The Plains of Nondescriptia

[Roger Smith]

With a dramatic wheeze, Adam stumbled through the gate to the nexus from the green, nearly ending up face-first on the 'ground' again, just as with every other trip to this fucking place. "One day...I will get used to that. To the entire world turning into a kaleidoscope of pain and suffering and deciding balance and gravity are just nice things you don't get to have at this precise fraction of a second." He righted himself, leaning against his crutch, pulling his hood down from over his head. "I really hate portals. Just...the entire concept of them. Always have, since the game..."

Adam. Adam, you're talking to yourself again.

"WELL I DON'T HAVE A TRAVELING COMPANION AND I DISLIKE SILENCE OKAY." He threw his hands up in disgust, storming angrily off into the nexus toward the general direction of the fountain. "Blah...I gotta calm down. Decide where I'm gonna go." A flick of the wrist had his laptop sitting balanced precariously on his upturned palm. "...did I ever get that voice recognition whatchamacallit working on this damn thing?" He stared at the contraption for a moment, debating over it, before he heaved a disgruntled sigh and flipped over, hovering with his back to the ground and balanced the thing on his chest as he flipped it open, still lazily drifting more or less in the general direction of the fountain.

"Right, let's see here..." And then there was a furious clicking of keys as he went about his business, searching for more information on what sort of places the other verses were aside from Camelot and Coruscant. "Maybe there's something interesting out there I can point my directionless wandering toward..."

[Mami Tomoe]

"WoaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaah!" goes Compa over my shoulder as we dip on one side of the gate and pull up a little on the other. We don't go up very far at all - in fact, we're barely off the ground. For a moment I consider that this might not be the best idea, but how could I possibly miss someone I might collide with when everything else is--

...Well, there isn't anything else. And that's why the thought of this being a bad idea is dumb.

I really need to take Compa out flying sometime, I note again, changing the unspoken topic. Fortunately, flying is a lot easier to handle than just walking or jumping through a gate, because we don't crash and burn horribly or tumble into a big human-CPU knot.

So that's good, I think. I see Histy's arm pointing out of the corner of my eye - dead ahead, from the looks of things. "The gate we need is this way," she says, and I nod, continuing to aerially barrel in that direction.

With a little sigh, I drift off into my thoughts. The first thing to really come up is that prophecy-like ending line I got from the past Purple Heart - reaching this place's highest heights or reaching its lowest depths, I recall word-for-word. Surely it can't mean anything, I decide, since it's not like I can decide my own future at the drop of a hat.

...Well, technically my own. Having other versions of yourself made things hairy and hard to wrap your head around.

As I give it thought, it starts to seem like a reasonable observation. As a CPU, what I want is to be at the top of Gamindustri in whatever way I can. But then, I remind myself, this is not Gamindustri. If it was, I without a doubt would have drawn the attention of another Goddess by now... or at least that would make sense. That, and--

Screaming. Why am I hearing screaming? Histy tugs at my hair, pulling me out of my time spent being absentminded - but before I can really focus on anything, I see it.

"FFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUCK!"

Suddenly my arms are very, very sore. I look down to see myself holding somebody - somebody annoyed about something, at that. Probably the whole colliding-with-them-and-picking-them-up-bridal-style-even-if-it-wasn't-intentional... thing. The words 'It's just a prank, bro' flash in my mind for a moment.

"What in the FUCK is going on?!" the boy exclaims, flailing and yelling in my arms.

Deciding I'll try and handle this as professionally as humanly possible, I clear my throat and smile. "Sorry about this. I can drop you off soon, but I'm in a bit of a hurry, so could you hold on for a moment?" Before I can help it, I drift into silliness, feeling a little more Nep influencing me than Purple Heart. "Keep your hands and feet inside the vehicle..."

"WHAT THE SHIT--"

"Ohhh, we have a new party member!" Compa interjects, looming wide-eyed over my shoulder. "I'm Compa, a nurse in training with an estimated graduation date of..."

Suddenly, silence. "Uhhhh..."

As Compa stares off blankly, looking as though she's in a labyrinth of thought, Histy chimes in. "If what we're currently doing wasn't so urgent, I would be stopping this flight and getting you set down immediately. But as it is," she frowns, "we can't do that right now. Could you hang on for a few moments?"

The boy, who seems to have calmed down, sort of just settles himself where he is. "So apparently this is happening now. I'd be more okay with this if I wasn't being... cradled, but fine," he groans. "I can live with this."

Noticing it's my turn, I chime in again. "Good. I am Purple Heart, though you may call me Neptune." I look up and toward the gate ahead for a moment. "We have about another half an hour of flying ahead of us, it seems. Here--" she lifts the boy over her shoulder and onto her back, getting some help from Compa in the process. "With that out of the way, any ideas for how to pass the time?"

[Roger Smith]

It was awkward, alright, in both senses of the word Adam was familiar with. This whole...this entire blasted scenario. It was like something horribly contrived by some inscrutable fiend beyond a wall separating one reality from another. And Adam could practically feel the echoing of their maniacal cackling, the ridiculous amusement at his current predicament.

Briefly, his own words returned to him. 'Lay off the fourth wall, man.' And he was forced to apply palm to face in the most disgruntled of fashions.

"Right, yeah, uh..." As Adam settled in to what was apparently going to be his new perch for the next half hour or so, he tried not to sound as thrown off of his usual mood -- which was to say, a terrible, terrible mood -- as he, in fact, was. "...I'm Adam, on that note." At the question of any ideas on how to pass the time, he was left at a loss, and just let his head fall lazily to one side, as if thinking. Really, he wasn't doing much thinking at all. He was just busily linking up the cleverly-concealed screen in his glasses to his laptop in the interest of bitching out a particular mysterious motherfucker.

The end result of the conversation only left Adam even more disgruntled than before -- and just a little embarrassed, though he managed to hide that via clever placement of "God...god dammit..." under his breath.

Snapping back to reality and awareness of what was going on around him, he cast a short look around. Still nothing. Still Nexus. "So, uh...if it isn't out of bounds for me to ask, just what exactly are you all up to that's got you in such a hurry? Don't get me wrong, I can understand being in a hurry and not having any time to waste -- Time is kind of my whole thing, but let's not even think about getting anywhere near the neighborhood of that topic -- but uh...yeah. This kind of takes 'in a hurry' to a whole new level, if you get what I mean."

[Mami Tomoe]

It takes me a moment to process things for myself. I relay this information - "I'm afraid I'm still a little confused by all this, but perhaps explaining it will help me a bit." I take in a breath and open my mouth again to begin talking, then feel Histy tug my ear. "Perhaps we should save this for the other side? Your estimation was off," she comments, and I look ahead.

The gate. It's rushing toward us at incredibly high speeds. "Oh. Hold on tight, everyone!" I shout, offering my hands to my companions on my back. As they're grasped at, the liquid-like feel of colliding with a portal rushes across my body for but a moment.