Endgame Part 2 [log] [modplot]

[letsgolegion]

ENDGAME PART 2
SUMMARY

Armed with the Miracle Machine, and facing a universe that's starting to break down at the seams, the Legion must venture through Chronoblivion's outer shells - made up of the fragments of dead universes - to allow the Miracle Machine access to the dimensional space the Big C's core self exists in. Only when they're technically in the right reality can the device alter the reality in it to defeat him.

But Chronoblivion's shell is a dangerous place. Many of the individuals that have tried to look into its depths have gone mad, and every brave fool that's wandered in has never come out, nor have they broken through to the other side.

The only chance the Legion has of breaking through the shell - and also breaking it down enough to get a crack at the gooey center - is if they rely on each other on the journey through. Because if they get stuck there, the twisted pocket dimensions within will grind them away until they cease to exist.

THE MAZE

They have the Miracle Machine and there was enough hope in both galaxies to keep it from fading from existence. It's fully charged now, and influenced by Brainy's mind as he took it out of its pocket in the Bleed, the space between universes, it's taken the form of a round piece of metal with a Legion insignia, not unlike their Legion belt buckles.

But they still have one of the greatest challenges of their lives ahead of them. Even with the Penitent and her monsters gone, the Catastrophists have refused to quit. They've left every world as It summoned them all here.

But the Legion was able to move much faster. Shikari, the Legion's only Kwai member, is one of the most talented Wayfinders the Kwai have ever seen, one who's navigated starpaths beyond that of most other Kwai. Leading them through through a threshold gate, she found them the fastest way through D-space to the twisted section of space that Chronoblivion inhabits, beating the Catastrophists there.

Now, outside the twisting and folding dimensions before them, they ready themselves for the last leg of their adventure.

"Quantum Legion," Shikari says over the comms. "I have found us the Way! Brr! The insides are twisted and broken and I see no clear paths, but the way in through its outermost shell is straight and true."

"That's at least a start. Alright, Legion, we don't have much time," says Kid Quantum. "Brainy says due to the way Chronoblivion warps reality, we need to get the device close - so it's technically in the same dimensional space - to work. Some of us are going to have to stay outside to hold off the Catastrophists. Shikari only bought us a few minutes' head start. It's not exactly going to be a picnic for the people going inside, but for the people outside - it's going to be rough, too."

"It's pretty obvious who should stay behind," says Garth Ranzz, Livewire, his voice sounding moody. But if they think he's going to demand the displacees face chump duty...well, they'd be wrong. "We saw all of you working. The crystal was able to resonate with our galaxy, and it's all we could do, just...watch. And you were sprocking amazing. I mean, yeah, you had your growing pains but so did we when the team first started. The rest of us are a mess. We need to be on stupid mook duty for this one."

"He's right. You were incredible," says Imra Ardeen, aka Saturn Girl, the Legion's Titanian telepath, finishing his thought. Telepathically, she shares images of some of their greatest triumphs that they witnessed: the defeat of Galactus, the imprisoning of the Spectre, the capture of the Joker in a refrigerator, the defeat of War and the traitorous UP Council-members - and so many more. "And we're all rusty. We could barely move in that place, let alone practice. There's no way we can defeat Chronoblivion in our current state, we'd just trip over our own feet. But we can try to hold the Catastrophists off."

"I don't like the idea of leaving you out here alone," says Kid Quantum. "You're all really worn out by your time in there..."

"The day we can't pull mook duty," says Jo Nah, Ultra Boy, cracking his knuckles, "is the day we hand in our rings. We've got this. And you've all got this."

"Alright," says Kid Quantum. "I want all current active duty Legionnaires to head in for the final fight. All Legionnaires that were in the crystal dimension, you're outside, holding the line. Imra and Shikari, you're the only ones coming in with the rest of us. Shikari, wherever you can, we need you to guide us towards Chronoblivion's core self. Imra, I want you to connect all the Legionnaires heading in telepathically, to make it easier for us to find each other if we're split up."

"Livewire," says Imra. "As acting Legion leader of the group that was in the crystal dimension, I'm officially giving you command of the group outside. With Kid Quantum's permission, of course."

"Permission granted. Good luck, Garth," Kid Q says. "And good luck, team."

Kid Quantum steadies herself with a deep breath. In the distance, they start to see the popping lights of boom tubes opening. For just a moment, two Legions face each other, past and present, but it becomes immediately clear that they're not separate, not at all. As some of the Legionnaires turn to face the waves of enemies about to crash against the shore, and as others turn to face the impossible, twisting depths of a living nightmare, they're all clearly filled with the same resolve.

