Ryder awoke with a start. It was dark, and his face felt cold. He wasn't what one would call a light sleeper, but he always knew when his alarm was supposed to go off, he just... chose to ignore it. Sleep was always better than the alternative. This time, though, it hadn't gone off, and it felt like it hadn't gone off for a while. Actually, it felt like, he hadn't gone to sleep at all, he just... was.
As he shifted, the cold against his cheek began to hurt, like he'd been laying against something uncomfortable for hours but hadn't realized it because, well, he'd been asleep. Pulling his arms down to lift himself up, the sleeves of his sweater pulled back and he was startled again. Not because he was in his sweater - he fell asleep in yesterdays clothes all the time, pajamas seemed like a waste of time and fabric to him - but for the reason why his face had been so cold. It felt like he'd been sleeping on a metal surface.
He jumped! Throwing himself into a standing position with the grunt of someone finding a spider on their shoulder, he nearly jumped again when he saw that the pitch black continued beneath his feet. There was simply nothing there except more bodies. None of them looked familiar, and in his momentary panic he wondered whether they were dead, but the groan of someone else waking-up, the contented sigh of another, and a steady count of expanding chests put him at ease. They started to get up and see the nothing around them, too, extending in every direction for an eternity.
How could he tell that there was nothing and not that he was just blind or in the dark? There was a light. A faint, gold-ish light, like that from a candle, coming from behind him. As he noted its existence, it grew brighter, something more akin to a television set, and what channel was it on? 64 - Creepy Robo-Lady from the Future.
"Welcome, group number 1,836."
"Her" voice reverberated in the darkness. She sounded clear, but her yellow image was disrupted with static, wavering in and out of connection. She was attractive in a strictly scientific sense. Her portions were really symmetrical, and she was at that perfect stage of old enough to know what she was doing and young enough to actually do it, but Ryder was still kind of stuck on the fact that she was, at best, a hologram. He didn't know who she was or what she wanted, but in his book, any time you woke up in the dark with a bunch of strangers and a woman who looked like the sci-fi version of a ghost, you were either dreaming, or it was a bad spot to be in. Especially if you were the one-thousand either-hundred thirty-sixth group to find yourself there.
"You have been chosen," she continued, "as Guardians who will save Disney from the impending darkness that haunts this land."
With that, light blue shards lifted from the "floor" and expanded a little larger than a full-grown man, reminding Ryder of Superman's cryostasis chamber. Light emanated from them, color shifting within like they were filled with more than should naturally fit in such a small space, and he knew - he couldn't say how he knew, but he did - that they were portals, portals to the world of Disney no doubt. He thought it strange he couldn't see the worlds through those shifting shades of blue, but he got the feeling it was because they were currently locked out.
Shaking his head immediately, trying to clear the dust still hanging around in there. They weren't locked out, they were locked in, remember? No, he needed to get his head straight before he got sucked into this weirdness, and he turned to the woman when a wall sprouted from the ground just as the crystals had, this one filled with what looked like weapons of a kind or another. Daggers, shields, wands, guns, books - he was a firm believer that the pen was mightier than the sword, so a part of him secretly appreciated that as he took in the picture before him. She had said Guardians. Did she mean for them to fight? Glancing back without any real commitment to taking in the people around him, he knew they were all younger-looking, sprinkled with a couple of adults, but still all young in his mind.
"Guardians?" he asked.
She continued as if he hadn't spoken, but he thought he might have seen a small nod that she had at least heard him. She didn't look like just a recording, but what did he know? This was the first time he'd seen a hologram person - real, recording, sentient, whatever - in person, in his life. "These will be your weapons with which you will fight the darkness. Each book will teach you how to wield your chosen weapon. As soon as you finish this step, you may continue with choosing your Guide."
His mouth felt dry. It had been hanging open since he'd woken up - heck, he drooled in his sleep, it could've been open longer - but taking in the sight, somehow knowing he couldn't go back as soon as he picked one up and that he might not come back if he did, that this was a serious decision... it struck some chord in his mind and resounded throughout his body, sending it singing with a confounding clarity. Knowing this made half of the wall become blurry, mentally, that he'd decided against that portion, which just so happened to be the more pen-side of the mightiness equation. If he was going to be fighting - wha'd she say? - darkness, then he wanted something a little sturdier and darkness-piercing. He stepped closer, his feet naturally angling toward the swords and legitimate-looking tools of war, his eyes darting from one to the next, uncertain what he was choosing, what he was doing, what he was even thinking. It was a weird sensation, just take his word on it.
Without consciously doing so, he narrowed his choices down as he got closer, standing beside the golden woman now - albeit a few, safe feet away still, but parallel by some definition. His attention was vaguely on her as she said, almost like it was directly to him, "If you have any questions or doubts, you may ask me and I will answer to the best of my ability."
Like everything else since he'd woken up, it was strange; he only had one question. "Darkness?"
He was only partially listening as she answered him. Ryder could feel it when she adjusted her attention to the group - some part of him knew when he asked that the question was meant for the others more than himself in any case. His focus was on the wall, and one sword in particular. It was shaped something similar to the one Frodo had that lit when the orcs were nearby. The silver of it shone much like the light from the crystals and took up all of his sight as the rest of the wall metaphorically vanished with his outstretched hand, it reaching back, calling out to him. Even before he griped it's hilt, the metal seemed to melt and remold itself to his grip. Pulling it off the wall, the blade bent around his fist into a fatally sharp circle except the central column which still had the leather handle, and he clenched tighter. It felt right, and the increased pressure seemed to set it off again. The thing encircled his fist entirely, expanding, ballooning, and eventually, sitting in his palm was a near-perfect sphere, seams coursing throughout it's surface in geometric designs.
It was a soccerball. Ryder's favorite sport. It. Felt. Right.
Balancing it on his hip, he turned back to the group, giving them a serious look-over. Seeing their confused expressions, worry, anger, and everything else they might have been feeling reflected in each persons eyes, it became too much for him. He looked away, a boyish grin filling his bashful face with the nervous giggle he couldn't withhold. "Heh," he said to them, shifting the ball from one hand to the other, "If it's a dream, I'm in. If it's not, it doesn't seem like I got much choice but to pretend it is, am I right?" He chuckled, still nervous. It was a little too true to be a good joke.
He turned to the Princess Leia figure - giving himself another chuckle since Disney had recently purchased the rights to Lucas Film and building his confidence back up with the nerdy thought - and lifted his head to her in an abrupt fashion. It was a signature move of his that pointed someone out of a crowd ambiguously, called the Chin-Check.
"So. Group 18-36?"
