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

[onemind]

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 )

Comments

[shiro2hero]

[It prompts another laugh from him. Same as the last. Man, he's barely met this kid and already he's being told he's not enough. But, oddly, there's no irritation in him. Not from this. Maybe he's just too tired right now, too wrung-out from this mission and the toll it's taken on them all.]

[Or maybe it's because, this is very much a teenager. The kind of mind he's used to, more than others.]

A lot of things could. And they've tried, too. Like I said... tougher than I look.

[The low rumbling sensation at the back of his mind, the voiceless support of the thing in his head, taking the familiar shape, the familiar sensation, of that ancient well of power. Mimicking the Lion in his head.]

[incinerates]

[ He gestures, pointing to the bridge of his nose. Shiro's scar. The one he'd noticed earlier, the "cool" one. Tougher than I look, Shiro says, and there's enough in a single scar and a false, metal arm to back that claim up. The way he phrases it makes him curious enough -- there were missions before this one, weren't there? Had any of those scars from from one of those? ]

Anything like --

[ Raw, unnerving discomfort. Bakugo's nose wrinkles, red eyes narrowing as he recalls that thing that forced him to flee. ]

A body, made of stars. Tall, black with spots of light. Would have called your name, a lot. Or maybe mine, for all I know. Have you seen anything like that?

[shiro2hero]

[He shakes his head slightly at the unasked question. These marks from long before all of this. There's a smaller tick mark on his chin, from where Sam had patched him up so long ago -- when Concordia literally exploded around them. But this was all from another world.]

[A lifetime ago.]

[Instead of answering right away, he pauses. The thickness in his shielding fades a fraction. Feeling the sensations off the kid, to add to his description.]

I haven't fought it personally. But it was there. When I was brought here. I get the feeling it was there for all of us.

[incinerates]

-- I'm gonna KILL that thing.

[ The sudden, violent heat in his voice is punctuated by a crackling series of sounds, flashes of light -- miniature explosions encircling his bare palms as they clench and unclench. The thing that had attacked him, attacked his world. It was the same thing that had attacked Shiro's? Maybe other worlds? Whether it was or not, he'd already set his sights on it. On bringing its throat under his heel and crushing it until it rued the day it set its gross sights on him, of all people. ]

When we find it, it's mine to deal with, y'hear me? Even Cathaway promised she'd stay out of my way, and she's like... headmistress around here.

[shiro2hero]

[His shoulders automatically stiffen. Faint flickers of purple around his right hand -- as the thing at the back of his mind stirs, ready for a threat. Ready to attack if need be, something massive suddenly roused from sleep. Ready...]

[He closes his eyes. His left hand ducking under his robes for the bit of metal he's taken to carrying. With the grooves around the edges. Trailing his fingers along it -- focus. Breathe. Until the urge passes, and he can look the teen in the eye again.]

Why only you?

[Calm forced into place, gaze and voice steady as if nothing at all had happened.]

[incinerates]

'Cause I said so.

[ Clearly, he's not the type who's used to offering long-winded or non-egocentric excuses for his desires and needs. And this is one big clusterfuck of a want-need; that astral-bodied bastard is his to bring down, for what it did. He'll do it for himself, and by default, his might and generosity will extend to everyone else who's been threatened by it. That's all. ]

'Cause I'm -- [ "going to be number one" doesn't have as much weight or validity here ] a hero, that's why. You're supposed to let the hero handle this sort of thing, that's what we're here for.

[shiro2hero]

When you say "hero"... that means something else to you, doesn't it?

[It's not just a word to this kid. It's not just a thing someone can be. There's a weight to it. He's not going to touch on the rest just yet. Not going to shoot him down and argue teamwork.]

[There's something else to figure out first.]

[incinerates]

What do you mean "something else"?

[ A hero is a hero is a hero. A role that's as important to him as life itself, and a warm thing that fills him from top to toe, when he mentions it. There's a savage determination within him, eyes on the prize, hands reaching for the summit, tired legs carrying him over a finish line. A goal to be reached. ]