he's pretty confident in that, but he's gonna remember the way Giorno reacted to it.

Though now's probably not the time to push, especially when the kid goes all serious on him about birds.

Sam chuckles, but hell yeah, he's more than willing to go along with it. ]

Everyone expects it to be some kind of falcon, but nah, man, hands down Harris hawk. One of the few birds of prey that's social, you'll see 'em hunting together in groups and working with each other. Then there's the great horned owl, back in New York there was this one in Central Park who used to break branches off trees and chew on them when she was done with her nightly fly. When I was in Afghanistan, man I loved seeing the Bluethroats around, they're part of the flycatcher family and damn do they live up to their name.

[ There's a moment of pause, but he can't help but add one more. ] And of course, I gotta give mention to Mr. President and the First Lady, the bald eagle pair that nests in Washington DC.

[tropism]

[ don't watch him, he'll get paranoid. he's more than happy, however, that sam is willing to go along with his jokes; something of the uncertainty disappears in him, quiet anxiety - although hidden in much bravado - giving way to something more like curiousity as he settles nicely with this broodmate of his. ]

You've traveled to so many places! I'm a bit jealous - though I understand most of it is for work? [ this is giorno trying to sift through their link as politely as he can. ] And all of your choices are very good.

I haven't had the time to think about birds lately. But I've seen hummingbirds around my side of the city before I got here ... more than anything else, though, I just wanna see what a menagerie in another planet looks like.

[sizeofyourbaggage]

[ Sorry, Gio, watching people is what Sam does. He has experience in figuring out how to read people, and he likes tot hink he's pretty good at it - but that also means he usually knows when not to push. Maybe he'll remember it for later, when the time is right, but for right now, he'll let it drop.

There's a flicker of surprise when Giorno talks about his work, but it still makes Sam smile a bit. By now, he knows there's nothing that others in the Hive, even his broodmates, can pick up just on a general basis about him that he isn't willing to share. It's more just that so far, pretty much everyone has tried hard not to acknowledge or use the mental link. ]

Yeah. Sounds like you've gotten it already, but I'm a soldier, even before I was an Avenger. Went a lot of places with those.

[ Giorno's invited it, though, which means Sam doesn't feel guilty about dipping into the mental link to get more of a sense of his new broodmate, even as he can't help but grin about the hummingbirds. ]

Hummingbirds, yeah, not bad. And I feel you, man, just haven't found anyone to go with yet.

[tropism]

[ he bites his lower lip at sam's words. ] I was sort of skimming - if that was too much, I'm sorry.

[ military people probably have more reasons to be private about their work than most, he really should've been a lot more careful about what he can and can't do with his ability. as with any new, shiny toy given to a kid, giorno is only too eager to use what he has. sure he has his own apprehensions about their link, but his curiousity tends to override his sense of caution from time to time.

he certainly hopes he didn't just cost himself company to the menagerie, because damn. ]

In any case, I am ... not familiar with what an 'Avenger' is. [ he munches on his food thoughtfully as he tries to work this out. avenger is .... vendicare, vendicarlo in italian. like with the myths, or like with the angels? (he's from 1991, what in the world is bird sam talking about.) ]

[sizeofyourbaggage]

Nah. Anything you can pick up from skimming is stuff I'd share anyway, you got no worries here.

[ He's genuine there, at least. Sam's a pretty open person, for the most part. Comes with the territory of leading groups at the VA and having to share by example. But it also means that he knows how to keep the stuff he doesn't want to share buried, wrapped up so deep in omissions and the hard truths he does talk about that people don't expect he's hiding anything.

So surface stuff, yeah, he's good with. Long as it doesn't go deeper. ]

But I'd be careful about doing it with other people. It's hit or miss, on who's not a fan of it. When you meet Barnes and Parker... well, it's hard not to, with the whole broodmate thing, but definitely don't do it intentionally.

[ He chuckles a little at that question, shaking his head. ]

Team of superheroes. Bunch of people uniquely specialized to save the world getting together to, well. Help save the world. Best as we could, anyway. But I guess we were all a little out of our league, going up against whatever the hell this enemy is they're having us go after out here.

[tropism]

I've been warned about them. It'll be interesting once we finally meet each other.

[ he hasn't had an encounter he's regretted yet, but then again the day is young and there are plenty of other hosts in the apartment for giorno to meet. so far, most of the people he's talked to have been alright. some in a state of frustration and aloofness, but that's a kind of sentiment he can understand.

giorno frowns at his reply, however. superheroes? at this day and age? he's seen a couple of them on the sunday morning cartoons that he used to watch as a kid, but he can't really say he's met anyone who uses the term as their legal occupation. then again, there hasn't been a precedent for the mafia creating superhumans until giorno discovered it by accident, once he joined, so perhaps there's some similarities with how different worlds handle individuals in power, or with power, no matter where one goes. ]

How do you become a superhero? Do you ... register in your local city hall? Do you have to go to superhero school? [ back home they normally just stabbed people and waited to see if they'll live, then you get funneled into the mafia. ]

[sizeofyourbaggage]

[ Despite the fact that Sam himself had literally just warned the kid about Barnes and Parker, he can't help but be a little disgruntled that someone else is going around giving warnings about them. Nothing changes on the outside, but the brush of feathers that accompany his mental link give the distinct impression of being ruffled. ]

Yeah? Who warned you?

[ He huffs out a little laugh at the second part, though - and doesn't think about how the Accords changed everything about being a superhero, because that sure as hell isn't somewhere he wants to go right now - as he shakes his head. ]

Nah, man. We were all leading our own lives, just doing the best we could on our own. Some of us were soldiers, some spies, some who didn't deserve the shit that happened to them and wanted to do something about it. And some just had guilty consciences and a lot of time on their hands. I never really planned on being one, it just kind of happened.

[tropism]

[ perhaps 'warned' is too strong of a word, but can he be blamed? he certainly didn't think the guy who warned him was doing it out of malice. giorno purses his lips, and then replies, rather carefully, ]

One of our own. [ a broodmate. ] But it was more in the lines of "do not bother" as opposed to anything potentially life-threatening. I didn't think he meant any harm.

[ on the other hand, this talk of becoming an accidental superhero is ... inconceivable to giorno, who has planned the rest of his life to a T. how does one accept that kind of responsibility without having planned their entire lives around it? he doesn't understand, it sounds absurd. it sounds like the kind of thing that happens to other people that leads them to be folded into a grander plan that is beyond their conception .... from people like giorno, who are always cataloguing others as to how useful they can be to his dreams.

people who have lost something or someone are the easiest to convince to fight, giorno thinks, because they are the ones who have a lot more to lose. on the other hand, there are those who make it their business to put their pride and ambition above everyone else, and giorno has certainly fought his share of those guys, and how they fit in the nest along with the rest of the brood remains to be seen. ]

You are lucky, then, in that you fit that kind of life compared to others.

I imagine the amount of pressure in dealing with .... other superhumans, as well as coordinating with governments in order to carry out missions .... that can be quite troublesome, right? Though I suppose, in carrying the title, one gets to have a few exceptions in case of emergencies.

But you must have lots of kids looking up to you. If I were a child and I knew superheroes were real, that'd make a difference to me growing up.