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He frowns, but doesn't say anything because maybe it's true, what he was told. Maybe it's just an act that the train does to set people at 'ease' or something. Parades out their image like empty automatons. There's a few members of Blue Team in there, ones that helped a lot. There's Kyoko's friend. There's another almost friend he'd made, another well-meaning god.
He does his usual and gets back on the train as soon as his ass can. Goes to find his boxes. There's the one for Vegeta. Materialization tech to pass on to Bulma and make it so his armor can form around him at the push of a button (if she impliments it right, which he's sure she will).
And after a little more frustrated digging, anxious and scathed with recent losses, he pulls out his other package. Removes something that looks like a glowstick, and holds it up to shine yellow against his face. It's then that he remembers how to smile, but it's a little more metaphorically sharp than usual.
He's now sitting crosslegged and looking at a pile of fruit set on a borrowed chair. There's a green striped banana shape peeled to show a watermelon inside. An orange pulled open to show little orange pomegranate seed shapes. A pumpkin broken open, but instead of being lined with stringy squash it's lined as one of the coconuts would be (and tastes very much like pumpkin pie). They're not terrible or anywhere near inedible, they're just offensively not right.
He cups his hands around another one, a strawberry, and when he removes them he's got a red bumpy pear.
"...The hell did I do here?!"
He's been listening to angry voices, chewing on a toothpick and considering how the fuck to approach some angry souls that ain't just him holding a sharp tip to their throat or a cold metal pressed to their head and making a demand. He doesn't think these guys would wanna be buddy-buddy with him. They don't even seem to fully trust their own at the moment.
Speaking of which, he considers that the ones he's caught glimpses of with red eyes and red gems seem different. But he doesn't know the full significance of that and he doesn't want to jump to conclusions. Doesn't seem the kind of world for blades or magical girls but shit, he could be wrong. You know. Gotta be careful about that kind of thing.
"Too bad I got my fin, I could get nekkid and blend in with the plant life..." he jokes offhandedly and with a flat expression before flicking his toothpick away. "You ever dealt with people this hostile before?" He asks the person next to him, an implied without hittin' 'em in there. He's gonna need some advice.
He's finally starting to notice that it's the red-eyed Sali that can animate the plant life, and it would be great if he was any good at this at all. He's not. His abilities were scattered on their best day, even with practice and advice. Here with magic being interfered with? It's not working worth a damn.
He's climbing the obstacle course of vines and sometimes they just sprout little ill-matched flowers with uneven petals. Or he reaches for something and creates barbs that he didn't actually want. It's like magical puberty and he's already too damn old for this shit. He spent decades perfecting his arrow now he's too concerned to even try it and his crankiness is causing the plants he's trying to climb up pull some tricks that are a few degrees in excess of useless.
"I can try to keep these red-spangled ones distracted," he says to whoever came with him. "Maybe if we coordinate we can give these other'n's a chance to go where they wanna go. Maybe they'll be up for talkin' later."
Edited 2021-09-12 10:11 (UTC)
Who: Yondu | OTA
Where: Gym
When: Nebula Day 20
What: Old Man Yells at Cloud (Angst over Missing Friends)
Warnings: Possible violence, Probably foul language, discussions of fake people trauma
Gym
It's alright sometimes, and then it's suddenly not. It's a "not" kind of day as Yondu's in the gym wailing on a training dummy with all his energy. His knuckles are already blistered black and his muscles are aching in a way that he can feel it in each punch now. He's feeling his age. At least he's pretty sure that by the time he's done the worst will be worked out of him, he just has to let it all out. And he's not being quiet about the fighting part, he's wordlessly yelling at this thing like it's the enemy he's chased his whole life.
It was never easy, watching someone walk away. It happened to everyone on the train at some point, apparently. Maybe he hadn't made the connection earlier on, when he didn't know or barely was acquainted with anyone. But then later it progressed. Someone he'd know would walk off and he'd feel that same goddamn sense of helplessness again. Like he was sitting in that chair on the Eclector, hands cuffed behind him, voices crying out for him to help them as his loyal crew were marched by one by one.
Of course what the train did was more empty than that. People leaving it didn't struggle, they didn't speak, they didn't rage, they didn't protest, they just walked off stoic and literally impassable. They were empty, but it still provoked that wriggling uneasy failure that roiled in his stomach. This wasn't an inevitable fate like his crew marching out the airlock, but he didn't know what the hell it was and that provoked a different level of hateful out of him.
Afterwards they were gone, and people moved on. People handled it. But every single day that Soldat was missing was another day it felt like them showing up on that platform, bag in hand, marching off to an uncertain destiny was more likely. They'd been in one place before, right? Possibly they could go somewhere else, them and all the caretakers wandering around in that battered noggin of theirs, carrying their own weight of baggage each. Yondu could only hope because they were dead back home to the best of their reckonin'.
It seems like a pretty big reaction to be having to just a friend, Yondu didn't feel more than that but that was enough. Somehow they'd become the closest genuine friend Yondu had ever had, someone that deeply cared about all the little shit that made him unique and didn't just think of him some kind of criminal or murder machine, someone that could recognize his raised hackles as defensive. Soldat was nigh on family. They gave each other two different varieties of trust and letting another messed up soul like his in so damn close had been rough in the first place.
He's worn out and he takes a break, seated and dropping his head in his hands until he can pull his energy back up and have another go. He's aching for an outlet and of his two favorites this is the one he's using today.
Where: Gym
When: Nebula Day 20
What: Old Man Yells at Cloud (Angst over Missing Friends)
Warnings: Possible violence, Probably foul language, discussions of fake people trauma
It was never easy, watching someone walk away. It happened to everyone on the train at some point, apparently. Maybe he hadn't made the connection earlier on, when he didn't know or barely was acquainted with anyone. But then later it progressed. Someone he'd know would walk off and he'd feel that same goddamn sense of helplessness again. Like he was sitting in that chair on the Eclector, hands cuffed behind him, voices crying out for him to help them as his loyal crew were marched by one by one.
Of course what the train did was more empty than that. People leaving it didn't struggle, they didn't speak, they didn't rage, they didn't protest, they just walked off stoic and literally impassable. They were empty, but it still provoked that wriggling uneasy failure that roiled in his stomach. This wasn't an inevitable fate like his crew marching out the airlock, but he didn't know what the hell it was and that provoked a different level of hateful out of him.
