Drake Coleman's Story

Stride had long gotten used to waking up on floors. She had learned shortly after becoming a member of SCION that it was part of the job description, as was the occasional broken bone, poisoning, voodoo mind control, and nice coats of blood on your clothes- whether yours or someone else’s, it really didn’t matter much at the end of the day.

Waking up in the center of an arena underneath the blistering sun, however? Well, it was certainly new, although Stride would be lying if she said she was particularly pleased about this turn of events.

Groaning, the hybrid attempted to lift herself off the ground, only to slip on the polished tile beneath and collapse back onto the floor. A long string of curses left her lips not long after, particularly some choice words on how the brightly colored mosaic was a “fucking motherfucking son of a bitch”, and a thoughtful contemplation on “what the hell is this shit”. After a few moments, Stride once again attempted to lift herself, and successfully managed to pull herself into a sitting position. She merely sat there for a few moments, taking a moment to ascertain that her goggles and mask were indeed affixed to her face before suddenly grabbing her head in both hands, hissing under her breath. Her head was killing her…

It didn’t take long for her to recall what had happened in the darkness some time before, and less time to bring to mind what Mr. “Let me just kidnap you then give a half-assed explanation of what’s going on” had said specifically. “They”- almost unconsciously, Stride’s gaze swept the arena floor, taking in the various figure laid out neatly on the ground around her- were all stuck in “his world”...In another time, she may have rejected the notion of this being reality. Clung to a belief of her merely having some trippy, drug-induced dream in the middle of the medical ward. However, it took little more than sinking her own fangs into the soft stuff of her palm to brush away the thought, and send her assessing her surroundings once more. After all, when one worked with the monsters that went bump in the night, one tended to have a more open mind about things.

And open minds were the key to survival in these kinds of situations.

While Stride had not given too careful a look at her surroundings during her first rounds, it took only a few more to realize some...details she had missed. Essential details, most likely, but it was better late noticing these things than never, she supposed.

One, there were several duffle bags scattered about the arena, one of which being a dark green thing placed before her little “area”. Atop the rich material read a small slip of paper reading “To Stride”.

Second, quite a few of the others sharing the space with her didn’t appear to be exactly human; she could easily spot a few tails on some from here, wings there, and even some that resembled creatures from the zoo over any humanoid she had ever come across.

Third, lying close by was a very familiar vampire, curled on his side with knees tucked into his chest. Above him was a fairly large umbrella, and, as Stride had expected, another duffle bag bearing his name had been placed a few feet before him, too. While he wasn’t the prime choice of coworkers that could have been dragged in along with her, he was still better than others, and, even then, she couldn’t exactly leave him there. Rising to her feet- and momentarily stumbling as the blood flow returned to her legs- Stride slung her own duffle bag over her shoulder and took the few steps to reach her coworker.

After moving into the shade offered by the umbrella, the fighter lowered herself to the ground, letting the bag fall to the side as she assessed the other. Out cold, just like she was...Not knowing the exact protocol of waking up a sleeping vampire, Stride reached out and began to shake his shoulders, giving a slight grumble upon seeing no immediate effect.

“Hey, Mad, rise n’ shine. Time for beauty rest or whatever’s up already, yeah? Get up.” More shaking, eliciting a soft muttering from Lovette. Spurred on by having at least some response, Stride continued to push him back and forth, eventually rolling him onto his back with a bit of a harder shove than intended. However, it did the job, and soon enough black eyes had fluttered open to peer up at her.

“Well,” Madison began, pushing himself up with ease (something that caused a twinge of annoyance in Stride) and glancing about. “I suppose that we’re not at the base anymore, then?”

“The fuck do you think?” The half-breed drawled in response.

Before they could speak at further length, the researcher of the two suddenly perked up, rapidly turning his head to glance about before settling on no one in particular.

The others would be joining them soon, it seemed.

While her coworker was more concerned about making allies, Stride had other things on her mind; namely, the fact that at least one of the others was currently armed, and a few others looked a bit too...jumpy for her tastes. Of course, the fighter enjoyed socializing as much as the next person, but when you were surrounding by a mish-mash of people who could very well be trigger-happy, precautions seemed a bit necessary before you sat down and went drinking with your newfound pals.