"Time to go. Stay as close as you can to each other, watch each other's backs, and fight hard. We have no idea what's in there." Kid Q's jaw sets. "But we've come this far and they still haven't stopped us. Chronoblivion wants to take a bite of out of us? Let's go show him that we bite back."

Space warps and twists as they descend into the depths, and there's a feeling like hitting a brick wall at a hundred miles an hour and then being split through a sieve. Reality rewrites itself time and time again. Their fears become manifest, painful memories reawaken, their imaginations are even plumbed for fears they didn't know to be afraid of.

But they instinctively feel a draw towards other Legionnaires thanks to Imra's telepathy. And there is a way out of every scenario, if they work together, if they confront their fears or their pasts, if they know themselves.

On the other side is...an ending. It's still up in the air whether it'll be a good one or not. But they have to get there first.

[ooc: You can set up your scenarios based on the info in infopost below. Please note if scenarios are open or closed.]

Comments

Wash | Open

[unrecovered]

1. Watershed

[unrecovered]

For a moment, Wash is disoriented. He'd just been flying - he was on a mission - the last mission - so why does it feel like he's lying down-

"Sir, Agent Washington is prepped for Epsilon AI."

His eyes snap open, taking in his terribly familiar surroundings. Medical on the Mother of Invention looked much the same as most of the rest of the ship - practical, industrial, and depressingly gray. Screens above and around him display his information: his name; his vitals; imaging of his skull and spine. The Counselor turned towards him, carrying a purple AI storage unit. He's flat on a table, awaiting the surgery that will change his life.

Not this time. He moves to roll off the table and get the hell out of here-

And can't.

This time around, he's bound to the table, stuck watching as a robotic arm extracts a chip from the storage unit and brings it around his side, just out of his field of view. He knows what's coming- he survived it once, just barely, but he did- but the prospect of breaking again sends sheer, paralyzing terror shooting down his spine- he's already broken- he won't survive it again-

He can't do this-

He struggles against his bonds - "No. No. Not again. Let me out!" - but nothing gives and no one hears him. The Counselors and technicians continue to prep for the final steps of the surgery as the Director watches impassively. There's no help for him here - no one cares.

That awful clarity stills him, just for a moment, but that moment is all he needs to realize that something's different this time around. The bonds securing him to the table, sure, but they're not it. No, what's different is the pull deep in his chest, a feeling drawing him towards-

-towards the rest of the Legion. Towards his team.

"You're not working alone...Remembering you actually have backup and reflexively calling for it during or immediately after conflicts may save your life in the future."

God damn but he'd never been so grateful to have been lectured by Brainy.

He takes a breath, pushes the panic aside as best he can (that chip is too close he can't do this again he needs to get out of here), and cries out, words tearing from his throat and rattling up that connection to his team- to his friends:

"HELP ME!"

[ordinarily]

A green ecto-blast shot out, hitting the chip. Disintegrating it in an instant, everyone standing frozen at the sight.

In the corner of the lab, stood a teenager. Black body suit, white hair, glowing green eyes, and a faint white glow surrounding his body. His hand was raised, some smoke wafting from it after the blast. The only real identifying mark on him being the symbol on his chest, a white D with a black P inside of it.

"You know, I could make a joke about mad scientists, or background checks, or whatever," He bantered, although there was an angry edge to his voice. "But you know what?"

He disappeared from sight, as if he was gone for a moment. At least, until one of the scientists was seemingly struck in the face, sent spiraling toward one of the walls, and slamming against it with enough force to leave a dent. Danny reppeared then, looking as if he just punched the man. The angriest expression on his face, his eyes practically glowing with rage.

"How about just don't experiment on people?"

There was only one thing Danny really hated, more than anything else. And it was people getting experimented on.

[unrecovered]

There's a sharp, unfamiliar noise, and something flares hot way too close to his neck for comfort. For a moment, all Wash can do is breathe and try to keep his wits about him.

And then someone speaks up. The noise might not have been familiar, but the voice sure is.

Holy shit. Help actually came.

It takes a moment for that thought to sink in - enough time for Danny's reappearance and righteous anger - and then Wash yanks sharply against the straps keeping him bound to the table. "Get me off this thing!" If Danny has his full powers back - and it looks like he might - then that shouldn't be too difficult. Hopefully.

1

[iamresponding]

The scenario is playing on one of Rich's worst fears: losing his powers. He can tell they're entirely gone, which means he's at his weakest and most helpless. It also means he's dying, not with a bang but a whimper, with his cells quietly falling apart. But at least he has a few days before that happens, days that are unlikely to pass if he can get out of here.

As terrifying as it is, this was a really dumb fear to pair with this. Instead of having time to react in horror or dwell on it, he hears the scream for help and then all bets are off. His own horror at his malfunctioning body - ever the enemy - is immediately kicked to the side.

