Endgame: This Broken Jaw of Our Lost Kingdoms; Part Two

[animusmods]

Characters: open
Setting: travelling through dead worlds
Format: any
Summary: The power has gone out, but a portal opens. Maybe all is not lost if you can gather up those who are missing...
Warnings: general animus endgame warnings

Comments

Arturia; Fuyuki City

[no_longer_a_king]

For the first hour, Arturia had attempted to kick things. Attempted being the key word. Once more she found herself without a body to call her own. She passed through everything she touched, unable to interact with even the smallest of pebbles or the bodies on the ground. The only thing that seemed to have a hold on her at all was gravity and her thoughts kept straying to the thought about if that were true at all? Like the previous times she had been here, stuck without even being able to so much as touch even the water in the river, she consoled herself with one thought:

'At least I can move about as I wish.'

But this thought was soon eaten by worry and soon the Counter Guardian began to trace the familiar path around Fuyuki, a path that pointedly avoided a house and church she had come to know too well when she had been a Servant. Worry clouded her mind. With mere hours to spare, what would become of the others? Would they manage to succeed? Or would Ruana soon be devouring souls one by one across the worlds to power her sick game once more? Only time would tell and the most Arturia could do at this point was hope for the best and try not to scream in frustration at how she had been ripped away so close to the end.

[fionnuisce]

Holy shit.

[Waver had both very fond and very miserable memories of Fuyuki, so to see it like this was just short of terrifying. If he looked hard enough he could almost see the remnants of the bridge and what was probably the Shinto district at one point.]

This is Fuyuki, how the hell are we in Fuyuki City?!

[More importantly, 'why'. There was surely some reason, especially if that portal came from where he suspected they did.]

[wegotlucky]

Neal didn't recognize the city that he found himself in. It probably didn't matter, entirely. He'd wandered towards the portal because there hadn't been anything else possible for him to do and then-- well, this had to be the dead world of someone else. That was the only explanation.


"Hello?" he called. Who knew how big this dead world was. He didn't have a clue if there would be anyone here. If people could freely travel between the dead worlds now (how? Was someone helping them), then maybe the person who occupied this world had already left.

Still, Neal was not the sort of person to take the chance. "Is anyone there? It's-- It's Neal. Neal Cassidy. From the Tower."

[greyerrant]

A figure drags himself behind the main group, behind Zelda, and all the rest. He stays well back from them, seemingly following in determined silence, saving his breath just to catch up with Arturia. He will finally crawl near the spirit, and pause for a moment to gasp. It would seem even despite him being a simulacrum of sorts, a framed figure with a faint impression of himself, moving without his abilities is extremely tiring for him, if only due to his own bulk.

He rolls over, smiling up at her.

"I knew if I followed them I'd find you somehow. You're connected by chains of loyalty. And so am I, though I'd ask you not to tell them that."

If you'd rather these two join another thread just let me know!

[warriorscribe]

A pair of wireframes are wandering about, too, she'll find. Enoch and Lucifel, from their clothes. Their hands are clasped, and Enoch's body language is tense enough that he might as well be clinging to his arm instead, if it wouldn't hamper their movement. They seem to see her in the distance, though, and approach slowly, and eventually, Enoch breaks from Lucifel to run, forcing his companion to run to keep up with him.

"Saber...?"

((ooc: Don't worry about waiting up for Lucifel unless he's directly addressed or until his player's available, she's given me permission to handwave him being with Enoch here.))

[chevalier_mal_fet]

[He had gone in Search of his Master, of course. First to the Dreadful place of his Summoning. Then to the River. Then to every Dark corner and Woeful place of memory. Nothing.

He sees the other occasional shade, but their shapes seem unimportant for none is the shape of his Master. No stranger to traveling apart from the World, Lancelot drifts at Will.
But here. Here is Arthur.

At last.
Now that there is no War left to Fight. He nods in Greeting, not Trusting his Voice.]

Naoya; Roppongi Hills

[crouching_sin]

Naoya woke up, as he had so many times before. Granted, most of the etime he hadn't wandered through a post-apocalyptic wasteland, but some parts of the Yamanote Circle were halfway there already. The sound of his geta clacking down the street echoed, and for a moment he wondered when the last time the city had been so silent was. Certainly not since this land had yet to develop cities, or even towns.

