[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

[sistershoggoth]

[ That might just make Annabeth one of the few to have any concept of what Annie is, at all. Maybe a little bit more than Annie herself. Still, for now, what's really between them is that knife. ]

That's pretty fuckin' indiscriminate.

[ But the fear isn't hidden. Annie doesn't have much control over what she picks up, nor what she puts out. It makes her wonder why she's here, all twisted and fucked up inside. But whatever. She holds up her hands loosely in gesture of peace, surrender, since she is currently in the way. ]

What's your name, kid? You haven't been awake too long, huh.

[ergane]

[ annabeth doesn't put her knife away or anything, but she does let the blade lower a little. it's still in hand in case this is a trick -- everything about her reads like she's bracing herself for something terrible to happen -- but she looks a little less like she's about to try stabbing annie. ]

Annabeth, [ grudgingly. ] And it's been a few hours. Who are you?

[sistershoggoth]

Annie.

[ She crooks a smile, so they've got Annie and Anna, then Nyx and Noctis. Something about them all goes together, huh. Funny. ]

Look, uh, hate to break it to you, but if you're hoping to escape or whatever we're, yanno, like out in fuckin' space.

[ergane]

[ she's quiet for a count of three. ]

Space.

[sistershoggoth]

Yeah. This is like a fuckin' inter-dimensional space station.

[ She had needed to explain this very slowly to Lucina too. ]

[ergane]

[ she's probably in shock, but she's. trying.

an interdimensional space station is an entire new tier of weird for her existence, and that's saying a lot. she can feel a headache coming on. ]

No. [ the worst part is that she can't call annie a liar, thanks to their stupid mind link. it feels true. ] No! This wasn't supposed to happen.

[ when she'd agreed to be saved, she doesn't know what she expected but -- no, that's the problem. she wasn't expecting. she wasn't thinking. and this is where it got her. she's heard enough to expect that leaving wouldn't be easy, but -- space?

she needs to get back to rome, to her quest. would the mark even let her go back once she accepted help?

(no, she has to believe she can; or the magnitude of what she abandoned might just crush her.) ]

[sistershoggoth]

[ Aw shit, she broke the new girl. Annie can feel her stress, but luckily... well Annie is pretty good at rolling with the punches, has watched bitches freak out over less. Although that was back in the day, when she didn't give a shit about anyone but herself. Now she has this goddamn awakened conscience that makes her want to reach out but-- Well, Annie's mind reaching out is like being licked by a ghost. ]

Hey, hey, don't get yourself all worked up. It's fine, mostly. We're all pretty nice, I mean, except me.

[ Not a mystery to her that her mind was awful to be connected to, but Lucina and Noctis were doing alright so far. ]

And even I'll still look out for you, right?

[ergane]

[ annie's just trying to help, but annabeth glares at her, grey eyes stormy. it's so much easier to be angry than unhappy; anger can keep her going. ]

You don't get it. I was in the middle of something important -- life or death is putting it lightly. We're talking about the end of the world: civilization destroyed. All my friends dead, my home gone. I had a chance to change things, and I left!

[ opening up doesn't come easily to annabeth, least of all to strangers. but it's annie's otherness that makes it weirdly easy. this is no mortal. this is someone else embroiled in the world of gods and monsters, one way or another. maybe someone who is a god or monster. ]

I let that stupid whoever-it-was bring me here, instead of seeing things through. How am I supposed to do anything from here?

[sistershoggoth]

[ Well, that's fair. Considering Annie failed to emote authentically most of the time, she can sympathize with the concept of hanging on to whatever makes reacting easiest. Although she tended to prefer laughter and cussing. Then again, with the laughter, she was definitely at least partially unhinged, so that wasn't terribly surprising. ]

That's over with.

[ She's not trying to be harsh so much as... that's the truth of it. ]

We were all in the middle of something. There's a school full of kids wondering where their headmistress went. [ A shrug. ] Wondering who's protecting them, who's paying for the food and the electric bill, who's keeping the aliens away. [ Some of the little ones don't remember what Annie did for them. Some of the older ones had idolized her far beyond her comfort zone. This isn't about bragging. Annie doesn't feel entirely heroic, she's making a point about the way that... some doors close. ] It was die or take care of business.

