Traversing Aether

[Gwazi Magnum]

The Doctor glanced over at the drawer, before rifling through it himself. 'You're right.....and assuming that we only have one life, we may as well live it right. And by that, I don't mean taking up knitting or exercise. I mean...' He looked at the statue that The Master had pointed at. 'Has anyone tried moving the statue? Perhaps that could be our way out of here...Maybe, just maybe, it could activate some kind of locking mechanism, and open the Door. Unless our captor was stupid enough to leave his keys in the drawer.

That said, it would probably take the two of us to move it.'

Alan found his source of safety. The Light which inhabited all, was at his finger tips. Whatever though, noise or not, it'd keep him safe as a hard tipped shoe met the glass, seemingly removing the first aid kit and the lights, one placed in his pocket as he turned the other on, continuing his hopefully short trek deeper into the lions den. "Safety in Light. Repel the Darkness."​

The Master having only bothered to take a quick look through the Drawers looked back up and said "That is a good point. It's at least worth testing before we go search crazy". The Master then stood up to head towards the statue before suddenly noticing something from the corner of his eye. He pointed to Alan wandering off and said "That guy seems to be onto something" before nudging the Doctor and Yuriko to follow. Noticing he seemed to be locked off in a room of his own he pondered "Now could we possibly get in there?".

@The Silver Paladin

 

[OrlandoBloomers]

PROLOGUE

---

Silence.

In this world, it was a commodity as rare and as valuable as fuel and water. The roar of engines revving, of tires screeching against sand and rock, of factory silos working tirelessly to mine and pump out guzzoline for the world's cars... on a normal day, you'd be hardpressed to escape the distant din of the wasteland, no matter how far you drove. That was if you were lucky.

If you were unlucky, you heard those sounds up close.

Just because silence was scarce, though, didn't mean it didn't exist. There were whole plains of it out there, far away... and if you knew where to look, chances were you could reach out and take some, just some, of that silence for yourself. In that moment, there was no wasteland. This scorched earth all men walked upon, this world of fire and blood... didn't exist. When silence washed over you like a rush of water, in that single, fleeting moment... you were free.

The real trouble with silence wasn't finding it, though.

The trouble was holding onto it once you did. Because just like water, and fuel, when you had silence... chances were it wasn't gonna last long.

Max.

Here they come again.

You promised you'd save us, Max.

Like ghosts, conjured up from the drudges. The recesses. They swarmed, burrowed into the black matter of his brain.

YoupromisedMaxyoupromisedMaxyou'dpromisedyou'dMaxMaxMaxMaxpromisedyou'd-

Whispers of an age long past. The ashes of the dead phoenix, except this phoenix never rose anew. He told himself they were in his head. They could not hurt him.

-youpromisedyoupromisedyoupromisedyoupromisedHello?


"......."

The youthful voice cut in above the cacophonous whisper, bringing the past's badgering to an abrupt halt, and it was time to go.

Because here they came again. The ghosts not of his mind, but of the desert. They were not dead. They could hurt him. He could hear them, the drumbeat rising in pace and rhythm, vicious souls howling with glee and the thrill of the hunt. They wanted nothing more than to soak in his blood. To be witnessed.

A war party.

"WE ARE AWAITEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEED!"

"HIS HEAD! HIS HEAD GOES ON MY BONNET!"

"BY OUR DEEDS WE HONOR HIM! RIIIIIIIDING ETERNAL! IMMORTAN!"

"IMMORTAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!"

VRMMMMMMMM

The Interceptor's powerful V8 engine roared to life, exhaust pumping out thick plumes of smoke as the raggedy man scrambled behind the wheel. The pursuit vehicle's four wheels spun up a storm, kicking up clouds of dust in their wake, and the car lurched into movement, taking off down a steady incline and picking up momentum as it went. He had a head start, but it wouldn't matter much. The warboys' buggies were built for navigating the sand, for chasing down their prey. The man called Max knew this all too well.

He was not gonna be a fucking bloodbank again.

His only hope was outmaneuvering them, and he was confident he could do it. He'd been a road warrior, once. And he knew how they drove. Wild swerves. Mad gambits. He just had to make sure none of them paid off.

Farewell, silence. Hello, normalcy.

It wasn't long before the scout vehicle was on him. Good. The more they split up, the easier it was to pick them off. The buggy made its first mistake quickly enough, and Max made sure it'd be the last. He slammed his foot down on the Interceptor's pedal, veered the wheel sharply to his left, and rammed the car viciously, the sand's poor traction aiding him in running it clear off the makeshift road. It nicked its wheel on a rocky outcropping, spun violently and crashed into a ditch, the sound of tearing metal and burning rubber just barely masking the cries of the deceased warboy's brethren as they advanced from the rear.

"MEDIOCAR!"

"MEDIOCAAAAAAAAAAAAR!!"

Max stepped on it.

Throughout all this, he felt the throbbing pain in his stomach grow, like something was churning around in there. He'd had it all day, but hadn't paid it much thought. Tapeworm, maybe? When your diet consisted of lizards, rats and occasionally a handful of maggots you fished from a rotting corpse, you learned to cope with illness. Problem was, it was getting worse. Getting distracting.

That didn't stop him from dealing with the second vehicle to come at him in short order. The war buggy leveled out alongside him, its driver absolutely bouncing in his seat as he stuck his head out his window to leer at Max viciously. Max countered the grin by sticking a sawed-off shotgun out the window, leveling the barrel with the warboy's face and shooting him point-blank in the head, sending a splatter of sinew back to paint the car. The vehicle, now down a driver, veered off-course and straight over a steep drop, tumbling through the air with a strange grace before crashing down far below.

Two down. Now he just had to--

"Gnh-!"

Max grunted in sudden pain, almost losing control of the steering wheel as one hand shot down to clutch at his stomach. This wasn't no tapeworm. This was... different. It felt strange, like... like...

Like silence.

And silence, and blackness, was what overtook him.

---

Max.


He didn't know where he was. Was this it? The plains of silence at last? When he opened his eyes, what awaited him? Would he walk over the white hills to see the gates to that which was lost, an old, dead world, or would he go right back to...

Reality.

Wake up, Max. They're waiting for you. Wake up, wake up wake up wake up wake-

He should've known better. As soon as his senses returned to him, he found himself bombarded; sensory overload, his neurons on fire. The ringing in his ears. The fire in his veins. Pulsing. Pulsing. Pulsing. It was agonizing. He couldn't see, couldn't breath, panic briefly taking hold of him as he staggered to his feet in a rush, fingers flexing erratically. Wheezing, raspy breaths heaved in and out of his lungs. His eyes, wild and skittish around the edges like those of a startled horse, darted around the room, too fast to really register anything. His brain throbbed like a drum, rattling around his skull, his heart threatening to crack through his ribcage like a jackhammer. For him, this was a common occurrence, system shock and information overload addling his mind, a mind already fractured and broken by the desert. He was unable to process it, stress and anxiety leading to a momentary panic attack, the only relief attained through continuing with those shallow, uneven breaths. It was temporary. He just had to wait it out, wait out the ringing and the fire and the pain and the shock. It'd pass. It always did.

The attack gradually began to fade, the rise and fall of his chest normalizing, the pounding in his ears starting to calm. He found himself by a wall in the room, one hand clutching at it for support as the panic passed, gruff exterior reasserting itself. And then, after that, he simply observed. He didn't know where he was. He didn't know who these people were. Better to watch and learn than talk meaninglessly, he figured. This felt like a dream, but he'd seen stranger.