After brushing her hands against her holsters in what was- hopefully- a casual manner, the woman gave a small scowl upon feeling them empty before pulling her bag into her lap. With any luck, this wouldn’t be like some cheesy chick flick, where it would be empty because “she had found everything she had needed after all!”, or even contain a scrap of paper leading her on a quest to throw the One Ring into lava or some shit like that- and, as luck would have it, the bag did none of those. Instead, Stride was pleased to find her gas mask at the very top of the pile within, which only encouraged her to go deeper.

Beneath the thick material lay several other goods, much to her delight- the first of which being her faithful submachine guns. After ascertaining no one was giving her the stink eye over what she was doing, Stride carefully checked to see if both were loaded before slipping them into their places at her hip. The next item was a basic pair of headphones and an IPod, heating packs, and, even further in, several changes of her clothes- as well as various items from her bathroom.

Alright, whoever this “voice” was, one thing was for certain; he was one creepy motherfucker.

Thankfully, that was the end of the personal items, by the looks of it. As Stride searched the various pockets and crannies of the duffel bag, there was little more left than general basics. Some food packs, water containers, a few knives, a toolkit. In one of the pockets, the hybrid even found basic supplies for cleaning weapons, as well as an undeterminable amount of silver bullets. She picked one from the pile and rolled it between finger and thumb for a few moments, feeling its shape, before letting it drop and closing the bag for the time being. Now that she had properly armed herself, Stride could relax for the time being.

Idly, she looked up, not expecting to see much- only to immediately proved wrong upon seeing a small group already gathered about. Before she gave any recognition of properly seeing them, Stride peered at the trio from behind her goggles, taking them in with an increasing bafflement. All gathered together, they appeared like the punchline to some crappy bar joke. So, Godzilla, the Terminator, and a cultist walk into a bar… Nevertheless, she wasn’t looking to end up getting hacked into tiny fighter bits at the moment, so she did well to hold her tongue; instead looking past the trio for the moment.

Beyond them, it seemed that the cast got even stranger. Several people were already about, and already Stride was feeling a lot more happy about her decision to arm herself; one was already strutting about with a gun like he was doing some sort of video game deal, one kid was visibly flipping his shit over a...whatever the hell that was, and...well, it wasn’t exactly Party Central, to say the very least. Returning her attention to those closest at the moment, Stride rose to her feet, taking a moment to dust off her jacket before squinting at one of the more “friendly” people around.

“Do ya get called Robocop ‘round your parts, too?” She spoke in little more with a drawl, accentuated with what was undeniably some sort of accent- weathered over the years into something new, something hardly distinguishable, but an accent nonetheless. “Or is that somethin’ your friends call ya.” While Madison was trying for a more pacifistic approach by the sound of things, Stride was simply going about in her usual fashion. Granted, it wasn’t exactly the best approach, but an approach to things nonetheless.

A brush of a lock of silver, clearing it away from her goggles for the time being. “Name’s Stride. Guessin’ ya don’t know where the hell we are, either, yeah?” Then, upon noticing the rather obvious panic of one of the close by strangers, added, “Hey, eh, Masky, ya need a lil’ help gettin’ under, there?” Unlike the man, the gorgon was rather enjoying the feel of the heat about her, reaching her through layers of fabric and leather. It warmed her blood, planting energy within her that only added to her current confidence.

One of the double-edged swords of the whole snakey-deal, really.

And speaking of which…

Her eye once again flickered back to the large, reptilian...person-man-thing. She didn’t have much to say to him that Mad hadn’t said, really, but she examined him for a few moments anyway. Briefly, Stride wondered whether Mr. Hiss could breathe fire, before pushing that thought aside for the time being. Of course, while it would be badass, it wasn’t exactly something she wanted to see at the time being.

Maybe later, though.

Xinder Ouquid

---

Xin continued his circle, closing in on what he had yet to determine whether it was tools or prey. Relaxing slightly, the rifle moved from a near readied state to about half-way down his chest, still pointed somewhat forward. It didn't take long for most of the dangerous looking ones to group together, which would make Xin's life much easier if they tried anything.

There were two ladies that he spotted right away, one nearly unarmed with only an umbrella while the other seemed to be readying some kind of weapons. Pistols most likely, but even pistols could do damage with as close as Xin was likely to get. Gotta kill the masked one first.