He'd tried to see if his curse was still in effect - it was. The one from the Tower, too. The gore on the bodies didn't bother him - or at least, it didn't until he found him Naoya knelt by Kazuya - the Messiah, not his cousin or brother anymore - and shook his head.

"You... you foolish idiot. You wanted to save the world, and now look what that's brought you. You couldn't even save yourself!" No one was there. No one could tell what he was feeling. He didn't have to pretend.

And so when rescue from the Tower comes, it's clear whose world this is and what direction he's in by following the mad, broken laughter and the occasional sobs.

[bowandblade]

Even with their powers gone and the countdown completed, they were left to their own devices. Stepping through the rift in the containment area had quickly proven to be the best choice for advancement after being released from their individual cells; Archer had hardly been the first to go through the rift.

He almost stumbled as he landed on the dead world, muttering to himself as he took in the rather depressing scenery.

Rather difficult not to hear that piercing sound of life in the distance, even if it didn't sound quite sane.

Luke; AU Auldrant

[ambassadorasshat]

Luke hates visiting his dead world. He's done it several times already and always ends up being stuck in the desert. The ruins of Zao have been explored so many times he could probably navigate them with his eyes closed, and he has no desire to hang out with the dead bodies littering the oasis and city.

So he's spent the past several hours wandering between Chesedonia and the oasis, occasionally whining to no one about the situation.

Anyone coming here will be deposited in the middle of a desert. There's an oasis a short walk nearby, a large city a couple hours' walk in the other direction, and lots and lots of sand everywhere else. A purple miasma fog hangs over everything as far as the eye can see. find Luke wandering around near the portal, wary of actually interacting with it, or just simply desert.

+Zelda and the rest of the cast

[bloodyashes]

The first thought Asch has after making his way through this ripped portal isn't so much a thought as a glare, leveled at the miasma hanging in the air around them. He tries to fan it away from his face, to not much point - there's no clear air to take its place, so all that happens is that the mist swirls in front of him a bit.

Home sweet home. Well, it's not actually his home, but close enough. The oasis, and Chesedonia in the distance, all exactly the way he remembers them from the short time they spent in the Qliphoth. Even so, he still can't sense any fonons. It's disconcerting, gives the whole thing the quality of a dream (or a nightmare).

"Try to breathe in as little of the miasma as you can," he says to Zelda, and anyone else from another world who might have followed them through. "I don't know if it can still poison us, but it's better not to risk it."

[ninjainviolet]

Of course, Sheena makes a grand entrance, falling through the portal and landing face-first into the sand. For a moment, she thinks it's Triet and is filled with a mixture of happiness and remorse at being home, but when she lifts up her head and wipes her eyes, that quickly changes into confusion when she spots the scenery.

She doesn't recognize either the oasis nearby or the city in the distance, but she does recognize the red-head wandering nearby.

"Luke?" she says, getting to her feet. "Where are we?"

Reno: Midgar

[midgarhorizon]

Gaia had been impressive, once, for a small planet. Now it was just an impressive asteroid field. Once drained of mako and lifestream, it had crumbled. That's what happens when a living planet dies. Reno spent most of his time on the asteroid that held the mangled ruins of a city that had once been Midgar last time, when he wasn't floating around seeing what was on the other asteroids. There were probably better places to hang out, but Midgar had the largest amount of resources, and therefore more things to poke about in.

Reno paced the mostly clear area of Sector 8 angrily, occaisonally glancing over at the remains of Sectors 7 and 1 on either side. One had been badly damaged in the Meteor Crisis, the other, by his own hands. He hardly cared. He'd only been here for hours and he was worried at what happened. Riki attacked, and Shion...

"What's the fucking point?" He stopped suddenly, yelling at the remains of the dead planet. "What's the point if it all turns out like this in the end? Why?" With more force than necessary, he kicked at an abandoned car, making it shake back and forth.

[oathshackledbird]

What...is this?

[Diarmuid looks around himself in shock and confusion. He's not sure what he was expecting when he stepped out of the portal, but this isn't it. It's hardly a planet. It once was, that is clear from the remains of the city around them, but now...

Now it's rubble.]

Why did we come here?

Sheba; Jupiter Lighthouse

[seekinganswers]

Sheba has been returned to the ruins of Weyard several times since she first opened her eyes in the Tower - she's seen Lalivero, and Tolbi, and so many other places that she had visited with her closest friends on their journey. Now, she's found herself in Jupiter Lighthouse. The beacon isn't lit - it's long since gone out with the death of her world.