Well, maybe not. The way these people talked, the stuff they were saying... talk of lawsuits and novels... it was almost like they came from before the world went to hell. And that didn't make sense.

Since this lot seemed as clueless as he was, he didn't bother asking about it; obviously there was something else going on here. Hell if he knew what, and hell if he cared. His priority was what it always was, what it always had to be-- survival. One thing, however, caught his eye, and it gave him a question he knew he could ask.

He knew just who to ask it of, too.

He took care to avoid the bulk of the other room's occupants, regarding them with suspicious, mistrustful eyes as he navigated the floor in such a manner that he steered around them, keeping generally out of sight and making himself seem innocuous. Innocuous, that is, until he suddenly grabbed Nathan by the lapels of his jacket, aiming to slam him roughly down onto the table he'd been leaning against and pin him there with both arms, not outright striking the boy but not much caring if the maneuver hurt him either. He addressed him with a low, almost feral growl, eyes equally as animalistic. His strength was impressive, reflecting his powerful build, and it seemed he knew just how to apply it most effectively.

"You. You, were in there."

He sharply thrust a finger over towards the sliding metal door, the same one Alan had disappeared through. His voice, harsh, gruff and low-pitched to the point of almost incoherence, still bore a fairly strong Australian accent after all these years.

"The rest of us weren't. Tell me what you know or I'll put you back through that door myself."

Waiting for a reply, he restrengthened his grip with both arms and glanced back over his shoulder, eyes rapidly scanning the room until they settled on the forms of Picard and Captain America. He'd seen them step in when the man with the gun was pumping this runt for questions. The woman had form and technique he couldn't deal with on his best day, too.

"Keep back. All of you. Anyone takes a step in this direction and I'll break his neck."

He wouldn't, but the rest of them didn't know that. And he needed a way to keep them off his back while he got his answers. After that, they could do what they liked. The boy didn't strike him as the type to answer questions politely, so this was how it had to be. No matter how the pacifists among them felt about it.

@Atomyk @Jeremi @BarrenThin @WHOMEVER​

 

[Mighty Roman]

The Doctor decided to let his nemesis take the lead for a brief moment. 'Well, it appears our new friend has found something.' He followed The Master, but instead walked almost in front of Alan, slowing his progress on wherever he intended to go. You seem remarkably sure of yourself for someone who's been abducted by beings of immense resources and locked in a room with two Time Lords.'' But seeing Max threaten Nathan was enough to make the ragged Time Lord snap.

'Put that man down! We mean you no harm. Just put him down, don't hurt anyone and I'll get us all out of here alive, I promise.'
A pleading look entered The Doctor's eyes. Trying to appeal to Max's 'better nature' perhaps. 'Please...'

@Gen. Gwazi Senpai @ResistingTheEnlightened @OrlandoBloomers

 

[Takumi]

That was...weird. Just pretending to be drunk, huh? Well, not like something like that hadn't happened before. Huang Rong decided to follow the "drunk" guy to the door. Brute forcing it probably wouldn't get them anywhere.

And before she could get any real thought on the door done, some hunk of metal was getting tossed back and forth like a little kid's toy. From what was said she could gather it was dangerous, but she wasn't quite sure how. Shoot suggested a projectile of some sort, but no arrow in existence could fit inside that thing. Ah, whatever. Until they bothered her, it wasn't her problem.

She shrugged. "I don't know. But there's not a lot in here, so I think we should probably just try to get out. This door is probably our best bet, but that boy over there seems to think it's dangerous," she said, pointing at Nathan.

@Lizzy @Gummi Bunnies



​

"From the looks of it we're in some type of facility. Why exactly, I'm not so sure. But, seeing as no guards have come to talk to us, if the owner of this place is the reason why we're here then something may be wrong. Especially with what I heard of there being dead people in that room that man went into." Shion replied while motioning towards the door Alan went through.

"I'm sick of damn facilities, that's for sure. And the hell is with some of these people?" Nezumi spoke up then with a shake of his head.

"And since people have already looked through whatever is on that desk there might not be anything else of use to find...unless they might have missed something." Shion spoke in a thoughtful tone.

PROLOGUE

---

Silence.

In this world, it was a commodity as rare and as valuable as fuel and water. The roar of engines revving, of tires screeching against sand and rock, of factory silos working tirelessly to mine and pump out guzzoline for the world's cars... on a normal day, you'd be hardpressed to escape the distant din of the wasteland, no matter how far you drove. That was if you were lucky.

If you were unlucky, you heard those sounds up close.

Just because silence was scarce, though, didn't mean it didn't exist. There were whole plains of it out there, far away... and if you knew where to look, chances were you could reach out and take some, just some, of that silence for yourself. In that moment, there was no wasteland. This scorched earth all men walked upon, this world of fire and blood... didn't exist. When silence washed over you like a rush of water, in that single, fleeting moment... you were free.

The real trouble with silence wasn't finding it, though.

The trouble was holding onto it once you did. Because just like water, and fuel, when you had silence... chances were it wasn't gonna last long.

Max.

Here they come again.

You promised you'd save us, Max.

Like ghosts, conjured up from the drudges. The recesses. They swarmed, burrowed into the black matter of his brain.

YoupromisedMaxyoupromisedMaxyou'dpromisedyou'dMaxMaxMaxMaxpromisedyou'd-

Whispers of an age long past. The ashes of the dead phoenix, except this phoenix never rose anew. He told himself they were in his head. They could not hurt him.

-youpromisedyoupromisedyoupromisedyoupromisedHello?


"......."

The youthful voice cut in above the cacophonous whisper, bringing the past's badgering to an abrupt halt, and it was time to go.

Because here they came again. The ghosts not of his mind, but of the desert. They were not dead. They could hurt him. He could hear them, the drumbeat rising in pace and rhythm, vicious souls howling with glee and the thrill of the hunt. They wanted nothing more than to soak in his blood. To be witnessed.

A war party.

"WE ARE AWAITEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEED!"

"HIS HEAD! HIS HEAD GOES ON MY BONNET!"

"BY OUR DEEDS WE HONOR HIM! RIIIIIIIDING ETERNAL! IMMORTAN!"

"IMMORTAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!"

VRMMMMMMMM

The Interceptor's powerful V8 engine roared to life, exhaust pumping out thick plumes of smoke as the raggedy man scrambled behind the wheel. The pursuit vehicle's four wheels spun up a storm, kicking up clouds of dust in their wake, and the car lurched into movement, taking off down a steady incline and picking up momentum as it went. He had a head start, but it wouldn't matter much. The warboys' buggies were built for navigating the sand, for chasing down their prey. The man called Max knew this all too well.

He was not gonna be a fucking bloodbank again.

His only hope was outmaneuvering them, and he was confident he could do it. He'd been a road warrior, once. And he knew how they drove. Wild swerves. Mad gambits. He just had to make sure none of them paid off.

Farewell, silence. Hello, normalcy.

It wasn't long before the scout vehicle was on him. Good. The more they split up, the easier it was to pick them off. The buggy made its first mistake quickly enough, and Max made sure it'd be the last. He slammed his foot down on the Interceptor's pedal, veered the wheel sharply to his left, and rammed the car viciously, the sand's poor traction aiding him in running it clear off the makeshift road. It nicked its wheel on a rocky outcropping, spun violently and crashed into a ditch, the sound of tearing metal and burning rubber just barely masking the cries of the deceased warboy's brethren as they advanced from the rear.