Afterwards they were gone, and people moved on. People handled it. But every single day that Soldat was missing was another day it felt like them showing up on that platform, bag in hand, marching off to an uncertain destiny was more likely. They'd been in one place before, right? Possibly they could go somewhere else, them and all the caretakers wandering around in that battered noggin of theirs, carrying their own weight of baggage each. Yondu could only hope because they were dead back home to the best of their reckonin'.
It seems like a pretty big reaction to be having to just a friend, Yondu didn't feel more than that but that was enough. Somehow they'd become the closest genuine friend Yondu had ever had, someone that deeply cared about all the little shit that made him unique and didn't just think of him some kind of criminal or murder machine, someone that could recognize his raised hackles as defensive. Soldat was nigh on family. They gave each other two different varieties of trust and letting another messed up soul like his in so damn close had been rough in the first place.
He's worn out and he takes a break, seated and dropping his head in his hands until he can pull his energy back up and have another go. He's aching for an outlet and of his two favorites this is the one he's using today.
"My fin's not workin' right," he mumbles to whoever's near him. He could turn on the arrow, yeah, but he cant operate it right now. Can't tell if it's because of the tech or that wire-addled meatsack he calls a brain or both. Inconvenient, either way. "Bodes well, don't it? You find anything?"
Not even the slightest clue for him. Even a phone under a chair turns up nothing.
He tries to contact Kitty. No luck. He debates if he should put a general call out to the SCAs but he's not sure they're working correctly at all with whatever is going on. He's got a feeling they might get led sideways. Especially as he finds himself examining a thoroughly broken SCA in the wrecked dining hall.
He keeps his scratchy voice low, speaking to the person next to him. "Y'know, I'd hear these stories sometimes about people comin' across big ol' assault ships or docking vessels just completely abandoned. Like ever'body got spooked an' up and left. People come up with all kinds of theories about them places, one just as likely as the other in my opinion. But I feel a lot like we just walked into one of a ghost ship story, and I do not like the idea of bein' a character in someone's theoreticals."
Edited 2021-10-15 04:15 (UTC)
He has noticed that the entities aren't entering most of the rooms. That's strange, but good. Can't quite figure out why. So far the invisible machines (he's been assuming them to be machines after the first encounter) have reminded him more of security bots than actual invaders. They patrol in public access areas like they belong there and know where they're allowed. Their blows feel like stun baton charges. But there's still a whole hell of a lot of speculation.
He's in the middle of trolling through lockboxes or desk drawers he can easily pick because they need more. Occasionally he can be seen with a metal dart from his jacket stuck out from between his sharp teeth, held there while his hands are busy rifling through items like photos or souvenirs. He's not finding anything useful, just idle personal possessions. He'll mutter muffled words under his breath and leave an open box on a desk. He checks under tables still, but there's only the usual undertable detritus and nothing useful.
And he needs them out of the way if he's going to continue to look around and find more info. He picks up a speaker in the computer library, checking the back of it for connectors. "Hey could I get your help with somethin'?" he asks the person next to him.
Edited 2021-10-17 02:05 (UTC)
Now, the great thing was there wasn't anything particularly traumatizing around them. The shit thing was that he felt like they were accomplishing little, to anything. Plus they're no closer to finding anyone on their crew that's gone missing.
It's all striking him as wrong.
"I sure do love turnin' up fuck all. How are you fairin'?" he says to Crowley when he sees him. "Siebren called out some directions on the SCAs if you want some company." He sure as shit doesn't want to roam around alone.
Player name: Bianca
Character Name: Yondu Udonta (yondu)
Proof One: Link
Proof Two: Link
Did your character do chores this month? yes
Bonus challenge AC: (3 + 17) x 2 = 40
Character Name: Alvin Murphy (zombiemessiah)
Proof One: Link
Proof Two: Link
Did your character do chores this month? no
Bonus challenge AC: 8 x 2 = 16
Character Name: Yondu Udonta (yondu)
Proof One: Link
Proof Two: Link
Did your character do chores this month? yes
Bonus challenge AC: (3 + 17) x 2 = 40
Character Name: Alvin Murphy (zombiemessiah)
Proof One: Link
Proof Two: Link
Did your character do chores this month? no
Bonus challenge AC: 8 x 2 = 16
Edited 2021-10-23 17:46 (UTC)
So he just does his usual rounds to the music storage but doesn't notice the effects right off. It takes a few hours of him in the luggage carriage listening to music, searching for things Peter might like, before he reaches for his speakers and notices his hand is not blue. It is pink. It is very monstrously Barbie pink.
He shouts in surprise as he's suddenly Krylorian colored, so taken aback that he flaps his hand like it might slough the color off just as a shaken reflex. But it's only then that he notices several items in the room has changed.
After a bit of staring he calls out a loud, "This happenin' for you or do I need to get to the medical car?" to whoever is in there with him.
He deserves this terrible moment after his awful joke to Katsuya during their last 'mission'. He had told him he'd be a turd and make the setting funnier by writing a random 'Don't Look Up' on a whiteboard to scare the crap out of someone that came behind them. Well, he looks up. The situation wouldn't be funnier if he didn't see Tullk up there among that pained expressions. Oblo. So many people he'd seen die and scream for his help. So many faces of people he'd lost in some way or another.
"What the hell?" he mutters, expression anguished in a way highlighted in every crease, heart-clenching up in his chest because this shit haunts him enough. He promised them he'd join the one day. They just have to wait, they just have to be patient, they needed to let him have a moment where he didn't prepare for inevitability.
Please, just cut him a goddamn break!
Great. Cool. He sure loves this.
By the time someone finds him he's already in the second act, still blue and with his fin but dressed much like an Edwardian butler carrying a red umbrella with a gold handle very reminiscent of his arrow slung over his shoulder. He's snooping around a very wealthy-looking house being tailed by two proper kids, a stereotypical English boy and girl, following him around in aggressively wealthy children's clothes and he's just looking annoyed.
"I said y'all can just do what ya want. I dunno. What the shit do you even want from me?"
