station72 | [hatch log] i had a dream which was not all a dream

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[hatch log] i had a dream which was not all a dream

CHARACTERS: New Hosts & EVERYONE
WHERE: Station 72; Hyrypia - The Red Coast
WHEN: DAY :025 - DAY :026
SUMMARY: Somewhere deep in the void between multiverses, a fresh clutch of Hosts hatches; getting them down to Hyrypia proves to be more complicated than usual.
WARNINGS: Will update as necessary. Need a warning added? PM this account please!

STATION 72
DAY :025

NEW HATCHES
YOU WAKE UP and the universe and you in it are suddenly different. --No. That's not right. You're you, the universe is as it's always been, and there's no 'suddenly' about it. But it's been a while, hasn't it? It feels like waking up from a very deep, extended sleep or coming up from the darkness of some wine dark sea. Nothing is different and yet everything is.

Here you are, a small miracle of the multiverse: lying in a small, faintly hexagonal chamber with 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 calmed. There's something peaceful about waking up here - like you belong. 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. A matching dread. An easy comfort. Some of these emotions might be 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 nearby 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. There are a handful others very like you here, all of them somehow intimately familiar.

Welcome to Station 72. Beyond this room, the vast Station is quiet and still. It feels for all the world like a shell for some vast dark thing.

Eventually, a sensation manifests out of the hollowness:

PREPARE YOURSELF
THE VOICE IN YOUR HEAD is sound and sensation: a brilliantly warm shaft of sunlight through smoky glass - a gauzy curtain twitching in some summer breeze - the blooming pleasure of a familiar face after a very long time away. It says or feels like:

( Come meet with me, won't you? )
Where exactly this meeting is supposed to occur isn't immediately clear, but head in the direction that seems correct and eventually Station 72 gets you where you're meant to be: a small grassy lawn in the center of the lush, circular gardens where an aging woman waits on a stone bench. The pin straight sheet of her hair hangs like a graying curtain and the sensation from her is lovely and golden, real delight pouring through her like light through a pinhole camera. She smiles and sets aside the book in her lap.

"There you are. Unfortunately, you won't be here long but we'd like to answer as many of your questions as we're able before you leave this place."

THE STATION
WITH A LITTLE UNDER 24 HOURS before it's time to make the trip to Hyrypia, this is as good an opportunity as you're going to get to familiarize yourself with Station 72 before you leave it. There's plenty to see, but other than the people you woke up with there's a distinct lack of company to make conversation with. It's lonely and quiet and there's a sensation of dust gathering even where there is none. Maybe studying the briefing files on your databank is the most proactive distraction? Otherwise-- well there's plenty of places to get lost...

By the simulated morning, a strange archaic ship has arrived on the Hangar. Its very alien pilots are in the process of unloading-- bodies. No, scratch that, they're clearly still alive, though in some kind of comatose state. One of the pilots - a pale female alien who calls herself Rhan - says, "Well, this is awkward. We were supposed to be done with this already. Uh don't mind us, darling. We'll finish up here and get on our way. In the meantime, why don't you go through your packs and get changed?"

She nods toward two trunks on the hangar deck where assortment of pre-prepared packs are waiting for each new Host. In each pack is a series of items, including a set of beautiful and very all-encompassing robes. Better get comfortable. Not hot on the fabrics or patterns in your pack? Mixing and matching with your new best friends is totally acceptable.

Eventually, you leave the Station. If you're lucky, you might one day make it back.

HYRYPIA - THE RED COAST
LATE DAY :026

A PURPOSEFULLY SUBTLE WELCOME
UNDER THE COVER OF DARKNESS, Collector and Lyr make their way through the barracks where the Hosts on Hyrypia are meant to be sleeping. It's nearing whatever the Hyrypian equivalent of midnight is; if you're awake, all the better. If not? Expect to be roused (gently and silently by Collector, rudely and abruptly by Lyr).

"Get dressed. We're going for a walk."

There's nothing quite so suspicious as bringing a bunch of reinforcements to the planet in the aftermath of a rather public murder, which means a highly ritualized midnight procession of Carbasuchians into the highlands. It's easier to secret a handful of newbies in an anonymous group, right?

That meeting in the dead of night in the rocky wilderness above the Red Coast bears even a passing resemblance to the strange occurrence on DAY :010 is probably just a coincidence. Besides, there aren't any mystery circles burned into the stone and grass here: just a stealth ship materializing out of the black night and touching down in a stony outcropping where it disgorges the freshly hatched (or newly reawakened) Hosts.

((OOC Notes: This log covers the hatch on Day :025 as well as the arrival of new Hosts on Hyrypia late on Day :026. Feel free to make your own logs and posts additional to this if you care to. You can find additional information pertaining to the Red Coast on the previous mission log (located here); newbies are welcome to utilize that log as well as it occurs within the same time period as the hatch.

