Subject: A door numbered "22" creaked open...
Author:
Posted on: 2012-12-04 18:59:00 UTC
...and let through a lanky 18-year old man with messy hair clad in his pyjamas and a green bathrobe.
"I'm sorry, is something going on?" asked Gaspard De Grasse, still rubbing sleep from his eyes. "Don't let this be an Emergency. The double shift the Sub Rosa assigned last night sure felt like one, though."
In the future... there will be dinosaurs.
No, sorry, wrong future.
In the future, the Protectors of the Plot Continuum are scattered across the multiverse. Old tasks are carried out by new groups, with little resemblence to their old forms. Look deeper into the swirling mists of time, and see the myriad homes the Protectors have built themselves...
The four schools of Paladins continue their ancient (well, at least middle-aged) mission: the defence of the Word Worlds against all forms of badfic. To each School is given certain time-hallowed rights - and duties.
The grey-clad Demas Paladins are Assassins, endowed with the authority to take the life of uncanon. Their fortified bastion in the Warhammer 40K 'verse is an ideal training ground for the rigours of combat - but is, of course, equipped with massive portal generators in case it should be discovered.
The Basel School, led by the former Canon Librarian Xander, hold the keys of exorcism - and the responsibility to use them in defence of the canon even at the risk of their lives. They make their home on a planet called The Library, in the Doctor Who 'verse, relocating in time and space whenever they become noticed amid the endless shelves - or when the attack that closed The Library forever draws near.
The Pyron Paladins, robed in the red and gold (or as everyone else calls it, 'orange), are tasked with the destruction of uncanonical locations and items - but carefully, of course. Their spacegoing fleet is made up of the spoils of the war on uncanon - in particular, those parts of the spoils which are able to fly through the void and blow things up.
To the Indim School is granted the power to relocate people from one dimension to another - whether they be canon or uncanon. The portals on which the PPC relies are held in trust by the Indims, and they make their home in the mountains of New Caledonia, long a PPC stronghold, able to protect this powerful technology.
Rumours abound of a fifth school, the Flow Paladins, who held all four of the rights - assassination, exorcism, demolition and transportation - but were closed down within five years of their formation. Nevertheless, some claim to have seen them in the quiet places of the multiverse...
By far the largest of the remnants of the PPC are the Rangers, almost invisible in their camoflagued uniforms. They scout the badfics of all creation, the first to enter, and call upon the Paladins most suited to the task. Their home is the multiverse itself, but their base lies under the Misty Mountains of Middle-earth.
Supporting them are the Technomancers - or the dosats, as they are commonly known. It is said that their leaders - an AI known only as Ghost, and a computer simulation of the legendary Makes-Things - can supply any technology in the multiverse... for the right price, and if they can be located. Their flying city coasts the spaceways of the multiverse, cloaked and invisible, and at its heart lies a well-kept secret: Node, a man encased in an impenetrable shell, whose mind is wired directly into the ship's body. Whispers say that he was once a Technomancer named Dann...
To ensure the PPC's expansion, the Harpers spread out from their home on Pern to scour the multiverse for recruits - at least in theory. In practice, most recruits are accidental, or extracted from badfics by Paladins. The Harpers concentrate primarily on giving them basic training, before they move on to be fully educated in their chosen vocation.
And at the heart of the spreading flower of the PPC is the House of Rhodes - the shattered, labyrinthine heart of the old PPC HQ. Here all the children of the PPC meet in the vast Cafeteria. Here the Council - the heads of all the components - assembles to discuss the war they all wage against uncanon. Here the small administration corps known as the Link keep their records, barely more than a census of the PPC's followers. And here, somewhere, there is a twisted corridor... a closed door... a keyhole.
A key.
The key turns. The door opens. And a link between past and future is once more established...
Kali looked thoughtful. "It would be interesting," she admitted, "especially if we didn't stay too long. I don't want to leave Orion alone for long; he's watching Aeric at the moment."
"Unger shouldn't be on his own for too long, either. Remember when he set fire to the lounge and nearly killed himself?"
"Steady on, mate," Jenni murmured at Gaspard's outburst, tentatively extending her free hand in case it was needed. Clearly not quite over that acute stress reaction, it seemed. However, he calmed down again on his own, so that was good.
"Nexuses, huh? I dunno, wouldn't you just be portaling in and out of them the same as HQ?"
Further discussion was delayed by the arrival of Unger, Kelok, and Homles. The bright green mastiff immediately got Henry's attention.
"Puppy!" he squealed, picking up his head and wriggling to get down.
"Oh! Hi, Unger!" Jenni managed to get out while struggling to keep her grip. "Hold still, will you?"
"Puppy! Wanna see the puppy!" Henry attempted the tried and true Boneless Maneuver and slid a couple of inches.
"Gah! Unger, is he kid-safe? Looks pretty hyper..."
(( Jenni knows everybody. Except the ones she doesn't. ^_~ ))
...but stopped as soon as he saw Homles. He stifled a yelp of terror and retreated back to his Response Centre's door, half closing it behind him. Peering though the crack, he asked: "Is it safe? It's not radioactive or mutant or anything, is it?"
((As for the Nexuses, I've got an explanation for their advantages over HQ: they use stabilized natural plotholes instead of portal generators. This technology reduces energy consumption by at least fifty percent according to DoSAT, since agents only have to use their RAs once to get out of a fic. Another thing is that it encourages Spies to stay longer in-World, so they can reduce the volume of badfic that goes into Sorting by filtering it at the source. It could also tie into the separation of departments during the Sundering: since future!HQ seems rather deserted, the DoI could have retreated to its outlying outposts during the Fourth Civil War...
Methinks I've put waaaaaay too much thought into this.))
Lucy looked on with growing concern as Kali, Kelok and Unger made their plans. "I'm not really sure that's a good idea," she put in. "I mean, temporal instabilities aside, the House of Rhodes is a dangerous place."
"Boring, she means," Durran retorted. "If you come visit, you have to go somewhere cool."
"You live under a mountain, Durran," Sara pointed out. "That's not 'cool' in any way."
"Guys," Lucy said in a strained voice, "that was... how does the quote go? 'A clever lie'. They... okay." She turned and glanced at the assembled past PPCers. "Meaning no offence to anyone, but not everyone in the history of the PPC is particularly nice. The last thing we want is some Department of Author Correction nutjob coming to pay us a friendly visit. And that could be any of you."
(I've always thought it would be awesome if the Fourth Civil War was a proper civil war, with 'good people' - and 'bad people' - on both sides. We've never really had that before. And as Aaron pointed out, it's just as easy to see the Department of Efficiency and Author Correction as the goodies - and the various conservative rebels (former PPC agents and their families, the oldest surviving Flower, etc etc) as the maniacs bent on... well, on the sort of Sundering that eventually happened)
"I work in Bad Slash," Kaliel said, turning her attention briefly away from Kelok, "not to mention I'm a Tok'ra. I don't know what your standard of 'nice' is, but all I'm interested in is seeing how the future might be."
"I'm more than happy staying here," Lee contributed. "I mean, yeah, the future sounds interesting and all, but I'd rather just stay here. I get enough experience dimension-hopping every day without having to worry about taking a temporal leap."
Kelok blushed, his cheeks turning green, "I'm, uh, basically a space vampire meant to suck the life out of humans through my feeding hand." He hurredly added, "But, don't worry, I was created without the urge to take over the galaxy."
Des waved his hand. "I have visited enough weird places for a lifetime. I think I'll pass, especially since I have no idea what will happen if I will meet the future version of myself... if I'm still alive, that is. No, don't tell." He rubbed his goatee. "Though, to be honest, on the other hand going to another weird place won't do much, I suppose..."
At that point, he stopped speaking coherently and just muttered to himself.
(OOC: Future!Des is a ghost possessing a Jian Shang Di suit of armour.)
Have you established a timeline for the Sundering? This RP has given me some plot bunnies...
The 'timeline' is sort of established between the lines of EOTB:
-2024: A group of Floaters referring to themselves as 'the Department of Efficiency' start causing trouble.
-2035: Execution of Daphne Illian by the Department of Author Correction (which effectively brings the entire extended Illian clan into direct opposition with the PPC). (Note that Aaron points out that they normally bring people back - but that the Illians refused).
-2038: The Departments of Efficiency and Author Correction are fully ensconsed. The Illians plan the revolt.
-Still 2038: The Sub Rosa flees HQ. Generally considered the start of the Civil War.
-Approx. 2039: The war ends with the Rhododendron's sacrifice and the shattering of HQ (henceforth named the House of Rhodes after him). The Sub Rosa dissolves the hegemony of the Flowers. The Sundering occurs.
