[hatch log] everything happens so much

[onemind]

CHARACTERS: New Hosts & EVERYONE
WHERE: The Station
WHEN: DAY :039
SUMMARY: New faces and old losses - a hatch occurs and a number of older hosts go comatose. Coma'd hosts include all auto-piloted dropped characters to date.
WARNINGS: Will update as necessary. Need a warning added? PM this account please!

NEW HATCHES
YOU WAKE UP and suddenly you're a different person. No. That's not right. You're you and there's no suddenly about it. It's been a while, hasn't it? It feels like waking up from a very deep, extended sleep or like surfacing up from the darkness of the ocean and right there in your own head there's something both familiar and strange. You know intuitively that you've been unconscious for more than just a blink of the eye. While it’s impossible to tell exactly how long ago or how exactly you escaped the danger that had been breathing down your neck, you're certain it was more than a moment ago.

But here you are, a small miracle of the multiverse: lying in a small faintly hexagonal chamber, a gentle white light emanating from the surrounding walls. If you were injured during your escape, those injuries have been healed. If you were anxious or frightened or distraught, those feelings have been briefly calmed. There's something strangely peaceful about waking up here. That feeling persists even as you find the tube running from the base of your neck to the compartment's rear wall.

But once the tube's disconnected? Things get loud. A wave of emotion fills that peaceful 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. After the initial sensory overload, the mental buzz elongates: stretches out into a murmur like the sound of a party happening behind a closed door.

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. Maybe it's time for a change? Drop down the ladder to the floor of the Nesting Deck and you’ll find you’re not alone. The closer you are to these stranger, the louder the sound in your head becomes. --Actually they're not quite strangers either, are they? Something is wound about and between you and these people, whoever they are, are as familiar as this place you've never been is.

Welcome to Station 72. The air buzzes with activity. Somewhere deep in the Station, other minds call to yours. They are bright, brilliantly celebratory spots in your subconscious. They are sun-warm gentle, or they are fire and the taste of ash, or they are a vibrant frenetic whirl, or they are a tangled garden, or they are the feeling of flight through dense cirrus clouds. No two links are exactly the same, but you know for certain that you are connected to all of them in at least some small way.

Which is why it's easy to tell when something goes terribly wrong:


OLD HOSTS
THE ENDORPHIN RUSH of making it back to Station 72 (relatively) unharmed, having successfully acquired exactly what you'd set out to get your hands on can't be denied. Even if you're not necessarily the type to celebrate, there's no ignoring the thrumming celebratory sensation from those Hosts who are.

After a few hours of being back in the void, something else stirs in the air: the clear, prickling sensation of new hosts hatching on the Nesting Deck. They're a rush of mental information - as if someone's turned the volume on the radio all the way up -, a cacophony of sensation and emotional feedback for anyone unprepared to shield against it.

The swell of feeling might make it easy to miss what follows immediately after: the dull, gut-deep quiet as The Darkling, Chuuya Nakahara, and Nasu Rei go suddenly comatose.

---

((OOC Notes: This is the hatch log for all new hosts. Feel free to make your own logs and posts additional to this if you care do. You can find a more detailed overview of the hatching process HERE. You can find additional setting information about the Station HERE If you have any questions, please hit up either the FAQ or MOD CONTACT pages!))

NAVIGATION • SETTING • FAQ • MOD CONTACT • GLOSSARY

( CODE BY WHAMBAM )

Comments

[ergane]

» the hatch

[ annabeth gets the feeling she's not in kansas anymore. not literally kansas, obviously; they left topeka behind days ago, and thank the gods for that. nothing against that city, but any place where they run into gaea, malicious spirits of the dead, and their old camp director isn't on annabeth's list of top ten destinations.

no, the last thing she remembers is rome -- arachne's lair deep under the city, dark and crammed with tapestries, the crumbling floor barely keeping everything from tumbling into tartarus. and did she mention the vengeful spider woman? arachne and her children, an army of disgusting creepy-crawlies, and...something wrong. something out of place. someone had promised to help her, and now...

she's quick to rip out the tube -- gross -- and slower to assess her belongings, taking quiet inventory of what she has. the pajamas get stuffed into her pack with everything else, as much as the clean clothes tempt her. she can worry about changing once she knows what's going on.