"But Mr. Bobbins! You're supposed to help us tidy up our room!"
"Okay, fine! We'll go clean your room." And when he turns to walk down the corridor, the scene abruptly changes and he finds himself grabbing a doorframe in surprise. He nearly falls down, stumbling in from there, children giggling behind him. "You're such a silly man."
"Silly man, my ass. I'm confused." He drops the umbrella to the ground, and as if he's directing his arrow he starts to whistle and lift items, letting them drift around the room to the areas he sort of suspects they go. The plot tells him that it'll work? So he'll go with that.
Edited 2021-11-13 09:06 (UTC)
[Okay, deep, uneasy exhale before explaining.]
I uh.... before I showed up here, the same day even, there was a mutiny aboard my ship. Had a buncha folks decide they didn't like I was takin' cheaper jobs to keep from doin' stuff I weren't comfortable with. I was usually able to make excuses- we still made plenty but a few outspoken bastards were real upset I didn't always pick the options with more in our pockets, and then my first mate got jealous. Called me out in front of everyone. 'Caused a shitstorm. [He's a little distant in describing that.]
He didn't know how bad it'd get. The traitors... they uh... Hell... Alright if you're a kid or you don't gotta deal with a lotta death, just turn this off. Get the hell outa here. It ain't for you. [He takes a moment for them to do that if they care to. Alright? Good. Carrying on.] I was detained proper at the time. Couldn't use my arrow, couldn't fight, too hurt to get loose. They shoved 'em one by one out an airlock an' I couldn't save 'em. We're talkin' a hundred plus men dead, one by one. It was not just a few. Just left to float like garbage thrown out a window and they laughed about it and mocked 'em as they watched 'em go.
[There's a moment of shaky-breathed anger, but, you know, what's done is done. Assholes what done it are dead now, they cain't do it to anyone else or use his ship to go make the universe an even worse place or harass his family. He's good.] Dyin' in space is like freezin' and drownin' at the same time. Every moment of it hurts 'cause you feel your outside freezin' in, an' at some point you know even if you was saved the life left in ya wouldn't be worth it. [He can say that from experience.] Almost three decades some of those men had been with me. Good and bad. I didn't make a lotta friends but they did mean somethin' to me. And someone gave me the idea maybe I could put 'em to rest if I could do somethin' memorialwise. I don't want the last thoughts directed at 'em to be their own crewmates bein' happy about 'em dyin'.
Ravagers... when we die, usually we're remembered. If our bodies cain't be picked up, we're toasted by our crew. If our bodies are there, we're put in the ship's engine. Turned to stardust, get to travel forever. And the one that's usually for captains is a ship flying its Colors- you do this big light show. Well, no crew here besides myself to drink to 'em, and their bodies ain't anywhere to be found [not to mention a hundred-some people is a lot] so I figured I'd ask anyone that can do lights an' illusions if they'd help me out to fly them the Colors whenever we're at a stop where our lives don't depend on it and there's a sky overhead. They weren't captains but they was loyal enough. I don't know if I could pay ya, but I been sittin' on knowin' what happened to 'em and I ain't been able to think of a way to really make it right.
But shit like that was what made them fun (if exhausting) to be around. They lived to their fullest while he just watched.
Soldat and Nell had made sure there was food, but he didn't know if that was a unified front or not. Just that there was a little something. He'd used a chunk of his credit when they first arrived to make sure there was alcohol but also had grabbed some non-alcoholic drinks. What was a Ravager Memorial without a toast, too?
He taps the left side of his chest with his right fist, doesn't bow this time as he's looking up at the sky (not his sky, not his galaxy, but the sentiment can cross universes) and raises his glass to the sky. "Enjoy your voyage, fellas. You earned it." He's sorry that he didn't go square sooner. Maybe they'd still be standing. But in the end, they all stood up for him. And now there are people that, even if they have no connection to that home universe, they knew what those brave bastards did. It takes a special sort of loyalty to not sell someone out to save your own ass.
He'd left without getting anything from the luggage car, having focussed on filling his pack with necessities and a gift and grabbing his flowers from the greenhouse car. So one of his purchases since showing up was a pair of leather gloves that vaguely match the rest of his uniform, and he has his knit blanket from Raven (shades of blue, purple, and pink) rolled and hanging over his shoulders like a giant scarf.
He's watching this particular night show as he munches, watching an adolescent... whatever that species is? Somebody purple, anyway, asking a tall-looking other kid. She's astonishingly slender and gotta have a full four feet on her partner. The entire story is told through nervous gestures, tiny person looking down at their exposed hoofy toes, and then this doe of a young lady picking up her stout little new date with a beaming smile and a kiss. Shorty's legs kick up in happiness while they're being held up and smooched.
He looks away and jams more food in his mouth, shaking his head.
Edited 2021-12-11 11:35 (UTC)
New people might notice that he's one of the people who doesn't wear a train uniform, but rather personalized leather gear. He usually wears his coat even if he is in the train uniform (and it's for everyone's benefit 'cause as a Centaurian and a Blue Team member that'd just be too much blue).
He stops what he's doing, setting down the current set of cuffs he's working on and reaches for his cup of coffee. His persistent distant look is shaken into an offended startled sneer as he lifts it to his mouth and discovers it disgustingly cold, muttering a quiet, "Shit," under his breath, and shoving the still full cup off to the side. He doesn't feel like going and getting a new one. To hell with it.
Later he's hanging around the training car, mundanely trying to throw objects up high into the air and whistle his arrow in loops around it when its in the air, doing his best to stay out of anyone's way with it. But he's distracted, and when he atomizes a stolen tennisball with his vicious murderstick he mutters a little, "Welp.... woops."
Or even later he's sitting in the library, trying to read his new book on void metals and then just slowly melting down the seat in a magnificent failure of posture as his overstressed cynetically strangled brain refuses to retain information unless he reads it a minimum of nine goddamn times. He's frustrated (a commonality for a bunch of people right now) and tired and bitchy and all the things that are generally normal for him. But hell, at least he's been sleeping full nights again, so he's gotten that back. Woohoo.
