Chronicles of The Omniverse Archived Westeria City: Azure Heights - East Side

[Tiko]

as written by Script

"This is going to hurt ... a lot. But I need you not to pull away, alright?" Abel's palm hovered over the broken leg of his patient, his eyes darting nervously to the man's face. By the look of him, he was only five or so years older than Abel was, but that didn't make him any less intimidating.

Locke nodded his head at him dismissively, waving a hand. "Yeah, I'll live, I'm not a kid that needs a lollipop, Abel. Just do it. And don't fuck it up."

"I- Of course not. Sorry." Abel sighed. Adam Locke was everything he wasn't. Strong, tall, confident and tough. From what he'd managed to glean by listening in on conversations, he was a graduate of Everia - the sister academy to Abel's own that specialised in battle magic. He definitely looked the part of a battlemage. Like he could just as easily punch your lights out as he could lob a fireball at you.

"Some time today, kid."

"Right!" Abel blinked, snapping himself out of his thoughts. Letting his mind wander while he used his magic could be disastrous. Carefully, he pressed his palm to where the break was, eyes flicking up to Locke's face to check for a reaction. The man took a bracing breath in, but otherwise didn't move.

Alright then. Mending a break. He'd done this a dozen times before. It had already been set, so it was just a matter of accelerating the body's natural healing. Abel closed his eyes and focused. He could feel the bone responding to his magic, the cells joining together, knitting the two lengths of bone back into one. He felt Locke suck a pained breath in.

And then it was done. Even the bruise was gone.

Abel sat back with a sigh of relief, lifting his palm from Locke's leg as the battlemage flexed it experimentally. "It'll be a little sore for a while," he noted. "But you should be able to use it normally, and won't even notice a difference by tomorrow."

Locke nodded, shifting around to lower his legs off of the cot and tenderly place his feet on the ground. After applying a little bit of pressure, he seemed satisfied, and stood upright. He tapped the foot of his fixed leg on the ground a few times. "Nice work, kid. Thanks."

Abel smiled faintly. "Ah... that's alright." A pause. He clenched his fists, bunching up the sides of his robe in his grip. "Uhm, Adam... I don't suppose there's been ... any progress on getting in touch with Celestia, has there?"

Locke didn't even bother looking at him, busily putting his boots back on. "Nah, sorry kid. No luck. I'll let you know when there's a change there, but for now just keep doing what you're doing."

'That's what you said last time. And the time before that.' Was what Abel wanted to say. Instead, he simply nodded. "Right. O... okay."

It wasn't that he didn't want to help people out here. His magic was useful, he was useful. It was what his parents would have wanted. But ... wouldn't it be better if he was able to work with the academy? He'd heard that they were providing aid across the city, including to them here. He still had no idea if any of his friends had been hurt, and didn't have any way to get in touch with his family back in Lutetia without the help of the school.

Curiously enough, he'd never been able to catch any of the mages that came by with supplies or other aid. He always seemed to coincidentally be preoccupied with something on the opposite side of the compound.

He sighed. He was well and truly stuck here, wasn't he?

He supposed it could be worse. At least he was on the right side of the barricades.

 

[Tiko]

as written by Sentry and Script

As Locke finished booting up and rose to his feet, a sudden blow came to the back of his bad knee, one that brought most people to the floor.

"I think you missed a spot."

To Locke's side, who had almost soundlessly strolled over, was the rather young, gas masked mercenary. The voice was unmistakable and robotic, like something from an outdated computer program. Though barely twenty, the kid had the gall of a cheeky veteran. From above the mask, half an eyebrow perked at Locke. "Finished getting manhandled by your favorite nurse? You need to share sometime."

____

Locke flinched, going halfway down onto his knee. He growled, rounding on Sentinel with burning anger in his eyes. "What the fuck was that, you little shit?" he yelled, drawing one arm back as though to punch the kid square in the face. His hand wreathed itself in red.

"H-hey! Stop!" Abel sprung forwards, grabbing hold of Locke's arm and tugging him back. "No fighting in ... in the infirmary!"

There was a beat where Locke didn't move, then he blinked, his expression changing from a snarl to a momentary look of confusion. He frowned, lowering his fist and bringing his other hand up to his forehead. "Fuck," he muttered as the light faded from around his hand. "You watch yourself, scrapface. You pull shit like that when we're out in the city tomorrow, you might not find your way back."

He shook himself free of Abel and shoved roughly past Sen, stalking off in the direction of the door and muttering under his breath as he went. "Who the fuck does that? Gods. Little fucker..."

Breathing a second sigh of relief in as many minutes, Abel sank back down into his chair, running a hand through his hair. "You shouldn't provoke him like that," he murmured. "The stress is getting to him. To a lot of people. You don't want to be what makes someone snap."

____

"I like to test my boundaries," replied the mercenary, cheeks pushing up beneath the mask. "Let's you figure out who you're around. And that comes back to you, nurse. That was a neat trick you had there. You ain't like the rest of the dookie stains in this here city. Makes me think you don't belong here."

The kid dropped into a seat, letting his legs flop in front of him. "By the way, doc, you need to look at Little Red Riding Bitchface again. Had his head stuck up his ass. It's chronic!"

