onemind: (Default)
THE N E S T ([personal profile] onemind) wrote in [community profile] station722016-10-09 02:41 pm

[hatch log] into the garbage chute, flyboy(s)

CHARACTERS: All
WHERE: The Station + Concordia
WHEN: DAY :43 - :44
SUMMARY: New hosts hatch on the Station; their arrival on Concordia is bumpier and smellier than usual.
WARNINGS: Will update as necessary.






YOU WAKE UP and nothing will ever be the same again. A moment ago you were somewhere familiar - or familiar enough; now you're lying in a small faintly hexagonal chamber lit by a gentle white light emanating from the surrounding walls. You can't shake the sensation that you've been asleep for a long, long time.

The sluggishness of coming out of a deep, dreamless sleep persists all the way until you disconnect the tube running from the compartment's rear wall to the base of your neck. Then things get loud. A wave of emotion fills the void. Fear, uncertainty, relief, a sense of purpose or loneliness or anxiety; maybe some of these emotions are yours, but they can't all be. Somewhere, someone else is feeding their thoughts and emotions into your mind. On the plus side, it's easy to follow that digging, familiar sensation to each other. After all, you're part of the same brood. You belong together.

Welcome to Station 72. Sirius and Kavinsky will have one day aboard the Station to acclimate to their new reality before they're whisked away to Concordia to join the rest of the young hosts. Get to know one another, ask some burning questions; in a day's time you'll be boarding a shuttle and going somewhere far, far away.

MEANWHILE IN CONCORDIA, the host's espionage efforts are coming to a head. Preparations for infiltrating Public Security HQ are in full swing, a handful of hosts are planning to get in close with Representative Goram Saffit himself and there's currently a semi-functional android taking up one of the beds of the Bearings apartment block. Honestly, there's more than enough on everyone's plate without piling new hosts on top of it all. But that doesn't stop Nirad from disappearing when he's called to return to the Station. Presumably, this means everyone better get ready to debrief some new arrivals soon...




     ON THE STATION, there's a hum in the air - or the mind, rather. Follow the buzz and it'll lead to the Hangar Deck where a slick brick-shaped black transport is waiting. The source of the mental hum seems to be a young man: Nirad has come to collect you. He'll answer any questions; in fact, he seems happy to talk and length about absolutely anything. The boy's apparently the rambling type with little to no filter between his brain and his mouth. The combination of talking and mental hum can be disorienting. Once safely aboard the transport, the ship’s landing platform descends through the floor of the hangar. It snaps into place in the airlock. For a moment there’s a beat of perfect stillness, a shiver of anticipation. Then the transport is flung through the shaft and 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, the rest of your brood is waiting for you.

     A BUMPY LANDING
The stealth ship slices down toward the planet until it fills the entire viewscreen. "All right, everyone out," Nirad announces, unbuckling his harness and jumping to his feet. Uh. What?

He leads to the port side of the transport ship where there's a small series of circular ports. They're roughly shoulder width. At a touch of a button, the ports open out to a series of escape pods. There's only enough room for one and it looks like you'll be lying on your back the whole trip. "Hop in. I'll launch you and then follow you down in my own. The pod's stealth tech should keep you invisible to the locals until someone comes to find it, but don't forget to scrap the pod when you're out of it. We can't risk someone finding it laying around." A pause. "Sorry, by the way. Usually we'd just land the ship but it's getting kind of obvious."

Hopefully you weren't expecting a nice, easy trip down to the planet because this is dark and joyless. The escape pod has no windows. It launches from the transport ship and rockets downward at the behest of the planet's gravity. Everything shakes. It's desperately cold, then violently hot and then-- something gives. The sound of something whistling. A jerk. The escape pod trembles as the anti-grav jets at the base deploy. It's a last attempt to soften the landing, then the pod drives down into a mountain of debris like a tent stake into muddy earth.

Congratulations, you've landed more or less safely in Concordia's only open air landfill.