He tries to remind himself that nothing is truly certain yet. That they know what should or could be happening to them, not what is happening to them, and he's proof that some of those things can't be happening to them. That there are deviations from the rules and options for all of them and he's tried to say as much in his clumsy way. There has to be fixes. And even with the worst-case scenario, people on the train have the means for a correction even if they have to go through a life-renewing crewmate to get there. The old Ravager continues to come up with every other possibility 'cause he can't keep losing people, and he's going to violently fight against that sense of helplessness that he let eat him for far too damn long.
Edited 2022-01-01 05:38 (UTC)
[As a mission should be coming up, he should say something about this. He's been pretty flippant, but he does recognize it as a real problem.]
This is Yondu Udonta with Blue Team. I know this whole tetherin' information threw us for a loop. And it's hard for us to pull our heads together right now. But soon we'll have a mission and for the most part I figure when some of y'all have a focus it'll help. For others it might be a little harder.
I asked the train if the original crew had any abilities like ours, and she said no. I asked her if I'd be correct in assumin' that it was significant that we got a history of changin' worlds. Buildin' 'em, destroyin' 'em, savin' 'em. She said yeah. We got experience and skills and resourcefulness that don't just extend to savin' worlds but I would wager would extend to savin' ourselves. But sometimes even people with as many credentials as we got gotta reach out for help.
I cain't offer much help in the way of the short term sense but I can say thinkin' long term, if people pitch in and keep searchin' for a solution then we'll all end up figurin' somethin' out and even the people we seen wander off already will end whole and livin' the way they need to be. And if we end up walkin' off into the fog, the inertia from what gets started'll carry us an' whoever comes after can finish what we started. And if the Ministry ends up fuckin' us over in helpin' us, then I believe the lot of us got the skills to do it our damn selves if we need to. [Even if that takes longer.] We got time travellers. People that can make whole ass bodies. People that can raise the dead or find items that'll do it for 'em. People that can heal situationally unfortunate individuals back from nigh on the worst-case scenario.
Sayin' this now 'cause I don't want anyone goin' out an' fightin' with an empty heart. At the very least ya need a real solid possibility of gettin' what you want in mind. Because more'n likely there'll be a fight durin' this mission.
I told Anan we'd leave 'em information on who was tethered and who was gone. So if you got a spare moment before next platform? [Which this train can have a hell of a lot of downtime so quite possibly.] If you left and came back, if you've flickered out and came back. If you've witnessed someone leave, write it out, put it in somethin' weatherproof, leave it on the platform where the Ministry can find it when they come through to the liminal stations. We can keep a copy of it here. Just don't let it hold ya back when somethin's comin' at ya. Know you can still do somethin'.
This is Yondu Udonta with Blue Team. I know this whole tetherin' information threw us for a loop. And it's hard for us to pull our heads together right now. But soon we'll have a mission and for the most part I figure when some of y'all have a focus it'll help. For others it might be a little harder.
I asked the train if the original crew had any abilities like ours, and she said no. I asked her if I'd be correct in assumin' that it was significant that we got a history of changin' worlds. Buildin' 'em, destroyin' 'em, savin' 'em. She said yeah. We got experience and skills and resourcefulness that don't just extend to savin' worlds but I would wager would extend to savin' ourselves. But sometimes even people with as many credentials as we got gotta reach out for help.
I cain't offer much help in the way of the short term sense but I can say thinkin' long term, if people pitch in and keep searchin' for a solution then we'll all end up figurin' somethin' out and even the people we seen wander off already will end whole and livin' the way they need to be. And if we end up walkin' off into the fog, the inertia from what gets started'll carry us an' whoever comes after can finish what we started. And if the Ministry ends up fuckin' us over in helpin' us, then I believe the lot of us got the skills to do it our damn selves if we need to. [Even if that takes longer.] We got time travellers. People that can make whole ass bodies. People that can raise the dead or find items that'll do it for 'em. People that can heal situationally unfortunate individuals back from nigh on the worst-case scenario.
Sayin' this now 'cause I don't want anyone goin' out an' fightin' with an empty heart. At the very least ya need a real solid possibility of gettin' what you want in mind. Because more'n likely there'll be a fight durin' this mission.
I told Anan we'd leave 'em information on who was tethered and who was gone. So if you got a spare moment before next platform? [Which this train can have a hell of a lot of downtime so quite possibly.] If you left and came back, if you've flickered out and came back. If you've witnessed someone leave, write it out, put it in somethin' weatherproof, leave it on the platform where the Ministry can find it when they come through to the liminal stations. We can keep a copy of it here. Just don't let it hold ya back when somethin's comin' at ya. Know you can still do somethin'.
Edited 2022-01-10 03:52 (UTC)
He doesn't say it. Best not to mention it here and just see how this all plays out and mull it over then. Instead, he just offers to take a scouting device and an eyepiece, and once he's instructed on how to use it he goes to find some on his team.
"Hey, I'm better set-up to help out with Orange this time. I'm gonna help them out. Don't do nothin' that'll drag ya. It ain't worth it. We're showin' what kinda people we are just the same as we're doin' a mission."
Because no matter what they're equipped with, what they're gifted with, they shouldn't have to compromise a chance for a better moral standing or a calm nature for it.
All those animal handling classes that he wanted Blue to do? Yeah, he didn't manage to do much of those. Hopefully someone else can handle the big dumb critter can deal with that 'cause now he's gotta keep the equalizer safe until more people arrive to help him out. And first big issue? There's a very angry root system making its way towards him.
This is like suddenly facing the Red Sea and realizing you're only three-hundredths of a Moses. He is pretty sure this was reported earlier, people should be around, or coming to help, but for now all he can do is lunge forward, put his hands on solid bark, and angrily force one clamoring root to wind back through the others, hopefully veering them off course. He can hear fighting nearing and whistles his arrow up, and he hopes they can clear enough ground to plant this equalizer quick because thanks to this ox-flavored jack-ass now they're in a tight spot.
Yondu's been in the habit of collecting the names and the stories of the dead ever since his first mission. He knows these people are experiencing a fleeting moment, out of time, where they shouldn't exist. But they still existed, and as has become his tradition he remembers them.
After a quick break from set-up, he returns with a page of notes to help finish everything up. "Alright, let's get all these down. I dunno about you but I wanna make sure this goes as smooth as possible."