____

"Well... no, I don't really belong here." Abel answered, laughing nervously. He glanced around as though worried someone might be listening, but the infirmary wasn't crammed full any more like it had been in the first couple of weeks. Only a few long-term patients and the other healers and doctors were around, and none within easy earshot.

"I'm trying to get in touch with Academia Celestia, so I can get out," he confessed, sighing. "But I don't think they're actually telling the truth when they say that they've been trying on my behalf. The officers, I mean. But I don't have a radio or a working phone, so I'm kind of ... reliant on them."

Abel shook his head. "They're probably just too busy to remember. But it's frustrating..." Another heavy sigh, and he leaned onto one elbow. "Being stuck here."

____

"You think? No, hold on, that needed more emphasis." Sen grabbed a dial on the side of his mask and repeated the sentence, raising the volume suddenly. "You THINK?" The dial was turned back down with a satisfied nod.

____

High over the city there was a deafening crack from the massive portal that still spanned across the sky overhead, blotting out the sun and leaving the city cast in perpetual shadow. Should any look up, arcs of energy danced along its surface, crackling and popping with all the intensity of a lightning storm before they died back down and the giant gaping tear seemed to stabilize and fall silent once more.

 

[lil_kreen]

Touches to Van Leugen proved an exercise in joining an active dance partner. The titan overbeing didn't care to expend any more resources sending subbeings there than it had. That effort involved ejecting a piece of Jinhai's itselves onto a moving carousel of unfamiliar time. Done carefully lest Myrkul disturb the motion. This place, as weak as it was, while it must still be careful due to damage to basal planes needn't the same attendant accuracy nor careful isolation.

Due effort to that end threads of metaphysical transit push through its own small anomaly in its bulwark built by Aetherkind to constrain the storm within. It constrained a leviathan overbeing merely by proxy as a creature that arose after its inception. As that thread entered through so many holes in the walls of reality motes hover through them into a dank underworks. Microscopic motes much like the mice that barely persist here. Amorphous portions of Jinhai, matte black faceless humanoids in robed funeral garb of an ancient silhouette, formed from a bank of the swirling microscropic creatures. As the groups that served for flare-eyes formed more directly where a head composed itself they found themselves among broken utility tunnels. Little of psychic impressions from humankind were left there though they still existed to the overbeing's minor sense of the vicinity. Suitable for exploration to a desperate question, "Were all humankind destroyed here too?"

The questions first inklings of an answer came from above them in the bouncing tones of voices. In a language the Almanac did not yet recognize. As a manifold of a Jinhai fully recomposed itself across the Way transit it took its first steps to take in the area. Utilities of some dead municipal structure joined here to a place where they felt humankind once were. Their understanding was murky as the Jinhai restabilized. There was no light of life in the dank hall and the text adorning local openings was still alien in the Almanac read by all instance of Jinhai. Labels. Names? There were Names?

One of the triad of Jinhai sloshing around in the ichor tasted the water. Rot and decay promising in that only the living could die. Aetherkind could only be destroyed. Its foot impacted something underwater as motes there reported remains of humankind. The two others immediately raised a hand to illuminate the surroundings to support their limited lexigraphic vision that still operated in planes where the light and dark of Aetherkind was extinguished.

They could not worry or fear, it was removed from their specific creation, but all expressed concern at the environment light described to them. A charnel house of destroyed bodies in various states, "Are we moments too late?" Some of the bodies human but none clearly alive. Each Jinhai dispensed a portion of its motes to a newly created psionic identity. Hairy agglomerations of threads floating each with a glow deep inside to light places the Jinhai showed interest. They wandered about the charnel as quick as they meant to categorizing the bodies they found themselves among.

They looked around to populate the almanac with the room seeking their primary task. One with a leathery black glove reached out to a human head with a blank expression where black silt slipped between cells to investigate the Throne of Mankind. It found a piece of solid metal there then understood the place where the enemies of Humankind discarded the broken. Thus so at that moment to all the Jinhai. Three sets of four grey spark-eyes peer in from dusty faces to hurriedly categorize bodies to determine thrones of mankind that had fallen too far - they would remember but ignore them. Perhaps there were ones fresher to rekindle?

The wet and rot did no favors to Thrones of Mankind though a great deal of threat to humankind had visited lately it seemed from the range of decay they'd found. One Jinhai found a humankind that had failed to crawl to an egress before it failed. Absent the pool of water and digestive life the metal projectiles had destroyed its chest and a limb but not the throne of mankind. The Throne of Mankind there was still viable. That Jinhai immediately reached forward to make contact and black poured itself into the body with bright purple sparks and crackling as it disembodied the broken Humankind for rekindling.

As the crunching and zapping went on Jinhai gained the knowledge of language hearing voices from above, "Ha! I hope the rats I hear down there fucking eat you, Ashen! Thanks for the implants!"