You can find a more detailed overview of the host hatching process HERE and additional setting information about the Station HERE. Please be sure to review the MISSION: HYRYPIA ooc information if you're brand new to the game. If you have any questions, please hit up either the mission's question thread, the FAQ or MOD CONTACT pages!))

NAVIGATION • GAME CALENDAR • MISSION: HYRYPIA • FAQ • MOD CONTACT • GLOSSARY

( CODE BY WHAMBAM )

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[She listens, perched just half a degree forward on the stone bench so as to be the picture of attentiveness. If she knows any pleasure from him knowing her name already, it's just a flicker compared to the general pleasant quality of her presence. What a novelty - to be happy, to be patient with a boy intent on talking ahead of her, to find this delightful instead of wearying.

(Consider her very pleased with herself. The Prince should be glad to know she's so recovered.)]

It matters to us, actually.

[His name. Consider her pointedly ignoring the rest of it.]

Bakugo Katsuki. U.A. High, class 1-A.

[ He gives it the way he's used to it; though the symbiote will arrange it, naturally, to make sense to those who give their surname last. Bakugo. That's who he is, a proud, clever young man who doesn't feel an inch of shame for who or what he is. However brightly she focuses on him, he keeps his chin up. Shoulders back. Eyes on hers; wary of what she may try to sell him, but not disinterested in her existence. ]

Do you work for the League?

No. I'm afraid we don't even know what the League is. [It would be easy to be a little sharp, a little over firm about it - but she's pleasant enough. If her interest is feigned, it's a convincing version of pretend.]

How old are you? What's the place you came from like?

[See, she can ask questions too.]

[ He'll accept that, at face value. Whatever heights her 'creepy' level happens to be rising to, it's likely not the result of her being part of that Shigaraki guy's posse. Which means that he can rule out being re-captured by the League, and lead to believe it was of his own volition. He'll sort that out, sooner or later. ]

Sixteen, but since you - or someone - went through my shit before I woke up, I'm sure that means you saw my student I.D.

[ His name, his class, his one-day alma mater> U.A. High, an academy for heroes; it's where his mind lingers, for a moment. Tall buildings of metal and glass, sharp and sparkling and full of the most brilliant and passionate minds and hearts. A training ground for future heroes, full to bursting with the best the nation had to offer. He lingers on the broad shoulders of a man with blonde hair jutting up into antenna-like spikes, and the glowing admiration that swells within him for that victorious figure. He lingers on a slouched man, with tired eyes, half-hidden below a billowing scarf and the more subtle degree of respect he feels towards him. ]

Don't treat me like I'm just some idiot child, I'm better than anyone you'll meet from this... whatever just happened to all of us.

[ The hatchening. ]

Edited 2017-12-05 23:11 (UTC)

[Fair enough - and incredibly correct. Certainly there was no one else who would take such care for the belongings he'd come to the Station with. (That's a lie - The Prince might were she ever so absent; the drones of the Station... well, maybe if she and he were both gone they might learn to do those things too).

She straightens by that narrowest degree.]

Forgive us, you're right. In that case, let us be clear: the entity that rescued you from your universe and brought you to this place isn't here anymore. No that end, we don't know where you think you are but can guarantee the Station isn't it - as it is, specifically, nowhere. Whatever just happened to you and to the others you hatched with is that you've been saved from being killed by a mutual enemy, brought to this place of safety, and implanted with a symbiotic creature to enable you to live in this 'nowhere' comfortably.

Now then, [she smiles, perfunctory] do you have any questions for us?

[ Slowly, he slides out of his fighter's stance - looping arms around his knees as he locates a particularly comfortable-looking patch of mossy ground and sits upon it. Chin on arms on knees, he peers at her distantly, keeping out of her reach physically, even if he can't do so mentally. Which is weird, and invasive, and it makes him feel distinctly unclean and flayed open. ]

I didn't do it for me, I was gonna' be fine. [ He wants to make that very, very clear. ] I did it for those idiots.

[ Kirishima. Even Deku and his moronic squad. The kid from his class on the ground, possibly dying. That pro who was now missing limbs and organs, which nauseates him because he's never seen such a depraved, vicious splattering of someone in his life. Fights are brutal, but they're clean. Heroes handle villains swiftly and sharply, victory without death or dismemberment. Does he have questions? Only a hundred of them, but he needs to sort out the important ones from the unimportant-save-them-for-later-ones. ]

What's your story?

[She can be patient while he parses what matters; she has so much time and he has so very little. So he asks and she answers: kind and honest and true. That's what it feels like anyway.

Has anyone asked her this question in this way? Not in a very long time.]