As much as he wants to barge into the room after hearing that cry, he has to play this smart. His brain or the...the whatever of this place has him feeling like the last time he lost his powers. When he first joined the Legion, he'd had trouble with numbness in his limbs, with clumsiness, but he'd at least had some Nova Force he could still access. Right now, he's running on empty and that means his limbs are like putty and his hands feel frostbitten and numb.

That makes this a challenge. Sure, he knows how to fight without superpowers - he's lost them often enough in the past to know he needed to learn - but doing it with limbs that barely work is a special kind of difficult.

So he gets cunning. They look like med techs. If they're "programmed" (or whatever it is) to act like real medtechs, they'll react a certain way to a perceived medical emergency.

Rich isn't wearing his uniform, it's civilian clothes at the moment, but that looks a little less strange than wearing a superhero uniform as he lurches through the door. He hunches over, in a way that makes someone pay far more attention to how someone's moving than what they're wearing. He looks like a man who's been stabbed or had a heart attach, collapsing into the room.

"Help! I need help! They're coming!"

The techs immediately look towards the door, expecting some kind of enemy, or maybe some authority figure to explain where this mystery casualty is from - and Rich takes advantage of that to spring up and knock one out with one punch. He grabs a metal medical tray and bonks the other one on the head, twice. It bends from the force, because even clumsy and powerless he's still built like a goddamn MACK track. He could probably rip a phone book in half.

He tosses the bent tray at one of the other techs and then picks up the next impromptu weapon he can find - a metal bedpan. That's good for clobbering two more of them - but they start getting aggro now, and he's awful clumsy. An attempt to throw one of them away from him gets sloppy. The Counselor falls instead of getting carried by his own momentum and as he drops, he drives a scalpel into Rich's upper thigh.

He doesn't cry out. He lets out a little pained "htt" of noise, reflexively holding in and silencing a scream, an old habit from the Cancerverse. A haymaker knocks the Counselor out and then he and Wash are alone. He doesn't yank the scalpel out, he knows better. Maybe after he gets him loose, but not right now, while he's still trapped. God help them both if Rich yanks it out and suddenly bleeds out on the floor with Wash still stuck on that thing.

"Cavalry's here." He unbinds him from the bed. "Don't get too excited. I'm not running at 100%. As in, the Nova Force is gone, which, alongside making me powerless, has the side effect of making me clumsier than a newborn giraffe."

[unrecovered]

Rich comes through the door. The techs look up from what they're doing. The robotic arm holding the Epsilon chip stills in midair as the techs stop piloting it. (Medtech manipulated entirely by humans is a bit unorthodox, but it turns out having too many AI involved in the torture-and-implant-a-fellow-AI process is bad for morale.)

For a moment, Wash can breathe. It worked. It actually fucking worked.

And then Rich explodes into action, manages to down just about everyone in the room, and frees Wash. He sits up and clasps Rich's hand in one of his own. He needs that second or two to calm down and get his mind right and breathe, and human contact helps with that.

Okay. Okay. He can do this.

"Then I guess it's my job to get us out of here." He lets go of Rich's hand, stands up, removes his helmet from a hook on the wall, and puts it back on, waiting the half-second for the HUD to boot. "The hangar isn't too far from here. We can probably-"

And then he notices the scalpel still sticking out of Rich's leg. "You weren't kidding about the giraffe thing, huh." He crosses the room and starts rummaging through drawers. This is a goddamn medical facility - even if it's constructed of his memories or magic or whatever the fuck Chronoblivion runs on, it should still have-

Yep, there it is. He removes a canister from the drawer and looks at Rich. "I can help you with that, but it's gonna hurt."

2. Alone

[unrecovered]

He startles awake and blinks, staring at the ceiling as he tries to gather his thoughts. He'd been on a mission - why was he asleep? Did the cat wake him up? Where was everyone? Still sorting through questions with no answers, he rolls over and-

Oh. Right.

And it had been such a nice dream.

Those were always the worst to wake up from.

He sits up slowly and winces as pain lances through his back and ribs. Tex and the Meta had really done a number on him, and while the prison doctors had done their jobs, it wasn't like they gave a shit about him. They'd told him very bluntly that it was a miracle he'd lived, that without the compression from his undersuit and the cold from the snow, he wouldn't have survived long enough for them to show up, especially since nobody at the scene had bothered with first aid. For all he could tell, the Reds and Blues had left him to die in the snow - not that he blamed them. He'd hurt them, betrayed them, killed one of them and tried to kill the others - there was no reason to keep him around or even alive.

He only wished he'd actually died there. It would have beat the hell out of being thrown back into prison.