     SEARCH & RESCUE
It's three in the morning and maybe you're asleep in Bearings or maybe you're burning the midnight oil; either way, Carata is in your mind telling you to get up and get ready. "The new hosts have landed. Let's go pick them up, shall we? If I were were, I'd wear some clothes you don't really care for."

Time to go digging through the city's biggest dumpster transfer facility!

The escape pods will have to be unearthed and opened from the outside to rescue their inhabitants. Once free, be sure to dismantle pods and scatter them through the piles of debris. Eventually all of this will be recycled, but we don't want anyone finding mysterious alien technology in one piece now do we?





((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. Any threads on Concordia can be open to both new and old hosts!

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.))




inflori: in treatment (067)

[personal profile] inflori 2016-10-11 10:38 pm (UTC)(link)
[ Kavinsky snorts, then he speaks, and in the meanwhile Petre returns to the pod with an eye-roll. By the time the question is aired his hands have found their way back to the hatch, yanking it off with a loud, metallic give, before it's dropped on the debris with a thud. ]

The best there is.

[ Perfect timing? ]
100mitsubishis: (bar tabs on a hot night)

[personal profile] 100mitsubishis 2016-10-12 01:10 am (UTC)(link)
[Kavinsky prefers to fight with guns and homegrown bombs; he'll survive a fist fight, but it isn't his strong suit. He wasn't built to play fair, and nobody has held him to such a standard. The other boy rips the door off his pod like a hunk of cheese from a crumbling wedge.

He is salivating in a way that's almost all figurative, though he swallows an imagined wetness over his tongue.]


Glad we're on the same side. We are, right?

[Because he's had brawn behind him before-- he had Prokopenko around for that. But that's all he was. Good for following orders and not much else. This one's already shown an attitude.]
100mitsubishis: (maybe I've been slipping back)

[personal profile] 100mitsubishis 2016-10-12 01:26 am (UTC)(link)
[Kavinsky shuts up, not because he's adept at following instructions, but because it doesn't make him any quieter as he rattles about his new friend's skull. The invisible binding between them doesn't slack in the face of silence. It isn't dampened by closed lips and a patient stance (though his fingers don't stop twitching and he's starting to sense the jagged hooks of his various addictions prying at the parts of his brain that are most attached to being dismissed and and and).

He doesn't want to stay here, but he also doesn't know what out means. There's a task he agreed to, mythic and enormous in scope.]


I want out and I got here same as you.

[Kavinsky is lying and not. They are the same, they did wake up in chambers of the exact same size and shape. They are not the same, because Kavinsky saw a dragon with rotted flesh dripping off the bone of its face and doesn't regret the choice he made.

The more distance that's put between them, the more Kavinsky resists, always working a counter melody to what the man is playing. He's held at metaphorical arm's length and he leans into the hand.]


Do you know my name yet?
cur: (329)

buddy!!!!!!!!

[personal profile] cur 2016-10-12 01:31 am (UTC)(link)
[ If it were anyone else, it might have gone more like this: the sudden spark of a new mind with old memories, familiar places and people from a slightly different angle. But it isn't. Instead it's the vague sense of dreams, the stark flicker of cold and dark, and in the end all he's really gotten out of it is a headache and an inexplicably urgent sense of nostalgia.

Remus goes to the landfill because he's told to. The scent's nearly as overwhelming as the new minds, and there's a bitter sense of relief when the knowledge ripples out over the connection that they've been found. It doesn't stick. By the time he's back at the Bearings, relief's given way to a restless regret, small and persistent. He doesn't sleep. Instead he studies the empty walls of a castle on a map that no longer works, as if the sense of unease lies there — it doesn't, of course, and the map stays quiet.

It's pushing five when he gives up on sleep, steps out into the common room dressed in yesterday's clothes, wand in his pocket. He knows the room isn't empty; there's a presence, bracing and sharp and wary. Tired. The scent of blood and rot. And magic, at roughly the same time he looks up and sees Sirius Black.