Then the dragon looking man. Likely a custom made body like some of the more paranoid folk would have made for them. What Xin could tell from the outside looked like it wasn't built for strength, but nimbility. All the right muscles where toned to suggest quite the wide range of movement as well as a high foot speed. Still, the claws didn't look like something that Xin would want to risk his neck around. I think I should take him out from a range. Maybe while he sleeps if he proves to get in the way.

The dancing man who ran over to the rest of the group with little more than a mask on looked as if he would be easy prey, provided that he would get in the way. The man after him, some kind of cyborg, was a much different story. As Xin got closer he could hear the mention of the word armory, which was usually not a good sign with someone of that level of technology. It didn't look quite as advanced as Xin's underwear, but still dangerous. If something goes wrong, got to let him wear himself down before finishing.

With another quick look around Xin spotted another dragon man, but not quite as dragon as the other one. And this one had wings. A quick look at his expression told Xin that he was planning something, but the wings and direction he was facing suggested that this something had to do with flying. He could be a problem, but doesn't seemed well armed. Hope he stays that way.

Finally his vision landed upon two women and what looked like some kind of lizard dog, probably some gene-modded mutt. The one wasn't anything impressive, but she did have what seemed to be a reliable armament. Pet then owner. As quickly as possible. The other girl was another of those custom body freaks, or maybe some kind of specialized combat body. Either way, she waved around one hell of a sword like it was nothing, which definitely meant something. Got to be careful to stay away from this one.

At the end of it all, Xin felt good about his odds. He obviously outclassed any tech they had, but if they weren't too eager to try to kill him, most seemed like very good cannon fodder. He just had to be careful that none of them came to become reliant on him. When satisfied with his 'recon,' Xin settled in a spot in the group where he could clearly see each member. Standing silently, Xin looked from side to side with his rifle down enough to show he wasn't ready to attack, but high enough that he could kill all of them in a second's notice.

Khojin shrugged, tossing the hardtack back into the duffle bag. Maybe it could serve in an emergency. She put what she was keeping back into the duffle bag and closed it, moving to toss it back over her shoulder when she was interrupted by Adira shouting. She snapped her head around to see what the Shao was referring to, catching sight of one of the winged Shaos about to take flight.




She jolted to her feet, unsure why. Her new ally seemed to care, so she figured that was reason enough. She peered skyward, looking for the net she had warned about; sure enough, she managed to glimpse a section of metal wire glint in the sunlight. She bent her knees slightly, prepared to jump if he took off; if she was fast enough, she might be able to catch him mid-ascent.

In the meantime, her eyes shot around the arena, looking for someone or something that might serve to aid this cause. Her eyes settled on the warforged; the other winged Shao occurred as an option, but she wasn't going to risk discovering she was a slow flyer - or worse, that her feathered wings were only for show. As for the warforged... She'd seen Paladin-class warforged in her world fire stunning electrical blasts to incapacitate potential threats. This one might be from a different realm, but she was willing to bet he had a similar capability.

"Oi! Warforged!" she shouted, unsure of how to get one to do anything. The ones she'd seen in action had just kind of... responded when necessary. She pointed at the leather-winged boy nonetheless. "The Shao!"

Well, that was pointless. Khojin's ears reddened slightly at the tips, embarrassed by her wasted effort. She cleared her throat quietly, becoming very interested in the painted tiles at her feet. Eager to escape a potentially more humiliating situation, she informed Adira that she'd be back shortly and headed over to the warforged.

She waved slightly as she approached, showing she didn't mean any harm by coming over to him. Was he even capable of responding to her? She still wasn't entirely sure how these things worked.

She crouched in front of him, almost close enough to touch him if she were to extend her arm. She looked him over, tilting her head and bending her torso slightly to see if it was possible to glimpse the inside of his mask through the iridescent green slits.

Sarah teleported into into the arena looking dased. My power must be on the fritz again. She thought. For it was true the more she used her power the more it wore her out and the less stable her abilities were. At this point she had fritzy teleportation and a weak ability of telekinesis, that and a small knife hidden in her sleeve. She had no idea where she was and somewhat of an idea of how she got here. At the moment there was nobody near her. she noticed a person in some sort of dragon person and and another creature. odd. She went to move and teleported over to them where she appeared about five feet from them tripping to the ground, purple energy surrounded her like a small fog trailing behind her, her violet eyes glowed slightly as was an effect from power displacement. she groaned, got up, then looked at the pair. "hi." she coughed slightly, "What is this place?"