"MEDIOCAR!"

"MEDIOCAAAAAAAAAAAAR!!"

Max stepped on it.

Throughout all this, he felt the throbbing pain in his stomach grow, like something was churning around in there. He'd had it all day, but hadn't paid it much thought. Tapeworm, maybe? When your diet consisted of lizards, rats and occasionally a handful of maggots you fished from a rotting corpse, you learned to cope with illness. Problem was, it was getting worse. Getting distracting.

That didn't stop him from dealing with the second vehicle to come at him in short order. The war buggy leveled out alongside him, its driver absolutely bouncing in his seat as he stuck his head out his window to leer at Max viciously. Max countered the grin by sticking a sawed-off shotgun out the window, leveling the barrel with the warboy's face and shooting him point-blank in the head, sending a splatter of sinew back to paint the car. The vehicle, now down a driver, veered off-course and straight over a steep drop, tumbling through the air with a strange grace before crashing down far below.

Two down. Now he just had to--

"Gnh-!"

Max grunted in sudden pain, almost losing control of the steering wheel as one hand shot down to clutch at his stomach. This wasn't no tapeworm. This was... different. It felt strange, like... like...

Like silence.

And silence, and blackness, was what overtook him.

---

Max.


He didn't know where he was. Was this it? The plains of silence at last? When he opened his eyes, what awaited him? Would he walk over the white hills to see the gates to that which was lost, an old, dead world, or would he go right back to...

Reality.

Wake up, Max. They're waiting for you. Wake up, wake up wake up wake up wake-

He should've known better. As soon as his senses returned to him, he found himself bombarded; sensory overload, his neurons on fire. The ringing in his ears. The fire in his veins. Pulsing. Pulsing. Pulsing. It was agonizing. He couldn't see, couldn't breath, panic briefly taking hold of him as he staggered to his feet in a rush, fingers flexing erratically. Wheezing, raspy breaths heaved in and out of his lungs. His eyes, wild and skittish around the edges like those of a startled horse, darted around the room, too fast to really register anything. His brain throbbed like a drum, rattling around his skull, his heart threatening to crack through his ribcage like a jackhammer. For him, this was a common occurrence, system shock and information overload addling his mind, a mind already fractured and broken by the desert. He was unable to process it, stress and anxiety leading to a momentary panic attack, the only relief attained through continuing with those shallow, uneven breaths. It was temporary. He just had to wait it out, wait out the ringing and the fire and the pain and the shock. It'd pass. It always did.

The attack gradually began to fade, the rise and fall of his chest normalizing, the pounding in his ears starting to calm. He found himself by a wall in the room, one hand clutching at it for support as the panic passed, gruff exterior reasserting itself. And then, after that, he simply observed. He didn't know where he was. He didn't know who these people were. Better to watch and learn than talk meaninglessly, he figured. This felt like a dream, but he'd seen stranger.

Well, maybe not. The way these people talked, the stuff they were saying... talk of lawsuits and novels... it was almost like they came from before the world went to hell. And that didn't make sense.

Since this lot seemed as clueless as he was, he didn't bother asking about it; obviously there was something else going on here. Hell if he knew what, and hell if he cared. His priority was what it always was, what it always had to be-- survival. One thing, however, caught his eye, and it gave him a question he knew he could ask.

He knew just who to ask it of, too.

He took care to avoid the bulk of the other room's occupants, regarding them with suspicious, mistrustful eyes as he navigated the floor in such a manner that he steered around them, keeping generally out of sight and making himself seem innocuous. Innocuous, that is, until he suddenly grabbed Nathan by the lapels of his jacket, aiming to slam him roughly down onto the table he'd been leaning against and pin him there with both arms, not outright striking the boy but not much caring if the maneuver hurt him either. He addressed him with a low, almost feral growl, eyes equally as animalistic. His strength was impressive, reflecting his powerful build, and it seemed he knew just how to apply it most effectively.

"You. You, were in there."

He sharply thrust a finger over towards the sliding metal door, the same one Alan had disappeared through. His voice, harsh, gruff and low-pitched to the point of almost incoherence, still bore a fairly strong Australian accent after all these years.

"The rest of us weren't. Tell me what you know or I'll put you back through that door myself."

Waiting for a reply, he restrengthened his grip with both arms and glanced back over his shoulder, eyes rapidly scanning the room until they settled on the forms of Picard and Captain America. He'd seen them step in when the man with the gun was pumping this runt for questions. The woman had form and technique he couldn't deal with on his best day, too.

"Keep back. All of you. Anyone takes a step in this direction and I'll break his neck."

He wouldn't, but the rest of them didn't know that. And he needed a way to keep them off his back while he got his answers. After that, they could do what they liked. The boy didn't strike him as the type to answer questions politely, so this was how it had to be. No matter how the pacifists among them felt about it.

@Atomyk @Jeremi @BarrenThin @WHOMEVER​

Okay, so that happened.

"...."

"I think as long as some of the nut jobs here don't threaten us we should be fine, Shion." Nezumi said to the white haired boy, who frowned at the thought of someone-anyone really-threatening Nezumi again.

@Kaykay @Gummi Bunnies @peeps

 

[Gwazi Magnum]

The Master suddenly spun around, completely ignoring his prank due to the sudden commotion caused by Max. He got an evil grin on his face again walking past the Doctor and straight towards Max as he mockingly lectured "I wouldn't worry Old Doctor. This man doesn't look like he could hurt someone if he even wanted to! I mean look at him and all that gear! Clearly he's compensating for something... Maybe thought he'd be the tough kid on the block by picking on the weak kid?". It was at this point he patted Max on the shoulder and said "Listen boy, we all know you want to look tough. But is getting 20 other people to attack you the way to do it? Why not be useful and use that 'toughness' to finding a way out, huh?".

@Mighty Roman @OrlandoBloomers

 

[Cromartie Sarkissian]

PROLOGUE

---

Silence.

In this world, it was a commodity as rare and as valuable as fuel and water. The roar of engines revving, of tires screeching against sand and rock, of factory silos working tirelessly to mine and pump out guzzoline for the world's cars... on a normal day, you'd be hardpressed to escape the distant din of the wasteland, no matter how far you drove. That was if you were lucky.

If you were unlucky, you heard those sounds up close.

Just because silence was scarce, though, didn't mean it didn't exist. There were whole plains of it out there, far away... and if you knew where to look, chances were you could reach out and take some, just some, of that silence for yourself. In that moment, there was no wasteland. This scorched earth all men walked upon, this world of fire and blood... didn't exist. When silence washed over you like a rush of water, in that single, fleeting moment... you were free.

The real trouble with silence wasn't finding it, though.

The trouble was holding onto it once you did. Because just like water, and fuel, when you had silence... chances were it wasn't gonna last long.

Max.

Here they come again.

You promised you'd save us, Max.

Like ghosts, conjured up from the drudges. The recesses. They swarmed, burrowed into the black matter of his brain.

YoupromisedMaxyoupromisedMaxyou'dpromisedyou'dMaxMaxMaxMaxpromisedyou'd-

Whispers of an age long past. The ashes of the dead phoenix, except this phoenix never rose anew. He told himself they were in his head. They could not hurt him.