it's not that she doesn't hear the voices in her head or feel those emotions. it's that she can tell herself she doesn't until she awkwardly clambers down the ladder, favoring her good leg. then? they become more than impossible to ignore. the rush is so overwhelming that she has to steady herself against the ladder.

annabeth's filthy, covered in dirt and dust and who-knows-what-else, spiderwebs matting her hair and clothes. what'd used to be an orange camp shirt and jeans are ripped and equally dirty. she'd discarded her makeshift bubble-wrap cast in the pod, but she's still clearly limping as she starts to slowly walk. despite all this, her grey eyes burn with ferocity. and when she can't take the noise in her head anymore, she turns and snaps -- ]

Just shut up already!

[ maybe she's yelling at you specifically, or at thin air somewhere near you. she wouldn't put it past some god or spirit to try to drive her crazy this way, just saying. ]

» the station

[ annabeth does, eventually, get cleaned up. the weird white pajamas don't make much of a fashion statement, but at least they aren't covered in spiderwebs. it could be worse: there was that time she decked out in clothes from a defunct theme park's gift shop when she was twelve and on her first quest. how ares and aphrodite found waterland, she doesn't want to know; but she doesn't dwell on the thought. thinking about the things she did with percy and her friends makes her feel homesick, and she refuses to mope.

first thing's first: she has to know her surroundings, which means exploring the station. it's slow going with her ankle, but she refuses to let that stop her. her belt might look a little incongruous with the pajamas, but it means she can keep her bronze dagger on hand; and holding onto her pack means she doesn't have to worry about the other stuff from home going missing. her hand strays to the hilt at her belt more often than not, and she's more than ready to draw it if something attacks -- or if she's startled. ]

» wildcard

[ feel free to ping me so we can plot something or to tag me with your own prompt! annabeth can be found anywhere around the station as she explores. i'll also match prose or brackets, no problem. ]

a

[redheadcarrier]

I didn't say anything!

[ There's a strident, surly response from the other side of the hatching deck. Asuka is sitting against the base of her own pod, carefully taping a square medical eye patch into place over her left eye. She refuses to look up until she's finished, red hair falling over her face, half hiding the bright white of the patch. There's a bright red, rubbery or latext looking bundle folded up in her lap. ]

I hear them too. So don't yell at me.

[ergane]

[ annabeth is a lot of things, but eager to yell at younger kids isn't one of them.

she pauses when she hears asuka's answer, turning till she can see the other girl, and frowns. it's not exactly the fact that asuka is apparently injured, or that she's fixing her own bandage, or the fact that she's alone -- demigod kids have to learn to survive early, so the sight isn't as unsettling as it could be. but it still plucks at some familiarity within her, a memory of being a surly young teen and knowing plenty more. ]

Sorry, [ she says, and means it. if the other girl hears them too, then at least annabeth isn't crazy, but it doesn't say a lot of good things about their situation. ] I didn't mean to yell at you. [ her specifically, anyway. ] I didn't think anyone else was here -- uh. Here.

[ with a gesture at the pods ]

[redheadcarrier]

[ Injured? Sort of. The wound is healed. It doesn't hurt anymore. But the eye is gone and she doesn't feel like walking around the scar tissue and flesh showing through. It's still too raw for her to think about that. She fixes Annabeth with a stare as she apologizes and then glances away. ]

It's fine.

[ She takes a breath and pushes to her feet, one arm against her pod. ]

Yeah, we did kind of wake up alone. I don't know how he did it, but - here we are.

[ Her nose wrinkles. Bitterness, anger, confusion, relief. ]

I think they're in our heads. [ Dead serious. And she doesn't like it. ]

The Station

[earthborn]

[Shepard can be subtle when she wants to be. This is a fact that comes as a shock to many who know her, an artifact of the equally valid truth that, when given the choice, Shepard rarely wants to be subtle. But she's tired, so sue her; she'll play against type if it suits her need. Tired was never a reason to stop moving, but it could work as a reason to slow down a little.

So, she's not exactly the most seasoned Host on the station, but Shepard does know what it means to feel that influx, the rush of emotion from a nameless source. She fortifies her shields-- tiredness makes that hard too, and Sam shredding them to tatters hadn't helped. But again, tired isn't an excuse. Shepard draws her shields around her mind like a cloak of water and breathes a deep sigh, and when she sees the new Host wandering, steps into a side-alcove and waits for her to draw near before speaking.]