Xinder Ouquid

---

Xin watched as the freak girl sat down and let he bag come off of her shoulder before looking him up and down. She then said somethings that Xin really couldn't understand, not that he was paying that much attention to what she was say. He had to make sure that he kept a close eye on the rest of the people here. One small slip up and one of them might turn and try to use this arena like an actual arena.

A few more moments and she started with the word 'Warforged' getting back Xin's attention. They sounded like some funny name for a warbot, but when she started talking about 'Shao' Xin could only think of one thing that met that description, given the circumstances. "Shao sounds a lot like a different name for a human. And I can tell you right now that your Za Ri are nothing more than another thing to be crushed beneath the feet of real empires. Ones that span stars." Xin said with some level of arrogance within his voice. This zi ri before him was liably some primitive, like one of the many species of natives that had been crushed beneath his boot.

Then there was some massive shadow suddenly covering the group. Turning to its source, Xin didn't break his stance as he stared at the giant chunk of armor. What the hell is that? Some kind of knock off mech? With a subtle turn and a careful step or two back, Xin was back in a position where he could view the entire group, including the silent tower of armor.

The Figure continued to stare at the assortment gathered around, taking a bit of humor from the one that seemed nervous of their approach. What interested them more than anything however, was the word "Dragon" being thrown around. Dragons were titanic beasts, and they were for fighting above all else. But here they did not see any Dragons. Surely two small Dragonlike creatures, but not DRAGONS.

This became a sudden point of interest for the armored figure, and as the small humanish thing beside the little Dragon continued to speak, they become even more interested. Even in their many travels, and countless years alive, the figure had yet to come across a tiny Dragon.

So it stood to reason that they desired a closer look at it.

Lumbering to a dead halt behind the small human, the figure moved to one knee, a gauntleted claw reaching out tentatively to prod gently at the little Dragon beast.

"Small. Very small." The figure's voice echoed from beneath their helm, the timbre and pitch too difficult to place a clear gender to. "You say that you raise them? Are they of Fighting Stock?" The armor clad figure tilted it's horned head down to stare at the scaly beast. "Because this looks to be of Laughing Stock to me."

"Well, you're boring," Khojin said, giving a brief, dismissive sigh. "And that's enough elitism for one day. Good-bye."

She popped to her feet, completely disregarding the large, armored figure attempting to loom over all of them. She hooked her leg through the strap of her duffle bag, lifting it up and grabbing it in her hand before slinging it back over her shoulder. She strolled back over to Adira and the winged Shao boy, giving a small nod of recognition to the metal-encased arrival as she passed; the kind of nod one might give to to a fellow gang member, or someone who served in the same branch of the military.

Adira seemed to have been joined by a different Shao girl at one point. This one had silver hair and a black cloak; Khojin brushed off her own coat absentmindedly, polishing the attached armor sphere with her sleeve. "Making friends, I see. Want this?" She dug quickly through her duffle, procuring the package of dried bread rations.

“Eze.” The word rolled neatly off Madison’s tongue, forming into sound, a word, a name. He tested it once again beneath his breath, feeling it out, before smiling once more and nodding at the lizard. “Alright, Eze. It’s good to meet you- although, again, I would have preferred other circumstances, to be honest.” The vampire then extended a hand for a shake, uncertain if the other would understand the gesture, but offering it anyway out of politeness’ sake.

Stride, on the other hand, only gave a brief nod to affirm that she had heard “Eze” give his name, giving her jawline a light scratch as she directed a majority of her focus onto Mr. Robocop (she refused to call him by any other name, as this man was undeniably either Robocop or the Terminator). “So ya don’t know much ‘bout this whole thing, either.” Her voice was little more than a mutter as she continued to eye the man, occasionally switching her attention to over his shoulder in order to ascertain nothing of particular importance was happening. From the looks of it, all that was going on was two girls- one more human, the other...not so much- having themselves a happy little conversation, with the human-one showing off her dragon.

The woman was half-tempted to make a comment about at least taking the chick to dinner first.

Soon enough, however, another one was added to the mix- a male, who the pair shouted at for a while before the little group converged. Satisfied with what she found, Stride glanced back, watching as Robocop helped Godzilla with his duffle bag, as the latter didn’t seem to have any real idea as to how the thing worked, exactly. While this wasn’t exactly the most remarkable thing to look at in the situation, out of the corner of her eye she could easily see Madison nearly bursting at the seams, watching the two interact with obvious intrigue.