Whistling notes of "Let it Be" are directed at the kid, lulling them to sleep in the blanket-lined cacoon, their small head resting against his collarbone as he tries to keep them calm 'cause he doesn't want child screams to create a cascading effect of juvenile squalling throughout this part of the camp.
Once it seems suitably asleep he quietly says to no one in particular, more like he's musing to himself. "I don't think Mother Mary is Mary Poppins in that song..." just as an idle, pondering thought that wandered its way to his outside voice where it had no place being, and is probably the lightest thing he's thought about in a bit.
Edited 2022-01-15 14:34 (UTC)
It's that one eye open mentality that makes him recognized the sound of rushing feet, jarred awake by a man sprinting into his tent, and when his eyes open there's a knife raised over him. He shouts and kicks them away, a garbled hoarse morning scented noise, not even real words before he whistle and calls his arrow from his holster laying beside the bed.
One person, down. They're followed by another.
These aren't temporal anomalies. These are people he's seen around the camp for days. Ones he's been fine with, to his knowledge. The worst he's encountered is some mild stink-eye and that was exceptionally mild when it comes to looking like a freak in a place. He's low tier weird compared to all the other bullfuckery going on in their lives so why wouldn't someone just exist like they had a difference filter over them, you know?
Yondu's checking the bodies for any sign of ID, or a message or something that might explain it when a woman enters. She's the mother from yesterday. She's got a kitchen knife. Her baby is crying in the distance. The fact that she's not bloody makes him guess that the child is only crying because it was left alone, but it means she's here for him, and that's the moment it really hits him that he can't just be killing these people and something is real fucking wrong. She was in no shape to pick any fights, and yet here she is now, ready to throw down like there's a blood debt. Within a couple of minutes he's choked her unconcious and bound her hands and feet with vines (from an apple that he did some convincing to).
Probably the most notable thing about him right now. That coat he always wears? Like from the day he got here and Crowley made him a new version of it? Not here at all. He's just in a Blue Team uniform. His pack isn't with him either, if that should betray anything about his current mindset. Just his arrow on his hip, which he guesses someone would have the decency to pick up should he go down. When he goes down.
He won't lead those things to the kids. He won't tear up the camp trying to fight. He'll lay down these equalizers and he'll just... wait, maybe. Maybe lead some of them away if he lasts long enough. He's not really counting on it, as this is one of the cases where he's better off dead.
"Alright, you piece of shit," he says to the pack animal that pissed him off early on, heading over to the wagon its hitched to and checking for any crates in the back. "I at least know you run fast."
He doesn't want it. He doesn't want that moment of air being ripped out of his lungs, to feel the cold sinking into him again. He doesn't want the stars to fracture and blur and disappear from his vision. He doesn't want to feel it, not again, not like it was. He's waited so long to board that he doesn't have much time. It's practically a countdown for him.
Small favors, it's not out in space where he eventually finds himself. It's on a spaceport colony. It smells stale and the air has that odor of having been cycled through familiar regulators. There are Orloni scampering around the dingier parts- little creatures with the personality of rat pirranha that scuttle into garbage cans. The nicer points, the brothel, the gambling house, some nice inns at least trying to pretend to be for classier clientele (or at least ones that pay better) are cleaner but bright and gaudy and garish. Yondu's been here before- not in a couple of decades, it's changed quite a bit and he tried to stay out of range of Ego's curiosity, but he has been here. A station close to where the planet used to lie. One where he'd even picked up a few payments from him.
It's sitting in front of an information terminal that he digs up articles and stories and personal accounts on the equivalent of stellar social media. Capt. Yondu Udonta died a hero, a member of the Guardians of the Galaxy. His funeral was attended by the 99 remaining Ravager clans. The colors were flown in his honor. There are news anchors talking about successfully heists carried out by the united Ravager captains. There are further successes from the Guardians. There was a purge of 'most-wanted' posts about Yondu in the Kree Empire to stories about how their superior training enabled the former Kree soldier to help save their world and so many others from Ego's wave of destruction (isn't that a hell of a historical edit). There's a video of Stakar Ogord with a metallic stone, talking about how it fell into his lap and how a childish voice entered his head. He'd somehow imagined that it was from one of Ego's victims through some magical means that Krugarr couldn't identify. It had told him that Yondu was sorry, but had been making up for it.
It leaves him sitting like a lead weight for an hour, unsure of what to do. People pass him by like he doesn't exist all the time, while he tries to absorb the knowledge that Yondu Udonta is no longer the vile Ravager exile with a scum of the universe reputation. He's a hero, who gave his life to do the right thing. He was a beloved father and friend and this man he's just read about is somehow supposed to be him. Never before has an idea worn him out so much as trying to wrap his head around that kinda thing.
Because Yondu's back on the platform, having left the allowed range, and after a brief moment of surprise he gets it, and realizes that he can just be as much of a little fucking shit as he wants to be.
Eventually he makes his way back (eventually, because now he's got it in his head that in case things fuck up he needs to see whatever he can while he has the chance, and takes his own spells of world wandering). He'll gladly bring someone with him if they choose to come along. When someone swings by the platform while he's there? He hollers out to them. "Hey! Wanna take a load off? Believe me, I got ya covered." If they don't have a comfortable place to stay at home, he can rent them a room there. Somewhere to sleep and shower and eat if they're adventurous enough to try alien foods and see stretches of impossibly clear streaks of nebulas and brilliant glistening stars. He's got some leftover money that he's planning on burning through. Might as well treat some friends.
[OOC: Catch him on the platform or somewhere on the spaceport. If someone has left their world and needs a place to sleep or something he'll get them a room.]
Edited 2022-02-12 11:14 (UTC)
So he goes back to that little pocket of galaxy on that spaceport colony that means nothing to him and waits around there, quiet, again unnoticed. He sits by the bar and works through drinks, listens to reporters talk about recent happenings. He hears someone talking about Thanos and a dream that he'd attacked Xandar. He listens to someone else bring up a familiar name, Steve Rogers, as the subject of one of their own dreams and wondering why the hell they needed to remember that.
