Not Until We Are Lost

The process had been perfected. Once the transport was acquired, they were placed into a stasis so they could not be harmed and would not wake accidentally during their movement. The transports came from many different places. Some were snatched from the aether as they traveled to other worlds, others found in limbo-like locations going nowhere. Others yet were taken from their own worlds, from their lives. Picked by hand, watched, then abducted.

The transports lived on the ship in pods, all of their needs taken care of while they were carefully monitored to be sure that not one of them had any chance of waking or remembering the ship. When the collection was complete, they were all taken to the first world.

For some, it would seem strange, for others, there would be no difference. The council had constructed things to make the transports relaxed and happy. They even created entire cities, in a couple of cases. The transports would wake up in replicas of their own homes, with all their familiar things around them. Those that could, anyway. The aliens knew that there were a couple of transports in the group that would be very out of place. There wasn't a lot that could be done about it.

The Earth Clone matched the Earth in the current year, 2013. It was picked on purpose to help the transports adjust to their new lives. Everything about this current trip was for that goal. To introduce the transports slowly into the idea that their lives would never be the same again.

Each transport was placed where the council thought it best, and as the new day dawned, the stasis collars were removed. The aliens vanished from sight, taking their place far above the Earth Clone to watch. They hoped to learn more about the transports, there was much information on them, but documents and photographs did not reveal what their reactions would be. The Researchers in particular were curious to see how the transports would take their new surroundings.

For the most part, everything about the Earth Clone would be like their homes. The "humans" that inhabited the planet, however, were slightly different. The difference was small. Not immediately noticeable. Every council member wondered how long it would take for the transports to pick it up, and what they would do when they did.


OOC:The difference in the humans on this world is something that will be revealed in about a week. In the mean time, your characters can know there's something off, and even be bothered by it. It's nothing huge, just something about these people that's not quite the way it should be.

Your characters may travel anywhere in this world, and do anything that they feel like doing. They will have no memory of being taken, or being on a ship. To most of them, it should be just like their old life. For those that are not from a modern world, you may play it as you see fit.

It could be said that he was far more attached to the human Niks than he should have been. If there were any other fae folk around, they probably would have mocked him quite openly. But as humans went, she was quite lovely. Not only physically beautiful, but fun to play with as well. Fun to tease. Fun to talk with. Besides, when it really came down to it, Simon didn't give a shit what anybody thought about him.

Oh, he knew that eventually the girl would grow old, and he'd likely grow tired of her. But for now, she was young and beautiful. She could be his until the wrinkles started to show, ruining everything.

Of course, there was a small chance that he could change her. He wasn't sure if she'd accept such a thing, but it was possible. She'd only be a halfling, not even that, really, which would mean she still wouldn't last as long as he would. But it would be better than just twenty or thirty more years, wouldn't it?

He smiled at her over his tea, not giving away his thoughts. How often had they sat in this shop, talking. Having tea.

( Read more... )

Enigma groaned softly as she rolled over, her hand reaching out for her husband, frowning as she realized that Bruce wasn't laying in the bed with her. She raised her head, pushing her hair from her face...and realizing she wasn't in their bed off the Dutchman's clinic.

In fact, she was in her bed from Boston. In the middle of her hideout in Gotham.

"Fucking bitch!" she cursed as she fell back against the bed. She had switched world three in her life, and only once she was awake for it. She knew Dutch, and the sadistic bitch of a ship would not have given her a room like this, when she had a perfectly functional one in the ship's clinic.

Which meant she shifted worlds again.

She slid from the bed, grabbing Bruce's shirt from the floor, glad that had at least transferred over, before finding her slippers from when she was sixteen and leaving the room.

It was...odd. To find things from two different lives, neither that she actually currently lived in one place. Her gun next to her school books...her father's cane with her mother's umbrella's.

She returned upstairs, opening her closet...and was faced with the reality of her duel lives. School uniforms mixed with her costume mixed with her...more exposed clothing mixed with what appeared to be some of Bruce's clothing.

( Gotham City...Again )

She had been in York for about a week and Mary was getting restless. She’d helped her dad rescue her mom, which was a good thing. But they had no leads on the other missing people. The longer that Ellen was gone, the more likely it was that she wasn’t coming back alive. Every part of Mary’s experience told her that, but every bit of her that was loyal to her family refused to accept it. In fact, she just wanted to shoot the hell out of something right about now.

In the not quite helping things column, her... her Johnny, for lack of a better word to call what they’d become, wasn’t really hers. Not in this time. He was trying to help with the missing people too and it was equal parts frustrating and reassuring to have him around.