It's almost funny to her, how the more things change, the more they stay the same. This lighthouse hadn't had the answer the first time she visited it, and it doesn't have the answer now.

She's had some time to make the climb, and she has to admit that without the monsters, it's much easier to do. Sheba is at the top of the lighthouse, her legs dangling over the side of the aerie as she sits at the tower's edge. The portals, however, will deposit people at the very base of the tower.

But don't worry. The door is open - a Jupiter Adept has already passed through, after all.

[morituramfides]

His wandering had been pretty mindless-- it could've been deliberate, or it could've been by sheer force of luck and coincidence that he'd even ended up moving, and moreso that he'd even ended up here. Jin didn't really know where here was, but when he ended up at the base of the tower-- well, the really thought is that at first he thinks he's outside the real Tower. The second thought is that he's outside, at the base of Tartarus, a beacon of a miracle from a world that he hasn't seen in years over.

He of course, dismisses both of these ideas immediately, if not out of pessimism then out of the fact that it's not nearly crooked enough to be either of them. Though it was possibly just as tall.

But as far as he can see there's no where else to go, and the door is open; it's a foolhardy and predictable move to walk inside, but Jin does it almost like moving on auto-pilot, and he makes the trek to the top, strenuous, but-- pretty tolerable, if you consider all of the other shit he's had to go through for the sake of nothing.

He doesn't know quite what he's expecting, but it's not another living being. And certainly not one he knew, supposedly devoid of any tricks. (If it was really a trick by the Tower, he's pretty sure he'd have found someone else at the top.)

A moment of idleness, not quite hesitation, and he takes a few steps forward to allow his voice to be heard when he calls.

"Not planning on jumping off again, are you?"

Quark; Rhizome 9

[averytinyparticle]

Quark had never been returned to his dead homeworld during his stay in the Tower. Though he should have known what to expect fromm hearing other residents talk about their individual experiences, nothing had prepared him to find himself back in the warehouse, surrounded by the still bodies of his fellow hostages. Of his Grandpa.

He could have been sick. He should have been sick but found himself unable. Quark found himself feeling nothing even as he cried and cried and begged his Grandpa to please just wake up and not leave him there all alone forever. Not even Zero Jr. lit up the screen to welcome him. Quark would have welcomed being called Quirk by the AI, even if it was nothing more than a taunt.

Each hour felt like a lifetime. When he had found himself with no more tears left to shed, Quark had begun to shuffle through the warehouse--as far as he could go, anyway. Many of the doors were sealed shut, their digital locks forever disabled. Perhaps they could have been pried open, but there would be no point in trying with fists as small as his.

Eventually he stops walking, curling up on one of the thin cots in the infirmary (one of the few accessible rooms), facing the wall. He can be found there, shivering and sniffling but otherwise still, his hat removed from his head but held to his body like any other child might cradle a stuffed toy in comfort.

[keybearer]

It's so surreal seeing a dead world up close. Having never visited his in all his time in the tower, it's... chilling to see all the corpses. The eerie silence. The stillness and lifelessness.

But in his wandering, Riku's surprised to find someone living. Curled up in a corner. Breath hitching, Riku opts to step closer-- Quark may overhear the sound of footsteps drawing near.

"Hey, hang in there, all right? You're not alone anymore."

Jin Shirato; Tatsumi Port

[morituramfides]

It wasn't the first time he'd ever been back; it would be dumb to think any time would ever be the last. The world was too fickle. Jin had been back many times over, continually cursed with the inability to let it end. At first he'd spent his time quantifying, analyzing the data of the world around him; he mapped the world, identified landmarks that still remained in some form, mentally described their destruction and decomposition, took stock of elements that could possibly remain. Processed and reviewed like a computer, neatly able to section a part of his brain away like a malicious program.

(At a certain point before he'd come back the last time, he'd grown terrified of his own processes, and terrified of the fact that that was what he had called them just look at what they had done to them everything, everything he had said and talked about being untouchable in the long run maybe that was just wrong)

And so the next time he was back, with too much time to think, too much room to be himself, it was natural for him to both futilely rebel and quietly accept himself and what had happened-- and he'd dropped himself down on the ground in the remains of the closest thing he'd ever called home. Just a run down old warehouse that barely qualified as a building anymore, with a couch that barely counted as a seat and tools and teenage odds and ends scattered on the ground and abandoned, and the water boiler broken. Again.