Something was going wrong and Yondu realizes that as much as he wants to spend as much time as possible in a universe where he's wanted? Even if he's not engaging it at the moment beyond drinking? He can't. He has to go and he has to wait in the fog. His presence could be damning this place and he fully expects the Void is somehow leaking in after him.
He could use those moments to send out decent final messages, passing notes for Quill and his team to find later. But he can't think of anything good to say. He'd tried to do that with Devero, leave important messages to people he cared about, but what goddamn good did that do? More seemed to go than he managed to keep.
Maybe if he'd waited for just a little bit longer before walking away, just a few more minutes, he'd have noticed the swirl of yellow from a forming portal not too far from where he'd been sitting. He'd have seen the strong, noble form of one Stakar Ogord step through with Krugarr slithering along behind him. He would have seen them asking around, following up on the word that the ghost of Captain Udonta was haunting this place.
That spirit was purged by the time they arrived, and he's out among the platforms, silent and sad and spent as he checks his SCA and the message that comes across it. Hold fast. Press your evacuation button. Your friends come. The Evac button. He'd forgotten that existed. Maybe he should have tried it sooner, if he'd thought of it. Whether or not it did any good. Now he's not eager to. Now he's angry he can't just exist in a world that actually wanted him in the end.
With that patented too-hard frown and grim face, he pushes the button to summon help. Someone will come, he knows that, whether or not he feels like he deserves it or that they should. They'd come whether they cared about him or not. It's just how these people are. But then again, wouldn't he throw himself out there just the same for his crew?
For now he just stands there and waits.
And then there are the ones that bothered to tether for him. Putting their heads on the line to bring him back, and even if someone wandered out into the void river for him, he knows the ones that stayed at the train paid just as big a role. So he finds them too, as soon as he can.
"They flew the Colors for me!" is one of the first things he ends up blurting out. Because it needs to be said, out loud, after all this time. He had been remembered. No idea what the hell to do with that? But he'd been remembered.
Edited 2022-02-20 21:45 (UTC)
Owner: Yondu Udonta
Cabin: UD2:B
Name: Twig
Type: Celebi
Description: -Image Link
-Moves and Stats
-It's a small flying pokemon, plant-like in appearance with a comparatively large oblong head with equally large blue eyes. Body is totally green in appearance. It has small backward curving antennae and solid leafy green forewings with smaller transparent veined hindwings.
Behaviour: Twig mostly makes his own fun and will pay attention to people that pay attention to him.
Location: Either in a pokeball, somewhere around Yondu, or in his cabin.
Permissions: That it gets focussed on what it's doing and sometimes ignores people until they touch it. It won't be offended but it's not entirely friendly, being like one of those pets that will reciprocate affection only when it's in the mood. When it is in the mood though, it's absolutely insufferable. It's relatively quiet and will be the most active in the greenhouse, trying to make plants healthier.
Cabin: UD2:B
Name: Twig
Type: Celebi
Description: -Image Link
-Moves and Stats
-It's a small flying pokemon, plant-like in appearance with a comparatively large oblong head with equally large blue eyes. Body is totally green in appearance. It has small backward curving antennae and solid leafy green forewings with smaller transparent veined hindwings.
Behaviour: Twig mostly makes his own fun and will pay attention to people that pay attention to him.
Location: Either in a pokeball, somewhere around Yondu, or in his cabin.
Permissions: That it gets focussed on what it's doing and sometimes ignores people until they touch it. It won't be offended but it's not entirely friendly, being like one of those pets that will reciprocate affection only when it's in the mood. When it is in the mood though, it's absolutely insufferable. It's relatively quiet and will be the most active in the greenhouse, trying to make plants healthier.
Edited 2022-02-28 06:13 (UTC)
I know some happened, an' I know some talked about the past. But I ain't ever heard specifics. System number two, Tree Root Cloud, calls the void 'the space between dreams'. [He spreads his hands.] Fancy name. But we all have these dreams. Of darkness, of fallin' into nothin', of screams, of people talkin'. Now the people in our home worlds were havin' them dreams before we lit out and came back, and some of 'em were talkin' about the future.
The obvious thought is 'uh oh, Void juice's about to cause some shit'. But another thought is about how some of them dreams were of the future, and maybe that's happenin' to us, too. The sagely types on board? They have visions of the future on the regular. Practically before every stop. But what if us regular folks are to a small degree. Maybe we need to look out for things comin' as much as things passed.
Anyway if you remember anything that could do with past or future, you should say it. Kaiba and Raven said they'd pitch in so you can chat them up too. ['Cause hell knows when people will disappear and he wants help to keep track. They've been here a little longer than him, but Raven blocks most of her dreams and Seto didn't remember anything special.]
Edited 2022-03-05 05:48 (UTC)
So now an old blue bastard is walking the halls, evaluating everything with a gaze that's somewhere between casing a joint and the awe that comes from someone that doesn't usually live in this kind of opulence. At his very luckiest he's slept in a place like this and the bedmate either rushed him out before their significant other could arrive or he slipped out himself. He's acted as a bodyguard at parties in places like this, lurking in the background with violently red eyes scrutinizing all the attendees for threats. He's never belonged to something like this, and he doesn't feel it now.
But there's always that bit of him that wondered. That part that would sometimes dress nicely for a job but then hide the slave-marked side of his face as he looked at himself in a mirror (realistically, hiding what he was is impossible considering how obvious all of his scars are, so he doesn't often even entertain the notion). That part of him that would hold a little bejeweled frog-creature for being both adorable and expensive. All through this venture he makes no effort to speak to anyone, just a little surprised to see what occasionally looks like a Terran to him even if he was nowhere near the world.
He's dragging his fingers along the wallpaper, feeling the texture. It's when he wonders into the small lounge that he tries to pick up one of the exceptionally nice candle-holders and walk off with it that he finds himself unable to. His hand just rests on it, and this unease hits him. And that unease? Hits another whole level of panic. That something's not right. So it's when Yondu's in the middle of trying to make his way back to that door he'd entered through with a quick, anxious stride that he might bump into someone, tension obvious all the way up his spine.
Occasionally he gets the odd look, but not as many as he'd expect, what for being blue and generally being a mess. He still doesn't say all that much. Just tries to learn by observing. He's startled out of his intensity, briefly, by being given a drink without even asking for it. Free, for no good reason as far as he can tell.