But here he is, staring at the walls of his cell, still trying to shake that dream. It had been long and detailed and so damn good - he had a home with the Reds and Blues, and Carolina was alive, and even all that weird shit with alternate dimensions and superheroes and the end of reality had been good for him; it had even given him friends and a boyfriend and a cat-

And that's how he knows it was a dream. That kind of happiness has been out of his reach for a long time now. He must be on some pretty good painkillers to have come up with that; even now, part of it still lingers in the back of his mind, whispering that it's all real and that he has a job to do-

He squashes it. Fuck dreams - they only make reality hurt all the worse.

He crosses the cell, fishes his last cigarette and a match from their hiding place under the lip of the sink, and lights it. He'd been saving it for a bad day, and it looks like today is shaping up to be one.

Prisoner 619-B sits on his bed, slowly smoking a cigarette and trying to ignore the feeling of the rest of his very empty life stretching out in front of him.

Re: 2. Alone

[actionishisreward]

"C'mooon, work work work work... " says a muttering voice from outside the door. Muttering that sounds a lot like a teenager from Queens is trying to break in. Which is patently ridiculous. There was no possible way a teenager could break into a military prison, especially not this one.

*BEEP!*

...there was, however, a first time for everything. The door slides open, revealing a kid in spider-themed underoos.

"Hi! I'm Luke Skywalker, I'm here to rescue you."

[unrecovered]

He ignores the muttering, shaking his head. Either it's Take Your Child To Work Day for the prison guards, or he's hallucinating. Either way, it's not worth his attention.

The door slides open, and he tenses for a moment, but- no alarm. Yeah. It's not real.

The fact that fucking Spider-Man walks in through the open door and quotes Star Wars at him only cements that fact. He gives the imaginary figure an exhausted glance, then shifts his gaze to the opposite wall. It's been a while since he's hallucinated quite this vividly - blame the painkillers, he guesses, or maybe the cigarette is laced with something - but it's always the same: the best thing to do is wait for it to wear off. Treating it like it's real will only make the moment when it inevitably fades that much worse.

Re: 2. Alone

[orbislife]

It is becoming tradition that, whenever Zenyatta crosses paths with Washington, an Orb of Harmony is sent to hover at Wash's shoulder. It speaks more about the circumstances they meet rather than Wash's mental state. Fate places them together during a mission or crisis.

How Zenyatta made it into the cell is a mystery for the warping dimensions to answer and not for him to explain. He hovers to a comfortable talking distance and looks at Wash.

"I do not know if my Orb of Harmony will help protect you from smoking's harmful effects, but it won't hurt either." There is a hint of disapproval in Zenyatta's voice, but he doesn't press the issue. He tilts his head inquisitively before asking, "Freelancer, what are you doing here?"

[unrecovered]

For a moment, Wash feels...better. Calmer. A little bit less like his life is not worth living.

Then he glances up and sees the golden orb floating over his shoulder and the robot floating in the cell. God dammit, he's hallucinating. What's worse, even his hallucinations are lecturing him about his bad decisions.

He would hallucinate the helpful one.

"Hallucinating, evidently," he hears himself saying. He shouldn't - he shouldn't even acknowledge what he's seeing, because it will be that much worse when it finally disappears and he's alone - but something has relaxed his walls. Blame the orb, or the painkillers, or the fact that he still remembers nine months of mostly good things even though he knows those nine months were all one long, involved dream. Blame his tendency to make really shitty decisions. He doesn't know anymore. "What are you doing here?"

Re: 2. Alone

[isthisapidge]

"Wash!"

At first it might look as though the door slides open and then closed without anyone coming in, the voice calling his name coming from nowhere but his own fevered imagination.

But then Pidge's invisibility drops and reveals her in her Paladin uniform. Later she'll reflect that she should have called him after she revealed herself -really, that she should have handled this entire encounter a lot more calmly- but right now she's more focused on getting him out of here.

"What are you doing?! Get up, we have to go!"

[unrecovered]

Auditory hallucinations are an infrequent but known occurrence, and Wash ignores it. He's dealt with this shit before, on his worse days, and this is probably going to be one of them.

The door opening and closing on its own gets a sharp, wide-eyed stare. That's new.

But then it resolves into another hallucination. For a moment, he looks stricken; of all the nonexistent people from his dream for his brain to throw at him, she has to be one of the worst.

Well, he is something of an expert when it comes to hurting himself, isn't he.

He schools his expression into one of forced indifference and looks away, taking another drag on his cigarette. It's not real. Ignore it and it'll eventually disappear.

Rico | OTA

[truefaceofthelaw]

 

Mindscape | warning for blood, description of violence, gore

[truefaceofthelaw]

[ooc: This is very open-ended. Feel free to take whatever action you like! You can start out somewhere and go back and forth between the options if you'd like to do more than one. Everyone welcome!]