-youpromisedyoupromisedyoupromisedyoupromisedHello?


"......."

The youthful voice cut in above the cacophonous whisper, bringing the past's badgering to an abrupt halt, and it was time to go.

Because here they came again. The ghosts not of his mind, but of the desert. They were not dead. They could hurt him. He could hear them, the drumbeat rising in pace and rhythm, vicious souls howling with glee and the thrill of the hunt. They wanted nothing more than to soak in his blood. To be witnessed.

A war party.

"WE ARE AWAITEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEED!"

"HIS HEAD! HIS HEAD GOES ON MY BONNET!"

"BY OUR DEEDS WE HONOR HIM! RIIIIIIIDING ETERNAL! IMMORTAN!"

"IMMORTAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!"

VRMMMMMMMM

The Interceptor's powerful V8 engine roared to life, exhaust pumping out thick plumes of smoke as the raggedy man scrambled behind the wheel. The pursuit vehicle's four wheels spun up a storm, kicking up clouds of dust in their wake, and the car lurched into movement, taking off down a steady incline and picking up momentum as it went. He had a head start, but it wouldn't matter much. The warboys' buggies were built for navigating the sand, for chasing down their prey. The man called Max knew this all too well.

He was not gonna be a fucking bloodbank again.

His only hope was outmaneuvering them, and he was confident he could do it. He'd been a road warrior, once. And he knew how they drove. Wild swerves. Mad gambits. He just had to make sure none of them paid off.

Farewell, silence. Hello, normalcy.

It wasn't long before the scout vehicle was on him. Good. The more they split up, the easier it was to pick them off. The buggy made its first mistake quickly enough, and Max made sure it'd be the last. He slammed his foot down on the Interceptor's pedal, veered the wheel sharply to his left, and rammed the car viciously, the sand's poor traction aiding him in running it clear off the makeshift road. It nicked its wheel on a rocky outcropping, spun violently and crashed into a ditch, the sound of tearing metal and burning rubber just barely masking the cries of the deceased warboy's brethren as they advanced from the rear.

"MEDIOCAR!"

"MEDIOCAAAAAAAAAAAAR!!"

Max stepped on it.

Throughout all this, he felt the throbbing pain in his stomach grow, like something was churning around in there. He'd had it all day, but hadn't paid it much thought. Tapeworm, maybe? When your diet consisted of lizards, rats and occasionally a handful of maggots you fished from a rotting corpse, you learned to cope with illness. Problem was, it was getting worse. Getting distracting.

That didn't stop him from dealing with the second vehicle to come at him in short order. The war buggy leveled out alongside him, its driver absolutely bouncing in his seat as he stuck his head out his window to leer at Max viciously. Max countered the grin by sticking a sawed-off shotgun out the window, leveling the barrel with the warboy's face and shooting him point-blank in the head, sending a splatter of sinew back to paint the car. The vehicle, now down a driver, veered off-course and straight over a steep drop, tumbling through the air with a strange grace before crashing down far below.

Two down. Now he just had to--

"Gnh-!"

Max grunted in sudden pain, almost losing control of the steering wheel as one hand shot down to clutch at his stomach. This wasn't no tapeworm. This was... different. It felt strange, like... like...

Like silence.

And silence, and blackness, was what overtook him.

---

Max.


He didn't know where he was. Was this it? The plains of silence at last? When he opened his eyes, what awaited him? Would he walk over the white hills to see the gates to that which was lost, an old, dead world, or would he go right back to...

Reality.

Wake up, Max. They're waiting for you. Wake up, wake up wake up wake up wake-

He should've known better. As soon as his senses returned to him, he found himself bombarded; sensory overload, his neurons on fire. The ringing in his ears. The fire in his veins. Pulsing. Pulsing. Pulsing. It was agonizing. He couldn't see, couldn't breath, panic briefly taking hold of him as he staggered to his feet in a rush, fingers flexing erratically. Wheezing, raspy breaths heaved in and out of his lungs. His eyes, wild and skittish around the edges like those of a startled horse, darted around the room, too fast to really register anything. His brain throbbed like a drum, rattling around his skull, his heart threatening to crack through his ribcage like a jackhammer. For him, this was a common occurrence, system shock and information overload addling his mind, a mind already fractured and broken by the desert. He was unable to process it, stress and anxiety leading to a momentary panic attack, the only relief attained through continuing with those shallow, uneven breaths. It was temporary. He just had to wait it out, wait out the ringing and the fire and the pain and the shock. It'd pass. It always did.

The attack gradually began to fade, the rise and fall of his chest normalizing, the pounding in his ears starting to calm. He found himself by a wall in the room, one hand clutching at it for support as the panic passed, gruff exterior reasserting itself. And then, after that, he simply observed. He didn't know where he was. He didn't know who these people were. Better to watch and learn than talk meaninglessly, he figured. This felt like a dream, but he'd seen stranger.

Well, maybe not. The way these people talked, the stuff they were saying... talk of lawsuits and novels... it was almost like they came from before the world went to hell. And that didn't make sense.

Since this lot seemed as clueless as he was, he didn't bother asking about it; obviously there was something else going on here. Hell if he knew what, and hell if he cared. His priority was what it always was, what it always had to be-- survival. One thing, however, caught his eye, and it gave him a question he knew he could ask.

He knew just who to ask it of, too.

He took care to avoid the bulk of the other room's occupants, regarding them with suspicious, mistrustful eyes as he navigated the floor in such a manner that he steered around them, keeping generally out of sight and making himself seem innocuous. Innocuous, that is, until he suddenly grabbed Nathan by the lapels of his jacket, aiming to slam him roughly down onto the table he'd been leaning against and pin him there with both arms, not outright striking the boy but not much caring if the maneuver hurt him either. He addressed him with a low, almost feral growl, eyes equally as animalistic. His strength was impressive, reflecting his powerful build, and it seemed he knew just how to apply it most effectively.

"You. You, were in there."

He sharply thrust a finger over towards the sliding metal door, the same one Alan had disappeared through. His voice, harsh, gruff and low-pitched to the point of almost incoherence, still bore a fairly strong Australian accent after all these years.

"The rest of us weren't. Tell me what you know or I'll put you back through that door myself."

Waiting for a reply, he restrengthened his grip with both arms and glanced back over his shoulder, eyes rapidly scanning the room until they settled on the forms of Picard and Captain America. He'd seen them step in when the man with the gun was pumping this runt for questions. The woman had form and technique he couldn't deal with on his best day, too.

"Keep back. All of you. Anyone takes a step in this direction and I'll break his neck."

He wouldn't, but the rest of them didn't know that. And he needed a way to keep them off his back while he got his answers. After that, they could do what they liked. The boy didn't strike him as the type to answer questions politely, so this was how it had to be. No matter how the pacifists among them felt about it.

@Atomyk @Jeremi @BarrenThin @WHOMEVER​

Ash stated down at his bad arm; the damn gauntlet had been lost in transit; he would have to rely on his stump until further notice. It was at that moment the S-Mart Employee heard the driver's threat.
"Hey, tinkerbell!" Ash called out to the masked man standing before him. Without his gauntlet, he would stand no chance in a proper confrontation, but from experience, most humans didn't enjoy being threatened; he should have been able to get a few people on his side should things get messy . "You ain't breaking no necks today, you primitive screw head, unless you want me to answer to!"

