Dawn of A New Age - Roleplay Thread

The corner of Zia’s lip curled into a sour smile as she listened to Blake’s voice, his description matching what she heard earlier. Confused teens causing havoc was the theme of the day, after all. Though someone else manipulating the poor kid was a different matter, Well, this day just keeps getting better and better. I can feel you’re close – maybe a block or two away? A pause as she felt for a location. It was strange, the sense of where they were – composed, she felt, both of the subjects own sense of location and the minds between them. However, she was not yet in enough control to tell exactly how far or in what direction, We’re in an ambulance in an alleyway with three unconscious adults and a brain dead teen – I like we’re beyond stupid at this point, Blake. Zi pointed out with an edge of humour, I’ll see if we can meet you at the scrapyard once we’ve figured stuff out. Don’t go having too much fun…

Suddenly, the familiar blonde shape of Terry descended from the sky and the Void’s sickening voice rang out in Zia’s mind. She poked her head out of the vehicle for confirmation, “Terry? What are you doing here?” She saw how tattered his clothes were – it appeared he and his mental passenger had in engaged in somekind of fight for power, “What happened to you?” She chose to play dumb for the time being, walking up to the kid and noting his bruises with no small concern.

Terry groaned and managed to keep his stance, as well as a rather bitter smile, "Well, The Void tried to take control so it could kill that guy who robbed the store. I knew it'd go after the others too, so I flew up and engaged it. I...think I won..."

Don't pat yourself on the back too much, Sentry. Still, that duplicate boy is a problem. You should have allowed me to deal with him permanently.

Terry looked around, and asked, "Do you know where everyone else went, Zia?"

Zia looked even more concerned, "Well, I hoped you kicked its metaphorical arse three ways to Sunday." She commented, wondering if they had anything for those bruises and cuts, "They're in a scrapyard nearby - Blake says they calmed down the duplicating-boy but there was someone else pulling his strings. We've got Ruth in the ambulance but her mind's empty." She explained, scratching the back of her neck and sighing in exasperation. Zi took Terry by the arm and pulled him towards the vehicle gently, "Come on, we'd better get you cleaned up a little before you go making nice. You can give us a blow by blow of the fight."

Ciro took the shirt off his head and then wriggled back into it, giving Zia a small grin. "C'mon, it feels weird like this. When I get a summer job at the pool, then we can talk."

It felt sort of weird to be joking around, what with their situation as it was, but at the same time it was oddly refreshing. He set to work on cleaning up their ride and passengers. Which didn't turn out to be too bad- the kids he babysat for were far worse by comparison. What with the bawling, and the wriggling around, and that one girl who thought her puke made for good paint...

He'd gotten through one towel when Zia poked her head out of the van, but he only paid attention when she called out a familiar name. Terry? He's here? Following suit, Ciro looked out and immediately flinched at Terry's condition. He dropped the towel and accompanied Zia, face plastered with concern.

"Are you alright?!" The news about the Void was, obviously, concerning, but Terry's health took priority right now. Like Zia he held Terry's shoulder, in case the other boy were to suddenly keel over. "Actually, yeah, ambulance first. See if we can't patch you up a bit."

edited 7th Jun '15 3:15:30 PM by whizzerd

"Yeah...uh...I think I'm fine." Terry stumbled a bit, his clothes were torn pretty badly, his injuries might have been bad earlier, but were mostly bruises and such now, and he leaned against Ciro a bit. He however realized he was still a very large young man and eased up, allowing them to take him into the ambulance to fix him up before he went to apologize to the others for running off.

"Well...Void wanted out to deal with the Duplicate Guy, but I forced the issue...some other things...came to light."

Terry briefly wondered if this was going to become a recurring event, and hoped beyond hope it was not going to.

The Void

Luna was relaxing herself when she heard Zia calling them.

Luckily now that Zia had opened a telepathic channel everyone could hear each other thoughts.

"Not bad, glad you could join us"she thought to Ciro, and Zia after they explained the ambulance situation.

"Who is this void you're talking about?"She asked bluntly to everyone while listening about Terry's torn clothes after his fight with the void.

Then the void began to call terry "The sentry, and boasting that he wanted to murder the new kid" she frowned.

""What the hell was that?" She thought to Terry after hearing the void for the first time. Truth was that while she did expect such dark thoughts from someone like Blake, she never expected something like that from him

edited 8th Jun '15 12:05:20 AM by RPGLegend

Zia suddenly realised that she wasn’t just picking up everyone’s thoughts, but sending them to the group as well. It dawned on her as Luna noted it to herself, prompting an embarrassed blush. At least the gothic teen thought their hijacking antics were worthy of some praise, Neil feels differently but fuck it – at least I now know her mind has gone walkabout.

By accident she had turned herself into a sort of hub, which was about to prove inconvenient as Luna heard the Void. Terry wouldn’t like the others hearing that monstrous thing, let alone that it had any impact on his actions of powers – She managed to cut off the others from hearing this, or at least muffle it, Uh… Long story? I’ll explain later, can you not tell everyone right now? Zi didn’t want everyone to know about that didn’t already. People could be cruel when scared and she didn’t want him to get interrogated. Speaking of which, she found a first aid kit and began to clean up any wounds – it was mostly bruises and mental pains but worth a shot. “I’m glad you stopped the Void from… From doing whatever it wanted to do. They’ll understand you flying off like that, I’m sure. Frankly I’m mostly shocked you can fly at all. I mean shit… I got the short end of the superpower stick, eh?”