You take the plunge, and open your eyes to find yourself in the middle of a towering, twisted monument to justice. Judging by the prevalence of gold and eagles, it may be fairly evident who this place belongs to.

Around you, is the foyer of the Grand Hall of Justice. A strange mix of efficient solemnity, half-melted and stirred in with the worst parts of Mega-City One, leading into the polished corridors of Legion World. Grand statues of eagles draped with bizarre neon lights, chrome floors leading into grime encrusted alleyways. Above you, statues of eagles sit perched with narrowed, suspicious eyes and wickedly curved beaks. But the underlying structure is there, and it's clear that this place is based on the original framework of the Academy of Law.

You are placed in front of a statue of a man sitting on a throne, topped by an eagle spreading its wings over his head. For those who watched Beeny's Legionnaire Legacy, they would recognise him as Eustace Fargo. Except he doesn't look young and confident, with a strong jaw and steel spine - his skin sags, his hands are withered, his head is stooped. Between one angle and the next, his throne is a wheelchair.

There's a row of badges mounted on a wall, displayed like trophies. All damaged or blemished in one way or another.

JUDGES WHO DIED DEFENDING JUSTICE

KENNER, reads one, half-melted around the edges.
MUTTOX, reads another, twisted into a barely-legible scrap of metal.

And so on it stretches.

There are a number of doorways, all looking promising in their own way. There's no sign of Rico.

What will you do?
➤ Stay and explore.
➤ Investigate the grimy, filthy door plastered with XXX posters. (go to a)
➤ Investigate the steel door labelled "RESYK". There's blood leaking from under it. (go to b)
➤ Investigate the heavy blast door plastered with radiation hazard symbols. (go to c)
➤ Investigate gaping hole in the wall, blowing stinging hot wind. It's pitch black inside, no matter how much you look. (go to d)

________________

[➤a]
You open the door to find yourself in the midst of a crowd, flashing lights in your eyes. The music hits you next, a tidal wave of screeching noise and feedback. Bodies are grinding to the music. It's loud in here. Very loud. It's difficult to see anything past the throng of people. There are women and men dancing on poles, barely wearing anything, although pretty much everyone here is the same. Fishnets, neon spandex, feathers and kneepads. You might suddenly find yourself dressed similarly as well.

Somebody pushes a drink into your hands, but it's hard to tell who. There's an excited muttering about something about to go down.

[➤b]
It's true that Mega-City One recycles every single resource that it has - including human bodies. Made into food paste, plastics, fibres. This version of Resyk is based in truth, but this is a cruelty, not an efficiency. A massive conveyor belt lies in the middle of this hot, belching room. Everything funneled into the gaping maw of Resyk like a steady march, a metal arch shaped like a mouth lined with saws and razor blades for teeth. Inside, bodies are picked apart by machinery, plucked out of the mass by pairs of snapping metal pincers, and delicately ripped apart. It's a cacophony of misery - living human shrieks deafening in its sound against the whirring and clanking of mechanisms.

You land in the midst of a squirming, wiggling pile of bodies, about fifty feet from the looming mouth. People with their brains smashed open, like so much meat. A pair of crushed eyes here, half a foot there. So many bodies entangled together it's hard to see where a person begins and another ends. Your flight ring does not work. There's an observation deck above you, filled with indistinct figures.

[➤c]
The sky is on fire, a flickering apocalypse. Heat washes over your entire body, a stinging, arid smell in the wind. Towering, bizarre buildings stretch endlessly above as people run by, stumbling, screaming. Heads ducked and covered, pushing and shoving each other. Traffic snarls the streets, choked with smoke and the stifling air of panic. Looting, gunshots, glass shattering. People inflicting violence on each other for no other reason than being dumb, panicked animals.

[➤d]
You take a step through the darkness, and there's no ground beneath you. The air is suddenly arid, and dry - a far cry from the climate-controlled comfort of the foyer. You find yourself plummeting through the air, surrounded by pitch blackness, with no way of knowing where or when the ground will hit. Your flight ring does not work.

What will you do?

[➤b]

[unspeakablyevil]

Aku lands on his back in a place he doesn't recognize but he's instantly aware that it is not a place he wants to be. And not because of the screams of agony (these he doesn't mind) but because of the stench — the reek of death and sweat and raw meat hits him like a punch in the face — and because there's something writhing beneath him. His first instinct is to fly up and out of this mess but he finds out quickly that his flight ring is unresponsive.

Jumping up, he looks around in revulsion at the living carnage all around him. Yet more bodies are being shoveled onto the main conveyor belt from side ramps, further bloating the river of carnage as it flows toward a set of bloodstained, metal teeth. It's suddenly clear to him that this is some kind of torture machine slash meat-packing plant. Aku is no stranger to administering creative forms of cruelty and pain, but this is beyond even his scope of evil. He might marvel at the sadistic imagination behind this contraption if he wasn't so utterly repulsed.