It takes him a moment to draw his wand, but the emotional backlash is instant: traitor and anger, and love, and fear. All wound tight and shut out just as quick, and there's a stray thought, incarcerous — too frayed and distracted to hold any power, and his voice is sharp when speaks. ]


Incarcerous.
shiro2hero: (22 seems excessive)

[personal profile] shiro2hero 2016-10-12 01:52 am (UTC)(link)
[Okay, maybe that's some kind of divine retribution for the stupid pun. Doesn't make it less grating, though. Even if he does his best not to show it -- thanks to the months of Lance for practice.]

[As far as mind reading... Shiro isn't trying. Not even a little. He's doing his best to stay mentally focused like Sam told him -- stars, for now -- and in his own head.]

[But that's not to say he isn't going to pitch in here. And... offer up the non-metal hand for introductions.]
Traffic. [Hah hah you're not that funny.] I'm Shiro.
shiro2hero: (disappointed dad eyebrows)

[personal profile] shiro2hero 2016-10-12 01:56 am (UTC)(link)
[Whoops. That really wasn't the intended effect. Maybe he really does need more practice. So he holds up his hands for a moment, in what he hopes is a gesture of apology. At least it shows he doesn't have a weapon--]

[Well. Not one that isn't his arm, anyway.]


Sorry. I'm... doing that more for me than anything. I'll try and tone it down.

[But then there's some kind of acceptance, and his shoulders relax. Even just this guy taking the offer bodes a little better.]

Not on me, sorry. There's plenty back where we're holed up, though.
doggo: (29)

[personal profile] doggo 2016-10-12 03:20 am (UTC)(link)
I don't want--

[--Is how he starts, anyways, heated. A brief writhe against the implication. Connection. Vulnerability. There is so much shit, is what he is thinking. There is so much, not just here, around them, but in him. Narrow years. Not a great deal to go on.

His fingers are shaking a little when he pushes the heel of his hand against his eye again. The pressure is as real as the stiffness in his fingers. This is all really happening. So yeah: to the question, all of what Giorno's got to say answers it, and then some. Sirius' grin flickers quickly over his face, there and gone again.]


Did you write the travel brochure for this place?

[Look at him. Making jokes.]
doggo: (32)

[personal profile] doggo 2016-10-12 03:28 am (UTC)(link)
[To the contrary:]

Countryside's got a great deal to recommend it. [Caves. Full of rats.] Or did you mean the rubbish heap?

[He's starting at last with longer sentences, complex words. Humour, nearly. Like the normalcy of walking around a city is somehow a restorative, when chiefly he wants to carve a hole somewhere and keep working at it until he finds his way back. There is no time, and at the same time there's nothing but time, and so Sirius gives the other way one last glance before he follows after her at last. Careful to keep her a little ways ahead, as if proximity will make their unseen closeness worse.]
tropism: (pic#10538115)

[personal profile] tropism 2016-10-12 03:42 am (UTC)(link)
You don't want - what, exactly?

[ giorno frowns at him. he hopes he doesn't say 'all of this', because that is useless talk, and he hates that kind of useless talk. he's not so callous as to ignore the fact that sirius is distressed, but he's different from the most if only because his views of the nest, and everything else, are more ... optimistic, really.

he wants, more than anything else, to get sirius talking, because that's the only way one can start being able to live with the circumstances. acknowledging, prying at the thing in his head. there are people - notably in giorno's brood - who had gotten it in their minds that repression is certainly the way to deal with them as being hosts. giorno has nothing against it, repression certainly has its own uses, but if the nest is to move as a unit during missions, then repression inconveniences more than anything else. it offers nothing in the way of abilities. he did not want to wish that kind of trouble on anyone, and he certainly didn't want to see anyone going that way again, unless he can help it.

it's a terrible time to be so earnest and wanting to help. ]


If it were up to me - we'd be talking more about food and shopping and musicals. Do you like any of that?

[ trying to find common ground, here. but perhaps the more important question is: ] What do you want?
snaphiss: (74565)

[personal profile] snaphiss 2016-10-12 03:56 am (UTC)(link)
Both. [Her voice is flat.] 'Gaunt and jaundiced' doesn't suit you, but it's a hard look to pull off.