He sniffs it suspiciously, like he might be able to be drugged or poisoned (in his experience, that's a very real possibility, even with a lightened reputation) before taking a hesitant sip. That danger-colored gaze of his flickers from side-to-side as he considers it, wondering still what's going on here, before muttering, "To hell with it," and tossing back the whole thing.
Okay. So far so good. Normal alcohol. Not dying.
He holds the glass awkwardly, wondering where he's supposed to put this shit now. He carries it uncertainly over to a billiards table. Now this? This looks like something he can do. He'll just watch for a bit and see how the players do this. Maybe then he'll see what he can do.
Edited 2022-03-17 21:12 (UTC)
He's pretty sure the ones that could do it the most quickly have their hands full of trans-dimensional jelly monsters right now.
The storms are going to get bad, and the aggressive animals are worse. He's in a foul mood as he ties off some temporary fencing with rope, his ears still ringing from the last time one of the dralites did its level best to rattle his brain clean out of his skull. He's pretty sure he felt that right through the wires of his fin. But now that they've been run off (for the time being) the civilians can come out of hiding and they can do a quick job of this fencing. Maybe if he's super lucky he can shout out to someone that can magic up or superpower some materials.
At least maybe more people to murder the giant rats (chinchillas) or run off the Dralites would help.
They can't effectively manage the other tasks with the these big aggression issues going on, so here Yondu is trying to find and rescue some of these damn chicks, or what's left of them, which he should have figured wouldn't be as easy as he suspected because babies are made to be hidden.
He's lucky that he has a weapon that he doesn't need hands for, but that doesn't make it easy when he's finally got his arms full of cantankerous birdchild and a fluffdemon comes along to make his life hard. "Ah, come on. The hell you gotta make my life hard for?" And the chick? Starts squalling bloody murder.
Edited 2022-03-21 18:58 (UTC)
Alexandria is an Earth similar world in a yellow sun's habitable zone. It has two moons, though one is considerably larger and responsible for the tides. The second is smaller and has less of an effect. The two moons are in orbits that don't cause a risk to each other.
Forests and wildlife are valued so there isn't much farmland outside of the stories. What farms do exist are usually on top of buildings within one of the cities (including the library portions). Subway bullet trains provide transportation between the library cities. Usually only nature-dependent species are allowed to settle and habitate the variety of forests around the world.
Due to the nature of Alexandria there are a number of invasive species and sometimes hunting management is necessary.
The cities are clean and with a bright futuristic finish, for the most part, with the hospitals having incredibly good treatment technology. Rarely are there bacterial or viral outbreaks that they can't handle. There are business and there's a price conversion system for world currencies if someone ends up leaving Alexandria and going to another world to retire.
Forests and wildlife are valued so there isn't much farmland outside of the stories. What farms do exist are usually on top of buildings within one of the cities (including the library portions). Subway bullet trains provide transportation between the library cities. Usually only nature-dependent species are allowed to settle and habitate the variety of forests around the world.
Due to the nature of Alexandria there are a number of invasive species and sometimes hunting management is necessary.
The cities are clean and with a bright futuristic finish, for the most part, with the hospitals having incredibly good treatment technology. Rarely are there bacterial or viral outbreaks that they can't handle. There are business and there's a price conversion system for world currencies if someone ends up leaving Alexandria and going to another world to retire.
This, though? Much more up his alley. What he trained for, and dare he say it gave him more of a tangible sense of accomplishment at the end when he could hold an item in his hands. But these kinds of missions never came easy, especially when its after something important enough to predict the future, and the previous caretakers/developers/whoever the hell these folks were went through all this trouble to keep their items safe.
He peels an aging corpse away from a console, letting it slump with a thud to the floor as he pushes its chair away and starts to scroll through a holographic map. Half the doors marked 'BREACH' in flashing red, the rest of the walls and doors glowing in a dim, pleasant blue. He clicks each room, reading the contents of what it once held. Each with its own set of dangers, and some with their own special rules of how to avoid them.
This one here? Wear a gas mask around it because it exudes a gas that makes you forget. This one here? It can't touch you or you would be turned to stone. That one there- if you're not looking at it, it can attack you, possess your body, and leave you a corpse when it finds someone else to attack while still wearing you as a suit. Killing the body will just turn it loose to jump to a new host freely. It's just then that he hears very fast sprinting down the hall.
Yondu reels in place to face the door, just in time to see a person standing there. He can even see the labcoat they're wearing drift to a rest after that tireless, freakish run. And it's looking at him. The thing seems to be still alive though whatever person lived in that skinsuit is gone now. It's just a vehicle for whatever is inside. And Yondu, keeping his eyes on it, slowwwly tries to make his way around it and out the door. As long as he's watching it? It's not moving.
Okay, what was this about this being more up his alley again?
Security comes quick, unsurprisingly, and while he has the urge to rubberneck he also doesn't give the slightest of fucks why two people are fighting. It happens, right? Who is he to brandish some kind of moral justification. Punch a bitch in the face if it suits you! Maybe they deserved it. Maybe they're from a universe where shit didn't happen. Then someone can deal with the consequences.
He's about to move on with his day when a woman that looks like she has at least twenty years on him struggles to pick up some neon gourds as he's walking past. He would have kept going to a kabob place, thinking of the last meal that Zenos shared with him in the back of his mind. And, honestly, it's the weight of those more recent experiences that makes him stop and help start picking up the fruit.
Never mind a few of them are embarrassingly phallic. So someone might roll up on him holding a neon dick gourd and scowling at it disapprovingly.
Edited 2022-04-02 19:55 (UTC)
WHO: Yondu and Misc
WHERE: Around Rhakotis
WHAT: He's starting plans to save his friend.
WARNINGS: Nothing notable yet.
WHERE: Around Rhakotis
WHAT: He's starting plans to save his friend.
WARNINGS: Nothing notable yet.
On the other hand, the train had taught him patience that was surprisingly easy to swing back to as well. He knew that cold, brutal, punishing part of him was true to his real self. But so was the part that could help a kid that's wandered far from their magic avenue find their mom. Or always smile in his accidentally unfriendly way when his favorite waitress greeted him. He now found himself able to talk his way out or walk away from a fight on occasion. Growth, right? But he hadn't warmed up enough to go back to making friends again.