Seeing as he's moving closer to the bladed maw up ahead, he begins to move against the current, treading unsteadily over bodies and yet barely getting anywhere. That's when he catches sight of a gathering of figures observing from above.

"TURN THIS THING OFF!" he shouts up at them. "CAN'T YOU SEE I AM ON IT?"

[truefaceofthelaw]

[➤you plead for your miserable life]

The observation deck is filled with people dressed in Judge's uniforms. Rico is at the forefront of the crowd, at the side of a man with salt-and-pepper hair and a gleaming eagle on his chest, whose hand is on his shoulder. Rico looks down, as if seeing you for the first time.

And grins.

In response, Rico gives you a cheery wave and gently tips a lever forwards.

The conveyor belt gives a lurch, and starts inching faster until it settles at a higher speed. The machinery around you groans with the effort, hissing steam and punching pistons. The people with enough consciousness left in them realise this latest misfortune and scream louder, a rising wave of panic that ripples outwards. Some people around you realise that it was your actions that prompted this, and resentful hands clutch at your ankles as you pass by them, pulling down.

You are forced into a light jog.

What will you do?

[➤d]

[mirror_soldier]

Moving through the Grand Hall cautiously, he does explore a bit before moving toward the doors. Taking everything in, it definitely seemed like an extension of Rico. From the eagles to the color scheme and aesthetics. Nothing was familiar enough for him to really know what was normal for this place, and what was changed by the man's influence, but that didn't stop him from being curious about it.

The statue for one, seemed odd. Usually, when the heroes made statues like this for one another, they tended to depict the person at their best, particularly when it was so prominently showcased. But this seemed...vindictive.

Walking up to the wall of badges, he runs his fingers over the edges of a few of the more twisted and damaged of them as he read the names. But none of them sound familiar enough to leave much of an impression, and soon he loses interest, finally moving on to the doorways.

The first one he reaches for is marked with several X's. Not recognizing the markings for what they were, he opened the door just enough to see what was behind it, and almost immediately pulls back away from it again with a disgusted snarl, slamming the door closed. With a disgruntled huff, he turned to look at the other exits, which didn't appear much more promising or appealing.

Or at least the doors didn't, the gaping hole in the wall on the other hand, was a curious thing. Walking closer, he expected to see something past the darkness but none of the light from the room he was in seemed to penetrate it in the slightest. He couldn't even see the floor, and he quickly found out why that was when he passed the thresh hold into nothing.

Suddenly falling into what seemed like an empty abyss, unable to simply fly out of it, he panicked. Moving his arms in circles at super speed, he tryed to slow his decent or create a cushion of air in the case that there was some bottom to this pit.

[truefaceofthelaw]

[➤You step through the hole in the wall.]

It goes on for much longer than you think. To the point where it might seem like there is no end, and your body is on the verge of giving up. But you manage to find the bottom eventually, when the howling winds whipped up around you flatten out, and your quick thinking means that the landing is only mildly jarring.

It’s still pitch black in here. But you can feel some kind of solid ground underneath your boots, bumpy with debris. The air radiates heat, stifling on your senses and prickling at your skin and every hair on the back of your neck. You get the sense that this is a place you would not like to linger. And approximately two meters to your left and low to the ground, there comes a voice, young and fearful, no older than fourteen or fifteen. Their breathing is ragged and pained, every inch a wounded animal.

“It’s not fair!” it screams. “It’s not fair!”

Danny | Open

[ordinarily]

The disorientation hits first. That strange feeling of weightlessness, like your insides are floating around, outside of your control. Like there's no up or down, no sense of direction. There's only you, and the void, before the void slowly starts to take on some color, some shape, and you start falling toward it.

It was less of a void now, and more of an indistinct tunnel. Swirls of green swimming around the edges, peppered with some abstract purple shapes, as you seemingly fall further down the hole. Or is it up? Maybe forward? It's hard to tell.

Eventually, you see a light at the end of the tunnel. A swirling green vortex, brighter than the rest of the void. It's coming in fast, with no way to brace yourself. So you fall into it, into the unknown--

--And get spit out on the floor of what looked like a laboratory. Some kind of basement, covered wall to wall with various gadgets. It was a veritable mess of tech, countertops and shelves lining the entire room, and yet somehow still not enough room for all the technology scattered around the lab. However, there were some things that drew the most attention.

The large metal portal you got spit out from, with that same swirling green vortex in the middle.

The banged-up thermos sitting on the counter, with what looked like the imprint of a face almost sticking out the side.

The newspaper scattered on a different counter, with the headline: "GHOST MENACE STRIKES AGAIN!"