[ Her attention is mammoth, like being swallowed by a black hole. Heavy. Fearful. Suffocating. ]

No one here doesn't understand the choice you made, no matter how much bitching they might do.

[ergane]

[ it was die or take care of business.

and isn't that exactly the choice annabeth had to make? either die there in arachne's lair at the foot of her mother's statue, the prize she'd fought so hard to save, or live. would it have been better to die there, knowing she hadn't abandoned her quest? the answer's in her mind before she even finishes asking: no.

(would her mother have cared either way? would she think it wise to be here?)

but can they stop the war without the athena parthenos? can they save her camp, her home, without it? without her? their prophecy is the prophecy of the seven, not the six.

getting back has to be possible. completing their quest has to be possible. getting the statue back, whether she left or not, has to be possible. there aren't any other options.

annie is so much. annabeth's met gods before, but they usually keep their essences diffuse so they don't accidentally vaporize mortals. or, you know, drive them insane. annie has no such concerns, apparently, and it's all annabeth can do to focus on what she says, on annabeth's own worries, in the face of all that.

a school. headmistress. aliens. all things to ask about when annabeth feels less -- overwhelmed. the thought of the world having to deal with aliens is a harrowing one, given how much they have their hands full just with terrestrial threats.

no one here doesn't understand the choice you made. another thought to, for now, file away. mortals can't be relied on; only demigods can hope to understand other demigods. those two facts have shaped so much of annabeth's life that it isn't easy to even begin to believe otherwise.

instead, she demands: ]

What are you? You don't feel human.

[sistershoggoth]

I'm kind of human, ok.

[ A tone of protest as if fending off an insult, but really. Annie doesn't care. ]

It's a long story. I am also the... eh, life force? I guess, of another planet which-- Don't ask about or I'll start thinking about it and it will make your head hurt. I did it to Noctis by accident like twice, he says it sucks.

[ergane]

[ annabeth has no idea how that could possibly work or who noctis is (yet), but she's glad annie asks her not to think about it. she's not sure she wants that explanation. ]

Oookay. Not asking about it. I guess that explains a few things.

[sistershoggoth]

[ She nods, upbeat with a sarcastic smile, ]

Aliens. The answer is always aliens. I'm kind of an alien, and we're on an alien space station, with alien bugs in our brains, we're gonna visit some alien worlds, and meet a bunch of other aliens.

[ergane]

[ annabeth

buries her face in her hands. ]

Why did it have to be aliens? They were the one weird thing I haven't had to fight yet.

[sistershoggoth]

[ Annie pats her on the back a couple of times. ]

You'll get used to it.

[ergane]

[ after a moment of that, she'll look up. ]

So that's what we do here? Go to alien planets? Why?

[sistershoggoth]

They wanted something out of the tournament's grand prize. Didn't know what, couldn't tell us why.

[ Annie shrugs, expansively. ]

What the fuck else're we gonna do though? Sit around here and jerk off?

[ Annie emphatically does not do well when there's nothing for her to do. ]

[ergane]

[ neither does annabeth. still, though... ]

If we're just here to travel and compete in tournaments, it seems kind of pointless.

[sistershoggoth]

[ A bigger shrug. ]

What'chu gonna do?

[ergane]

[ annabeth's eyes darken to thunderstorm-gray, her mind starting to work. she doesn't have enough information yet, but... ]

Something, [ she decides. ] I don't know what yet, but I'll figure something out.

[sistershoggoth]

[ That's cute. Annie's amusement, chesire smiles from a thousand mouths, many mismatched eyes observing, is not hidden. There's a note of condescension, inevitable when faced with the pluck of the young, but also an admiration. Just because Annie was a used up old bag not so sure about needing to get out of here all that quickly didn't mean Annabeth had to be. ]

Let me know when you do, I'll see if I can help.

[ Other people's causes are easier to fight for than her own. ]

[ergane]

[ annie's attention is no small thing. it's heavy and multifaceted, ancient and infinite. the condescension makes annabeth's spine stiffen, makes her all the more determined. the admiration she isn't as sure about; too young, perhaps, to really understand. ]

Sure. Thanks, I guess.