(He'd tried to fix it again once before, for old time's sake, but it wasn't quite the same when there was no water anyway, and no one to yell at him if there wasn't).

He dropped himself there like a ragdoll, the corner of his glasses perpetually shattered, his hair a grown out and ragged mess, and his countenance astonishingly silent as he tried to format the hours in his head.

[evokingfool]

Tatsumi Port.

This world may have ended, but there's enough identifying features for Minato ton recognise the area that's a part of his "home". It's probably not even his own world, but seeing the world gave him some mixed feelings. Nostalgia, sadness, determination to restore the worlds back to normal. But he pushed it aside and go out to look around.

Either he stand there and feel sorry for himself, or he can walk around and find something, anything, he can use and do about the situation.

With how wrecked the world was, Minato found it easier to wander over into the areas he rarely frequent. His normal life gave him no reasons to enter this area, and sadly it's because of everything that he can explore this part by himself.

His wireframe body made soft, almost quiet footsteps as he walked towards the warehouse...and peeked inside.

"Hello?"

Why did he even bother saying it, when there's seem to be no one nearby...

Ryoji Mochizuki; Tatsumi Port Island

[notsogrimreaper]

After how many times Ryoji has been forced to return to the place he called home, even for that short a time, he shouldn't be surprised to open his eyes and see his dead world once again. He really wouldn't be surprised, may not even be bothered, if he didn't recall what had happened moments before. Had that been... the end? Was he just sent back, no chance to save any of the worlds, no chance to save himself?

He wants to cry, but the tears don't come. He should have known, deep down, that this was what was to happen to him... wandering around his barren wasteland of a world for centuries.

At least he's not trapped in one place. He can still... drift, at the very least. He wanders around the desolate shells of the places he used to frequent: the arcade, the strip mall, the bridge. Eventually he makes it back to Gekkoukan High. A lot of it is still left standing... the classroom is the same as always. He sits in his old desk (it takes some work, but he finds a way to hover just over the chair), folds his arms over the table, and bows his head.

If he closes his eyes, he can almost hear the voices of students, can almost feel Junpei shoving him to wake him up before class begins...

[slightlyoblivious]

There was one voice Yukiko hadn't heard inside the cells, and it belonged to the one person she was most worried about. When the portal opened, there was only one thing to do.

She recognizes the scenery of Tatsumi Port Island well enough; she doesn't know the city well, but the memories from the class trip - the class trip that seems like a lifetime ago, the memories belonging to someone else. It's strange to think of it now.

It takes her entirely too much time to make it to the school. When she does, it takes some searching before she finds the right classroom.

"Ryoji?"

It doesn't matter to her that she can't exactly touch him; she runs, very nearly knocking over a chair before she reaches him, and the tears start long before.

"I'm here. I'm here and we're going to get out of here."

Neal Cassidy; New York City

[wegotlucky]

It had been a long time she he had returned to the dead world. His home city this time, instead of the dead remains of Neverland. It was funny how things changed, how Neal had never actually seen the dead remains of the Enchanted Forest. Maybe it was because New York had been where he had actually repaired his life or maybe it was because Ruana was a sadist.

Whatever the case, he had to keep moving.

There was so little time left. A day? Maybe left.

He couldn't remember the last time he had slept. But he knew that they had to end this. He'd find a way back to the Tower, to help save people. But for now, he would wander the remains of Times Square.

[sageprincess]

"Hello?"

It's eerie, the way her voice echoes off these giant buildings as though she were in a valley rather than a city. Only the city in the Tower's own world comes close to this, and even then she doesn't remember so many tall buildings placed one after the other quite like this. Still, Zelda continues calling out, because she knows there must be someone from the Tower out here, even if she has no idea where precisely 'here' is.

"Can anyone hear me?"

Suzaku- the crater of Tokyo

[swordofzero]

And so it had ended. Suzaku wasn't sure why, they still had had time. Not much but a little bit. But one moment he was in the hidden floor in the aftermath of the battle having seen the elevator plummet down with Riki in it and the next he was in Ashford, stood right on the edge of the crater that once was Tokyo.