[She's smiling now, but it's edged with sarcasm. She likes anyone who can hold their own in a conversation here. So many people here are piteously thin skinned.]

Don't worry, you'll be fed and watered if you pull your weight.
doggo: (16)

pal!!!!!!!

[personal profile] doggo 2016-10-12 04:16 am (UTC)(link)
[Coming face to face with Remus Lupin in a common room would be a surreal enough event.

The actual force of seeing him, and the echo of feedback that he gets in return--cyclical, endless--it feels like being kicked in the chest by a bastard hippogriff.

He stares too long. Breathless, hollow. The swell of emotion is as much his as it is Remus'. Surely he should have known. If he's aware of Kavinsky so keenly, aware of two dozen strangers, surely he should have been aware of Remus, who he knows nearly as well as he knows himself--a statement which counts for rather less when he's been laying in a cell in Azkaban for twelve years and Remus--

He's too slow to deflect properly. Instinct preserves him.]


Protego--

[Too late to work in full. The ropes whip up around his legs, bind them tightly together and Sirius overbalances and falls to the floor. He's just weak enough that the impact is dizzying, but he hasn't got time; the stolen wand is in hand still, free--]

Relashio!

[Firmer, more real. The wand is slow to respond, but the sizzling fissure splits a handful of the bonds, and Sirius tries to writhe free, make sense of the moment when it feels as if an explosion has gone off. There is a ringing in his ears and his head aches and even if he's out of sight of Remus, the look that had been on his face is stamped on the inside of his eyelids--bright and then blank, emotionless after the roil of emotion.]
cur: (331)

welcomes you to the game w/many typos

[personal profile] cur 2016-10-12 05:35 am (UTC)(link)
[ The confusion's more of a shield than any spell, and Sirius' disorientation chips at his focus, loud and distracting. It's jarring, and Remus doesn't bother testing his concentration on the next spell, skipping straight to words. ]

Expelliarmus.

[ Half the ropes have already split. He should do more than disarm, but it's difficult to rally violence, even now; easier to try to bring things to a halt, to gain some kind of control. Easier still to take the use of defensive spells as some sort of mercy. There's a strong surge of memory as Remus reminds himself of James and Lily and Peter, tries to think of loss, and anger —

But he can't think of any of those things without thinking of Padfoot and Hogwarts, and in the end he only musters up a kind of clawing grief that still falls short of retaliation. ]
decommission: (pic#9902217)

[personal profile] decommission 2016-10-12 05:46 am (UTC)(link)
[ He lets out a huff that might be in both humor and relief. The new connection blooms to life with the physical contact, their minds separated by hardy walls on his end. Steve's had mental practice around new hosts. ]

Landing zone. [ He corrects - not their house. The hand that helps to pull the kid out of his pod shimmers for a brief moment, metallic skin returning to its usual flesh and blood state as if it had always been that way. ] They've got us set up in a swanky hotel downtown. Nirad and Carata usually bus people into the city from the ship.

[ A frown. He's not entirely sure what caused the sudden switch in transportation, though by the looks of this place he figures it must have something to do with keeping a low profile. ]
doggo: (24)

[personal profile] doggo 2016-10-12 02:07 pm (UTC)(link)
[No, he starts to say, with an undercurrent of impatient disdain, but what he says instead is--]

Kavinsky.

[--because he does know, of course; hardly has to scrounge for the answer when it's just there. And the innate knowledge is not, somehow, jarring, feels more natural than it ought to. A whisper of one more piece slipped into place.

Sirius resists the urge to press his fingertips to the back of his neck again. His jaw sets as he gives their surroundings another quick look, skipping over Kavinsky, unnecessarily deliberate. Doesn't matter if he doesn't look at him, if his presence is an itch on the inside of Sirius' skull.

There's a door, a way out. Means there's no need to blast any holes in the wall, no matter how satisfying that would feel. Sirius shoves off for it.]


Come on.

doggo: (32)

[personal profile] doggo 2016-10-12 02:33 pm (UTC)(link)
[He nods in acknowledgement, a quick spare jerk of his chin. It's as much for the apology as anything else, which does not make sense until Sirius fits it in with the thought of the stars. Out of place because it wasn't his at all.]

