Drake Coleman's Story

Khojin shrugged nonchalantly, taking the piece of hardtack handed to her. She'd intended to offer it the the girl with silver hair, but at least it was out of her bag. The bit of red that touched Adira's cheeks was a nice bonus, as well. She couldn't recall ever making someone blush before. It felt powerful. She nibbled on one corner of the hardtack as she considered ways to repeat the occurrence before giving up on what was for her an indigestible bit of dried bread and discreetly pawning it off on the Fanghur.

Her attention was called to a rather noisy Shao who had appeared at the edge of the arena. She was tall and well-muscled, with a flag over on shoulder and heat rippling the air around her hands. Nice.

The winged boy went ridged at her appearance, however, which called any attempts at further appreciation of the woman's scarred physique into question. He'd adopted a defensive posture, and there were blue flames in his hands. Not a fellow admirer, apparently. Khojin slid past Adira and the Iron Giant to stand mere centimeters from the boy's shoulder, tentatively placing a hand on his arm and leaning to speak quietly in his ear.

"Maybe don't do that," she advised, keeping her voice low enough that her words remained between the two of them while indicating the red-headed woman with her eyes. "Personally I'm already a fan of your friend there, but if you're not, maybe take a moment to consider your surroundings. A closed arena, filled with people who've found themselves in a strange place, all of them with some kind of combat potential, maybe tense and ready to snap at the first sign of fighting? Easy recipe for a bloodbath."

Khojin felt Capricorn would appreciate that little speech. She made a mental note to fill him in when he finally woke up.

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---

Khojin through up her hands in resignation, turning away slightly and muttering something indecipherable. At least the warrior seemed open to conversation. She turned back, slapping Drake on the shoulder as she did. "Go get her, buddy. See if you can manage not to get torn in half." Leaning in, she added, "If you can slip my name in I'd appreciate it. Khojin Malqir, strong 'e' on clan name's second syllable, silent 'h' in the first name if you try to spell it later."

She took a step to the side to give them space, clapping the winged boy on the shoulder once more for luck and flashing him an encouraging, toothy grin.

Enter Adira, rising to the occasion and stepping forward in defense of the kid. Khojin couldn't help but be entertained as the Shao girl tore into the larger woman verbally, reciting almost exactly the same thing Khojin had whispered to the boy just a moment before. The girl was tougher than Khojin had given her credit for; she wondered what she'd look like in combat. Maybe the two Shaos would enter combat against each other. Khojin couldn't help but feel herself get a little giddy.

Upon seeing that Eze was too preoccupied to notice the gesture, Madison pulled his hand back, folding it neatly against his chest before letting it fall to his side. It seemed that the being was happy, at least, draining the bucket as if it contained the nectar of the gods. And, as far as the researcher was concerned, a happy stranger was a peaceful stranger- and a stranger far more willing to establish familiarity. He paused, dusting off his sleeves, and then turned away to better take into view the youth from earlier, who had now hid himself under the umbrella with obvious gratitude.

“It’s no problem, really. With how hot it is in the shade, I can only imagine how it must feel out there.” Madison then smiled brightly at the other- although his expression once again shifted upon seeing the man’s hand suddenly fly from his wrist, wrap about the handles of his bag, and drag it back.

Madison blinked. Then blinked again. Then again, for good measure. After the third and final blink, he gave a small shrug, instead glancing back over to his own bag as if suddenly reminded that it existed. Considering his company- especially with the revelation of them all coming from different worlds- he supposed it wouldn’t hurt to take a look. Dropping gracefully to the floor, Madison opened up the metal teeth and began to rummage inside. There was a sun hat and a pair of sunglasses within (which, to his delight, went wonderfully with his current outfit), various other pieces from his wardrobe, and even the notepad he had thought missing. After putting on both hat and glasses, and tucking his pocketbook back into his pocket, Madison resumed his search, intrigued by the contents lying inside the carry-on.

Beneath the neatly folded clothes, and beneath the small makeup kit that had been nestled up to the fabrics, were more...useful (not that what he had discovered earlier wasn’t useful, of course) contents, to say the least. A rifle was tucked neatly at the bottom of the bag, along with a basic handgun, and a pair of knives. While Madison was curious to explore more of his little weapons’ stash in the way that the others had, he thought better of it, instead turning to the rest.

Other than the same weapons-care items and customary bullets his coworker had, there was little difference between his pack and the basic items of the others- although there was no food or water whatsoever. Instead, his collection of medical items contained a basic blood transfusion kit, and a few plastic containers to go along with it.

