Arrivals - Beachville pt 2: OTA!

[fluxscapemod]

Who: New Arrivals, Jerry Schiff and YOU!!
What: More arrivals show up in Beachville. There are cookies for the people that behave.
Where: The Information Booth which, while at the same place it always is, seems to have changed a tad!
When: Mid-Morning, September 27th.
Warnings: Just mind your CWs. There's probably swearing, too.

It starts off simple enough. There isn't even any warning. No feeling like something's coming. No little instinct in the back of your head or what have you that tells you change is coming. You blink, your setting has changed. It's as simple and as quick as that. From where you stand, you're surrounded by tall palm trees. The ground beneath your feet is green, a well maintained lawn like one would find in a city park. A clean, salty scent only found on untouched, tropical paradises. You can hear the sounds of the beach. People laughing, amusement park rides thundering in the background. And it's actually pretty peaceful. Even the weather is perfect. Just the right amount of Summer heat without being muggy or humid. There are tropical birds singing in the trees around you, and a light breeze in the trees, rustling the leaves. It's pleasant. Until someone clears their throat nearby. And this is when you notice you're not the only person standing there with a confused look on your face. You're part of a crowd, surrounding an information booth with an older gentleman inside, several stone paths leading away from the booth and towards the nearby beach town.

Was that information booth always there? And how long has the man inside been watching you with that look on his face that suggests he's internally sighing at your presence? He seems friendly enough, however, and once all eyes are on him, he begins speaking.

"Can I have your attention please?" he says, voice calm, lightly accented, fairly monotone, but still gets your attention just the same. And certainly 'no nonsense.' "My name is Jerry Schiff and I run the information booth. I have several envelopes with names on them, so if you hear your name, please step forward and claim your money and information."

With that, he runs down the list of names. And what do you know, your name is on that list.

When you approach, you'll be handed a packet containing money, enough to get through the month, and an information pamphlet about Beachville, along with a note from the mayor welcoming you to town and telling you your stipend only lasts so long and there are many employment opportunities in town. There's also a map with an address and a set of keys. This is where you'll live. The last thing he says to you is to check the chest in your living-room, you'll know which one, before he hands the polite people a box of cookies. They smell amazing and the box is warm, like they're very, very fresh. You might even find your favorite cookies in the box. They've won awards and are delicious. Just as an aside, though; for anyone that's rude, no cookies. For anyone that tries to take a box anyway, they'll find the box is empty. Maybe even full of dead leaves and rocks. That's what you get for acting up, apparently.

Rude enough and he'll shut the information booth windows. No amount of knocking and screaming, magic or psychic abilities will get the doors open again. The booth is pretty resistant, as is the man inside.

Once everyone has their information, Jerry will thank everyone for their cooperation, close the booth down and head into town. Try to follow him. After rounding a corner, he'll seem to vanish and no amount of looking will find him again.

It seems as though the only things left to do are either talk to the people around you, or find your new home.

Comments

Gladiolus Amicitia | Final Fantasy XV | CRAU Voidtrecker - OTA

[callmegladio]

[ARRIVAL:] The large, imposing looking man with the scars and the dark cloak was doing his very, very best to NOT look as large and imposing as he approached a group of children to ask them questions about their town. With no adults around, aside from the elders, the kids seemed the best option to gather information. No one paid attention to them, and kids listened to everything...

He opened his mouth to speak... and between one step and the next, the children had gone and he was... somewhere else. A... beach? The scent of the sea wafted toward him on a warm breeze and as much as he would have liked to indulge, he was immediately on his guard. A large sword began to materialise in his hand...

What had the damn train done this time?

Except, when he looked around, expecting a threat, all he saw were people like him, looking confused. People NOT from the train... He sent the sword back and turned around fully. "What in Eos is going on here...?"

He pulled the hood back from his cloak, his hair had been pulled back into a half-pony tail. And then, to his surprise, someone spoke. A man... Had he been there before? He was pretty sure not. He called names... He called his name. The hell?

Gladio stepped forward and took the envelop... and the strangely warm box with it, and stepped to the side to examine the contents. Strange money, and keys... A map, note and leaflet. The Shield sighed heavily. "... Not again."


[BEACH BREEZE:] The weather was warm, so warm that Gladio had peeled off his cloak and tunic and half unbuttoned the white shirt he wore.