 

[dalecOoOoOoOoOper]

Sherlock Holmes

Sherlock kept to himself, staring at the ensuing ensemble. The man was using force, Max, but Sherlock was using show of force. Sherlock came up toward Max, raising his hand. "Please, friend, no need to kill to prove a point. Although.." He eyed the others carefully, staring at the people with a careful eye as he grunted. "Let the boy go.. He knows something, but not enough for anything..." He sighed, hands placed inside his coat pockets. "Doesn't matter. As long as he doesn't have the gun." A small fumbling was made inside the coat pocket. He eyed Max just once more as he lifted a finger at him. "You. Come. You seem more adept than the other ordinaries in the room." He smiled, speaking to Max to ignore the teen. Sherlock focused his attention to the next door and Began to go inside.

@Atomyk
@Mighty Roman​

 

[Minerva]

"Oh they are TERRIBLE! Thankfully I just sent back to their own world to be slaughtered by bunch of invading Daleks just a few days ago! Which is rather amusing". Then once she said yes to exploring together he clasped his hands together before raising them in the air as he exclaimed "Oh Yeah! This place is no match for the both of us! Woo!".

"Yes, let us go together to solve the mysteries of this place!" Yuriko primped her skirt.

The Master having only bothered to take a quick look through the Drawers looked back up and said "That is a good point. It's at least worth testing before we go search crazy". The Master then stood up to head towards the statue before suddenly noticing something from the corner of his eye. He pointed to Alan wandering off and said "That guy seems to be onto something" before nudging the Doctor and Yuriko to follow. Noticing he seemed to be locked off in a room of his own he pondered "Now could we possibly get in there?".

@The Silver Paladin

"I don't know." The girl said. She seemed awful happy despite the situation, but maybe that was her demeanor? "But let's try... Oh, I have nothing to call you! What should I call you?"

 

[Jeremi]

Sherlock Holmes

With a cold hard stare, he'd step a foot away from her, his blank yet angered eyes sending a message. "You people really have no sense of communication, do you?" He scoffed, his hand on the weaponed tightened and placed on the inside of his coat pocket. "It was a try of hard persuasion to get the boy to speak. And with his irrationality and little knowledge of such a weapon, why else would he fear more for his life with his own gun at the hands of another stranger." He smiled, her attempts to diffuse him would not work on him as he simply moved away from her. "Please, don't threaten me with child's play. It's rather boring." He groaned, seemingly back to working on the door. "Thank you, but please, please don't try and follow!" And so Sherlock went inside another door next to Alan's.

Alan Wake

Alan found his source of safety. The Light which inhabited all, was at his finger tips. Whatever though, noise or not, it'd keep him safe as a hard tipped shoe met the glass, seemingly removing the first aid kit and the lights, one placed in his pocket as he turned the other on, continuing his hopefully short trek deeper into the lions den. "Safety in Light. Repel the Darkness."

@Atomyk @Gen. Gwazi Senpai @BarrenThin @Jeremi​

Quite unfazed Cap would listen to him posture."I wouldn't dream of it, just as long as you remember what we talked about." She called out as he was leaving. Ugh, he was going to be a handful to work with.

Rhonda had caught up with Cap and would flash her a smile. "Never off the job are you sugar?"

Cap wasn't that fond by the name calling. She was anything but sugar, or at least she personally thought so. "I'm always on the clock and on top of that we don't need any senseless killing before we have an actual idea on what's going on."

That Rhonda could agree with. "You think either of them are going to calm down?"

"No." Cap replied back quite quickly. "But at least they know they know that someone's watching them now." Before they could continue further another stand off would happen.

PROLOGUE

---

Silence.

In this world, it was a commodity as rare and as valuable as fuel and water. The roar of engines revving, of tires screeching against sand and rock, of factory silos working tirelessly to mine and pump out guzzoline for the world's cars... on a normal day, you'd be hardpressed to escape the distant din of the wasteland, no matter how far you drove. That was if you were lucky.

If you were unlucky, you heard those sounds up close.

Just because silence was scarce, though, didn't mean it didn't exist. There were whole plains of it out there, far away... and if you knew where to look, chances were you could reach out and take some, just some, of that silence for yourself. In that moment, there was no wasteland. This scorched earth all men walked upon, this world of fire and blood... didn't exist. When silence washed over you like a rush of water, in that single, fleeting moment... you were free.

The real trouble with silence wasn't finding it, though.

The trouble was holding onto it once you did. Because just like water, and fuel, when you had silence... chances were it wasn't gonna last long.

Max.

Here they come again.

You promised you'd save us, Max.

Like ghosts, conjured up from the drudges. The recesses. They swarmed, burrowed into the black matter of his brain.

YoupromisedMaxyoupromisedMaxyou'dpromisedyou'dMaxMaxMaxMaxpromisedyou'd-

Whispers of an age long past. The ashes of the dead phoenix, except this phoenix never rose anew. He told himself they were in his head. They could not hurt him.

-youpromisedyoupromisedyoupromisedyoupromisedHello?


"......."

The youthful voice cut in above the cacophonous whisper, bringing the past's badgering to an abrupt halt, and it was time to go.

Because here they came again. The ghosts not of his mind, but of the desert. They were not dead. They could hurt him. He could hear them, the drumbeat rising in pace and rhythm, vicious souls howling with glee and the thrill of the hunt. They wanted nothing more than to soak in his blood. To be witnessed.

A war party.

"WE ARE AWAITEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEED!"

"HIS HEAD! HIS HEAD GOES ON MY BONNET!"

"BY OUR DEEDS WE HONOR HIM! RIIIIIIIDING ETERNAL! IMMORTAN!"

"IMMORTAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!"

VRMMMMMMMM

The Interceptor's powerful V8 engine roared to life, exhaust pumping out thick plumes of smoke as the raggedy man scrambled behind the wheel. The pursuit vehicle's four wheels spun up a storm, kicking up clouds of dust in their wake, and the car lurched into movement, taking off down a steady incline and picking up momentum as it went. He had a head start, but it wouldn't matter much. The warboys' buggies were built for navigating the sand, for chasing down their prey. The man called Max knew this all too well.

He was not gonna be a fucking bloodbank again.

His only hope was outmaneuvering them, and he was confident he could do it. He'd been a road warrior, once. And he knew how they drove. Wild swerves. Mad gambits. He just had to make sure none of them paid off.

Farewell, silence. Hello, normalcy.

It wasn't long before the scout vehicle was on him. Good. The more they split up, the easier it was to pick them off. The buggy made its first mistake quickly enough, and Max made sure it'd be the last. He slammed his foot down on the Interceptor's pedal, veered the wheel sharply to his left, and rammed the car viciously, the sand's poor traction aiding him in running it clear off the makeshift road. It nicked its wheel on a rocky outcropping, spun violently and crashed into a ditch, the sound of tearing metal and burning rubber just barely masking the cries of the deceased warboy's brethren as they advanced from the rear.

"MEDIOCAR!"

"MEDIOCAAAAAAAAAAAAR!!"

Max stepped on it.

Throughout all this, he felt the throbbing pain in his stomach grow, like something was churning around in there. He'd had it all day, but hadn't paid it much thought. Tapeworm, maybe? When your diet consisted of lizards, rats and occasionally a handful of maggots you fished from a rotting corpse, you learned to cope with illness. Problem was, it was getting worse. Getting distracting.