-Approx. 2069: This RP.
And since it's only mentioned in passing, a partial list of Departments & Heads:
-The Cherry Tree & the Foxglove - Efficiency and Author Correction. I don't know which is which.
-The Lilac - DMS (now much smaller than the Floaters)
-The Crocus - Operations
--The Rhodedendron - possibly secretary to the Crocus, or he may have moved on since 2006. Durran seems to think he was Head of Personnel. Not on the Board.
-The Sub Rosa - Intelligence
--The Barley - secretary to the Sub Rosa, does most of the running of Intel
According to Jasmine, the entire Board except the Lilac, Crocus and Sub Rosa are evil. It's also clear that the Sub Rosa is the last of the Firstborn.
And the Sub Rosa has started posting undercover Spies in other departments (specifically Tia in Author Correction). I think that's about it...
hS enjoys this stuff ;)
As soon as exams are over, I'll have a look at this stuff.
One last thing: is the Sundering going to be the official canon of the future!PPC or is it just one of many possibilities? I have a feeling that it's the second choice, but I just want to make sure...
As far as I'm concerned, the events I've written about are what will happen to my agents and their families. That doesn't mean anyone else has to agree with me, though.
Thus far, we haven't had an unreconciled difference-of-opinion in PPC canon (the death/not!death of Makes-Things was reconciled and retconned). That doesn't mean we never will, though.
hS
(Or at least the 2069 as set out here...)
Would you be cool with that? :)
That would be awesometastic. ;D
I'll point you again in the direction of Seventy Plus, which established the basic parameters for missions - or at least how missions are meant to go. Essentially:
-Ranger goes in and scouts to determine the type of story
-Ranger calls in the appropriate Paladins
-Ranger fills the Paladins in
-Paladins finish the mission according to the formula (as described therein - it's the witness/evidence part)
Of course, that's predicated on the Ranger and Paladin(s) working well together - and Lucy and Durran are cousins. So there's room for endless variation. The primary real differences are that the Ranger sticks around rather than just sending a report (again, in theory), that you can regularly have more than one School's Paladins in a mission (for instance, a Mary-Sue who causes a Geographical Aberration would need a Demas and Pyron Paladin), and that formula at the end (which is regarded about the same as our charge lists).
And if you write a spinoff set there, and define the parameters of What Makes A Mission a bit further, I may well write another in your version...
hS
Thank you! ^_^
Thanks also for the info and reminder of the background.
*runs off to start plotting*
It's a little hard to say for sure what the canon of the future will be, unless you can talk the Boarders of ten to twenty years from now into writing things that way. It's up to them, really, not us of right now. Granted, you and I might still be around then, given our track record... but most people fade away after a few years or so. We are not normal. {; P
Though, here's a question: are established AUs canon? Sort of?
~Neshomeh
... that it might become a fait accompli - that if enough people in 2012 write about it as the expected future, then the people of 2032 will call it canon and stick with it. That might mean they end up writing under Department of Efficiency rules for a decade or so (or, since Aaron was pretty scathing about it, just ignoring the DoE), or it might mean they backdate half their missions and foredate the other half to skip the entire period.
Or, they might write the same things then that we do now.
hS
That gives me some plot bunnies, too. They're a bit... grimdark.
"Sure he's safe! He likes to jump, and play, and slobber, and run! He's a mini from the Sherlock Holmes continuum. He has to keep eating glowing mushrooms or his glow will go out, but I don't think that means he's radioactive." He bounced in place for a few seconds before he spotted Eagrus. "Oh look at that! He's got an axe, too!"
"Yes, I have an axe," Des told the half-elf. "What with it?"
"Oh man, that's a great one! Do you collect scalps? I collect scalps. Maybe we could trade sometime?"
... from his earlier 'oh, that's mildly interesting' to 'gods this is disgusting'.
"No! What do think I am, an AmerIndian?" Des asked, waving his free hand at his longcoat, which had seen better days, and his modern attire.
Unger's excited expression faltered for a brief moment. "Oh. You're one of those kind of people. You probably like showers and everything! If you're not a barbarian, how'd you get to using an axe? I got mine so I could go on my test of manhood." He paused and absentmindedly rubbed his arm and shifted from foot to foot. "Um, hmm, that didn't quite go so well--" his expression brightened again. "but then I fell through a plothole and ended up here, and met Kelok, and got Homles." He abruptly stopped speaking as if that explained everything.
Des' expression changed yet again, this time to an 'ah-hah' one.
"Well..." he said, "you see, I come from an AU of World One. Its AUness stems from the fact that everyone is trained in the use of one of the ancient weapons - the axe, the bow, the staff, the sword, the glaive, and others... for example, my friend the Giant (no, he's not a real giant; it's just a nickname) is a particularly gifted mace fighter, and another friend, whom I usually call Mr. Fobwatch because of, well, the fob-watch he carries everywhere, is an OK sabre fighter."
He rubbed his goatee when Unger explained how he ended up in HQ. "Sou ka," he said. "I myself got recruited through that time-waster that is the Internet... pray tell, Mr. Half-Elf (I didn't quite get your name), to what department are you assigned?"
"That sounds like a lot more fun version of World One. I'm Unger, and this is Homles," he said pointing to the the glowing mini. "Kelok and I are in the All-Purpose Department, Sherlock Holmes Division. We get mostly movie related badfic, a lot of Bad Slash missions, some Sues--Kelok really doesn't like those--and sometimes we have to rescue Holmes and Watson from really weird situations, like when we had to pull most of the cast out of a Victorian zombie apocalypse world and put them back where they belong." He leaned in conspiratorially. "The Ironic Overpower is completely real and in charge."
"A fun version of World One... well..." the human rubbed his neck. "As far as I get it, it's just as bad - or as good, depending on your point of view - as World One."
He waved. "Pleased to meet you, Unger," he said. "I am Desdendelle. I am in the Department of Floaters - my RC is log e - though it seems I and my partner, Anebrin, will move on to the Department of Implausible Crossovers at some point in the future."
"Kelok and I started in Floaters, but we got kicked out." Unger looked around for a subject changer. "Are these new people new recruits or something? They don't seem as freaked out by being in the PPC as most new recruits."
"Kicked out, ka," Des said. He tucked that piece of information into a compartment in his mind, like he did with quite a lot of other, unimportant data. "Those new people... well, I didn't quite understand, but they do seem to be from the future. Some of them are Dafydd Illian's progeny, one is a certain drider I know... I hear tell that my partner survived till then."
"From the future? We did a mission where some girls dragged Holmes and Watson into the future. Moving through time is not good, right? Who's Dafydd Illian?"
(Yes he is young and silly)
"Well, time travel gives me headaches. Especially the loops," said Des. "As to who's Dafydd Illian... well, he was a sorta-Replacement of, hum, Maglor, I think? from the Silmarilion and an Agent of the PPC; he retired six years or so ago. He did C*l*br**n..."
The human shuddered, and made a face as though he swallowed a lemon. "I certainly do not envy the guy. He died there. Because he used a Ring of Sue-ness. Not something I am going to do, certainly."
"I have?" asked Eagrus, surprised, quickly followed by: "Hey, who switched my sword?! Give it back at once or I'll... I'll call the Collective of Three back!"
Absorbed in a conversation so much that somebody actually managed to sneak up and swap his sword for an axe? Eagrus was horrified.
It was then that Eagrus noticed it had been swapped back, his trusty sword now when it should be. He guessed he probably wouldn't find out who had done it, so he placed his hand firmly on the pommel and contented himself with the knowledge that he would not have summon Cyba, Sigma and Phi after all.
"Hmm," he said quietly. "I guess I'll let you off then, whoever you are."
Still, he wished he hadn't left Zouh in the RC; it was nice having the mini-Hun watch his back.
When, hmm? Oh, maybe it fell through the portal somehow and came back. Or maybe I just misswrote 'where'!
Jenni, not entirely reassured by Unger's description, cast a last dubious look at Homles before making a decision. "Henry, I think he's a little too big for you to play with right now. Sorry, kiddo." She boosted him up higher from the ground.
Henry's expression crumpled as though he were going to cry, but a better idea occurred. If he couldn't get down, maybe the shiny green critter could come up? Leaning out as far as he could, he reached for Homles, opening and closing one hand in a sort of summons. "Puppy! Here, puppy!"