He set the clothes down on the stool beside himself and leaned against the counter of the 'Beach Breeze'. Gladio ordered some shaved ice. Something to cool him down in the hot weather, before he went and sat down to think about how and why he was there.


[HOME (Closed to Prompto):] Gladio approached the gates to the building slowly, his eyes widening.

"Impossible..." He said in a hushed whisper. He had Prompto at his side and he reached for his hand. "Prom... You're seeing what I'm seeing, right?" Because that building should have been rubble. That home... was gone. It'd been destroyed when Insomnia fell.

"... That's my home..." There was an ache in his voice as he looked at that manor, old and beautiful, generations of Amicitia's had lived in that house. Everything was the same, right down to the ivy that grew up the sides. Gladio was shaking a little. How... how was his home here? How was this even possible?

HOME

[bethereprompto]

Prompto's gaze shifted from the house to Gladio and back. He stepped closer and put a hand lightly on the much larger man's back. "Yeah.. but how?" How exactly were they standing in front of the Amicitia's family home.

"How did they know to give us both the same house?" He asked. His key and the address listed were the same as what Gladio had been given. "Should we go inside?"

[callmegladio]

Gladio... was a little afraid to. Because he knew what he wouldn't find in that house... His dad wouldn't be there. Iris wouldn't be there. Jared wouldn't even be there. It'd be an empty house. A husk.

For a moment his eyes closed and he took strength from the hand on his back.

"I dunno, love. But this is... a kick in the balls, that's for sure." He'd been homesick on that train. Home had been a taboo word in the end, because he knew he'd never return. But this? Giving him a tiny piece of it, it hurt... But there was one thing at least. And that was Prompto at his side.

"I guess... we go and check it out." Gladio took a deep breath... and started walking up the path to the few steps leading up to the door. With the key in hand, he unlocked it and pushed the door open.

[bethereprompto]

Prompto followed, feeling unsure about letting Gladio go first. He didn't really think anything was going to attack him, but if he could cushion any of this he would've.

Once inside he realized, he really should've gone in first. All the comfortable, high quality, familiar furniture was replaced with much more sparse furnishings. It was like staged furniture when a place is being set up for resale rather than what you lived with.

He gave Gladio's hand an encouraging squeeze. He didn't know what else to say.

[callmegladio]

The sound of Gladio's heart breaking was damn near audible.

It really was just a husk.

Inside of his childhood home there was... nothing. The furniture he knew so well were gone. Items both new and had been in his family for generations replaces with... stuff. He supposed he should be grateful for that much. But oh, it hurt...

The squeeze to his hand shook Gladio from his thoughts and he turned his head to give his boyfriend a weak smile. "... Could be worse, right?"

[bethereprompto]

His heart was breaking for Gladio as he looked around. If only he could've soften the blow somehow, but there was nothing. All he could do was just stand here while Gladio's heart was torn apart.

That small, pained smile had his eyes stinging with tears. He moved then and tugged his sweet, sweet boyfriend into his arms. It tended to work easier if it was the reverse, but dammit, he could do it too!

That's when he heard a familiar tweet. Huh? He looked up and perched up on top of a table nearby was none other than his yellow cockatiel. "Ami!" He cried. "Ami's here!"

[callmegladio]

Gladio was very easy to move, and wrapped his arms around Prompto, taking comfort in that embrace. For a moment he held his love tight... Until Prompto became distracted by a sound.

He slowly let go of the blonde to let him go and greet his bird.

"So they are." Gladio took a shaky breath and followed his boyfriend over to the bird. "Wonder why...?"

[bethereprompto]

He offered Ami his hand, but she seemed a little too nervous still. They'd only started getting that trust formed before .. well, this. "We might need to help her find her cage." He looked around with a frown. "Assuming there is one. None of the doors or windows are open right?"

He was nervous about his bird being out, but she was safe enough as long as she was contained in the house. He came back to Gladio. "Should we look around for it or would you feel better doing this a different way?"

[callmegladio]

"Lets find her cage. Can't be too far away, right?" Honestly, Gladio wasn't looking forward to looking around the house. It all looked so familiar... but so wrong. He didn't like it. But he guessed there was no other way around it. All he needed to do was try and make his home... well... a home again.

When Prompto rejoined him, he smiled and wrapped an arm about the smaller man. "I'm fine, love. Lets find her cage and check the rest of this place out. You wanna check upstairs or downstairs?"