Hey. [It's a small sound, ten or twenty meters to the side of Annabeth's trajectory. Shepard is a short, slight woman, made less so by the armor she's wearing, and her hair is a mess. But even leaning against the wall with feigned casualness, Shepard always commands attention.] You just wake up?

[ergane]

[ annabeth grips the hilt of her dagger when shepard speaks, looking over at the alcove sharply. she doesn't let go when she sees shepard, but some of her wariness uncoils just slightly; shepard is human, probably, and not, say, a cyclops or a giant or a spider monster. still, annabeth would have to be an idiot to miss that commanding aura.

she nods. ]

Did the pajamas tip you off, or the mind meld?

[earthborn]

Gotta go with the clothes. [Because everyone's got a mindmeld going on, get it?] You can put the knife down. You probably wouldn't be able to seriously hurt anyone with it, anyways.

[She doesn't have direct experience with the Symbiote's distressing sense of mutual self-preservation, but she'd have to be pretty dense to have missed the knowledge of it. Perks of befriending a murderous zombie elf, so to speak.]

We're all in the same ship.

[sistershoggoth]

[ The symbiote always has a way of bringing those that belong together into each other's circles.

Annie is unpleasant. Before she can be seen, she can often be felt, like the sense that some meaty amorphous thing is dragging itself through the hallways, only for it to then turn the corner and there is only a woman there. Small with creamy olive skin and long spidery hair, brown eyes. Annie's dressed as badly as she usually is, the shirt is too big and doesn't cover enough, the pants are too big with pockets in places they don't belong and lots of studs, chains, rips. Her boots are big, scuffed with running, with fighting. On her chest, not really covered by her shirt, there's a large jagged scar in her chest, puckered where once separated flesh came together, like the ridges of a mountain. It glints with green slime that has now stained Annie's shirt.

She looks a mess.

But then, Annabeth with her dagger and her jumpy attitude, injured ankle. She doesn't look any better.

Annie knows what this now. Remembers waking up herself, only a couple weeks ago, and the way she'd gravitated into the fields of Lucina and Noctis. This is another one.

Annie smiles crookedly at her. ]

Uh. What's up? Who you planning to stab?

[ergane]

[ annie feels horrible, and huge, and above all dangerous.

it's a relief.

waking up in weird places, wandering through creepy hallways? annabeth's been there and done that, but she'll take dealing with a monster head-on any day. the suspense is way worse than a straight fight. she isn't even surprised when she finally sees annie -- so many gods and monsters can take on any form they want. outward appearance is meaningless. what unsettles her isn't how annie looks or feels (well, as much). what unsettles her is the primal tug she feels towards this woman. a sense of belonging, even though they've never met before, as if this person can charmspeak annabeth just by existing.

as much as she tries to swallow it down, refuse to let it show on her face, she's scared by that. but she does swallow it down, because bravado and false courage are way better than looking like she has no courage. ]

That depends on who gets in my way first.

Ilde Option

[erbier]

[ Ilde makes it a point to greet most new hosts. She is sure some have slipped through the cracks here and there, but to her it seems a worthwhile endeavor. The awakening is a nauseating experience, she still remembers that vividly. To be quiet and friendly seems a small enough gesture. The first, in particular, is easy for Ilde. She is a restrained young woman, little seeps through that she does not wish. The latter is a bit more difficult, for the same reason, she is not terrible open to friendship, but it's easier to fake with someone she doesn't know, has no history with.

She sees Annabeth limping in the hallways, and invites instead, ]

Would you like to sit?

[ergane]

[ annabeth hesitates. there's that feeling in her head that ilde, like everyone else annabeth's met so far, is -- connected. one of them. and nothing about ilde -- her appearance, her demeanor, whatever seeps into their connection -- indicates that she means ill.

that doesn't mean annabeth trusts her. and that doesn't mean annabeth's eager to admit any weakness to her. but her broken ankle's kind of obvious, and truth be told she could use the rest. ]

Yeah, sure. Thanks.

wildcards myself a mental link i do what i want

[deployed]

( You're the one yelling. )

[ But the voice is unfamiliar. That realization comes to Bellamy slowly through a haze of...not quite grief. A dulled sense of pain that bleeds through their connection, accompanied by flashes of the nesting pod and the darkling tucked behind the glass. ]

talking into stranger's brains is rude, god!!!!