I - this woman, this body - came here when she was much younger and much angrier. Over time, she began to think the best way to get revenge for her place here was to make sure no one else would be forced into it like she'd been. And that if this was her place, she would do what she could to see the people who came here unwillingly be safe from what destroyed what they were. She came to realize that the best way to ruin an enemy is to be an equalizing force.

[She touches her fingers absently to her throat.] What we are now may one day be capable of that. So we do our best to learn everything we're able to and try to keep this Station secure. When the last guardians passed on, we were the likeliest candidate to take over their duties.

I mean, it makes sense to me.

[ Beating the crap out of things, not being consumed by a hivemind. To him, this history lesson is more important than the immediacy of anything else. If there are others, he can get the information about the mission from them. Aside from that Ilde-girl, the only other knowledgeable existence aboard the Station that he knew of was "Cathaway". This grandma, who kinda spoke in circles about vast things. ]

An "equalizing force" sounds less like something built to survive the aftermath, you know. Why's that make you the likeliest to take up the mantle?

Because we love what we are. [She says it as if it's a small thing, as if it's simply undeniable, as if there's nothing beautiful or terrible in it (though it's both).]

We want this place to live and we want the beings in it to be happy. And we believe there is good to be done here, not just for our continued survival but for the preservation of other places. We believe the multiverse and the people in it deserve to be observed and their intended trajectories protected. But mostly, we act as guardian because we want the answer to why this place is here and the circumstances which have led to us being driven to it. We have been the most willing to push ourselves to any length to understand.

[One upon a time, a woman wanted to know how she came to a place beyond her universe. And if this mind is now an aggregate of countless others like what that woman once was, what does that mean? What does every Host have in common? Is it fear of the thing that lies at the edge of the universe? Is it missing someone or something? Or is it this: desiring to know. After all, has there ever been a Host who came to Station 72 without questions?

How do you understand what lies at the center of the labyrinth? You go there.

--Don't you?]

[ He can understand that. That sense of loving what you are, what can become of you - after all, he's so maddeningly in love with becoming the best, the greatest, the unstoppable. He wants to be number one, and he's enraptured with the goal so much so that it consumes him. A constantly-burning flame that pushes him forward, hungry all the time for what he views as an inevitable end. ]

I don't need to know anything like that. Why this place is here, how it's able to reach across this "multiverse" for us. Why it was able to reach me, what it will do now that it has me - I don't need that knowledge. What I need is to stop what's threatening my world, and countless others, and then I want to go home. That's it, I have other things I need to accomplish.

[ Singlemindedly, he fixates on broad shoulders, arms akimbo, a bold, warm laugh; I'm here! ]

I'll fight your battles, and I'll win them too. That's all we have to do, right? Beat what threatened our worlds?

[ He holds up one finger: ] In exchange, don't get in my way when I find that thing with the body made all of stars. That one's mine.

Edited 2017-12-13 19:06 (UTC)

[It's impossible to tell what shifts in the air - what gives or flexes between them - but maybe something does. Maybe some brittle edge of her gives, or maybe some softened line of her sharpens. If she was at once point a darker shape in the night, she is just a ageing woman in this instance: narrow and thin and fond. Some element of the far away quality in her sheds itself. She laughs, blunt and barking and so very like a person.]

That's fine. We won't get in your way.

[ It's like -- the air clears. Bakugo, huddled in an impolite, barely-contained heap on the ground by a patch of vibrant sunset-orange, barely perceives the change. One moment, she's a distant creature, the next moment she seems a little more real. The depth of it escapes him, but it makes her a little easier to talk to -- he doesn't feel like he needs to be ready to get to his feet and fight her.

( Plus, she gets a fractional bonus to her approval rating, by agreeing not to get in his way. ) ]

I only got one more question, for now.

[ He holds up a finger, half-gesturing to her, half to the station itself. ]

We're on a mission now, or somethin' like that -- who hands down that information? Where's it coming from?

[ Her? Someone higher than her? ]

From the field, mostly. There are hosts very like you on long term excursions into the multiverse hunting for signs of our Enemy. When they feel they've found concrete evidence of their presence or interference, they report to us. If we're able, we support them with back up. Sometimes--

[She pauses. It's a thoughtful beat, a moment for a person to turn something over in their mind or between their fingers. Cathaway shrugs.] Sometimes we just become aware of something that needs to be done. Like an unconscious impulse. It may originate from deeper in the Nest.

That's weird.

[ Says the teenager who explodes. ]

But, okay. I guess. If I have more questions, how do I find you? This place is huge and I think it moves around.

[She smiles, a flash of teeth. Yes, it is weird isn't it?]

Just think of us and eventually the Station and our symbiotes will guide us together.

[Spooky.]

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[hatch log] i had a dream which was not all a dream

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