And then, the dam overflowed.

“Excuse me, sirs,” he began, absentmindedly rubbing his hands together as if brushing dust from them, “but I couldn’t help but wonder something; where did you come from?” He paused, letting the question hang there for a moment, before continuing. “I don’t mean continent-wise, but rather...well, general...place, you could say? The voice had mentioned us being in ‘another world’, and it’s fairly clear that we weren’t all brought from the same place.” Always looking for information. Even when locked in another “world” by the sounds of things, Madison’s thirst for knowledge lingered. And the way he saw it, there was no reason not to ask; after all, it wasn’t exactly the most confidential topic, given the fact that both a cyborg, some sort of draconic being, and a vampire were all gathered in same place- among various other beings.

Before the pair could answer, however, both SCION members became aware of a shadow looming across the arena. Casting darkness about them, and effectively making the umbrella unnecessary. Stride was the first one to peer over to see what had caused it, and found herself staring right into the face of some armored...thing.

Rather than leap back in shock, or even start unholstering her guns in an attempt to fire at the thing, the hybrid only muttered a “the hell is that” before checking to make sure that her weapons hadn’t somehow been taken from her. Once her fingertips had grazed the metal again, Stride was satisfied, and contented herself to squint at the figure for a while longer before turning back. A walking suit of armor certainly wasn’t the oddest thing to happen today, after all, and she doubted it would be the last. And, at any rate, she had seen several pieces of sentient armor when investigating haunted houses. Better to leave the thing to those it bothered, she mulled. Better to leave it until it tried to make a Happy Meal out of someone’s soul. (Ba-da-da-da-da, it’s lovin’ it~)

Her vampiric companion was just as unfazed- if not just as curious as he was before. Absentmindedly, Madison felt for his pocketbook, only to find the little nooks within his dress to be empty. A shame; while he had no qualms about putting things to memory, it was a strong habit to at least have some solid evidence of what he’d heard.

Maybe there was something for him in his duffle bag. Maybe. He’d have to check later- for now, he was too enthralled by the idea of milking the strangers for evidence of the Multiple Worlds theory. The others at base would have a field day with this kind of research, really.

And speaking of the devil…

A familiar red, flaming plume of hair suddenly flared up in Madison’s line of vision, accompanied by an equally familiar tall figure attached to it, and her accompanying accent and lines of insult. One Kora Norrevinter. Before Madison went and called out to her, however, he became aware of certain...things that didn’t exactly apply to their Kora.

Namely, the lack of werewolf scent anyway on her body, the fact that she was currently cursing out a “Liberty” (while he knew that she did not originate from the Americas, he doubted that she hated them that much), and her current uniform.

The whole, well, spontaneous combustion was also a dead-ringer that things were not exactly right, too.

Stride seemed to recognize the woman equally as fast, although she was not as swift to recognize the differences as Madison. At first, she could only see the redhead as the Kora from base, the one that ended up hosting most of the chugging contests to her knowledge. Needless to say, the hybrid felt a bit pleased that she wasn’t the only fighter to get dragged into things, and was about to call out a jeer when suddenly, that Kora burst into flames.

“The hell?” The word came out admittedly a bit louder than intended, and Stride instinctively took a few steps back in surprise. As far as she was concerned, people didn’t randomly just burst into fucking flames. Before she could react further, Madison had suddenly taken a hold of her arm, giving a light tug and rising to full height. He leaned in just slightly towards the other’s ear, and began to mutter, taking care that those around them couldn’t hear.

“Look. That’s not our Kora; she doesn’t have the right scent. And you don’t see her burning, do you?” Indeed, the woman didn’t seem pained by the whole event- merely very, very pissed. Stride could only watch for another minute as the Norwegian cursed out “algae-eaters” before shaking her head, watching Kora- well, Kora’s doppleganger- with puzzlement.

“Alright,” she grumbled, “this shit is just gettin’ weirder n’ weirder.”

She knew well enough not to run up to the familiar stranger, shouting things like, “Hey! I know you don’t know me or anything, but I’ve known you for ten years in my world. Wanna go grab some beers?” After all, for all they knew, this Kora could be...a lot more different than theirs, to say the least.

They’d have to watch for now, but all Stride could think at the moment was that she had somehow found herself in an episode of “The Twilight Zone”.