Well, that was certainly thoughtful of their captor to include.

Suddenly, a girl’s voice rose above the clamor, calling out that she had found an exit. Intrigued, Madison looked up, only to find that the way out she was gesturing at had been closed off. And, in addition, there appeared to be...spiders? outside. From where he sat, he could see the creatures clawing at the metal, hissing at those who lay within and attempting to slide their fangs through the gaps.

While the girl certainly hadn’t lied, it seemed that, at the moment, any way of leaving was blocked off. Frowning at the thought, Madison decided to turn his attentions onto something more positive- such as the youth who had joined them. He was clearly uncertain about his origins, hinting at amnesia, but Madison continued to smile placidly at the other- Oliver, or so he had said.

“That’s fine, Oliver; you’ve still helped with what you’re able to remember. Thank you.” A short nod, sending what hair was left uncovered by the hat swaying lightly with the movement.




While Madison had been far more lax about the prospect of an escape, Stride had already begun to make her way over to the iron gate, having heard both the shouts and whirring of metal from where she had been standing. However, before she had even reached half the distance between her “starting point” and the gate, it had shut- with what visible land that could have been seen from through the bars quickly being hidden from sight by...lava?

“Well,” Stride suddenly drawled, gaze shifting to the one who had cried out that she had found an escape. “That’s a real interestin’ way of gettin’ out you were thinkin’ of, but, y’know, not all of us can swim through lava, kid.” Before she could even get a proper reaction to her words, however, the situation had suddenly taken a rather interesting turn. The Kora-doppleganger had suddenly started shouting at one of the younger-looking strangers gathered, calling him a terrorist, and- from the looks of it- preparing to fight. The kid didn’t look exactly happy about the redhead’s presence, either, hands flaring up with visible blue light.

Even during such a scenario, Stride couldn’t deny her interest in what was most likely a potential fight. She crossed her arms over her chest as she approached, hoping for a better view, although a scowl quickly overtook her expression at the intervention. Fights were always fun to watch, after all- especially when it was some weird emo kid versus an angry Norwegian. Nevertheless, she refrained from speaking at first, listening to the various back and forth for a while between the groups.

That is, until the Eze creature suddenly shot a bolt of fucking lightning out of nowhere.

“The fuck, Godzilla?” Instinctively, one of Stride’s hands flew to her submachine, preparing to draw it if necessary. “Ya know, when ya rant about not fightin’ then go and shoot fuckin’ lazers everywhere, that kinda defeats the damn purpose!” Squinting at the lizard for a while, she cast a glance over to Kora-Ganger, what familiarity that would have inevitably managed to slip in cast away from the previous surprise.

“You’re sayin’ that kid’s a terrorist?” Stride paused, peering over at Drake skeptically. “Looks like he could barely lift a stick ‘fore breakin’ his arms.”




Almost immediately upon seeing the fight brewing, Madison had practically flown from the ground and onto his feet, staring towards the little gathering with a deep frown. While he truly didn’t know many here asides from Stride and Kora- and even then, the latter wasn’t of his world, by the looks of it- there was still the matter of a godlike being watching over them. Of course, what the being even wanted was up for a debate, but Madison had a strong gut feeling that it wasn’t for everyone to get killed off so quickly. He hurriedly slipped a pair of gloves on from the bag and jogged over, taking care not to use ]too much of his own skills so soon- and casting a friendly nod in the direction of the fairy floating above the arena, hello there, good to meet you and all- and stopped some distance away from the actual fight.

“How about we all just calm down and don’t use any sort of weapons or magic or anything in this situation?” Madison offered. “It won’t do any good here, aside from potentially letting in those.” Almost casually, he gestured over to the gate, where some sort of vibrant red shark was baring its teeth against the grate.

Sharks. Wonderful creatures, really, but not something he exactly wanted flopping about and causing even more havoc.

And the lava also posed a problem, too.

"What are you doing?!" Ocean was decidedly unimpressed with the behavior of most of those in the arena. A flick of her wings brought her closer to the group, where she turned slowly, taking them all in. "She's clearly fire bound, and if I know anything about fire, it's that it's volatile. You can't subdue fire with fire! That's how you make it worse!"

The expression on her face said she would very much like to facepalm, but years of being a perfect lady at court stopped the exasperated reaction. "Stop showing off. All of you." It had to be showing off, because who tried to claim they were protecting peace while shooting at those who were already high strung.