Jenni rolled her eyes. "Oh, shells. We'd probably better get going soon." She turned back to the group from the future. "For what it's worth, I've never heard of a Department of Author Correction. There was Author Correspondence, but that closed down when its last agent left a few years ago. The last evil whackjobs we had around here were the Mysterious Somebody and the Black Cats. So, either it hasn't happened yet, or it doesn't happen for us at all in this timeline." She gave a one-shoulder shrug. "That said, I've made a habit of not crossing myself in time, and I'd like to keep it that way. One existence at a time, that's me."
(( As for Nexuses, all portals are essentially stable plotholes if I remember right, but using less of them to conserve power makes some sense. And heck, HQ is built of tunnels randomly interspersed throughout the multiverse anyway. You might be able to punch a hole in the right corridor and have a more direct way in and out, depending on how far underground/high up in a mountain/wherever it is. ))
Lucy frowned. "Just because it hasn't happened yet doesn't mean some of you won't be in the DAC in the future," she pointed out. "Remember Jess, Durran?"
Durran drew in a sharp breath. "Oh yes," he breathed. "Jess is the sister of my mother's old partner," he explained. "She joined the Department of Efficiency - I think mostly to annoy her sister - but the things she ended up doing... well. Thaddeus says she 'left', but she's basically in permanent exile."
"She wasn't a bad person," Sara said, her head bowed. "My husband's a relative of hers, and he's sure she wasn't ever wicked. She just... wound up on the wrong side of the line."
Encouragement was in order, it seemed. "You know," Jenni said, "since you're here—or rather, now—have you thought about trying to prevent all that? Or, maybe just by showing up and alerting us to the possibility, you've changed history. Maybe we'll do things to ensure it happens differently. We'll be able to see the early signs and nip it in the bud."
Gaspard sort of half-appeared beside the pair in the characteristic manner of the Spies: completely unnoticed until they spoke up.
"Sorry, but if you don't mind me adding my two cents on this... What if our attempts to watch for the rise of the new departments actually gives birth to the DoE and the DAC? We could all be participants of a stable time loop and not know it. Sure, there's always the possibility of the universe following Professor Matsumoto's branch theory, but these people from the future couldn't be speaking to us if their past wasn't already validated by our actions. If we changed their past, they wouldn't be here..."
In the silence that followed, Gaspard took a few steps back and looked at his feet. "Sorry, shutting up now. Don't mind me."
"But only if we're in Back to the Future here. Who knows, we could be in Star Trek or something, where the time-travelers are immune to the changes precisely because they've stepped out of time." Jenni grinned. "Oh, and Gaspard? Relax. I don't bite unless my date asks nicely."
(( Sure, Jenni, real soothing... ))
"You're not a vampire, are you?" asked Gaspard, slowly edging away from the Nurse.
"Anyways: time travel," he continued. "So if they are able to move about in the past without our present actions affecting them, this implies branch theory is correct. Heh. Just wait until I report this to the the professor... However, we can't know for certain that this is not a time loop closing itself unless someone from their past-- our future-- does something dramatic like not fulfilling their role or something," mused the agent.
The realization hit him harder than a speeding Mack truck on the Trans-Canada highway. The junior agent gripped his hair and slouched.
"Oh, dammit. The other one said I was gonna be some big-time general in the future. Generals mean war. War means dead people. Dead people means I'm not looking forward to the future. All right, forget destiny, I'm getting out of here as soon as I can pay for a master's degree in World One..."
(( What's this? An agent assuming he can afford something with the current pay rates? Gee, all of that badfic must have gone to his brain. ))
"... but I think you're on the wrong track," Durran said. "What you said about time loops - my mum came back in time to around now because the Ghost told her she had - because it remembered her being here. That doesn't make sense unless we're in one, immutable timeline, right?"
"Or it could just mean Aunt Jasmine's very good at following orders," Sara pointed out. "We've only got Ghost's word that what it remembers matches what happened to her, after all."
((Jasmine Sims of the Black Cats, this is. Is primary!Jasmine's experience of Crashing Down identical to the Ghost's memory of the events? Dunno. It's probably better not to pin it down.
And yeah, he's 'the Ghost' to most people, but just 'Ghost' to the dosats.))
"Why do I even bother with this half the time?" Indim Paladin Emara muttered to herself as she made her way down the dim grey corridor. "This portal here isn't working, that one dropped me off two years early, the one over there was off by an eighth of a centimeter. It's not a perfect science."
She could see the wavering blue light of the portal as she turned around a corner of the dusty maze. How was this one unusual like the report had claimed? It was the right color, the right size, not collapsing in on itself like many of the old ones were wont to do. And where was the person who filed the report? It was common courtesy to wait for the repair-person to arrive so that you could list your complaints. Granted, the Indim School wasn't very well liked among the four schools, but that didn't excuse people from things like manners.
She huffed to herself as she neared the portal. There wasn't anything wrong. The generator seemed to be in good working order, as far as staring at it could tell. It almost seemed too good; according to her map of portal sites, this was one of the oldest ones, leading to an area right outside Rivendell. She had been expecting pieces held together with tape and parts replaced with shoelaces, not a little machine chugging along without a care in the world.
She shrugged her suspicion aside and ran a hand through her close-cropped blond hair. It didn't seem like there were any problems that she would have to break out her toolkit for, but often times that could only be judged by going through. She reached her arm out to touch the shimmering blue surface of the portal- only to be intercepted by the figure that had just stepped through.
((Jumping in on this a bit late, but there's still room on this side of the mysterious circumstance. What would happen if a modern agent stepped forward?))
(Keeping this as a separate thread to the other, since it has no overlap. Also attempting to reconcile the 'door' and 'portal' versions)
"Oh, hi!" Agent Kayleigh grabbed hold of the hand that she'd run into and shook it enthusiastically. "Sorry about that - I thought this was a door." She frowned, glanced over her shoulder, and shrugged. "Well, maybe it's only a door sometimes. It must be boring always being the same thing."
"Anyway!" the Slasher went on. "Is this your Response Centre? I hope you don't mind me coming in here - it looked interesting, so I did. Hey, it's a bit dusty and corridor-shaped for an RC, isn't it? Where've you put the console?"
(Kayleigh is fun)
Emera asked, staring at the hyperactive young woman that had just come through the portal she had been trying to fix, "Response Center? The only people who respond to anything in this dusty old place are the Link. And of course it's a corridor, nearly all the rooms have been unusable since the Sundering. What idiot taught you the histories?"
She stepped back a moment to survey the girl, who had begun to survey the portal generator. She wasn't wearing orange or grey, but instead was clothed from head to toe in black. An armband bore the picture of a three-eyed rubber duck.
"Actually," she said to the strangely clothed girl "What's a console?"
Kayleigh's somewhat selective hearing passed her the key words. "Link responds to you?" she said. "That's nice of him, he always runs away from me. Maybe it's something I say? Or maybe it's the bikini... shame it isn't sunnier in your Response Centre, I could do with some more tan. I wear it all the time, see?" And she pulled her shirt off to show off the bikini top underneath. It too was black - and with a rubber duck sewed onto the strap. An actual, if small, rubber duck.
"Anyhow," she went on in a slightly more normal tone, "a console is, one, a wall-mounted computer system for accessing the HQ network and receiving missions, two, a device dedicated to playing video games, set apart from arcade cabinets by its ability to change games, and three, to comfort someone in a time of grief or lack of cookies." She frowned. "Only not often that last one," she concluded. "Any more questions? I'm good at those."
(Yes, she's always like this)
wear a swimsuit... all the time?" Emera's eyebrows quirked. She then frowned to herself "No, that's not the right question at all. What do you mean, HQ network and all that? What school are you from?"
Kayleigh blinked. "Er, St. Asimov's School for Girls of Unusual Style. Is that important? And, well, not all the time. Would you prefer me to take it off?"
"No! No! No need to take it off!" Emera waved her hands frantically to try and ward off the strange question. "I'll just be on my way then. Got to figure out what's wrong with this portal you know. That's why they called me down here. Goodbye odd girl!" With that, she jumped through the portal...
And was faced with another corridor. This one, though, was in pristine condition. Almost no dust in the corners and only a few slight scratches in the wall from swords or axes or the like. All the doors still had doorknobs. There was something more wrong with this portal than it not leading to Rivendell.
Des made his 'mouth as a diagonal line' expression. He massaged his brows. "Whoa, you dosats - I assume this is a corruption of DoSAT, Department of Sufficiently Advanced Technology - certainly inherited Makes Things' temper. As to the disguise business... well-" he cut himself short, and turned to Riaa. "I see you'll still be around when I'll be dead and buried, ka? Is Anebrin still alive?"