Today Mary stopped in at his room, as she’d been doing for the last few days. Just in case he’d heard something new or gotten a lead to follow. Maybe there was a bit of comfort in simply seeing his face, even if the eyes that looked out at her didn’t look at her in quite the same way.

( De ja vous )

Simon knew. Of course he knew. There was very very little that went on in this building without him knowing about it. In fact, if it happened within his city, cities he had previously claimed, or to people he had claimed, he knew about it. So of course he knew about the silly little boy that the Tower had put with Niks. He knew the second the boy entered the building, then the second that he'd entered her office. When she finally arrived, he knew that too. Even if he hadn't been upstairs, he'd have known that. He'd placed all the wards. He'd protected her. And he'd put a few extras in to make sure that nobody tampered with something he considered to be his.

He knew that they'd flirted. Oh, how that had raised his ire. Worse yet, she was actually attracted to the buffoon. How could she be? A brute like him? An absolute infant? In comparison to the fairy, ANY fairy, the boy was ridiculous. Simon had no idea how she could possibly entertain any ideas of liking him. Tolerating him as a partner was one thing, they all did what the Tower told them to, to an extent. But this had gone long beyond tolerance. She had flirted with the artifact hunter. To make matters worse, he was American. Not new to America, not with any correct upbringing and then transported to America. He had been born there. His parents had been born there. His grandparents. It was a shame, really.

Perhaps it would have been one thing, had Simon put the American artifact hunter child in place as he had Archer. But he hadn't. His fingers were not in this particular pie. She might think that they were. That could only make things worse. Niks thinking that he had placed the idiot there to play with her, thinking she would play back. What might she do then? He couldn't think of it. It was horrifying.

( Read more... )

The Doctor quite liked Faith Lehane.

Really, he liked almost any and all fiesty human women. But the Slayer thing, the myth of it all, the way it all happened... it was so, so fascinating! He could not believe he had not met a Slayer before.

Silly, he thought to himself. Of course he had met a Slayer before. He just hadn't known. They didn't all run off at the mouth about thinking he was a Watcher, now did they?

With the information secured from his alien friend whom Faith thought to be a demon, the Doctor parted ways from Faith to secure the TARDIS somewhere a little less near the Gates of Hell. (Behind the Friendly's was much better, much less conspicuous). Faith'd told him a little bit about the people in town that knew what was what--that is, who wouldn't be all that surprised and/or shocked into stupification upon meeting a Timelord.

She mentioned a man named Harry who lived in a house nearby to the town, and also his bodyguard. And the last name Winchester came up a few times, but she didn't have a clear line on where he could find any of those.

So, it was off to the house Faith described. The Doctor didn't know the town well enough to just simply drive there, or park the TARDIS there. He decided on a walk in that direction, on information-finding. And deep down, he knew that having Rose with him would make this all go much, much faster.

"Stupid Gates of Hell," the Doctor muttered.

Sit in here and wait. That's all Evan'd been told. They'd given him a pretty skint tour, told him only what they thought he needed to know, which wasn't nearly enough for his liking, and didn't answer any of his questions. That, they said, was for his new partner to deal with. They also hadn't told him who that would be.

Of course, none of this was new. He'd been in the Tower for a long while now. But it never ceased to irritate him that they could be so close lipped with their own. Or maybe it was just this branch's way of dealing with the new ones. Brush them off on somebody else, that way nobody gets too attached if there's a death, and if somebody is, it's just one. He knew that being Tower wasn't a good way to expand your life. Or assure that you would live to any acceptable old age. But he did love his work, and didn't have any plans to leave it any time soon. No matter how they decided to treat him, or where they decided to send him. Like this place. Evan was pretty sure that this was a punishment for something he'd done. There were no big infractions in his file, but plenty of smaller ones. Continuing digs when he'd been told to stop, moving to new digs without asking permission. Buying artifacts for way more money than had been authorized. It all came out the way the Tower and his superiors wanted, but they didn't enjoy his lack of obedience. He was called hot headed a lot, too independent, of course, as long as he suited them they'd never see him gone. They'd just put him in tiny shitholes until they thought he had learned his lesson.

He never did.

They never seemed to notice.

They'd made him clean up for this meeting. His previous few days had spent trying to identify something he'd picked up. He'd been greasy and haggard, unshaven and rumpled. Evan had had a feeling that they wouldn't let him in the building if he didn't tidy himself. It seemed to him that there were more uppity types here. What did it matter in the end? As long as he got to do what he wanted to do, he'd try to follow their rules and avoid whatever peeves they had. Hopefully they'd see fit to send him back to where the real artifacts were sooner than later. What could he find in a little off beat town like this?