And the metallic hoverboard leaning against the wall, different in design from anything else in the lab.

Of course, there's also the option of simply ignoring all of these things, and just walking out of the lab. The stairs looked normal enough, and the door certainly didn't look like it was riddled with locks. If anything, the door was cracked open, what looked like natural sunlight filtering in through the crack. The only question now was... what do you want to do?

[unrecovered]

Wash skids on the floor and rolls to his feet, ready for-

An empty room. He got dropped through a portal into an empty room. Great.

He relaxes, if only a bit, and looks around. The newspaper catches his eye, and he moves towards it, enough to catch the headline. Oh. This is either Ray's doing or Danny's - either way, he doesn't have time to stand around and read (and honestly, he probably doesn't need to pry right now). He shrugs and turns to see a thermos on another counter.

A thermos with a goddamn face on it.

Yeah, this is definitely Danny's space, and if what Danny had said about the thermos holds true, then there's probably all manner of awful shit in there that he really doesn't need to deal with right now.

He leaves the newspaper and Pandora's thermos right where they are and heads for the stairway, carefully pushing the door open.

[ordinarily]

Upon opening the door, the sight is a... relatively idyllic one. The first floor of what looked like a modern suburban household; a kitchen to the left, a living room directly in the front, stairs leading up to the second floor directly above the basement door, and the exit to the house over to the right. It was very simple, definitely telling of the time period Danny came from.

But the sight was made complete by the family in view.

"DANNY!" Someone yelled as they ran down the stairs; a girl with long orange hair, who looked a couple of years older than Danny. "Have you seen my paper?!"

"Uh. No." Danny chimed in, lounging on the couch in the living room. Looking very much like a lazy teenager, as he channel surfed with the remote in one hand, and picked at a bag of junk food with the other. He looked away from the TV, toward the girl. "I've been watching TV for like two hours, why would I have seen your paper?"

"Because I left it in the living room?" She snapped back.

"Apparently you didn't." He said, not even hiding how he was goading her.

"Danny, I know where I left my paper."

"And yet you can't find it, Jazz."

"Have you considered maybe helping me look?"

"Yes." He said, pausing for a moment. Then suddenly turning his gaze right back to the TV. "And now I'm not."

"Ugh."

She stormed back up the stairs, seemingly in a huff. Danny going right back to being super lazy, and channel surfing. At least, until he noticed Wash standing at the door, and stopped mid-grab.

"... Uh." He glanced up to the stairs. "Hey Jazz? Did mom and dad bring someone over or something?"

[unspeakablyevil]

After landing unceremoniously on his face with his cape thrown over his head, Aku picks himself up in a daze and considers his surroundings. Fortunately, no one had been there to witness his arrival and nothing has jumped out to attack him yet. He's surrounded by a lot of things, very few of which he understands as he looks around, except for the words on the newspaper. Yes, that gives him quite a big clue as to where he might be. Ghosts, laboratories, portals. This all hearkens back to Danny's big rant from the other day.

Rather then spend another minute in this underground lab, Aku marches up the stairs and brazenly throws open the door. Whomever might be home would be treated to the sight of a 7' tall demon emerging from the basement.

[ordinarily]

The sight was pretty unimpressive, all things considered. A two-story suburban home, very appropriate for an entitled white kid like Danny. It had all the modern amenities expected of a 21st century home, the entire place so aggressively normal that it could almost make one wonder if Danny really did come from a haunted town.

But Aku wouldn't have had long to wonder any of these things. Not with the humming ecto-gun aimed at his face, and the fat man in an orange jumpsuit all too happy to wield it.

"HONEY, WE HAVE A CODE GREEN! LOCK THE PLACE DOWN!"

"YOU'VE GOT IT, JACK!"

And instantly, the doors and windows seemed to all be slammed shut. Metal shutters appearing out of nowhere, a klaxon alarm blaring all around. The entire house seemed to come to life, weaponry coming out of every crack, every surface seemingly coated in some kind of green glow.

"Any last words, ghost?"

Bunnymund - Open

[bringinghopewithme]

Through Chronoblivion's outer shells they plunged, facing each others' fears, confronting each others' terrible pasts, learning more than they wanted to know, losing something of their selves along the way, in some sad cases.

They do this, plunge through, giving it everything they have, and Chronoblivion goes down in a battle to end all battles. And Bunnymund goes back to his Earth with the sense of yet another job protecting the children of his world - and now, the children of the universe, once he finds his way back to the many ones he now knows need their protection - done well.

Later, he didn't remember his return as the time when the decline began.

It didn't happen with a nuclear holocaust or a plague or a disaster. The Yellowstone supervolcano didn't erupt and engulf the world in ash and famine. The ice caps didn't melt, halting the ocean's currents and freezing the world in a new age of ice.