Arrival

[forleaving]

Adam didn't even bat an eye as he looked Gladio up and down, deciding how wise it would be to approach him. He wasn't intimidated, he was just weighing the pros and cons of approaching strangers in a strange situation. Eventually, he decided that it wasn't going to hurt, and took a few steps in the man's direction.

"Is this not your first time being kidnapped?" he asked. Usually people didn't say 'not again' when they found themselves in a strange place unless it had happened before. Then again, it wasn't the first time he'd found himself in a strange place, but it was the first time he'd been kidnapped.

[callmegladio]

"That's one way of putting it." Gladio replied with a sigh and a hand that lifted to brush fingers through his hair as he looked away from the guy and up to the sky. "... Least this time I can see the clouds..." The Void was something he was very happy to have left behind. Though if this was a permanent thing... there were people he was going to miss deeply.

"I was pulled from my world onto a train that travelled through the Void." Gladio said with ease, head lowering. He hadn't signed anything that swore him to secrecy, he didn't see the harm of telling anyone, nor did he care. "And from there I'm here. And you?"

[forleaving]

That was a weirder story than Adam had been expecting. He'd prepared himself for a normal kidnapping, not trains that traveled through whatever the Void was. He had two options here; either the story was fake, or the man was telling the truth and there were weirder things out there than whatever was happening here. He didn't know which idea he preferred.

"I was at school," he said carefully. "In my dorm room. Now-" he gestured around them. Now he was here. "And no, I've never been kidnapped before. Did anything specific happen before you were brought here?" Maybe there was a connection, a common thread that they could figure out to start working on a way out of here.

[callmegladio]

Gladio looked down at himself, and then at the kid, and grinned. "Depends... does being dropped onto a strange little fantasy world to save an ice dragon princess sound specific enough to you?" His smile almost suggested he was joking, except his outfit really did look like it had come straight out of some medieval LARP.

"School would've been a better place to be." Then again, if Gladio had have been home, would his answer have been much different given the world he'd lived? If there was one thing he'd learned from his time on the train, his world was not 'normal' at all.

[forleaving]

His mouth twisted into a frown, a wrinkle forming between his eyebrows. That was...something, all right. He didn't know if it had anything to do with being kidnapped though. He was still trying to wrap his head around the fact that, apparently, world hopping was at least a slightly common thing for some people. Was it really that much weirder than magical forests and monsters lurking in the darkness, though? Adam wasn't sure.

"Do you think that whatever dropped you onto that world dropped you here?" he said after a moment. "And school's only a good place to be if you aren't being kidnapped from it." He was missing classes, and he made it a point to never do that.

[callmegladio]

"Can't rule it out. For all I know it's all connected." Gladio replied honestly, but if he was really honest... "I don't think so though."

"Where I've just come from was real different from this. But I'll wait to see. Give it a few days. If we get invaded by monsters, I know it's connected." He said it in an almost joking way, but there was truth in his words. At the others next comment though, Gladio laughed. "Yeah, being kidnapped'd ruin anyone's day."

[forleaving]

Hmmm. If there was no connection, then he was back to square one on figuring anything out. Somehow, he wasn't surprised; he'd experienced a lot of set backs in the past when trying to figure different things out.

"Monsters?" That part caught his attention. He wasn't exactly used to monsters, but he'd had the occasional tangle with them. Or had heard about them, at least. "Why would this place be invaded by anything?" Was that what had been happening on the other world? Where the man had been before this?

[callmegladio]

"If it has any connection with the place I've just come from, I'll know in a few days..." Gladio clarified. "They'd drop us on worlds, strange worlds, strange places, and expect us to help. Within a few days everything'd go to hell and monsters would appear." A shrug and a sigh. Gladio brought a hand up to rub the back of his neck as he glanced, first up at the sky, then back down to the kid.

The missions they'd gone on were all so formatted, he was convinced they'd been orchestrated that way, and he knew he'd not been alone in that. It was all a pattern, even the way they would stop off at platforms periodically to pick people up. It was like clockwork.

"But this isn't playin out the same way. So if I had to guess, I'd lean more toward this being something separate. We just need to work out why... Because I'd really love to know why I'm here and not home."

Beach Breeze

[luckybucky]

It was a warm afternoon and Bucky's day off, so he'd come down to the beach to enjoy the view and the salty air. He had the distinct impression that he wasn't going to get to relax like this for too long, so he was going to take it while he had the chance.