Light came from above with the opening of a door and a Jinhai raced over with a lean and a torrent of splashing water underneath it. It was answered as a body pitched over the edge falling down toward the rot. Wobbling to and fro the four fixated spark eyes were met by four more racing over as the corpse pounded into the pair of sand dunes to break its fall. As the Jinhai reincorporated around it the light vanished once more and they inspected their find. The humankind was missing its legs. The Throne of Humankind was damaged but recoverable. Some portion of it had been long-removed along with its eye in a similar state. A quick glance ceded the body to the first to arrive and the second returned to its search.

Another round of crackling began as the butchered body pivoted up as motes aligned it with the Jinhai its otherwise thin morphology perturbing to accommodate the muscular bearded man's differing size. A woman clad in that same robe walked up from behind him expressionless and grim as a faceless dune of four spark-eyes turned to flesh and beard. The jaw flexed as rigor turned to peach flexibility turning a hole for an eye toward her.

As the fleshy eye socket filled with black dust like the place its legs should be a deep voice spoke in english, "The humankind's name is John Vice. It can be rekindled but portions of it are no longer human. It is not observed to be taint as recognized by the Almanac."

The pale freckled woman replied as the robe periodically spat out bullets, "Tools of humankind, possibly. There are new projectile weapons of some kind. Your rekindled is known astride the Almanac to understand their operation. This body is viable but also heavily damaged. It requires replacement organs and does not possess native weapon skills."

"I have not observed any other viable Thrones of Mankind. This locale is too tained," Said the third Jinhai's hollow dusty voice while milling about the charnel.

Each mind updated the other as they recorded in unison to the Almanac.

 

[Big Brother]

Valore was certainly a strange place, and the anomalies that plagued it seemed to have no limits, no stopping point, and a young woman would be thrust head first into the strangeness that was Westeria City. Was it a portal, was it an anomaly? There was a thunderclap, a portal opened behind the ruins of one of the many buildings on the east side of the Azure Heights. Auburn curls fell upon her shoulders as she stumbled forward. The young girl looked to be no older than seventeen, and straight out of another world.

Her attire would stand out the most, a pastel colored peplos, worn over a white chiton, and everything was covered up by a gold embroidered, rather voluminous himation She looked like one of the many strange people and creatures that emerged fourth from the anomalies, yet something seemed off. On the back of her neck, her pale skin was contrasted by an odd "♄" Symbol which was tattooed on the nape of her neck. The golden ornamentation in her hair, and her earrings also stood out, glinting in the sunlight, jewelry that would attract some unwanted attention.

Panicked eyes glanced about her surroundings, a pair of scavengers noticed her arrival, she was too clean to be a denizen of the city, and for the briefest moments they locked eyes, and the young woman took off down the alleyway, the men chasing after her.

"Asordo! Asordo!" She cried out, running with the men in tow, quickly rounding a corner and a debris filled street played out before her.

The woman was cornered, an overturned car behind her, and the pair of men slowly making their approach.

 

[Ronin]

There was a roar of thunder, a flash of light from the shadows of a toppled skyscraper. A chunk of sidewalk not two feet from the nearest scavenger exploded in a mist of rubble and chalk.

Randin Kaye emerged from the dark, smoking magnum in hand. He locked eyes with the raiders, grim brows drawn tight over glittering cobalt irises.

“Beat it.”

 

[Big Brother]

The woman flinched when the sound of a bullet hitting concrete filled the area, she was certain this was going to be it, and she wouldn’t be able to give herself to her god.

The scavengers wasted no time, and they sccattered in two directions, leaving the auburn haired woman that looked like she stumbled out of some medieval realm staring incredulously at the newcomer.

Dark eyes looked up to him, and she stumbled forward, sandals getting caught in the concrete. She let out a slight yelp and caught herself.

“Úbi sum?” She asked, with trepidation in her voice.

 

[Ronin]

“Easy now, sai,” Randin neared the girl and offered her a hand. As if her attire wasn’t strange enough, she seemed to speak some language other than common.

“Is that... Latin?” he perked a brow, “are you speaking Latin? Ah geez, let’s see...” He rubbed the back of his head. It’d been years since he’d spoken any Latin, not since his lessons as a boy. “Nomen mihi est Randin... unde... unde est...”

Nope. No good. He might have been able to scrap together the bones of a conversation if he strained, but this was neither the time nor the place to exchange pleasantries.

“Look, I don’t know if you speak a shred of common, but we have to get out of here. There’s danger here. Periculum.” He made a sweeping gesture in the direction the scavengers had fled. “There’s a hundred more raiders just like that, all armed to the teeth with high-tech weaponry from what the Aschen and the TNG left over. We’ve gotta move.”

 

[Big Brother]

The woman watched Randin carefully, was he another bandit? He did just save her from the other two men that were planning on gods know what to her.

His Anquietas was atrocious too, the words and the context seemed off, but the woman listened carefully as she approached him from her spot near the overturned car. He was speaking common, a language she had a basic grasp of, considering it was taught in the temples as part of her schooling.

"Where, here? Why you I trust?" She asked in a very thickly accented common. She took another step foreward and looked around. "Name, Lilia." She said once more, in stuttered common.

When Randin mentioned the Aschen, the woman's eyes lit up, and she smiled. "Aschen? To them, you take me, yes?"