There were a few half destroyed buildings around the edges but the crater was completely smooth, like someone had taken a spoon and carved out a part of the earth, destroying in. The fact this world was dead was Ruana's fault but this crater was Suzaku's doing. It was probably fitting that if he were to wander, lost for eternity that his journey started here.

He had hoped to avoid this fate, that was the reason he had never changed his collar fluid. A hope that when the power failed he would die. But it seemed he had failed. Everyone had failed. Perhaps killing Riki had killed the tower. He wondered what had happened to the others. He probably deserved to wander alone for all eternity but the others... others like Diarmuid. They didn't deserve this.

He stood in the centre of the crater like he once had, long ago now, when it was first made. But this time instead of laughter bubbling from his lips there were tears, silent but unyielding.

Suzaku would have thought he were used to failure, but this one seemed so much more bitter because for a moment he had believed that they might have had a chance.

[keybearer]

A portal opened after some time, and from it, Riku emerged. By this point, he had already seen one dead world-- seen the ruin, the destruction, and death lurking all around. But this crater... it's far more dismal than anything he would've anticipated. A gaping maw in the earth, rising up around him.

Fortunately, with the rest of the world dead, it was easy to make out the one remaining life form. And a familiar face, at that. After gathering his bearings, Riku took off running, sprinting at the one familiar face in this deserted wasteland.

"Hey, Suzaku!"

Nesir Aeser - temple in the mountains

[culbutiri]

I'll show you. Show them what? The effect of loneliness. Because if Nesir could have spoken back she would have told Ruana that that was something she already knew.

They had killed Riki but now, stood in the grounds of the temple in a world that was very much dead, Nesir figured that Ruana had won after all.

It made her angry, that after everything this Ruana's response was to banish them.

Last time she had been on her dead world she had worried that it were too late, this time she was pretty certain. They had hours, maybe a day if they were lucky and now she was here, stuck.

She kicked at a wall, but lacking any solidity it did nothing. Was this how this was ending, doomed to wander for eternity not even being able to effect the things around her. How was this supposed to teach her anything?

She walked and climbed until she found herself at the watch tower, the highest point of the temple. It was a simple structure, roofed but open on all four sides, a bell hanging down. As an acolyte Nesir had spent many boring watches here, scouring the countryside for danger, the bell waiting to warn those in nearby settlements.

Even dead and empty the temple was impressive, surrounded by high walls high in the mountains. The main building holding a great hall and classrooms for those training to be priests and priestesses. Dormitories were attached to those. To one side were the training yards and the barracks. And there were gardens, dead and withered now but once beautiful and well tended.

Often whilst living here Nesir had cursed all the people, the fact that there were few places you could go and be completely alone. She took it back now, empty this place was eery.

She climbed onto the ledge of the watchtower and up again, onto the roof. There she sat, watching the dead mountains and the dead temple. Thinking. There had to be something she could do, she wasn't ready to admit defeat yet. Ruana had proved that she had complete power of them, but there had to be something...

Sephiroth/Ocelot; Open to anyone who from Sheba's thread who might follow.(?)

[neverbeamemory]

[ooc: The portal hop after this]

One portal closed, another opened. After finding Sheba along with a few others that Sephiroth really didn't know so well, the only way from that dead world was offered in a similar way to how they had all left the prison within the Tower. Only, it was noted without very much effort at all, that at some point during his time around Sheba something had changed. As if his soul were filling out from the inside some, Sephiroth didn't feel as faint and hollow as he had once the total blackness had engulfed the Tower - the weakness that stretched over his consciousness like a hazy veil seemed, just a little, less hindering. More real.

He wondered what had changed it. Same as he wondered exactly why he'd been deposited on Sheba's world in the first place. What did Ruana want to show him? But if finding others across worlds delivered him some of himself back, Sephiroth would take as many portals as it took. Real power was important to him, should his wireframe cage be able to be broken like he had managed before.

The temple set in the mountains loomed up and away from him as he strode towards what he presumed to be the entrance, though force of habit kept his caution around him even if he knew that this world was also dead. Even so, the enormous tall walls couldn't help but draw his gaze up and over them in something close to awe. If only he could fly up and survey the whole grounds, he might have a better chance to discover which wandering soul he might find here. Alas, contained within his faded wireframe-and-film prison, it would afford him no such luxury.

There was nothing left to do, but to explore the temple -which had so obviously been so full of life- and examine as many of the empty rooms down whichever corridor his fake feet carried him. From within one of the withered gardens, Sephiroth spotted the watchtower and paused for a moment to consider. The last plane he had been on had required a Tower to be scaled as well, it couldn't be coincidence.