(OOC: Yes, he is. Still around.)
"I think he's still alive. Isn't he?" she added, nudging Amarthedhel, who frowned.
"The blond ellon, right?" asked the half-elf. "He worked around the same time as Nana, so..."
...and let through a lanky 18-year old man with messy hair clad in his pyjamas and a green bathrobe.
"I'm sorry, is something going on?" asked Gaspard De Grasse, still rubbing sleep from his eyes. "Don't let this be an Emergency. The double shift the Sub Rosa assigned last night sure felt like one, though."
Durran's jaw dropped. His mouth worked soundlessly a few times before his voice emerged in a croaky whisper. "The... Sub Rosa? You know the Sub Rosa?"
Riaa turned to Desdendelle. "I am a drow. So long as we have mana surrounding us, we live for centuries. There's hardly any here, but I haven't yet hit my first century. I only need to visit the underground a few times a year to survive."
She looked up, apparently thinking. "Anebrin... Yes, he's alive. I see him on missions occasionally - though not since we had a mission in the new Firefly 'verse. Huge tangle of purist and newbie 'Sues, getting into everything tangentially related to the canon. It was a mess."
"Well, that was to be expected," Des said. "He told me that his kind lives for two centuries at the very least..."
He rubbed his beard and looked pensive. "I wonder... no, don't tell me how I end up. Spoilers and all that."
The boy tapped his forehead and turned back to Durran. "Well, of course Spy De Grasse knows his department head, just like I occasionally meet the Floating Hyacinth... What was your name again?"
Eagrus pricked up his ears, not that it was easy to tell under his helmet.
"Mana? As in for magic?" he asked.
"Oh dear," moaned Cyba, "here he goes..."
"Do you know much about magic? I must say, I hold it in much higher regard - " he glanced at Cyba, Sigma and Phi " - than tech."
"You would," Cyba retorted. "You are: one, from a fantasy continuum, and two, have so far not managed to have a Disguise Generator blow up in your face and turn you into... this." She indicated her rather frightening appearance, and that of Sigma and Phi (who were extra copies of her spawned by a Stu's misspelling, while on a mission after the Disguise Generator incident).
"You can't say you didn't have that coming," replied Eagrus. "You shouldn't have annoyed the IO. If you hadn't, you wouldn't have the body of an undead tech monster."
"Yeah, I know: or occasional tendencies creeping into the back of my mind, not to mention what happens around actual Borg," muttered Cyba. She, Sigma and Phi all shuddered involuntarily. After all, faulty connectivity still gave little defence against the influence that came from such proximity.
"Anyway," interjected Phi, "let's not get into the whole magic versus tech thing now, please?"
So they let Eagrus talk to Riaa, and three women continued to converse with Sara.
A/N: this should offer a brief explanation of some of the happenings from my agents' missions, for those who are unfamiliar with them and their history (and the hows and whys of what Cyba, Sigma and Phi are). Fear not, I am not a fangirl escaped from OFAS! :)
"Yes, for magic," Riaa explained. With a flick of her hand, her shadow began to move, growing upwards and forming shapes. "That's a mana art, since my affinity is with shadow-magic. Drow can live for centuries in a constant supply of mana - for example, in a large city of drow. The older you get, the more drow you need to be around. Diva'ratrika, the oldest of us, needed to stay in one of our biggest cities to not die. But I'm young, and spend enough time in magical continua to not wither."
Laede leaned over. "I use magic too - this gem is my power's source. Ever heard of Madoka Magica?"
"Unfortunately, I haven't," admitted Eagrus, "although I have visited the Underdark at least once on a mission. Interesting place - from a safe hiding place, at least. I do wonder, though, is magic always something you're either born with or without, or can it be taught? Even, say, the teensiest, tiniest little bit just to annoy Little Miss Tech over there?" He glanced in Cyba's direction, but she was too occupied by her own conversation to notice.
Riaa frowned. "My magic is that of the drow and the dark elves. Goblins - humans, I mean, don't have auras in my universe. Our magic probably wouldn't help you."
"And my magic requires being an adolescent female possibly willing to sell your soul," Kaede interjected. "Though there are probably continua where anyone with sufficient willpower could do it. You could try looking into RPG systems."
"I have inborn magic," Lee said, joining in on the conversation. She conjured up a small ball of water with barely a thought, making it float an inch or so above her palm. "I'm an Elemental Mage, First Class, or Kirsala Tarev, if you want my Clan rank. In my home 'verse, magic is everywhere, and most races have an innate talent for it. Then again, technomancy is one of the leading industries there, what with the æther-ælectric airships everywhere."
(Since we're getting a bit spread out and I'd like to put this all together once we're done... reconciling the current threads:
-Magic talk
-Tech trade
-Flowers discussion
-Jenni's arrival
The other side of the portal can stay separate, I think)
Durran nodded enthusiastically to Gaspard's description. "She sounds wonderful..." Then he blinked. "Um. The Rhododendron was... the leader of the Link, I think? No, that's not right... um. Anyway, he's... basically we're from the future and Lu's going to tell me off a lot if I say too much."
Lucy, however, wasn't listening. She'd been eavesdropping on the ongoing (and expanding) magic discussion, and finally had to put a word in. "There's this Demas Paladin I'm training - Deborah, her name is - and she's got magic, too. She said she 'just picked it up somewhere', but the way she talks to her brother... I don't know. It's almost like they have a very sneaky magic war going on."
The sound of singing distracted her, and she turned to see the newly-arrived woman in the white coat. "That's Uncle Tanfin's favourite song," she commented, then grinned wryly. "Well, 'favourite' as in 'favourite to make fun of'. I didn't know it was so old."
Nearby, Sara laughed. "There are a few things that predate your birth, Lu," she pointed out, and nodded at Cyba and company. "Like that Disguise Generator..." She shook her head. "It pains me to deal without bargaining at least a little... but just this once."
The dosat reached a hand up to her cheek and pulled away a fingertip-sized node of the web. The fibrous wires immediately curled in upon themselves, and it seemed as if an invisible light that used to surround it had gone out. "It can last for a week or so unattached," she said. "If you press it to a mammal-like sentient's cheek, it'll attach and start the augmentation process. Er, what else?" She scratched her arm absently. "Oh, it'll build a construct based on the wearer's personality to teach you the interface. And it'll need to grow to full size - about three, four months - before it can spawn again." She held out the little ball of wire in one hand. "Now gimme."
"Done," agreed Sigma, taking the ball of wire and handing over the data storage containing the schematics. "You have our thanks." She turned to Phi and Cyba. "Okay, now whose turn is it for dibs? Last mission, Cyba got the coat, Phi got the minis, and I got the ship, so I guess we're even at the moment."
"She said it can spawn another after three, four months," Cyba reminded them. "So we all get one eventually."
"I might want to wait until I've got my minis better trained," said Phi. "Besides, Cyba probably needs it the most, because she's mission-active."
"I can't wait to see how this and our current implants combine with each other," grinned Sigma enthusiastically.
"If this Exonet can teach us how to interface with it, it might be able to teach us how to better use our own current implants, too," mused Cyba. "Thing is, I have Mess and Joke more readily available for that, should they ever become more amenable to tutoring rather than playing pranks. I vote Sigma gets it first."
Sigma grinned. "I'll keep you posted," she promised, and pressed it to her cheek, where it took hold immediately. "Come on, let's see what happens."
With that, the trio vanished through a portal to Sigma's RC, having completely forgotten about Eagrus and his magic discussion.
***
"Technomancy?" spluttered Eagrus, so absorbed in the magic conversation that all he noticed of the tech trade going on beside him was Cyba, Sigma and Phi's disappearance into Sigma's RC.
"Who in the multiverse would want to combine magic and technology?" he continued. "I mean, magic is far superior, surely?"
Sara's head swung round at Eagrus' words. "Magic? Superior? Get real. Magic has a supporting role at best in any real-world applications."
She held up a hand and counted off her points on her fingers. "First off, it's too volatile. You never know when it'll just go off in your face. Second, it's just plain fickle - the cliche of magical items betraying their owners must go back at least fifty years." She paused and blinked. "Which, if what I heard from Paladin Trading Cards over there, isn't actually yet, but still.
"Third, not everyone can even use magic - and there's a fair number of religions which make their adherents almost pathalogically against the stuff. And fourth, most forms of magic simply aren't properly controllable. You can't go around drawing heptagrams every time you need to analyse a character or whatever."
She sniffed. "Oh, I admit some of it can be useful - like those Muggle-use wands we make for Paladins in the Albus Potter fandom - but that's extremely tightly controlled, and really is more tech than magic.