[ergane]

[ it's a lie to say that annabeth was starting to get used to the voices and emotions in her head. but she knows that feeling, sort of. gods have spoken directly into her mind before, but this is -- different. she flinches, looking around for the speaker, in a display she'd be pretty embarrassed about if anyone were paying attention.

the anger that rises alongside her embarrassment is sharp, but quickly tempered by the pain that throbs down the connection. she doesn't know exactly what she's seeing (sensing?) but she knows loss. ]

( I'm not the one in someone else's head. Or I wasn't before now. )

[ is it rude, she wonders, to ask about things you see in someone else's mind? that's not the kind of experience she'd ever expected to worry about. ]

the station

[huntsmachines]

[ Like Annabeth, Aloy is wandering the station. It's a strange place that is both a little familiar and distressingly alien. Things just aren't shaped the way she's used to. It seems to go on forever, twisting, turning tunnels and corridors that intersect and split and never seem to lead anywhere. Her natural sense of direction seems off--she can't seem to figure out where north is and wishes desperately for a glimpse of the sun. They must be underground.

As she comes around one corner, there's a mental burst of surprise as she almost runs into Annabeth and dances to the side, holding her lance up and away to avoid any accidental stabbing. A flash of annoyance over the mental link. ]

Sorry. Didn't expect to run into anyone here.

[ergane]

[ for a minute, annabeth thinks that surprise is hers, and she quickly sidesteps with more alarm than she should. she frowns, trying to orient herself between the mental link and what's actually happening, and...starts to get annoyed, herself.

(look, she agreed to a rescue, not an empathy link with gods-know-how-many-people.) ]

I think we can call it even. I wasn't looking, either. [ then, with a quirked eyebrow, ] Nice lance.

station

[shiro2hero]

[If someone wandering around in white pajamas is out of place, then a guy walking around in black sweats and a towel around his shoulders is even worse. Because that's what he's doing now, unconsciously gripping his right arm -- at the shoulder. Now that he knows why it hurts, it's easier not to worry about.]

[Even so, coming across an unfamiliar face is enough to make him draw to an abrupt halt, staring dumbly for a second.]

[And lifting his human hand in a little wave.]

You're a new face.

[ergane]

[ she doesn't wave back, but it's nothing personal. ]

Yeah, I guess it's pretty obvious.

[ she almost asks herself why, before remembering it probably would be given the whole -- mental link thing. she's trying not to think about that one too hard right now. ]

hey boo

[cognitived]

[ It's not the first time Clint's been threatened. Hell, it isn't even the first time a new nestmate has looked ready to bolt or attack upon first meeting. He probably just has that kind of face, unfortunately. Still, Clint stills from where he was turning a corner, brows raised at the steady gaze and bronze ( ??????? ) dagger in the new arrival's hand. She's not the only one walking around with a weapon, and the smooth shift of fletching over his shoulder betrays that.

But he doesn't go for it, not here, and certainly not against a new kid. ]

Hold your horses! [ He blurts, blinking, for a pause. ] I'd rather bypass going to the medbay, if you don't mind.

[ As if he wouldn't just slink away into his purloined ship-turned-bedroom to stitch his wound up if she did stab him, anyway. ]

heeey

[ergane]

[ annabeth doesn't really want to get in the habit of threatening mortals. her to-do list usually reads more like: do my homework, make sure my friends are okay, and save the earth from certain destruction. you know, normal teen stuff.

if they were back home, clint wouldn't even realize she was holding a knife. but she's slowly come to realize that the mist doesn't seem to exist here. which is yet another unsettling thing about this place. ]

Sorry! Look, I'm not going to stab you. Don't freak out.

[ she says reasonably, as if clint's reaction wasn't totally normal. she also, pointedly, puts the blade back at her belt. ]

the station

[somnifacient]

[Maybe, eventually, her explorations will pull her towards the kitchens. There, Noctis has been digging in the equivalent of one of the fridges, having pulled out what appears to be… well, a can of soda. Or at least the space equivalent of it.

He seems to be focused on it, for some unfathomable reason, and it’s only when he feels a close connection does he turn to look over his shoulder. The same thread of unwavering connection he had felt with his other broodmates, a deep understanding that was both disconcerting and familiar, flows from her. He hesitates, searching for words that always fail to break through the surface of introversion when it matters the most.