Though finding a route through the intricate network of rooms and corridors he was unfamiliar with would take him a while to find a way around to the watchtower.

Kanaya Maryam; The Veil

[gloomyapoplectic]

It wasn't fair. She had been on the meteor for so, so long already. Even knowing that it was an awful place, and even knowing that she might have died there, she had been happy to return to the Tower. Isn't that what Ruana had wanted? For all of them to be happy there? Why cast out one of the few people who actually wanted to live in the Tower?

She didn't understand, but Kanaya couldn't think about that without hearing the laughing echo of Terezi's voice in the back of her mind, taunting her for her inability to consider the world outside of her own experiences. She'd found Terezi's corpse at one point during her half-sweep stay. She didn't have any desire to return to its resting place, though. There wasn't anything left for her to say.

It was instinct to find Karkat's disemboweled body and sit next to it, as she had been when she was first taken to the Tower and as she did during most of the time that she was gone. Even though so much time had passed, none of the corpses of her friends had decomposed the way they should have. Kanaya didn't really understand that, either. She might have been grateful to know that her friends weren't turned inside-out in the characteristic way of the dead worlds, if she had any way of knowing that that was how people killed by the world-destroying virus ended up. But she had been the only one left alive in the lab by the time she was saved; there were no other complex organisms for the virus to ravage. Only the shells of people who were already dead.

The harsh metal structures of the lab on the meteor almost resembled the Tower in some places, and were just as unwelcoming in the Veil as they were back under the rule of the administrators. And, just as in the Tower, the building housed an abundance of stairs, as well as a cluster of computer terminals in one room. The stairwells and strange teleportation panels were the main ways to navigate the lab; it was a bit labyrinthine in size, but it would be easy to find Kanaya no matter where someone emerged from.

After all, there was a trail of rainbow-colored troll bodies, and Kanaya was right at the end of it in another computer room, sitting on the floor next to Karkat with her back turned to the teal-ridden shell of Feferi.

[hoasen]

This would be the first time she's even been in another world. Or, at least after the Tower. Vietnam has never even had a chance to return to her own dead world, despite hearing the stories of how everything now was barren and ruined where they came from. That it was all true.

And so she kept walking. This place was reminiscent of the tower, looking very much like a death trap. Too many computers in the one secluded place could never be a good thing. But with so much around, perhaps it meant that there was something to be found.

The bodies, as strange as they looked, was not the surprising thing. It wasn't even Kanaya. It was just the entire image of her sitting there with the bodies, looking defeated.

"Kanaya!" Vietnam called out before she made her way towards her roommate.

Mitchell; Agartha

[idkworldruler]

The Center of the World, the Tree of Life, the portals to all; has been infected, it seems. Darkness crawled out of the cracks where warm light had shone out brilliantly before. This was meant to be a thing of perversity. A spit in the face. But all he could manage was a raise of an eyebrow in curiosity. It really was a curious thing, that this place, of all places, had been corrupted. Or at least seemingly so.

He has not given up yet.

He still has should he still has will and a purpose. Everything that he has learned, everything that he has been told, all measuring up to a rather staunch stubbornness to think that this is really a dead world.

Not when he still has Her blessing. Not after all of the bullshit that he had to put up with. No, this was not the end, not to him. Even as the sheer amount of darkness threatened to consume him, and anyone who follows. Though he doubts that anyone had. Things never worked like that, he was on his own most likely.

Hilda; Lorule Castle

[lorule]

It was the first time Hilda had been sent to her dead homeworld. After all, she hadn't been in the tower long enough for this to happen to her before. And needless to say, this was quite a shock. Lorule had been a land of darkness, a land devoid of hope and future. Quite simply, Lorule had been a dying world. But Lorule had not been dead yet. She, and no one from her world, should have seen the actual end of this world in their lifetime.

And yet here she was in the desolate Kingdom, utterly devoid of life. She had spent mos of these past hours crying, but now she was standing just outside the throne room of Lorule Castle, looking at the land all around her. The world looked as dead as every other world, but even then it was obvious the land hadn't been particularly prosperous before the destruction happened. Most of the things that could be seen were ruins, the now dead trees and plants all looked like twisted imitations of real trees and plants.