"And, speaking of technology," she added, drawing a deep breath, "I really should get this back to the City. Lu, you know the way back, right?"
(Sara has opinions. Lots of them)
"I'm sorry, what?" asked Cepha. "I'd like to see how well your tech works in an EMP blast. And besides, how many magic systems do you even know?"
Amara nodded. "Magic, wielded by a competent mage, is no more volatile than a good tech weapon. Two, just how often does your tech break down when you tempt the Ironic Overpower too much. And it's much more versatile, besides - my magic can summon my weapons, open doorways to my pocket dimension, create magical armor for myself, heal most injuries, and create minions, all in a gemstone that fits in my hand. Can any one piece of your tech do all that?"
Des lifted a finger. "As usual, truth is somewhere in the middle," he said. "Magic and tech both have their uses, faults, and pros. Of course, the use is limited by the continuum you're in at the moment. Disregarding that, I believe that an Agent should keep both magical and technological armaments around. Look at my weapons - on one hand, a magical Border Axe from Torchlight II; on the other hand, a Hunting Machine sniper rifle from E.Y.E: Divine Cybermancy. Or, look at Anebrin. Present Anebrin, I mean, not your future version. He's got both a blessed (if sentient) sword, a mundane bow, and a B.O.S.C.O sniper rifle."
"Excuse me for a second," said Gaspard as he pulled a little crank-operated music box. He worked the crank for a few seconds, listening to the first notes of the Legend of Zelda theme. "Sorry. It's just a little trick I learnt from the Inception-verse. It usually comes out as the Hedgehog Song if I'm dreaming."
The agent pocketed the box. "So, the future, eh? Do you know if I'm still alive in whatever year you come from?"
Durran frowned. "What was your name aga- wait. De Grasse? As in... General De Grasse?"
"Can't be," Lucy said. "The General was a space centaur or something, right?"
"No, that wasn't De Grasse," Durran disagreed. "That was... can't remember the name. But still..." He eyed the scrawny (sorry, 'wiry') form of Gaspard dubiously. "Nah. Can't be."
~
Sara raised an eyebrow at Jenni. "Yeah, it's about this kid who's a wizard and goes to wizard school. I think his father was a Harry with some kind of backstory... can't remember. A relative of yours?"
"But most importantly, I survive," said the Spy. "That's nice, I have a future ahead of me."
Hearing someone call the name of his parents, Gaspard turned around ("Hand on a second," he said to Durran) and looked at the FicPsych Nurse. "Madame? Yes, there's a good chance of that; my father Frédéric works in FicPsych. My mother is in Medical. I think I might have seen you a few weeks ago when I spent some time over in FicPsych."
The future, huh? Well, that explained things a bit.
Jenni shook her head with a wry smile. "Not of mine. Henry here is a rescued Mpreg baby, though—like he said, Harry Potter is one of his dads. It's hard to imagine anyone not knowing who Harry Potter is. 'Backstory' is one way of putting it. 'A wildly popular seven-book series with movies to boot' is another."
Just then, something clicked, and she turned to Gaspard. "Hey, don't I know your parents? Frédéric and Nicole, right?"
"Well, I'm firmly on the side of magic," stated Eagrus. "Tech's more trouble than it's worth. Though, if the Flowers hold the opinion of the truth being somewhere in the middle, that might explain why I'm stuck working with Cyba. Magic lover and tech lover balancing out - even if I can't use actual magic." He stopped, thinking some more.
"Hold on, did somebody say you're from the future?" He paused again, this time putting two and two together.
"Please tell me you didn't actually trade tech while I was distracted by..." Although, the last glimpse he had caught of Cyba, Sigma and Phi, they had all looked very pleased about something. "They've got future tech, haven't they? Eru, help us!"
He supposed it would keep them busy for a while, if nothing else. What was done was done, so he might as well discuss magic to his heart's content. That way, even with Cyba banging on about her new tech for the next week, he would have something to fire back. Besides, the trio might just forget about his calling them the Collective of Three.
"So you're from the future, and this Albus Potter has eclipsed Harry Potter?" he asked. "This Albus Potter must be quite something..."
Lucy snorted. "Sure, you could call it 'something'. The Rowlings are up to... what is it now, Durran?"
"Three mutually incompatible canonical timelines, averaging eleven books each," Durran said promptly. "Not counting the anime, games, or either of the movie 'interpretations'."
"So there's a prequel about this Harry?" Lucy mused. "I'll have to visit the Basels and look it up... might be good." She coughed and glanced at her cousins. "Good to know about, I mean. For work. I don't read kids' books."
"Er, and speaking of visiting," Sara said, "we really ought to go back. Temporal instabilities are, um, unstable, you know, and I really don't want to get trapped here."
"Not a problem," Lucy said dismissively. "We'll just track down Granddad and get him to send us a timeslip device when he eventually gets hold of them." She glanced at the agents from the past. "You do have some sort of filing system, right? So we could track down Dafydd Illian?"
(This is basically ground-laying for if the RP peters out rather than being resolved. It's not a request to go on a mad adventure)
Des raised an eyebrow. "Dafydd Illian? The Dafydd Illian? I think he retired six or so years ago. I read some of his mission reports - very, very messy, especially that LotR 'fic..." He paused. "Wait. You're his offspring?"
"Well, I don't think there's more than one," Lucy mused. "We're his grandchildren, yeah - well, some of them. And..." She eyed Des speculatively. "You know, I don't think he passed on any of his PPC tales before he and Grandma left. Do you have them on memory crystal?"
Sara snorted. "And you tell me off for trading..."
"Ah, but I'm not trading anything - I'm just asking nicely."
"Memory crystal? What...?" asked Des. "Nevermind, probably future tech or something. I could probably find a paper copy, though. Or you can try and ask around in the archives. If you can find them, that is." He looked around. "You can come to my RC if you want, and don't mind having a mini-Noo-noo think you're dirt to be sucked away."
Jenni nodded at Gaspard. "Yeah, you probably did. Were you visiting your folks, or... you know, visiting, if you don't mind me asking?"
She kept an ear on the rest of the conversation, too, though there wasn't much she could contribute there. She knew of Dafydd Illian mostly as Ithalond's recruiter, and also that guy half the female population of HQ had a crush on at one point. Oh, and hadn't his wife also moonlighted in FicPsych? Before her time, probably, or else they'd never been on the same shift. Oh well.
As for the future of the Potterverse... well, she just hoped it was an alternate future.
"There was this one mission where I responded with a wee bit if acute stress reaction, but it's better now. I think. The fic is dead now and that's all that matters."
Gaspard nodded to Henry. "Sorry, but couldn't help overhearing-- he's a... you know..." He gestured vaguely with his arms, "m-preg kid? How-- no, wrong question. Which mission was he from? I haven't had the time to read many Potterverse mission reports these past few weeks."
Henry turned shy and tucked his head down against Jenni's shoulder. She adjusted her hold enough to run a reassuring hand over the boy's dark hair.
The nurse smiled at Gaspard's hesitation. "I don't like that other word, either," she said. "Anyway, I don't remember the name of the fic, but it was Agents Oscar and Iza who rescued him. They're Bad Slashers. Should be easy to look up, if you like research. I'm pretty sure most reports are filed digitally," she added a little louder, for the benefit of the other conversation.
Respecting the spy's change of topic, she didn't pursue her professional curiosity about his experience in her department.
"WaitdidIfileyesterday'sreportswaityes."
The junior agent reflexively wiped his brow. "Sorry, it's just that we've all been so busy down in Sorting these past few days. Yakov and I have been pretty much living in Hogsmeade the past few weeks doing nothing but going into Suefic after Suefic and writing report after report. Gosh, I wish Upstairs would make up their mind and just build the Nexuses already."
For added benefit he added: "Oh, right. The DoI has been planning to boost its presence in Word Worlds by establishing permanent stations where Spies can rest and monitor the World in between missions. Lots of people say it's going to tear apart the Action division by breaking up cubicle teams but hey, at least you don't have to keep entering and exiting HQ every thirty minutes."
Suddenly a spine tingling howl sounded from somewhere near followed almost immediately by crashing and someone screaming. A large, baggy skinned, green, glowing puppy appeared in the intersection dragging a small half-elf who was clinging to the leash. The mini-Hound of the Baskervilles skidded, his claws not gaining traction on the generic surface, and the half-elf, dog, and leash ended up tumbling into the wall. Glowing green drool was sent flying against the wall.