And so a silent moment passes between them as Noct tries to assess this newcomer, this broodmate, and what his mind settles on is a very eloquent:]

…Hey. Uh.

[He turns around fully, eying the dagger at her belt, before glancing at her proper again. He still holds the soda in his hand.]

You won’t need that in here. Unless you want to cut up some vegetables for later.

[ergane]

[ annabeth doesn't like this mental link with everyone, but she really doesn't like the way it gets stronger around her so-called brood. noctis hasn't done anything besides be a little awkward, but annabeth rolls her eyes anyway. on principle. ]

Yeah, that's what was on my mind. Why worry about being kidnapped when there's vegetables to cut?

[ except now that she's in a kitchen, she realizes she hasn't eaten in, like, a while. a panini lunch doesn't really give one the staying power required for terrifying underground adventures and trips to...well, wherever this is. ]

the station

[adamance]

[There was a time when Lexa's memories of exploring the Station with a weapon in hand were fresher, but they are now a distant memory, swept up in the experience of being a part of a Nest that she had never asked to join. Now she is a part of it whether she likes it or not, and trying to make good on the experience is all she can do. For her, that is a matter of winning a war. She believes that is their sole purpose.

Those who arrive as if they're prepared for it do catch her attention, but she is pushy and overbearing with all types of people, ready to question and deconstruct their purpose. Someone moving with their hand on a weapon may have an obvious purpose.

Lexa doesn't act to startle Annabeth. Her focus is elsewhere: on standing, on observing, with a steady gaze and unblinking eyes that might give the impression that she's lost in a daze. That is, except for the part where she is focused on Annabeth herself, ready to see how she might react.

Her mind is what probes forward instead of any initial words, all to see how reactive this girl is, to see how she handles a common circumstance on the Nest. Will she react when the intrusion comes from an unknown place? Lexa wants to see.]

lexaaaaaaa

[ergane]

[ annabeth doesn't pick up on the intrusion immediately. not as fast as she'd want to. because the fact is, the cacophony of thoughts and emotions that don't belong to her are exhausting, and she's already exhausted. her wariness is tensely coiled, adrenaline keeping her alert, but trying to navigate a strange place with strange people in her head takes up a lot of her energy.

but then she does notice the push, all at once, something that doesn't belong. something that's focused on her. annabeth grips her blade tighter, looking around sharply. she tries to mentally push back, but all she probably succeeds at doing is making it obvious she doesn't know how. ]

Whatever you're doing, stop it.

[ she says it before her eyes fall on lexa, but then they do -- and her alarm quickly turns to hot anger. she's a daughter of athena. she controls her own mind. ]

station/wildcard

[futurewitness]

[ The gardens have quickly become one of Lucina's favorite places on the station; it's an oddly comforting mix of both familiar (because simple plant life is far more in her realm of understanding than all the alien technology) and an anomaly (because back home, plants are mostly in her memories, and there's not much left to speak of since Grima ravaged the land).

So when she needs a break from training, or from life in general, it's the surest place to calm her thoughts, even if she looks a little awkward there sometimes, like she's trying to relax but not quite sure how to let go and actually do it. Today's one of those times, and she's lounging on her stomach in the grass, fiddling with a small flower in front of her, but there's still something oddly rigid about how hard she's trying to...not be rigid.

Also there's a sword lying in front of her, in easy reach. You know, just normal stuff here.

But she can feel that pull from across the station, like she's suddenly a little less alone. And she can feel it moving closer.

She rolls over to sit up and watch Annabeth's approach. It's wary. Ready to react. The same way she tends to move, herself, so she doesn't aggravate the situation by picking up her sword just yet. ]

Ah - hello.

[ergane]

[ annabeth's run into a couple of armed people around here already, but meeting other teenagers who carry swords around is pretty par to course for her life. the fact that lucina doesn't reach for it makes annabeth lower her own blade, opting to talk.

besides, something about lucina's demeanor reminds her a little of reyna. the roman praetor is strong and commanding...and also has a hard time relaxing. it's kind of hard to imagine her doing something as normal as picking flowers. ]

Hi. [ ... ] Nice garden.

[ #nailedit ]