Things went wrong, slowly, quietly, on small, intimate levels. And they went wrong everywhere, and they went wrong quickly. The small cruelties from one person to another that escaped even the Guardians' notice piled up, like ants swarming a dying animal.

By the time they realized it was happening, it was too late to stop. Too many cruel people had made more of themselves by their casual acts of disregard for each other. The ones who remained kind were too busy trying to save their own soft hearts to go the step beyond and flourish, to pass down their traditions and their beliefs to their own children. Anyone whose soul was a fertile ground for love and beauty did not receive them as seeds to cultivate within themselves.

And on top of it, the sky continued to darken with smoke, as passion for numbers of production and rates of profit outstripped passion for green things, for wonder and peace and any good thing that could not be sold.

The children stopped believing.

The others died. The Guardians, his friends, the family left to him after he'd lost his first one, faded out of existence. With them went the things they protected, even before the green world began to die.

And he was already too weak to do anything to stop it when it did.

Mother Nature, devastated by her childrens' abuse, sank into a torpor. She gave them only what they could forcefully engineer out of Grandmother Earth's devastated soil to barely sustain themselves. In her grief for her first child, the earth ceased to listen to him. She no longer cared to offer a hand in protecting what he wanted to protect.

The children opened their eyes to grey dawns with nothing in them but hope.

Nothing left to them but hope at all. For another dawn where, maybe, something - something besides this life might happen -

But this life is dull and repetitive. Everything in it is known. Nothing is novel, nothing inspires a good dream. Stories have become irrelevant, because no good story ever comes true.

Those who haven't died of the sheer lack of anything worth living for are able to survive without fun. Without joy. The rare good memory vanishes, in time. Everyone dies with their mind a cloud of demented, grey sameness. It's a byproduct of the poisoned world, kept alive only because the sun continues to shine bright enough - continues to shine because he continues to live.

Eos' light remains in his weakened, fragile body, enlightening, and enlivening him. Sentience, and life - the only powers left to him.

And that life is far from invulnerable.

He's made so many enemies, in his long, contentious life. And even if he hadn't, even if he'd befriended everyone he ever met, the number grows every day of beings - mortal and immortal - who, if they knew that killing him would dim the sun and kill the world, would do it.

Because this existence is terrible. But it's all he can give them, now. It's all he can give the children.

All he has to do is stay alive.

In a deadly, desperate world where he is the smallest of the small, the only soft and vulnerable heart left that remembers what it was like when this world had protectors that nurtured small, vulnerable things.

Sometimes, he still checks in. Sometimes he makes the treacherous, deadly journey to places within earshot of children, of the bent adults they grow into, to hear what they're talking about, to learn what's in their hearts in this world where no one can look out for them anymore.

More than once, he hears the same conversation, between people who've manage to glean awareness that once, things were Different. The world was richer, more vibrant. The world offered them things that inspired wonder. Their memories were treasures that could never be stolen. Even in the depths of the darkest years, someone could find a way to make fun. Dreams, beautiful ones, came to them, as if from a storyteller who knew what their hearts needed.

Once upon a time, they had all these things. Not this time, though.

Inevitably, the conversation ends the same way. "Well," one says, chewing on the drab, wonderless future. "We still have hope."

"Hope for what?"

"I don't know. But we still have it."

And that's all he can do anymore.

---

The hole in the desert that leads to the cavern where all life was born lies open like a yawning grave. Inside, not even the dust of the desiccated trees and plants remain, but there's still much to notice.

1

The standing stones in this place are the only sign left of life. Once, their carvings must have been richly detailed, but now they are weathered and eroded, some stones cracked and fallen, but if one looks closely, one can still tell that the carvings are of thousands of rabbits, busily engaged in work and play.

In among the weathered carvings, infrequent, but stark, are fresh images. Recent carvings, tiny and shallow, and these ones are not of rabbits, but hummingbirds - snowflakes - curves and swirls, and intricate rigid geometric patterns.

They increase in frequency down one of the many gaping tunnels leading deeper into the dark earth.

2

But it's not entirely dark - there's a slight glow down one of the other tunnels, like sunlight is pouring through a hole to the sky deep, deep into the tunnel. Which makes no sense, given that the sky is clouded over with grey. And yet, the air from that tunnel is perceptibly warmer, with a green scent that is smelled nowhere else in this world.

3

There's only the barest scrambling sound, and a puff of dust hovers before a third gaping tunnel.

It couldn't be more than a fleeing rodent. Their tracks are all over this dusty cavern. Only a closer look will tell that the fresh prints at the mouth of the tunnel are not those of a bushrat or hopping mouse, but a small - very small - rabbit.