Evan played with the arms of the chair he was sitting in, realizing that it was really quite nice. This whole office was wholly different from his own. Quite neat. Before he'd packed it up, his office had looked like a tornado had blown through. Papers, books, artifacts everywhere. A computer buried somewhere under it all. Writing implements scattered to the winds. He did not feel that things would go well with him and his new partner.

( Read more... )

The Historian sat at her desk, her brows furrowing a little. Her dreams had been missing something, but that was bound to happen. One couldn’t always go to the Dreaming, to the Dreamlands, all the time; it wasn’t good for the soul, or maybe she was just trying to rationalize. Then again, the Dreaming had been feeling crowded, or at least the small area she visited.

She reached out for her phone but stopped. Who could she call? Who in the world could she call right now? Evan wouldn’t understand, would he? And, Simon would just give her issues. He did like making her life difficult.

Slipping from her desk in her Tower office, she grabbed her jacket and her cell phone. Her mind worked through reasons. She stepped out into the hallway and came to a stop to look one way then the other. Evan’s office was one way, Simon’s rooms the other.

If this were a story, one of them might simply know she needed them. This wasn’t a story. It was the real world. Or as real as it ever got.

( Read more... )

I believe I can see the future
Cause I repeat the same routine
I think I used to have a purpose
But then again
That might have been a dream
I think I used to have a voice
Now I never make a sound...


Some people who spent hours of their lives meditating describe an experience of enlightenment as feeling their third eye open. That was a little too goddamn gentle in Phaedra Romani's explanation.

Every day in York since the disappearances, Phaedra became a little bit less human than she'd been, and a little bit more robotic. She'd looked for Lindsey and Harry with a single-mindedness that bordered on obsession.

At first.

The longer they'd been missing, the more she went through the motions. She'd scan the minds of the citizens of York for their minds, she'd make phone calls and inquiries. But she didn't leave. She couldn't leave this town without some kind of protector. There were too many things that that Gate could do, and not enough people to handle them.

Something about tonight was different.

When she snapped back into consciousness, a few things happened.

The first was very direct.

She could smell him. Like he was in the house again. Like his heart was beating here, in these walls.

When she got up and got herself together, she did her routine searches. Lindsey first.

And then, it was like all at once, she could feel them all. Harry. Dean's daughter. A few of the others that'd been missing.

Phaedra's eyes changed to their more feral green, in frustration and anger.

"You're fucking KIDDING ME!" she yelled, emerging from her portion of the house and heading for the kitchen. HARRY!

It was a very insistent, telepathic yell. WHAT THE FUCK?!

It wasn't unusual for Mikey to wake up and the whole place be empty. Everybody always had things to do. Shiro and John were almost always gone from the penthouse, doing things that nobody ever spoke about, and the rest of them had their own lives to attend to. Even the nights that he decided to stay at the mansion, Mikey tended to sleep so late that classes had started. Being alone did not bother him, anyway. He did like the companionship he found with those in the penthouse, and he loved the attention he got at the mansion. In the end, though, he was a cat. Independent. Free willed.

He stretched and yawned, sliding out of the bed he'd occupied last night, stopping to take a quick sniff. Vanessa. She always smelled so nice. Even if she did share a room with that other one, Davan. Davan was strange, and that was coming from a boy who thought he was a cat.

Mikey left the penthouse behind, leaving by the front door this time instead of the roof. Going from the roof meant that he needed to become a cat all the way, and he just didn't feel like trying to mess with clothing. He wanted to get some snacks. You couldn't buy snacks - or even steal them - when you were naked. That he'd learned the hard way.

Long ago, Mikey had stopped caring about people staring at him when he looked like a boy. It used to make him nervous. He'd let go of that, with help from Shiro. To see that being a boy wasn't terrible, that people who stared didn't always mean it in a bad way. Most of them out there knew what mutants were, which was apparently what Mikey was. He didn't want to believe it, still. He was a cat, he knew it. A cat who could turn into a boy for whatever stupid reason. The fact that he still had a tail when he was a boy proved that to him. So did the eyes and his fingernails.

He strutted out of the front door of the building like he owned the place, pausing to glance to the right and then the left, trying to decide which store he wanted to go to. He hadn't put on any shoes. People were always trying to force shoes on him. They were lucky they'd gotten him to start wearing pants. Shirts, too. There was no way he was going further than that. Shoes were wrong on so many levels.

Turning to the left, Mikey lazily began his walk to the shop.