She called on her magic as she spoke, weaving layers and layers of shields and other protective devices because the ones here with the most power seemed the least rational. "You, with the black hair and wings. Move from her sight? Miss?" she turned to Kora while opening weaponless hands. "Despite their actions, no one wants to hurt you. And we've been transplanted, your old enemies are not here."

She then nodded back at the only person in the arena to acknowledge her existence outwardly, just to be polite, while carefully, trying to not make it obvious that it was her doing, she began to encase the giant armour suit's weapon with ice, growing by the second and becoming heavier and heavier, layering it with reinforcement and trapping it against the ground.

Everyone was being very noisy, now. It was sort of ruining the fun of Adira and the larger woman's confrontation.The Hei-Senn could apparently shoot lightning out of his mouth. Evidently not a Hei-Senn. Khojin had never encountered one who could pull that off; she was fairly certain she'd remember that. She'd also seen the Armored figure move to raise his... what was that, a halberd? Regardless, it was covered in ice now, courtesy of the... actually, she severely doubted that was a Shao. She made a mental note to start asking before she assumed these things.

She scratched the back of her head, eyes flicking lazily between those who had involved themselves in the affair. Considering for a moment, she decided it might be wise to separate the two parties. Casting one last look at the warrior woman's biceps, she tapped Adira and the boy on their shoulders, tilting her head toward one side of the arena to indicate her intention.

Kora was busy glaring at the form of Drake, in case he was about to try anything, when she was confronted. Far from being much deflated or wounded by Adira's comments, the woman laughed, causing the messy ginger strands of her hair to tremble in response. She took a step forward, having nearly a foot in height on her opponent, and responded.

"What? Are you trying to tell me off? That's pretty funny considering you're launching your squeaky little defence for a violent anarchist whose friends have tried to murder me three times and took my six year old daughter hostage. I can't help but feel like you're the only one working with no understanding of the situation, kid. Now pipe down and piss off. Grown-ups are talking. "

She had already finished and was about to turn her full attention back to Drake when she heard movement behind her, and turned in time to see the metal abomination about to attack her. It was just at that point that the lightning slammed into the floor right next to her.

For whatever the creature responsible had intended to do, this had the opposite effect, of making someone who was already rather on edge seem under attack. Kora sprang out of the way, into a clear space, and the power that surrounded her hands flared out around her in order to definitely claim the territory as her own.

A searing red-gold glow burst from the woman's chest to cover all her skin, and the air around her began to warp and dance with an intense level of heat. The stone beneath her feet started to blacken. Steam drifted up our from her mouth and nose as she spoke.
"BACK. OFF."

Her gaze then set upon Ocean, somewhat suspicious, though this was probably the most reasonable thing she'd heard so far.
"People are most certainly trying to hurt me. " she responded, her hair dancing in the wavering heat.
"Even though this is none of their business. And there is an old enemy here. I have some scores to settle and I don't think this is a 'bury the hatchet' sort of thing. If people're ignorant enough to strike at a person with no idea what their vendetta is then all I can say is they got a pretty twisted set of priorities."

Many things could easily be said about Stride.

Aggressive, mainly. “Snarky” would be another proper word to describe her with, along with “rude”, “loud-mouthed”, “annoying”, and “a general bitch”. There was a very long list, after all, brought upon years of working under SCION, and working with a group just as volatile as she. It was part of the job description, just as waking up in abandoned alleys was.

However, for all that she could be called, one thing was for sure; she at least had morals, and she was damn well sticking to them.

“Okay, I don’t know what the fuck all of your deals are, but where I’m from, ya don’t really solve violence by tryin’ to electrocute someone, stab them, or whatever the hell you’re tryin’ to do there.” The woman’s scowl was very much audible in her voice as she looked around at the group, glaring at the majority from beneath her mask. “Cause, ya know, that’s fucking redundant you asshats.” She went silent, taking a moment to devour a few gulps of air, and allowing Drake the perfect window of time to give his little speech on how they should all be buddy-buddy and get along and dance in the meadows of joy and friendship. Granted, Stride was currently trying to lower conflict herself, but she wasn’t being a hippie about it at least.

“Hey, kid!” By this point, she had raised her voice to better be heard by the other- even going so far as to cup her hands around her mouth in an attempt to raise her volume. “We don’t know what the hell ‘Your-esco’ is, or why ya hate the U.S. so much, but are ya a terrorist or not!” Fucking hippies; always complaining about how America was doing things wrong.

To the fairy woman, she only gave a salute at first, grateful that at least someone wasn’t attempting to decapitate everyone for no reason at all.