"Unger? What got him so excited now?" The speaker stepped into the intersection. He was a tall man with white hair, green tinged white skin, and a long black leather coat that had a flashpatch with a rubber Swiss Army knife on it.
"Ow," the half-elf said dramatically as he untangled himself from the leash. "No, no, don't worry, Kelok, I'm fine. No idea what got him this time." He glared at the puppy. "I thought we were past this whole drag the half-elf through the halls stage, Homles."
Homles looked chagrined, and gently tugged at the leash in the direction of the mass of present and future agents.
Kelok and Unger took their turn to look chagrined at not having noticed the large gathering.
Unger bounded up to Jenni and Henry. "Oh wow, is there a party, Jenni?"
Kelok hung back, looking nervous, as he rubbed his hands together and hesitated--a very odd image for a Stargate verse Wraith.
(OOC note: Both of these guys have the natural lifespan to still be around in this future setting, though Unger could have decided to go home. Also, for those that don't remember Unger, he is a 5'3" D&D 3.5 half-elf barbarian who wears a kilt, decorative collar, boots, and his flashpatch on an armband. He carries an axe. I figure Kelok and Unger met Jenni during their stay in FicPsych)
Kaliel turned at the sight of Unger, a smile lighting up her face. If Unger was here, then-- Ah, yes, there was Kelok. She detached herself from the group conversing about magic and technology, leaving Lee behind to continue that debate, and then made her way over to the Wraith.
"Kelok, it's been a while," she said, coming to a halt near him. "You've come at an interesting time."
Kelok visibly relaxed upon seeing a familiar face. "So it seems. Who are all these people in the off colored uniforms?"
"Time travelers, from what we can gather," Kaliel replied. "They're from the future of the PPC, apparently. I haven't asked if 'Ryn and I are still around, yet, and I don't know if I really want to find out, to be honest."
((Gaspard pulled the music box out of his bathrobe pocket, sorry.))
"That's Uncle Tanfin's favourite song," she commented, then grinned wryly. "Well, 'favourite' as in 'favourite to make fun of'. I didn't know it was so old."
"Well, it is from the 1960s or so. Fifty years is pretty old by human standards," Jenni said, shifting Henry to a more comfortable position on her hip.
Uncooperative, he wriggled around, trying to get a better look. "Mommy, who's that?" He pointed at the group, not quite managing to indicate anyone in particular.
"I don't know, sweetie. Hold still." A snippet of Sara's conversation got her attention. "Wait, did you say the Albus Potter fandom?"
"Harry Potter is my daddy!" Henry informed the crowd. "Sevvy Snape is my daddy, too."
...and yawned.
"Ack. Sorry. Yessir, Green team saw the Sub Rosa yesterday when she gave us the briefing on the Quotev discovery in the Auditorium."
The junior Spy took notice of the Ranger's camouflaged uniform. "What department are you from, sir? I don't see a flash patch on you." As an afterthought, he added: "Oh, sorry. Spy Thirteenth Class De Grasse at your service, sir. And your name is...?"
Durran's face lit up, and he darted over to Gaspard, stopping only just short of falling to his knees in front of him. "Can you tell me about her? Please? What she's like? It would mean an awful lot to me. She's my hero, and meeting someone who actually knows her - wow!"
Lucy met Gaspard's eyes over Durran's shoulder. "Please excuse my cousin," she said dryly. "He gets like this."
"Like you don't want to hear it too," Durran sniffed.
Lucy shrugged. "I'd be more interested in the Rhodedendron's story, actually," she said. "The Sub Rosa isn't said to have even entered the House during the Sundering."
Sara glanced over at them. "If you're going to trade historical trivia, I'm definitely going to swap some tech." She tapped a few times on the web around her eye, and smiled at the three Borg. "The Exonet should spawn in about, oh, seven minutes. So, let's discuss payment..."
"Hmmm," mused Cyba. "I'd say our best bet for trading tech would be the contacts in your department, Sigma."
"The technicians helping me fix up the Silver Hound, you mean?" asked Sigma.
"Yes. Don't they have the schematics for the non-dangerous version of the tech we're imbued with?" suggested Cyba. "I mean, they are helping you put it on that ship we found."
"We have seven minutes," Phi reminded them.
"I have this," grinned Sigma, producing a Remote Activator. "I keep it around in case of needing to run away from, say, Yuuzhan Vong." With that, she flashed up a portal, nipped back to her RC for a few minutes, and returned with a data storage device containing the plans.
"They let you take those?" asked Cyba incredulously.
"They're used to me borrowing them to continue my work. I just made a backup," Sigma grinned, waving the device. She turned to Sara. "I also checked it thoroughly. Now, be very careful with this. Borg technology can be - troublesome - if treated incorrectly."
"In a 'take over your mind' kind of way," added Phi, grimacing.
"Oh, and I put the Disguise Generator schematics on there as well, so enjoy," finished Sigma. "Once your - Exonet? - spawns, we have a deal."
Beside her, Phi and Cyba grinned. New tech, and pretty too? Fantastic!
"Well, she's the head of Intelligence, for starters. She's the only Flower I know who occasionally visits agents on duty-- I see her walk among the Sorting Room rows every now and then-- but she mostly stays in her office doing paperwork," continued the Spy. "I've never met her on a one-on-one basis; I'll never be as half as important as Bulldog or Architeuthis. Those two have to report to her on a regular basis."
Something clicked in Gaspard's head. "Pardon me sir, but who's the Rhodedendron? And what do you mean by the Sundering? Where do you come from?"
From a side-passage (had that been there before?), a sound of singing came drifting along. It was a rarely heard sound, since the voice responsible had a history of soothing ragged souls and inspiring the downtrodden and such, and its owner didn't like to talk about it, but in this case she was making an exception for the amusement of her three-year-old son. So Jenni Robinson sang out:
"In the middle of the earth in the land of the Shire lives a brave little hobbit whom we all admire. With his long wooden pipe, fuzzy, woolly toes"—the boy giggled, much as though his feet had just been tickled—"he lives in a hobbit-hole and everybody knows him—"
"Bilbo! Bilbo Baggins!" Henry caroled on cue, if not exactly on pitch or rhythm.
"He's only three feet tall," Jenni sang back as they entered the main hallway.
"Bilbo! Bilbo Baggins!"
"The bravest little—whoa, traffic jam." Jenni stopped short at the sight of the small crowd ahead. "Hey, folks! What's the commotion? Is everything all right?"
A quick scan of the faces she could see revealed no one she knew well, though one or two were vaguely familiar. Maybe they'd been in FicPsych recently. For herself, she was still wearing her white coat with the black on white exclamation-points flash patch; she hadn't bothered to change before going to pick up her kid from the Nursery.
Agent Natasha walked down one of the many halls of HQ. She held a gaming device in her hands and was thoroughly engrossed in her game. In fact she was so oblivious to anything going on outside of her game that she hadn’t even noticed her shoelace coming untied. And the laws of comedy being what they are, the result of this was obvious.<br> “Ooof!” Natasha hit the floor, and let go of the device. Her brand new trading cards that she was taking back to her RC spilled out of her blue sweater pocket as her device skid across the floor and right into the path of three agents.
Agent Desdendelle was lost. He was trying really hard not to reach RC log e after going to the Cafeteria for a snack, so far without much success. He passed an Agent who looked like she just bumped into something, and a trio of people who looked vaguely out of place. At first, he didn't pay much attention to them, continuing past them, but when he heard snippets from their conversation, he stopped in his tracks. The numbers were taken off the RCs' doors ages ago? Well, if that wasn't interesting, he didn't know what was. He turned around and returned to where the Agent and the trio stood.
“Excuse me,” he said, absentmindedly running a finger on his axe's blade – a bad habit he was trying to get rid of.
"They weren't in the House of Rhodes - we've definitely searched. I asked that one dosat, whats-his-name -"
"Sherlock Chang?"
"Yeah, him -"
"What is so forgettable about a first name like that?"
"I dunno, I mean, his sister Charlotte has such a nicely-remembered name..."
"I am astounded that you even remember mine."
"Don't be like that, Amarthedhel." The first Paladin, a young woman from the Basel School named Poppy Ellis-Smith, declared as she looked up - she didn't get the height genes from her granddaddy Elijah, sadly - at her partner from the Demas School. Amarthedhel - who was half-Elf - looked down, arching an elegant eyebrow.
"Don't be like what?" The Demas Paladin looked around them. "Have we walked into a wrong corridor? There are numbers on the doors."
"No way," scoffed Poppy.
"I am not seeing things," insisted Amarthedhel as they turned the corner to witness a very odd scene - two foreign-looking agents, and the very Paladins (and the dosat) that they were sent to look for.