Today is a bad day. He's in a rougher part of the city, not exactly slummy but it was founded by a warrior culture and attracts that sort. Has the best damn food as far as he's concerned, mostly meat. One good argument has earned someone else a hole through their hand and a broken arm and it's earned Yondu a black eye and a mild sprain, with a few good solid body bruises between them. But they weren't out to kill, just to prove some kind of point. Even if Yondu's not sure what that point was. But now the frozen meat he was buying to stock in his fridge is being held to his face (at least there's wrapping around it) to ease the swelling as he shambles down the sidewalk back towards his home. He's going to have to get patched up again. At least he's used to it, but his wallet is hurting more than his leg.
God he misses the train's pricing. Quantity over rarity was a gift.
Doing what he's paid to do is nothing new. Following someone doing the 'right thing' is something that he's easily fallen into. He's a leader type that, when he comes to think of it, isn't much of a leader. He's a facilitator and organizer and pretty good at it. But he's taking the initiative on this one. He's got all the info he could dig up in the depths of the Library from a place called Kamakan, #93426194992 according to the Void Ministry, a dwindling technologically tainted world that V had helped the train's crew save. He'd worked out a ton on the virus, kept company to all those kids off in cyberspace, picked apart shit only he could see in an artificial world.
Kusanagi seemed the right one to go to on this one. If he could convince her that V could change and save a world, possibly even his own with the right push, he could do one goddamn one bit of good in the whole of his life. Someone who wasn't Peter. And it'd be his choice.
He'll wait there with his own beer and occupy his mouth in the meantime by tearing into a rack of ribs that come from... he doesn't know, something unfamiliar. Beside him there's something on the table that looks like a giant bug, eating from a bowl of oddly covered berries and somehow timing its bites exactly with Yondu's.
Edited 2022-05-04 08:56 (UTC)
This, though? This is surprising. Instead of a rush of air into frozen and feeble lungs, his extremities thawing, he feels about normal (the average sort of rickety that comes from wear and tear and not too quickly recovering from death).
But he's in that stupid blue hoodie, his pack considerably heavier with a load of belongings inside of it, and he drops it as he stares at the train in confused bewilderment.
"What in the deep-fried hell just happened?"
Oh, well he'd seen he was back, and he'd been glad of it 'cause he'd been honest when he'd told Kaiba that he'd rather it be him that was gone rather than the big... what was he? Dootch? Dutch? He was from the Neverlands he remembered that. Wait, Neverlands? Yeah, pretty sure that's right.
And he'd accepted that the divide between them was too big but there's that little hair of pride in him that know has to cope with the knowledge someone with that kinda dignity is gonna likely see him being straight-up sloppy garbage. He looks up at the ceiling and, to the train, gratingly drawls, "You better have some goddamn hard liquor somewhere on you."
He's not sure when the snap happens, but he's thrown two glasses against the wall and has a chair over his head, ready to smash it on the table. A wave of anger hits him as rough as any blast from a bomb.
Resource Gathering
Someone might wander into an odd situation. A man is forcibly dragged out of an electronics store, pulled by the back of his jacket onto the sidewalk, firm blue fingers digging into the lapel before he's tossed onto the sidewalk pavement.
The colorful stranger picks up a box and hefts it under his arm. The thrown man blinks in confusion behind thick-rimmed glasses before he scrambles to his feet on gangly legs and starts to run, one shoe lost somehow in his efforts to expose one of his ugly argyle socks. A few teenagers laugh as he goes, a couple of other preteens chase after to help him. In fact, there is an unusually high number of kids wandering around. And the adults? Don't seem to be acting all that adult. There are a couple of weirdos having a dance battle on a corner, a priest pulling down someone's pants like a ninja, a grown ass scruffy man carrying a stuffed animal half his size, and a couple of cyborg-looking guyss mostly in form-fitting black leather having a casual discussion with each other, leaning slinkily against a wall.
As the blue guy starts off in a particular direction, seemingly with a purpose, a generic-looking 'hero cop' stands in front of him. "Stop right there, criminal scum!"
The blue guy sighs deeply, the red fin on his head almost like a flag despite all the other strangeness going on around him, eyeing the cars for one he can both potentially steal and won't get that thing caught on while he tries to operate it. A green bug-like creature, about the size of a cat, buzzes by the car and does... something to the cop that suddenly has him turning and scolding the pantsed soul for stealing the car.
"Good job, Twig," Yondu grumbles as he examines a parked car through the window, trying to gauge space and ease of operation through the glass while the cop continues to lecture a parking meter. Twig lands on the roof and crawls over the vehicle, making adorable little noises at its master.
The colorful stranger picks up a box and hefts it under his arm. The thrown man blinks in confusion behind thick-rimmed glasses before he scrambles to his feet on gangly legs and starts to run, one shoe lost somehow in his efforts to expose one of his ugly argyle socks. A few teenagers laugh as he goes, a couple of other preteens chase after to help him. In fact, there is an unusually high number of kids wandering around. And the adults? Don't seem to be acting all that adult. There are a couple of weirdos having a dance battle on a corner, a priest pulling down someone's pants like a ninja, a grown ass scruffy man carrying a stuffed animal half his size, and a couple of cyborg-looking guyss mostly in form-fitting black leather having a casual discussion with each other, leaning slinkily against a wall.
As the blue guy starts off in a particular direction, seemingly with a purpose, a generic-looking 'hero cop' stands in front of him. "Stop right there, criminal scum!"
The blue guy sighs deeply, the red fin on his head almost like a flag despite all the other strangeness going on around him, eyeing the cars for one he can both potentially steal and won't get that thing caught on while he tries to operate it. A green bug-like creature, about the size of a cat, buzzes by the car and does... something to the cop that suddenly has him turning and scolding the pantsed soul for stealing the car.
"Good job, Twig," Yondu grumbles as he examines a parked car through the window, trying to gauge space and ease of operation through the glass while the cop continues to lecture a parking meter. Twig lands on the roof and crawls over the vehicle, making adorable little noises at its master.
Edited 2023-01-15 03:19 (UTC)
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