“Well.”

In comparison to the half-breed’s rather...loud outburst, Madison’s voice was just as calm and affable as ever. Peaceful, albeit with obvious tones of concern as he glanced about at his company. “I have to say I agree with everyone on that trying to fight really isn’t the best thing to do at the moment. While I may have my own bias, she,” a gesture towards Kora- couldn’t exactly give away that he “knew her” just yet- “never actively attacked anyone. To my knowledge, she just cursed for a moment, called our young friend a terrorist, and you all assumed the worst. I’m sure they both have their reasons for reacting this way to each other, but death isn’t the way to resolve this.”

Offering up a faint quirk of the lips, Madison clasped his hands together, continuing to observe the majority carefully. “Now, we’re all very different, but given that the voice hasn’t all told us to hack off each other’s limbs, I’m sure that starting now wouldn’t be a very good idea. And, at any case, he told us to all introduce ourselves to each other, correct?” In a more jovial manner, he then added, “While I’m sure you all have unique customs, I do hope that none of you have greetings that involve sudden brawls or anything of the sort?”

An attempt to lighten the mood, even if not as strongly as he would have liked.

Ezenvare Queem

---

Eze ignored those attempting to harass him about his actions. He guessed he had at least 200 years experience over nearly every single one of them, and almost all of them look human enough to not get run out of every town they go to. Through all the other tries to diffuse the situation Eze was still balancing on his staff and glaring at the loud woman. She reminded him of many, many problem causers from Eze's life from soldiers to criminals.

After what seemed like the longest few moments the half-dragon ever had to go through, Madison proposed an actual idea. Introductions. Taking a quick breath, Eze spoke with his deep hiss of a voice once more. "I'm Ezenvare Queem, I hail from Da'vier, and I have had more unprovoked bad experiences with military and guard types than I have scales on my hide."

Eze wasn't too terribly interested in making friends, as he could see those that were too far along the path of evil being protected by those who didn't know better. Besides, his friends had a tendency to die in the most... depressing of ways. Allies, on the other hand, where a different story.

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Kora was shifting about in her space, the heat around her wavering slightly when she paced back and forth like a caged bear, keeping an eye on both the metal thing and the reptile man, as both had launched unprovoked attacks against her and showed no signs that they wouldn't try it again. In that sense she was not feeling terribly receptive when Drake declared the idea of a truce, especially with their history.

"Excuse me? Because of you people I get put through hell, I lose my commander position, lose the respect of the staff, lose my goddamn daughter and get sent away to die on some battlefield miles away. My life has been ruined because of your militants and all of a sudden you want to call it quits?!

Course you'd say that when you don't have your little posse of cannibals and psychopaths to throw me down a maintenance shaft again...or try to claw out my eyes like that greaser bastard did.

You seem to be seriously overestimating how eager I am to going back to getting shot at and set on fire, and overestimating how much I'm interested in helping out a bunch of people who've been trying to kill me! For no reason!

All very easy for YOU to propose we all get along when YOU'RE not the one whose ass is on the line!"

She sparked between her fingers to once again to emphasize her point.

Two people, or two things at any rate, had just made attempts on her life in the past few minutes, she did not feel too much like calming down and having a civil chat. As it was it was all that she could do to maintain some level of negotiations and not let loose berserkrgang on the whole situation. That truly would get ugly.

A squeeze, a finger around a familiar metal, a kick, marking it's journey across a great distance. Crimson. The reward for a shot on target. Brain matter and bone had exploded onto the unfortunate Liberty soldier's comrade, who was too embroiled in his own conflict to notice. Maybe he did and just didn't care, those suckers were famous for that steel skin in battle.

Still died the same though, Makorai would often note. That steely exterior existed only in metaphor. Case and point was the memories all over that other dude's jacket.

"Kora...." Keeping track of his former Knight commander, and offering cover, was a difficult job. His innate skill did little to alleviate the fact that she often threw herself into the foray such reckless abandon the only way he could keep eyes on here was,

"There we go!" That mess of red hair. He fired again, this time catching what looked like a flame user square in the chest. Which, imploded on impact. He'd have to reposition soon. she was moving at an incredible pace at the moment, and he was loath to use his long scope at this distance.

Makorai respected her power. He respect her as well. The guardian angel angle was something to laugh about when they weren't facing the grime stench of churning death, but the truth of his worry always lurked in his mind when they went out. He had lost too many people he liked recently. It had been to sudden, too absolute.

"You know how much I'll drink if you..."