That didn't stop him from dealing with the second vehicle to come at him in short order. The war buggy leveled out alongside him, its driver absolutely bouncing in his seat as he stuck his head out his window to leer at Max viciously. Max countered the grin by sticking a sawed-off shotgun out the window, leveling the barrel with the warboy's face and shooting him point-blank in the head, sending a splatter of sinew back to paint the car. The vehicle, now down a driver, veered off-course and straight over a steep drop, tumbling through the air with a strange grace before crashing down far below.

Two down. Now he just had to--

"Gnh-!"

Max grunted in sudden pain, almost losing control of the steering wheel as one hand shot down to clutch at his stomach. This wasn't no tapeworm. This was... different. It felt strange, like... like...

Like silence.

And silence, and blackness, was what overtook him.

---

Max.


He didn't know where he was. Was this it? The plains of silence at last? When he opened his eyes, what awaited him? Would he walk over the white hills to see the gates to that which was lost, an old, dead world, or would he go right back to...

Reality.

Wake up, Max. They're waiting for you. Wake up, wake up wake up wake up wake-

He should've known better. As soon as his senses returned to him, he found himself bombarded; sensory overload, his neurons on fire. The ringing in his ears. The fire in his veins. Pulsing. Pulsing. Pulsing. It was agonizing. He couldn't see, couldn't breath, panic briefly taking hold of him as he staggered to his feet in a rush, fingers flexing erratically. Wheezing, raspy breaths heaved in and out of his lungs. His eyes, wild and skittish around the edges like those of a startled horse, darted around the room, too fast to really register anything. His brain throbbed like a drum, rattling around his skull, his heart threatening to crack through his ribcage like a jackhammer. For him, this was a common occurrence, system shock and information overload addling his mind, a mind already fractured and broken by the desert. He was unable to process it, stress and anxiety leading to a momentary panic attack, the only relief attained through continuing with those shallow, uneven breaths. It was temporary. He just had to wait it out, wait out the ringing and the fire and the pain and the shock. It'd pass. It always did.

The attack gradually began to fade, the rise and fall of his chest normalizing, the pounding in his ears starting to calm. He found himself by a wall in the room, one hand clutching at it for support as the panic passed, gruff exterior reasserting itself. And then, after that, he simply observed. He didn't know where he was. He didn't know who these people were. Better to watch and learn than talk meaninglessly, he figured. This felt like a dream, but he'd seen stranger.

Well, maybe not. The way these people talked, the stuff they were saying... talk of lawsuits and novels... it was almost like they came from before the world went to hell. And that didn't make sense.

Since this lot seemed as clueless as he was, he didn't bother asking about it; obviously there was something else going on here. Hell if he knew what, and hell if he cared. His priority was what it always was, what it always had to be-- survival. One thing, however, caught his eye, and it gave him a question he knew he could ask.

He knew just who to ask it of, too.

He took care to avoid the bulk of the other room's occupants, regarding them with suspicious, mistrustful eyes as he navigated the floor in such a manner that he steered around them, keeping generally out of sight and making himself seem innocuous. Innocuous, that is, until he suddenly grabbed Nathan by the lapels of his jacket, aiming to slam him roughly down onto the table he'd been leaning against and pin him there with both arms, not outright striking the boy but not much caring if the maneuver hurt him either. He addressed him with a low, almost feral growl, eyes equally as animalistic. His strength was impressive, reflecting his powerful build, and it seemed he knew just how to apply it most effectively.

"You. You, were in there."

He sharply thrust a finger over towards the sliding metal door, the same one Alan had disappeared through. His voice, harsh, gruff and low-pitched to the point of almost incoherence, still bore a fairly strong Australian accent after all these years.

"The rest of us weren't. Tell me what you know or I'll put you back through that door myself."

Waiting for a reply, he restrengthened his grip with both arms and glanced back over his shoulder, eyes rapidly scanning the room until they settled on the forms of Picard and Captain America. He'd seen them step in when the man with the gun was pumping this runt for questions. The woman had form and technique he couldn't deal with on his best day, too.

"Keep back. All of you. Anyone takes a step in this direction and I'll break his neck."

He wouldn't, but the rest of them didn't know that. And he needed a way to keep them off his back while he got his answers. After that, they could do what they liked. The boy didn't strike him as the type to answer questions politely, so this was how it had to be. No matter how the pacifists among them felt about it.

@Atomyk @Jeremi @BarrenThin @WHOMEVER​

He wouldn't. Or at least that's what it looked like for her as far as body language went. That however didn't mean he would change his mind if the situation got more tense. Cap looked over to Rhonda who from the look on her face told Cap she thought the boy was inches away from losing his life. She looked around the room. Maybe she could use her hard light shield to ricochet it in a way to knock the man out with out causing any more problems. Before she could act on it though she heard Rhonda call out to the man.

"Honey, can I call you honey? Do you really want to do this? We're all scared and confused right now and killing...sorry sugar I don't know your name, isn't going to help no one. Even if he knows something he can't say anything if he's dead." Despite being scared as all hell not quite sure what the biker looking man was going to do she tried to do her best to diffuse it. "So please, let go of the poor kid so we can talk this through, alright?"

@Atomyk @BarrenThin

 

[BarrenThin]

Quite unfazed Cap would listen to him posture."I wouldn't dream of it, just as long as you remember what we talked about." She called out as he was leaving. Ugh, he was going to be a handful to work with.

Rhonda had caught up with Cap and would flash her a smile. "Never off the job are you sugar?"

Cap wasn't that fond by the name calling. She was anything but sugar, or at least she personally thought so. "I'm always on the clock and on top of that we don't need any senseless killing before we have an actual idea on what's going on."

That Rhonda could agree with. "You think either of them are going to calm down?"

"No." Cap replied back quite quickly. "But at least they know they know that someone's watching them now." Before they could continue further another stand off would happen.



He wouldn't. Or at least that's what it looked like for her as far as body language went. That however didn't mean he would change his mind if the situation got more tense. Cap looked over to Rhonda who from the look on her face told Cap she thought the boy was inches away from losing his life. She looked around the room. Maybe she could use her hard light shield to ricochet it in a way to knock the man out with out causing any more problems. Before she could act on it though she heard Rhonda call out to the man.

"Honey, can I call you honey? Do you really want to do this? We're all scared and confused right now and killing...sorry sugar I don't know your name, isn't going to help no one. Even if he knows something he can't say anything if he's dead." Despite being scared as all hell not quite sure what the biker looking man was going to do she tried to do her best to diffuse it. "So please, let go of the poor kid so we can talk this through, alright?"

@Atomyk @BarrenThin

PROLOGUE

---

Silence.

In this world, it was a commodity as rare and as valuable as fuel and water. The roar of engines revving, of tires screeching against sand and rock, of factory silos working tirelessly to mine and pump out guzzoline for the world's cars... on a normal day, you'd be hardpressed to escape the distant din of the wasteland, no matter how far you drove. That was if you were lucky.

If you were unlucky, you heard those sounds up close.

Just because silence was scarce, though, didn't mean it didn't exist. There were whole plains of it out there, far away... and if you knew where to look, chances were you could reach out and take some, just some, of that silence for yourself. In that moment, there was no wasteland. This scorched earth all men walked upon, this world of fire and blood... didn't exist. When silence washed over you like a rush of water, in that single, fleeting moment... you were free.

The real trouble with silence wasn't finding it, though.