Never seen them like that. Stars.

[Close. The inside of his eyelids feel hot. He twists his hand, presses his knuckles against the towel. It's enough to focus on for the moment.]

We've got to go back there. Where we're-- holed up. That's where they want us? [His smile picks its way across his face, grim.] You're going to have to forgive me if I'm not keen on that.
doggo: (46)

[personal profile] doggo 2016-10-12 02:49 pm (UTC)(link)
[There is something half-feral in Sirius that curls away from all of this, shows teeth and shrinks from the earnestness that he can feel ebbing in to his awareness. Close contact and conversation and an agglomeration that he can neither resist nor ignore. Despair is a deep well in him and now it begins to seep in, filling in the hollow places where there used to be so much more.

He hasn't needed to speak in so long. Last conversation was with Fudge. Words don't come easy, but that's all right, isn't it, because now it should all be feeling and consciousness, only he barely trusts that either. Food and shopping and musicals. A willingness to help. Bright. Everything feels very far away. What does he like? What does he want?]


I want to kill him.

[Quiet. Tight. His fingers are shaking. Him. Peter. Traitor. Despair turns black, curdling to hate. What he really wants, he will never get; this is what he will take instead.]
doggo: (23)

[personal profile] doggo 2016-10-12 03:36 pm (UTC)(link)
[His grin, again, makes his impression worse: gaunt and jaundiced and yellowy teeth. Too skeletal to signal proper amusement. The last time Sirius saw his reflection was a dog's reflection in a puddle of water, but he knows what he got to look like.

And he knows what he's worth, which is very little anymore. And also a great deal, if sanity ever stops feeling like a handful of powdered salamander.]


And if I don't, I'll be left to starve. Inspiring.
doggo: (44)

typos make me feel so at home tbh

[personal profile] doggo 2016-10-12 03:58 pm (UTC)(link)
[There's no counterspell, and the stolen wand is just that, stolen, with little allegiance to Sirius. It slips from his fingers. Sirius does not bother begging, protesting--the sound he makes is thin and animal and desperate, growled through his teeth.

He twists onto his stomach, digs in with his elbows as if he will haul himself up. Adrenaline and necessity lend him momentary strength, fighting through the ropes that remain. Once on his feet, he will face Remus; wandless, Remus will not kill him.

James hits him, crippling. James and Lily, James, and the grief tastes like eating ashes, grief explodes in him, draws up on his own, extracts, magnifies, tears, like having something carved out of him all over again, worse than any violence he can imagine. Every day, twelve years, every day, and Sirius still doesn't beg, doesn't say anything. It's beyond words anyways, all endless pain, a hole that opens up like a wound and swallows up everything.

Strength and conviction both flood out of him all at once. No fight. Sirius sags under the weight, curls forward. The noise he makes through his teeth is just as animal, a stilted howl, carved out bone deep.]
100mitsubishis: (shit for luck elbows shredded)

[personal profile] 100mitsubishis 2016-10-12 05:21 pm (UTC)(link)
[Kavinsky grates like metal against the soft, holed Swiss of most people's patience. Sometimes it's an easily soothed vexation; he offers a 'peacepipe' of destructive, of inebriation. Enlightenment and entitlement. But he doesn't have enough to share on him, just yet, and he wants to get to know all the delightful, alien methods of outer and internal ruination before he begins doling them out.

Without anything to soften the blow of him, he can only do so much. But he'd like to get along with his hivemind brethren. He really would.]


Kavinsky.

[He takes the hand, the coolness of the metal good against flesh that went mildly overheated in the enclosed space of the pod before he was freed. He taps the pipe a couple times against his cheek, thoughtful.]

Wanna join my wrecking crew?
100mitsubishis: (bar tabs on a hot night)

[personal profile] 100mitsubishis 2016-10-12 05:30 pm (UTC)(link)
[Kavinsky has no such mental guarding. His protection is the flurry of his sobriety; he's a maze under the influence, but the hedge-walls grow sixty feet high when he can't stay calm. Relieved of coke and vodka and shrooms and top shelf rum mixed with dollar store cola mixed with dreamt roofies, he's all itch and tumult.