"Kora?"

"SHIT!" She had disappeared, one second red hair and death, the next nothing, empty space. "SERIOUSLY?!" Who the hell had done that? What kind of gift could just take a person and...

Ground, heat. A bomb? The screams of war were gone. His hearing must have gone out too. The ground was dry, and it was bright. How had the sun gotten through the smog of battle? The sky...some crazy thing must be coming down from the sky. Makorai steeled himself, and shot upward, prepared to aim his sniper at...

"What the fuck is this?"

"Kora?"

Whatever momentarily relief that washed over him was overpowered by the adrenaline pumping in his blood. Kora was yelling, and while that in itself wasn't remarkable, she had been yelling, and was in a battle stance directed towards the fifth weirdest collection of people he had seen in his life.

"HEY."

"You! TALKING IN THIRD PERSON! BACK. UP." Makorai had hefted the sniper, but wasn't looking down the sights. He didn't feel like he needed to at this distance. He was sure he could dead-shot armour right in the eye hole.

" Kora What the hell is going on here?"

"Why the hell is that kid I shot here."

"......We're dead aren't we....and this is hell." Yep. Makorai nodded to himself, allowing a single tear to flow from his eye, the one that was trailing around the other members of cirque du strange, assessing the level danger. "We're dead Kora, we are /dead/ this is it. Desert and talking Lizards and that kid I shot in the face"

His aiming hand dropped to his pants, looking for some sense of solace in this arid situation. Makorai squeezed, and, for a brief moment, elation lifted his features. All was not lost.

He still had his equipment.

"Bit of silver lining though! I'll tell you about it...in a second."

Ocean, still without looking, began to weigh down the sword of the armoured figure with ice, hoping to force it to the ground so she could lock it down as well. She also began to freeze the feet of the figure. "Do you know what we do with demons in my world?" she asked, almost like this was a casual conversation. "We destroy them and force them back to the world that they came from. Call yourself a 'day-mon' all you like but killing someone because of pure irritation? That's something classified as demonic evil at home, not sure about the rest of you. So how about we stop with the death threats, alright? I'm sure you aren't one of them."

Blue eyes looked around again, before she nodded agreement to Kora. "Okay, you are being attacked, probably because you're terrifying them into fight or flight. And he's-" she waved a hand towards Drake, hovering in the air beside her- "your enemy? I'd offer for you to punch him but I don't think he'd agree. Would a replica suit?" She offered, knowing a spell for creating customized golems.

She fluttered away from Drake further, though, upon hearing Kora's accusations. Having a daughter of her own made her sympathize with the red head, and once again, she focused on Drake. "The accusations she makes are serious." she told him gravely. "I don't understand what it is like in your world, so I really can't pin a blame but... You do have her daughter?" one eyebrow raised, giving her a quizzical expression. "Why and how?"

What really stunned her though, was the newest appearence in the arena. A man with a sniper rifle, confessing to having shot Drake in the face. "Could you clarify?" she asked. "You shot him...in the face? So you both have reasons to hate the other. Glad that that's clear. Eliza Storen, by the way." Using her true name here would do nothing but raise eyebrows at elemental naming customs.

She was starting to regret getting involved, and wondered how hard it would be to get home.

Makorai's eyes did a curious thing once Drake spoke. The right, moved towards him, while the left, a few degrees above the iron sights, stayed on the first two targets he had picked up. "Please don't give me a reason to my ass kid." Makorai was equal parts confidence and posturing, the difference was indistinguishable to anyone he was opposite, or along side of. Bravery through purpose and ignorance. Two tenants he subconsciously adhered to.

"If you don't recall that beautifully executed, two degrees left to catch the gust killshot I'm not surprise. Your brains" Makorai shook his head around when 'brains' left his mouth. "Weren't in the right place."

The fluttering woman, reminiscent of denizens of his own world said somethin about 'reasons to hate eachother'. He was currently to preoccupied with his presence in wonderland to spend whatever section of his mental capacity that wasn't focused shooting reptile and third person to devote much time into irrelevant thoughts.

Fortunately Rasteva fell under his tent of 'relevant thoughts' seeing as he had his sniper focused on the eye hole where he /imagined/ the sound originated from.

"Maybe Makorai will put an explosive round in your eyehole. Maybe in your sternum. Maybe he'll just sit here and wish my time in hell at least came with an all inclusive package of fine liquor."

It was at times like these Makorai truly appreciated Kora and his shared ability to make an entire room dislike them without a single shred of regret.

"Love you Commander."