The trouble was holding onto it once you did. Because just like water, and fuel, when you had silence... chances were it wasn't gonna last long.

Max.

Here they come again.

You promised you'd save us, Max.

Like ghosts, conjured up from the drudges. The recesses. They swarmed, burrowed into the black matter of his brain.

YoupromisedMaxyoupromisedMaxyou'dpromisedyou'dMaxMaxMaxMaxpromisedyou'd-

Whispers of an age long past. The ashes of the dead phoenix, except this phoenix never rose anew. He told himself they were in his head. They could not hurt him.

-youpromisedyoupromisedyoupromisedyoupromisedHello?


"......."

The youthful voice cut in above the cacophonous whisper, bringing the past's badgering to an abrupt halt, and it was time to go.

Because here they came again. The ghosts not of his mind, but of the desert. They were not dead. They could hurt him. He could hear them, the drumbeat rising in pace and rhythm, vicious souls howling with glee and the thrill of the hunt. They wanted nothing more than to soak in his blood. To be witnessed.

A war party.

"WE ARE AWAITEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEED!"

"HIS HEAD! HIS HEAD GOES ON MY BONNET!"

"BY OUR DEEDS WE HONOR HIM! RIIIIIIIDING ETERNAL! IMMORTAN!"

"IMMORTAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!"

VRMMMMMMMM

The Interceptor's powerful V8 engine roared to life, exhaust pumping out thick plumes of smoke as the raggedy man scrambled behind the wheel. The pursuit vehicle's four wheels spun up a storm, kicking up clouds of dust in their wake, and the car lurched into movement, taking off down a steady incline and picking up momentum as it went. He had a head start, but it wouldn't matter much. The warboys' buggies were built for navigating the sand, for chasing down their prey. The man called Max knew this all too well.

He was not gonna be a fucking bloodbank again.

His only hope was outmaneuvering them, and he was confident he could do it. He'd been a road warrior, once. And he knew how they drove. Wild swerves. Mad gambits. He just had to make sure none of them paid off.

Farewell, silence. Hello, normalcy.

It wasn't long before the scout vehicle was on him. Good. The more they split up, the easier it was to pick them off. The buggy made its first mistake quickly enough, and Max made sure it'd be the last. He slammed his foot down on the Interceptor's pedal, veered the wheel sharply to his left, and rammed the car viciously, the sand's poor traction aiding him in running it clear off the makeshift road. It nicked its wheel on a rocky outcropping, spun violently and crashed into a ditch, the sound of tearing metal and burning rubber just barely masking the cries of the deceased warboy's brethren as they advanced from the rear.

"MEDIOCAR!"

"MEDIOCAAAAAAAAAAAAR!!"

Max stepped on it.

Throughout all this, he felt the throbbing pain in his stomach grow, like something was churning around in there. He'd had it all day, but hadn't paid it much thought. Tapeworm, maybe? When your diet consisted of lizards, rats and occasionally a handful of maggots you fished from a rotting corpse, you learned to cope with illness. Problem was, it was getting worse. Getting distracting.

That didn't stop him from dealing with the second vehicle to come at him in short order. The war buggy leveled out alongside him, its driver absolutely bouncing in his seat as he stuck his head out his window to leer at Max viciously. Max countered the grin by sticking a sawed-off shotgun out the window, leveling the barrel with the warboy's face and shooting him point-blank in the head, sending a splatter of sinew back to paint the car. The vehicle, now down a driver, veered off-course and straight over a steep drop, tumbling through the air with a strange grace before crashing down far below.

Two down. Now he just had to--

"Gnh-!"

Max grunted in sudden pain, almost losing control of the steering wheel as one hand shot down to clutch at his stomach. This wasn't no tapeworm. This was... different. It felt strange, like... like...

Like silence.

And silence, and blackness, was what overtook him.

---

Max.


He didn't know where he was. Was this it? The plains of silence at last? When he opened his eyes, what awaited him? Would he walk over the white hills to see the gates to that which was lost, an old, dead world, or would he go right back to...

Reality.

Wake up, Max. They're waiting for you. Wake up, wake up wake up wake up wake-

He should've known better. As soon as his senses returned to him, he found himself bombarded; sensory overload, his neurons on fire. The ringing in his ears. The fire in his veins. Pulsing. Pulsing. Pulsing. It was agonizing. He couldn't see, couldn't breath, panic briefly taking hold of him as he staggered to his feet in a rush, fingers flexing erratically. Wheezing, raspy breaths heaved in and out of his lungs. His eyes, wild and skittish around the edges like those of a startled horse, darted around the room, too fast to really register anything. His brain throbbed like a drum, rattling around his skull, his heart threatening to crack through his ribcage like a jackhammer. For him, this was a common occurrence, system shock and information overload addling his mind, a mind already fractured and broken by the desert. He was unable to process it, stress and anxiety leading to a momentary panic attack, the only relief attained through continuing with those shallow, uneven breaths. It was temporary. He just had to wait it out, wait out the ringing and the fire and the pain and the shock. It'd pass. It always did.

The attack gradually began to fade, the rise and fall of his chest normalizing, the pounding in his ears starting to calm. He found himself by a wall in the room, one hand clutching at it for support as the panic passed, gruff exterior reasserting itself. And then, after that, he simply observed. He didn't know where he was. He didn't know who these people were. Better to watch and learn than talk meaninglessly, he figured. This felt like a dream, but he'd seen stranger.

Well, maybe not. The way these people talked, the stuff they were saying... talk of lawsuits and novels... it was almost like they came from before the world went to hell. And that didn't make sense.

Since this lot seemed as clueless as he was, he didn't bother asking about it; obviously there was something else going on here. Hell if he knew what, and hell if he cared. His priority was what it always was, what it always had to be-- survival. One thing, however, caught his eye, and it gave him a question he knew he could ask.

He knew just who to ask it of, too.

He took care to avoid the bulk of the other room's occupants, regarding them with suspicious, mistrustful eyes as he navigated the floor in such a manner that he steered around them, keeping generally out of sight and making himself seem innocuous. Innocuous, that is, until he suddenly grabbed Nathan by the lapels of his jacket, aiming to slam him roughly down onto the table he'd been leaning against and pin him there with both arms, not outright striking the boy but not much caring if the maneuver hurt him either. He addressed him with a low, almost feral growl, eyes equally as animalistic. His strength was impressive, reflecting his powerful build, and it seemed he knew just how to apply it most effectively.

"You. You, were in there."

He sharply thrust a finger over towards the sliding metal door, the same one Alan had disappeared through. His voice, harsh, gruff and low-pitched to the point of almost incoherence, still bore a fairly strong Australian accent after all these years.

"The rest of us weren't. Tell me what you know or I'll put you back through that door myself."

Waiting for a reply, he restrengthened his grip with both arms and glanced back over his shoulder, eyes rapidly scanning the room until they settled on the forms of Picard and Captain America. He'd seen them step in when the man with the gun was pumping this runt for questions. The woman had form and technique he couldn't deal with on his best day, too.

"Keep back. All of you. Anyone takes a step in this direction and I'll break his neck."

He wouldn't, but the rest of them didn't know that. And he needed a way to keep them off his back while he got his answers. After that, they could do what they liked. The boy didn't strike him as the type to answer questions politely, so this was how it had to be. No matter how the pacifists among them felt about it.