"Lucy! Durran! Sara! There you are!" shouted Poppy. "Where the frell are we?"
By the time Desdendelle appeared, Sara was lost in a world of her own - or, more accurately, of Agent Natasha's. Her finger-mounted screwdriver whirred as she dismantled the gaming device, exclaiming things like, "I've never seen a circuit board so big! I can actually see the resistors..."
Durran, meanwhile, was helping Natasha out by gathering up the trading cards - except that 'help' was something of a misnomer, since he spent more time looking at each one ("Is this a first edition?!") than actually being productive.
And that left Lucy, whose head snapped round when Desdendelle spoke. Her eyes tracked instantly to his axe, and the tension in her shoulders suddenly vanished.
"Thank Legal," she breathed. "It's good to see you, Brother Paladin. I-" She stopped, frowned, and rubbed her eyes. "Sorry. Okay. You probably don't know what I'm talking about. I'll start over. Hi?"
"Lucy! Durran! Sara! There you are!" shouted a new voice. "Where the frell are we?"
Lucy's head snapped round - again - to see Poppy the Basel Paladin. "Poppy?"
"Actually they're Magic 2013. See, the one and the three..." Natasha pointed at the set logo in the corner of the card. That was when she caught sight of an agent she didn't know dismantling her gaming device.
"Hey!" Natasha jumped to her feet, and ran up to the agent. "Stop that!" she paused when she noticed that the stranger had a screwdriver coming out of her finger.
Agents Cepha and Amara walked through the halls. The two of them had just spent an annoyingly long, if instructive, mission with Agent Riaa'lzhor of the DMS. Fiorano, as she usually did after missions, had headed off to the Medical department, where she would spend about half an hour or more talking with her elder sister, Ari.
Cepha frowned as they walked through the halls. There looked like there was a small kerfuffle in front of one of the RCs, with grey-costumed people apparently playing with trading cards and some kind of game device. Cepha frowned, about to ask what in Madoka's name was going on, when a gasp came from behind the two.
Standing behind them were two more grey-clothed agents. One looked like a teenaged girl, with long, blond hair and yellow eyes. Attached to her neck was a glowing, golden gem shaped like a flame. Unlike the others, her clothes seemed to be more fanciful, mostly a dark yellow with grey sleeves. Her partner couldn't be more different - a tall, deep blue drider, her face and body marked with scars, wearing a well-worn blue cloak over her shoulders.
The yellow-haired girl looked stunned. "M-mom?" she asked.
~~~~~~~~~~~
Riaa'lzhor Val'Demas and her partner, Paladin Kaede Hinata, carefully walked through the halls. Kaede was surprised at the hallways - she hadn't seen anything like this for... fifty years, maybe? Riaa'lzhor seemed distant, like always, but even Kaede could tell that she was distressed. The drider, one of the few who still remained from before the Sundering, seemed to get twitchy around anything that reminded her of that time.
Kaede frowned, anxiously touching her Soul Gem around her neck. She sighed in relief as she spotted the grey costumes of her fellow Paladins - then stopped in surprise as she saw a pair of girls standing with their backs to the pair, one with green hair and one with grey, no older than she appeared to be. She involuntarily gasped as she realized why they seemed familiar.
The two turned around, and Kaede was sure that she'd gone insane. Because standing in front of her, impossibly young, stood her mother.
AN: So yeah! I figure that Riaa is a drider, and so would live for centuries, and Kaede, as a Puella Magi, is pretty much immortal - though Kaede was quite young at the time of the Sundering, I'm assuming, and so doesn't remember much.
"Paladen Kaede!" exclaimed Paladin Amarthedhel, spinning around to see the duo. "You caught sight of your mother, too?"
"Lucy! Yes, there you are! We've been looking everywhere ever since the alert for you lot went unnoticed for several hours..." she trailed off, looking at the scene. "I don't recognise any of these Paladins. Are they new recruits from the Harpers, or -"
"Naneth!" cried Amarthedhel. Poppy turned in alarm to see the Demas Paladin wave frantically at an elleth who was just walking by with her decidedly-human partner.
"That's your moth - no!" Poppy grabbed her partner's arm and lowered it before the elleth could turn to see them. "If that's your mother, who's alive when she should have Faded, then we must have somehow gone back!"
"Back?" echoed Amarthedhel.
"Back to what we were before the Sundering!" Poppy turned to Lucy. "Any ideas on how to get out?"
((Hm. I figure that Lee and Maeryn/Kaliel would most likely still be around at the time of the future!PPC, given their natural long lifespans, so feel free to have people recognize them if you like.))
"No, no, you've got it all wrong," a woman's voice said from around a nearby corner; it had odd reverberations to it, as if coming through a metallic filter. "Sam and Dean would definitely win in a fight against Sherlock and Watson."
"Ah, but /which/ version of Sherlock and Watson?" the woman's companion asked, a challenge in her voice. "I'd buy Sam and Dean winning against Richie!Verse-- as much as Sherlock's a BAMF in that 'verse, Dean and Sam are dirty fighters --but Sherlock!Verse or even canon!Verse Watson and Sherlock would put up a damn good fight."
"You've got a point, but Sam and Dean have years of experience as hunters. They have to deal with all sorts of pains in their /miktas/, and not all of them are humans. I don't think Sherlock and Watson would stand a chance, regardless of what 'verse they're from."
The two women rounded the corner at this last sentence; the speaker was lithe, auburn haired, and dressed entirely in brown clothing, while her companion was blonde and an inch or so taller than her, dressed in the traditional black uniform and potted cactus armband of the DMS.
Amarthedhel's ears perked up at the names being bandied about by the speakers. Sherlock and Watson? Sherlock!Verse? She remembered her mother talking about it before the Fading (the live mother in this version of the Hall of Rhodes notwithstanding), saying that -
"Sherlock and Watson?" the half-elf exclaimed before she even knew what she was doing. "The third series has just arrived; are you Paladins discussing that?"
((Sorry I couldn't resist the joke about series three of BBClock's release date being constantly pushed back))
((Nice. XD))
The blonde woman paused at Amarthedhel's words, a look of surprise passing across her face. "Paladin? No, sorry, I'm not a Pal-- Wait, did you say /third/ series?" She looked at her companion. "You heard that, right, Kaliel?"
"I did, Lee." Kaliel looked suspiciously at the half-elf nearby, her eyes narrowed. "Are you joking with us? Because there isn't a third series of Sherlock yet. It's not nice to tease the fans, you know."
"Basel Paladin Poppy and I just dispatched a Stu who had been trying to prevent Sherlock from returning to John -" began Amarthedhel, but Poppy whirled around and glared at her.
"Didn't I just tell you not to spoil the past?" demanded the Basel Paladin. Amarthedhel raised her hands in a placating gesture.
"It's very good," she said, somewhat lamely.
"It's not spoilers, actually," Lee said. "Everyone knows Watson comes back; it's just that we don't know how it goes in /Sherlock/. Where are you two from? I've never seen you around here, and I usually try to visit most of the newbies with a baked good of some kind."
"It's true," Maeryn agreed, switching off with Kaliel with a bow of her head and a brief prolonged blink. "Orion says that his favorite cookies are the ones Agent Keaton makes, and I have to agree. Surely you have had them?"
Amarthedhel gaped. "The reveal is so blindingly obvious," she said, but refrained from saying more at a warning glare from Poppy.
"We haven't had these... cookies," added Poppy, frowning. "And what in frell do you mean by Agent?"
"Flow Paladins?" asked Amarthedhel, green eyes wide.
"Flow /what/? You mean mages? I'm the only mage here," Lee said. "And Agents? Y'know, employees of the PPC? Just who in the gods' names /are/ you lot?"
Maeryn tensed, her hand slipping towards the pocket where she kept her hand device at all times. She wasn't liking what was going on here, and wanted to be prepared just in case.
"Flow Paladins! They had the rights and duties to assassination, exorcism, demolition, transportation - wait, you mean -"
Poppy glared at the still rather oblivious Amarthedhel. "Didn't I just tell you we're in the past, lembas-for-brains?"
"Oh, gods," Lee said, running a hand over her face. "The S.O. is going to /love/ this."
"What?"
"We've go a couple of sharding /time travelers/ here," Lee told Maeryn. She looked at the others. "Have I guessed correctly?"
It clicked in the Paladins' heads almost simultaneously.
"Oh god," breathed Poppy.
"They think we're Mary Sues," echoed Amarthedhel.
"Isn't that a bit ironic?" Poppy asked.