As he comes down to the Beach Breeze to get himself a drink, he spots Gladio -- it's hard not to -- and hops onto the next stool over. "If you go down to the water be careful," he says lightly. "The mermaids think we're toys," he smiles at the person behind the counter and orders a smoothie before turning his full attention to Gladio. "You're one of the new arrivals, right? I'm Bucky." Perhaps the most notable thing about him is that instead of a metal arm on the left, he's just got an empty sleeve.

[callmegladio]

Gladio was enjoying his shaved ice. Having not had any since he was a kid, it was a blast from the past that was more than welcome and not heartbreaking in the least. Not like his house... But Gladio refused to think about that.

He was halfway through his iced dessert when he was joined by someone. Someone with a familiar voice. He looked over and started to smile, and then the man spoke and the smile turned to confusion. Now, if this had been the train, this might have made sense. But this wasn't the train...

"Gladio..." He replied slowly and looked the man up and down. Alright, Bucky looked different, for one his arm was gone... Why he'd decided to forgo his metal arm, Gladio didn't know, but he wasn't one to judge. "Yeah, arrived today." He smiled a bit. "You remind me of someone I used to know. You've been here long?"

[luckybucky]

Bucky lifted a brow, offering his hand for a shake even as his smile turned a little wry. "Let me guess, I was on some weird space train?" At this points it's more amusing than confusing. "I showed up last month and if I've been on a space train, I sure as hell don't remember it. A lot of other people seem to, though. I must've stayed out of trouble, because even Tony's being nice to me."

He shakes his head a little, gaze flickering back to the person making his smoothie. "Last thing I remember before being here is working in the field, with the King himself coming down to see me," he sighed, looking back to Gladio with a wry smile. "Is it bad to be relieved I don't have to fight?" At least until things here started going sideways.

[callmegladio]

Gladio's smile widened into a grin. He grabbed the hand to shake, after he put down his spoon. "Got it in one. I met you there. I... Wait, what?" The smile vanished again to be replaced with shock this time. Tony was here? Seriously? For a dumb moment he looked around as if he'd see that familiar smirk. Of course he didn't.

"Uh... no, its not bad." A little mental shake, and Gladio pulled his attention back to Bucky. He could go and find Tony later. "I feel the same way, honestly."

[luckybucky]

He chuckled as his smoothie was set in front of him, and he took a sip while Gladio did his little double-take routine. "Yeah, this place is throwing everybody for a loop, apparently," he replied lightly.

"Good news is, so far this place is... weird, but not bad. I haven't gotten in a single fight," not even with Tony, which was a miracle in its own right, really. "After all, who's gonna pick a fight with a guy who's unarmed?" It's a terrible pun, and he knows it.

[callmegladio]

Gladio threw Bucky a sardonic smile. "... If I remember anything about the you from the train, even one armed you can hold your own." Would he pick a fight with him, no, that would be pointless. He'd rather just sit and enjoy cool treats on a warm day while enjoying the cool breeze washing up from the ocean.

"It's nice here, though. Even if you say it's weird. It's better than where I was before."

[luckybucky]

That got a grin. "You're not wrong," he agreed, but he'd really rather not fight unless he absolutely had to.

"Yeah, I can't imagine a space train had a whole lot in the way of fresh air. Or space." And who knew what kind of people had been on it, what kind of personality clashes there were to cause chaos. "Or smoothies," he added, taking another sip of it with a happy sound. "So you found where you're staying? There aren't a whole lot of people in the apartments, even though a whole bunch of us showed up," he had no idea where everyone else had ended up, except that one of his coworkers was in a house somewhere with two of the others that had arrived when he did.

[callmegladio]

"Didn't think so." No, even if he hadn't known Bucky from the train, he would have been able to tell. Bucky was a fighter, there was no escaping that. But even fighters got tired of it. Gladio was tired of fighting as well. He'd done it his whole life, and he was good at it. Really good. But now he just wanted to rest.

"No and no. No air, no space, too many people... the list could go on and I could go on." He grinned and poked at his ice with his spoon before scooping some up. "But my dessert'd melt and then I'd be sad, so..." He popped the spoon in his mouth and gave a happy hum. Though at the next question, the smile slipped a little, before coming back strong. "This place gave me my house back. One from home. Don't know why, but... it's there."