@Atomyk @Jeremi @BarrenThin @WHOMEVER​

Upon the Captain's disarming Sherlock, Picard eyed the red, white and blue garb with brief confusion before nodding respectfully. "Well done."

When Max got his attention, though, Picard just sighed deeply. These people were largely insane, it seemed. He honored the man's wishes, not stepping closer, but Jean-Luc did try to reason with him. "Listen to me... now is not the time for such idiocy. We don't know where we are. We don't know what's going on. All I know is that we'll be safer sticking together than at each other's throats."

@OrlandoBloomers
@Atomyk
@Jeremi

​

 

[Lissamel]

With no guns and now left hand, he knew he would only have his wit to guid him through this ordeal. Anyone around him could be possessed; they would kill him sooner or later, so there was no point prolonging his life for a few moments of silence. He jumped to his feet and yelled.

"All right your primitive screw heads, listen up!"

"Oh my, it is nice to see a big, strong man take a little...Authority."

By no means was Catherine done exploring her newfound humanity. Contrariwise, there was still so much to learn about it. But she found herself quite distracted from her previously gentle finger-prodding, and as it stood, a man was shouting clear across the room. Alright, a lot of people, men or otherwise, were shouting clear across the room.

The nurse found herself...Well, not smitten with the mere employee. But more willing to be nice and leinient. And with Catherine, that was a mercy all to it's own.
​

"Hey, tinkerbell!" Ash called out to the masked man standing before him. Without his gauntlet, he would stand no chance in a proper confrontation, but from experience, most humans didn't enjoy being threatened; he should have been able to get a few people on his side should things get messy . "You ain't breaking no necks today, you primitive screw head, unless you want me to answer to!"

Alright, maybe he wasn't the most eloquent specimen, but he certainly had been through a lot of hardships, considering his missing arm. Catherine did so adore strong men. There could be such a lack of them in the world.

"Don't get too stressed, now..." Although she wasn't even remotely reptilian anymore, her tongue still flickered out (force of habit) as she rose to her full height, stepping ever so slightly nearer to this...Interesting character and the fight he seemed to be in with someone else entirely (coincidentally, the man he was fighting with also looked...Pleasurable). "I don't have any of my medical equipment on me. How could I just live with myself if you blew a vein--" That word warranted a slight little trill, "--And I couldn't help you?"

[ @The Man Without Fear ]​

 

[Gwazi Magnum]

"I don't know." The girl said. She seemed awful happy despite the situation, but maybe that was her demeanor? "But let's try... Oh, I have nothing to call you! What should I call you?"

The Master in the middle of the confusion got another grin when asked the question and boasted "You young Lady shall call me... The Master!" having paused for dramatic effect. He then continued "However, I'm afraid I don't know your name either. What shall I call you?".

 

[Minerva]

The Master in the middle of the confusion got another grin when asked the question and boasted "You young Lady shall call me... The Master!" having paused for dramatic effect. He then continued "However, I'm afraid I don't know your name either. What shall I call you?".

"Well, nice to meet you, Master!" That sounded a bit awkward to her, but whatever. "Well, my name is Yuriko, and I was part of the Omega Program, so the news calls me Yuriko Omega, but please, call me Yuriko." She said.

 

[Gwazi Magnum]

"Well, nice to meet you, Master!" That sounded a bit awkward to her, but whatever. "Well, my name is Yuriko, and I was part of the Omega Program, so the news calls me Yuriko Omega, but please, call me Yuriko." She said.

"Then Yuriko I shall call you. Come and be my Companion is this new and bizarre place!" he said making sure the Doctor overheard while giving a 'I can have a companion too' look on his face. Though first thing is first, he said them pointing towards Alan, "we need a way to get to where he is, any ideas?".

@Mighty Roman

 

[Gummi Bunnies]

A displeases groan came from Will when it was made clear thatthey were in some creepy facility. Totally what he wanted to wake up to after a night of partying.

"In that case... this might be the second time I get thrown into an event like this... but I don't mind playing the role of a guardian angel," the Nephilim sighed, scratching the back of his head when he thought of certain things.

@Kaykay @Lizzy​

 

[Minerva]

"Then Yuriko I shall call you. Come and be my Companion is this new and bizarre place!" he said making sure the Doctor overheard while giving a 'I can have a companion too' look on his face. Though first thing is first, he said them pointing towards Alan, "we need a way to get to where he is, any ideas?".

@Mighty Roman

"The Master, and his companion Yuriko! I like it!" She said happily. "I will follow you to the ends of the Earth." She then noticed the door. She focused, and tried to rip the door off. She was startled when her power wouldn't work.

"You may be right about that thing you said about powers. I don't want to try knocking it down with my blast, I'm not sure what would happen, or if I'd have it!" She said.

@Mighty Roman

 

[Gwazi Magnum]

"The Master, and his companion Yuriko! I like it!" She said happily. "I will follow you to the ends of the Earth." She then noticed the door. She focused, and tried to rip the door off. She was startled when her power wouldn't work.

"You may be right about that thing you said about powers. I don't want to try knocking it down with my blast, I'm not sure what would happen, or if I'd have it!" She said.

"Just the Earth? Sounds like someone needs to get out of the Planet a bit more" The Master teased at Yuriko's response. Then once she tried opening the door he stated "Like I suspected, these doors aren't being moved anywhere with sheer force... What we need is a key. But where oh where will that key be?" The Master noted when Yuriko tried to open the door with her own powers.

 

[Minerva]

"Just the Earth? Sounds like someone needs to get out of the Planet a bit more" The Master teased at Yuriko's response. Then once she tried opening the door he stated "Like I suspected, these doors aren't being moved anywhere with sheer force... What we need is a key. But where oh where will that key be?" The Master noted when Yuriko tried to open the door with her own powers.

"Key, battering ram, military hardware. Something." Yuriko began spinning in the chair for a moment. "Is there anything that hasn't been checked yet?" She asked, grabbing the desk and coming to a stop. "Or... What if it's to open at a certain time? Like it opens and closes at various intervals."

 

[Gwazi Magnum]

"Key, battering ram, military hardware. Something." Yuriko began spinning in the chair for a moment. "Is there anything that hasn't been checked yet?" She asked, grabbing the desk and coming to a stop. "Or... What if it's to open at a certain time? Like it opens and closes at various intervals."

"Ha! If there was a battering ram we probably would have seen it by now" The Master exclaimed finding the suggestion rather charming, "A key or hardware might be it... But it's still a matter of where... And that leaves us with the desk, the Statue or wherever that man wandered too" he gestured back to Alan. "However, timed opening? That is... A BLOODY GENIUS IDEA!" he randomly bursted excitingly before giving Yuriko the European styled air kiss on each cheek before continuing "I knew you'd make a good Companion!" and then after a brief pause "However... If it is timed that means there's nothing we can do about it until then... Which means we might as well look around anyway's just in case". Then looking back at Yuriko he said "I'll let you choose, Desk, Snake Statue or that Odd man we are currently cut off from?".

 

[Chewy Rabbits]

Locus's hand snapped outwards to grasp Grey's hand right before it made contact with his face. He didn't grip it tight enough however to cause her any pain because as far as he was concerned, until they were both back on Chorus she wasn't an enemy. He'd seek to push her back however although he didn't take any more retaliatory action against the doctor besides that. Because it simply wasn't necessary.

"You tried, just doesn't seem like you tried hard enough. Do you still wish to continue this?"

@C.T.​