"I forgot what irony was," admitted Amarthedhel.
"You're bloody hopeless." Poppy cast about for sharp objects to defend herself with. "I hope the Council has a field day when they find out that we've been bloody /killed/ by a bunch of Pre-Sundering 'Agents' in our attempt to bring back Lucy and her little friends!"
"I didn't even get to see the Christianne Nana was always talking about!" bemoaned her partner.
"Priorities, you need to change them!"
"And if you two know about Mary Sues, then you know what we do to them," Lee said, baring her suddenly sharp teeth in a wicked smile as she settled into a defensive stance. "Please, try to convince us otherwise. It should provide a laugh."
"Frelling stockingmuffins!" cursed Poppy. "What do we do? Yell obscure canon facts at them until they leave out of boredom?"
"The Five Keys of Mary Sue!" shouted her partner.
"Amarth - " began Poppy, but the half-elf was barreling ahead.
"The Five Keys of Mary Sue as they taught us in the Demas School are that she is a character created in fanfiction, that she alters personalities of canon characters, that she distorts the fabric of the world around her, that she creates plotholes, that she corrupts the language which describes her! There are only nine members of the Fellowship of the Ring, and none of them are female!"
"Wouldn't it be easier to break it to them that we're from a future version of their 'PPC'? Remember all of those history lessons they taught us as supplicants? The Sundering?"
"They're not going to believe us."
"They'll hardly believe the bullcripes you're spouting."
"Wait, Lee, listen to them," Maeryn said. She looked at Amarthedhel curiously. "You said that there are only nine members of the Fellowship of the Ring. A Mary Sue will often insist that is not true. Perhaps it would be worth it to listen to them in a calm and rational manner."
"I /am/ being calm, Maeryn. You don't want to see me pissed. Just ask Ian."
"Yes, only nine members. And only three Rings for Elves, seven for Dwarves, nine for Men - the nine Walkers counterbalanced the nine Riders, the Ringwraiths -" Amarthedhel tilted her head to the side. "In our time, the Tolkienverse backlog of Suefics finally got resolved."
"Spoilers," grumbled Poppy.
"You can tell them about the Sundering then, if you're so keen," replied the half-elf.
Kaliel smiled, the comforting litany of canon washing over her. "You /are/ from the future, then?" she asked. "Can you prove it?"
"If they're really from the future, anything they say might affect us," Lee said. Roshaun uncurled himself from around her neck, stopping his impression of a fur stole as he looked at the others.
"She has a point. Any knowledge of the future could impact the past. It's a common time-travel trope," he said.
Durran winced and stepped into the fray. "About that," he said. "Okay, I'll grant that we're a long way back from it," he nodded at Natasha and her 2013 trading cards, "but it's still their future. I don't think we should tell them, er, anything."
"Right," Lucy chimed in (breaking off an animated discussion with Desdendelle about their favourite weapons - some subjects transcend the bounds of time and space). "I've already done the 'accidentally change history' thing, I'm not interested in doing it again."
"And besides," Durran added, "can you imagine what the Department of Efficiency would be like if they knew they were going to be driven out?"
"Pretty much how they were," Sara muttered.
Durran rolled his eyes. "All right, but still. And anyway, I have a question." He glanced at the various 2012-era Agents. "Black? Why black? Don't you mostly work in forests here in the past?"
(Durran isn't very good at changing the subject. Whether or not it works is up to you)
"It hides the blood," Lee said, relaxing a little. "And that's what the Disguise Generator is for, if we go somewhere that black doesn't work well in. Besides, not /everything/ is in a forest."
"Disguise Generator!" Sara gasped. "I've read about those, but not even Makes-Things can tell us how they worked. Do you... have one with you?" A hardened, cybernetically-enhanced Technomancer shouldn't really be able to make puppy-dog eyes, but Sara did her best.
(This is Makes-Things the beta-level; that information clearly didn't get copied in. Makes-Things the person I have no news of)
"I don't usually carry one on me," Kali said. "Sorry."
"Ian has our DORKs," Lee replied. "You guys don't have those? How do you go into non-native fandoms without them?"
"Did somebody say Disguise Generator?" asked a trio of voices, as three female Borg agents came around the corner, with a fully-armoured Easterling man trailing reluctantly behind. The only physical difference between the women was the colour of their eye-lasers - red, blue and purple respectively.
"Dangerous things, those," muttered the first of the women, whose laser was red.
"Hey, look, somebody else with implants!" said the purple-lasered one enthusiastically.
"Oh no," groaned the Easterling. "Behave yourselves, Collective of Three."
"Don't call us that!" snapped the women in unison, and the one with the blue laser looked ready to scream.
Red clamped a hand over Blue's mouth. "Don't, you'll scare the intreguing guests away, Sigma!"
Sigma growled something incomprehensible, apart from what sounded like 'Cyba' and 'geroff me'.
"We can scream at Eagrus later," said Purple, appeasing Sigma enough for Cyba to let her go.
"Good idea, Phi," agreed Cyba.
The only sound from Eagrus was a resigned groan.
"So," asked Cyba of the strangers, "who are you exactly?"
"And what's this about Disguise Generators?" added Phi.
"Agent Amelia Keaton, DMS," Lee said, watching the Borgs warily.
"Agents Mal of Bad Slash," Kaliel replied. "And you?"
"Oh, I like your augmentations," Sara enthused to the three Borg. "I didn't know our predecessors were so advanced... still, though, they're a bit clunky, aren't they?" She tapped the delicate webbing surrounding her own eye. "Want to do a technology trade? I can downlink the data on-"
"Okay, Sara, seriously, no," Lucy snapped. "Meddling with history is a Bad Thing, remember?"
"But don't you want a Disguise Generator?" Sara wheedled. "You asked how they go into non-native fandoms?" she added to Lee and Kali. "They hide a lot. So they ought to be jumping at the chance to get some decent tech..."
Presuming it was me you meant, that is.
... but I was just covering eventualities. No problem.
"Well, maybe, but taking something from the past into the future might not be a good thing," Kali said. "Besides, surely you have other sorts of tech in the future that we don't."
"Well, the Pyrons have an entire flying-ship city," offered Kaede. "But if you want new tech, you have to get it from the dosats or a main continuum. I mostly get my stuff from To The Stars , the stuff that works without being in the Puellaverse. Soul Gem covers and stuff, since for the really good stuff you need to be really from that fic."
"Equipment is still fidgety, but it's even harder to get broken stuff replaced," Riaa'lzhor added.
"We're Cyba Zero, Sigma One and Phi Six," Cyba introduced them to Lee and Kaliel, indicating herself, the one with the blue laser and the one with purple, in turn, "and this is Eagrus Khan," she pointed to the Easterling. "Eagrus and I are DTE, Sigma's with DoSAT and Phi's in DMSE&R."
"Clunky?!" squawked Phi to Sara, hurt.
"Shush!" hissed Sigma. "She wants to do a tech trade. Maybe once we get our injectors working we can..."
"Eh-HEM!" coughed Eagrus. "I agree with her," he gestured to Lucy, "that that would be a very bad idea."
"But those implants are so pretty," complained Cyba, "and I bet they're really advanced."
"And your implants are flaming dangerous!" Eagrus reminded her. "Or have you forgotten what nearly happened the last time we went to the Trekverse? Do you want to subject these people to that?"
Cyba, Sigma and Phi all looked slightly shifty, but only until they finished processing what Kaede had said.
"Hold on," said Sigma, "did somebody say 'flying-ship city'?"
"No!" cried Eagrus quickly. "Oh nonono don't even think about it, you three! You are NOT commandeering a flying-ship city, whatever your - tendencies - are trying to convince you of! The Flowers will come down on your heads like a falling mountain."
"Ohhh..." complained Cyba.
"But..." protested Sigma.
"No fair," muttered Phi.
"Please don't give them ideas," Eagrus said to the newcomers. "They're a nightmare enough to cope with as it is."
"Hey, I resent that," Sara interjected. "We're perfectly happy to replace the stuff you break."
"Provided we pay for a new one," Durran pointed out.
"And don't forget the service fee," Lucy added.
Durran nodded. "And the mandatory insurance policy covering Acts Of God(s) - but nothing else."
"And the traditional meal for the dosat you deal with."
"And the-"
"Yes, all right," Sara snapped, "but we do replace them. And it's not like we leave you stranded in the Word Worlds or anything."
"True enough," Durran agreed. "That's," and both Lucy and Sara joined in, "left to the Indims."
(Probably worth bumping back up to the top of the thread sometime soon...)