He would be an easy read if someone wanted to take the time to walk the path.

Surveying the sprawling mess about him, Kavinsky holds firm onto the man's hand until he's stable on his feet. After all that knocking of his knee, the one leg isn't as happy with this change in position as the other.]


Day one and I'm already the step-kid? That's screwed up.
polyphonos: (delta)

[personal profile] polyphonos 2016-10-12 07:07 pm (UTC)(link)
[The chains in question are very slim, fine enough to be purely aesthetic. They're wound elaborately from her shoulders to her elbows and wrists; they loop through the folds of her wrap dress and gently rasp with every small movement of her hand. An assortment of charms hand from the chains in intervals - geometric shapes, small strange animals and metal renditions of odd alien plants; they are silver and gold, platinum and bronze, and each one is different.

They chime pleasantly as she raises her attention to him and shifts the line of her leg down from the bench. The woman looks to him as if she knows him and is unsurprised to find him here.]


Thank you.
snaphiss: (453224)

[personal profile] snaphiss 2016-10-12 07:58 pm (UTC)(link)
No, they'll still take care of you. [She says it with a slight roll of the eyes; this is obviously a policy she disagrees with.] You can be a very comfortable squatter, if that's all the ambition you have in you.

[Her voice drips with sarcastic disapproval. Even the walking corpse behind her can do better than that.]
cur: (136)

just 4 u

[personal profile] cur 2016-10-12 08:13 pm (UTC)(link)
[ There's no resistance. The wand snaps across the air and he catches it, ready, still braced for another spell or retaliation — Sirius doesn't need a wand to do damage. He doesn't even try. Remus holds steady as he watches Sirius drag himself upright, and there's a sharp derailment of his focus as he looks at his face and sees the change of twelve years, and of prison. Feels bitter surprise at having recognised him at all.

And then there's grief. Remus knows it's in his mind, logically; it doesn't stop the way it gets hooks under his skin and makes him feel restless, anchorless. He fails to check the spike of sympathy that follows, and it keeps him still when he shouldn't be still. His grip tightens on his wand, and he keeps it raised, half threat and half indecision.

He's dealt with worse. Remus thinks of full moons and pain, more tangible if not more real; thinks of control and secrets and calm. The empathy in the connection cools and very nearly blinks out, bright memories of an old shack and the Forbidden Forest going grey. ]


They've taken you from Azkaban?

[ It sounds collected, careful; it doesn't feel it. There's a hum of tension beneath it like a string, pulled taut and started to fray. ]
tropism: (pic#10538134)

[personal profile] tropism 2016-10-12 09:30 pm (UTC)(link)
[ giorno looks at him, at his words. something in him softens, loses that artificiality that he had on his face. he does not understand revenge, but he understands loss and the frustration of being isolated. he moves closer to sirius, careful, not making any sudden movements. softly, he asks him, ]

Who is he? What has he done?

[ and perhaps, the question, now that sirius is here: ] Who is left to deal with him?
doggo: (15)

[personal profile] doggo 2016-10-12 09:58 pm (UTC)(link)
No.

[Sirius forces out the word through his teeth. Tension keeps him on the floor, counterbalance to Remus, standing over him in the dim light of the common room. All around them is the press of other consciousnesses, all narrowed down to this, just this. Which makes sense, in a way. Just how it always was, when nothing else mattered, when there were only three people Sirius gave a damn about and everything made sense, the world, and who he was, and where he was going, where they were going. The Shack. The Forest. James, again, the same sick hurt, and his breath shakes when he lets it go.

Remus looks the same but very different, all at once. Hints that are somewhere under everything. Or perhaps that's the cue that comes of connection, natural and easy only until it's deliberately twisted off.]


I escaped.

[And then, immediately:]

Are you going to kill me?

[--Without any of Remus' calm. Shot through with threads of darker pain. Thin and bloodless and tired.]

Page 3 of 12