The other thing that probably differentiated this dead world from others was the lack of dead people. Dead monsters? There were plenty of them, as far as the eye could see. But people, there seemed to be none, or if there were any, they weren't anywhere close. And indeed, most of them were in a village to the west, but Hilda didn't bother to go and check. They were probably dead as well.

Hilda would just be staring at the land-- After crying so much there were no more tears to be shed, but she still looked as down as she could possibly be. There was a corpse next to her, one she had moved and refused to left behind when she left the throne room, apparently. It was fully covered with a pink suit and its face was covered with a rabbit hood, so it was impossible to tell who that was exactly.

[athousandcurses]

Another strange world, but this time not as filled with human corpses as the other. Grainne picked her way around the strange castle, looking for whoever it was that belonged to this world. Even without the damage the Tower had done to this place, it didn't seem like it had been a happy place.

Grainne called out from time to time, hoping that it would help in locating the missing companion, when she finally found the throne room, and then the figure standing outside.

"Are you there?"

Sir Lancelot . Matou Family Home, Fuyuki City

[chevalier_mal_fet]

[He may not go Home, truly. Even if such a Place yet existed. In this deserted, desolate World, surely his Bones would have long since turned to dust, along with all that once was of Arthur's England.

He had judged that of all Places, Kariya would be least likely to come to his Ancestral Home. Though perhaps his Master would have laughed to see it in its present State. A moldering ruin, broken and brought Low.
Still, having searched Fuyuki City as best he could, Lancelot had come at last to the place of Berserker's Birth.

The infernal Worms are dust, of course-- and as he makes his way into the ruin, he smiles unseen, sure that his Master would have taken great Joy in that fact as well.
Not yet fully aware of his own purpose, Lancelot scans the ruins as if watching for a sign. The House had held so many Fell mysteries, so many Arcane objects. He feels it of vital importance that he Investigate.

It is not long until he finds something worth the labor. Sharp-tipped Chains (though rusted, still solid) and a cruel-looking Knife that is very nearly long enough for a Short Sword. He gathers these things up as he makes his way through the ruin.]

[puppy_lancer]

[Of all the dead worlds, this is the one that makes Lancer most ill at ease. It looks so familiar that it's more heartwrenching to know that everyone there is dead.]

Hello? Anyone alive here?

Naminé | Twilight Town

[lethechained]

[It's a parody of a blessing.]

[For as long as she lived in the mansion hidden away in the forest of Twilight Town, she'd wanted the chance to see the rest of the city for herself. But it was almost entirely in memories, in data, that she had the chance - and it was not, in any satisfying kind of way, truly real.]

[Now she walks broken, empty streets, and the pain in her chest is made even more sharp by how well she still knows them without having seen them for herself. She spends the first few hours searching, sensing, looking for any sign of life, any whisper of a heart somewhere out in the ruins of a once quiet but living place.]

[There is nothing.]

[It makes her sick, almost, makes her angry at herself in a peculiar sort of way, for what her past self wished. Now, it's so viscerally unpleasant an experience that she can't even begin to enjoy it. The sky itself seems to mock her as she climbs to the top of the station tower, makes her way to the edge--]

[And sits down at it, closer to the stairs than many groups of friends have placed themselves in the past, because the places they chose are not hers.]

[Still, she does not cry. Instead, she waits - dry-eyed and patient no matter the clawing, terrible panic in her chest - and she watches, eyes cast down upon the town she never had the chance to explore for herself.]

[attheclocktower]

[When Xion walks through that particular rip in space to this particular world, her heart stops. She recognizes it immediately. Of course she does. No matter how far away she's been, no matter how long since she's seen these streets... how could she forget?

And yet it makes her want to cry. To see the buildings broken, the people lifeless in the streets like puppets with their strings cut. She takes her time, not entirely paying attention, walking dreamlike through the area, trusting Shion to keep up, talking with him some, explaining, showing. After a while they make their way to the Station Plaza.

Xion had saved this for last. Dreading what she might find at the top of the Clock Tower. To her surprise though, it's definitely not unoccupied... but by someone who looks to be sitting up. She turns to Shion.]

I think there's someone up there!

[The person they came to this world to look for maybe? It could only be one of a few people... Xion rushes her way towards the door, wincing a little at the pain in her knee as she rushes.

And once she's inside... well, she might be getting ready to go up all those stairs herself.]