Ciro wanted to point that Terry was quite obviously not fine, but stilled his tongue. It was true that, at the very least, the injuries weren't as bad as they first appeared. But that didn't cross out that they were there in the first place, and caused by this 'Void'. That's the voice that Zia told me about earlier. It could've killed Terry and none of us would've known...

It was hard to think (which might actually be for the better) because he was getting some weird mental feedback- voices kept flickering in and out his head, first Luna and then someone he didn't recognise. The Void, no doubt. They were going by too fast for him to focus on one, but he, like Luna, had his curiosity peaked by the Void's presence.

Assisting Zia with the first aid, Ciro retreated briefly into his own thoughts before speaking up again. "Not to be rude, or intrusive, but... what is this 'Void'?" He looked between the two. "I know it's a voice, and a bad one, but... if this happens again, then it'll be easier to help if I know what the actual problem is."

Terry heard the thoughts racing about too fast for him to really reply to any one statement, but calmed when it seemed to muffle down, to stop. He breathed and looked over at Ciro and considered his question. It was tempting to downplay it, to just call it an evil split personality, but after what he saw up there, in the mesosphere and maybe even in space, he couldn't just call it something so mundane.

He breathed heavily and started to explain what he had seen, "The Void is a shadow, blacker than death, it...it could be called what an Angel of Death. But that is not it. It is a being of primordial darkness. In Ancient Egypt it was called upon in the course of the Curses, claiming the souls of Egypt's first born. It showed me...it showed me how It devoured them."

He breathed heavily again, that had been one of the most trying points in his life. A battle not just to survive, but also to not go stark-raving mad. To keep his sanity mostly intact.

The Void's history was not something Ciro had been expecting. Some evil comic-book entity, sure, but a reaper as old as Ancient Egypt? It was almost too bizarre to believe... and considering everything else that had happened lately, that was saying something.

Implausible or not, it was obviously a heavy burden to bear. Ciro couldn't begin to imagine how hard it must be to put up with it, let alone fight it off. He gave Terry a pat on his uninjured shoulder. Comforting words felt a little inadequate right now.

"Damn... Guess it's too much to wish that there's an easy way to get rid of it?" He tapped his own temple, his worried expression betraying his calm tone. "Think I might've heard it just then, actually. Can it- he- uh, can the Void use the same sort of powers that you do?"

Cornelius just didn't bother with the others right now, thinking over what to do what to say to Ruth. It wasn't any concrete thoughts though, more simply ideas and feelings. He instinctively knew how to create robots, so obviously making her a gynoid body for now was best. Though if she wanted her own body back, they would either need to preserve it or advance cloning & genetic science to make a new one failing that. Either way, it would be a complicated process weaving in the machinery to allow her to puppeteer a meat body. However, if they just went with his robot body idea, it would still be ideal to get her to help make everything work so...

"I'm at the junkyard right now, so give me a list of parts you need for whatever you want to do to solve the memory space problem. My power will make building much simpler, but I will need a schematic to reference. Don't worry about your requests, I'll build anything you ask me to. Though, could you research electromagnetism? I imagine you would anyways, but just wanted to make sure. Control over electromagnetic forces would be an excellent tool for your physical body. Nonetheless, I'll do whatever I can to help you, so you don't need to ask."

With the message sent, Cornelius turns his attention to Gunner and calls out in the deep voice he's been using "Gunner, our friend, how much have you experimented with your power? If you can clone materials, then we could have infinite resources. However, are there any durability issues with the clones, would the copies of anything fade if too far from you? If the woman that manipulated you is indeed an Empowerer, then we'll need everything we can get. Of course, is there anything you need or want from us? I wouldn't want our newest friend to be unhappy."

Terry remembered their fight up there, so high above, it was almost enough to give him Robert's height phobia just from all he saw. "No. It uses the...the reverse. My power is light. Its power is Darkness. It made these tentacles that showed me...things. Horrible things. Waves after waves of darkness. It twisted the weather..."

Terry seemed to almost fall over, but then righted himself. Damn he needed to lay down. The Void took a lot out of him in that fight.

"Today, the world of comedy lost a legend with the death of Mel Brooks at age 93. The creator of such American classics like the Producers, Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein passed away this afternoon out of—" The soft voice of the news reporter was silenced as Cornelius pinched the air above his smartphone, placing it inside his jacket's pocket. Hands clasped over his lap, he leaned back in his seat as he watched the rehearsal with a silent smile on his face, apparently oblivious to the men in black suits stealthily surrounding his seat in the empty theater.

"No, no, it's two-two-three-three-two-three-two-one!" The director yelled at one of the chorus line members, his swirly hair bouncing back and forth as he did the complicated dance combination right in front of the leotard-wearing young woman.

"I'm sorry, it's just— that combination is impossible!" She said, shaking her head. "And it's... it's highly unnecessary, is it not, Mr. Director? It doesn't make any sense in the context of the scene!"

"Change the scene? Change the scene—" The director leaned in, glowering. "You're lucky there aren't a lot of actors hanging around Broadway anymore. I can't change the scene, alright? Besides, this is the version the censors approved, this is the version that's going to go!"

"But no one can do it!"

"Of course they can! Charlie!" The director snapped at a young black man standing on the edge of the stage. "Do the combination for me!" He said, watching eagerly as the man replicated the director's bizarre dance movements down to the smallest detail, matching every high and doing every low as if he had come up with the moves himself. "See?! Why can't all of you be like him?! He does every dance perfectly! How do you do that, Charlie?"

"Practice, sir." Charlie replied with a smile.

Up in the audience, Cornelius quietly wrote something down in his notebook. Under a series of scratched out names, he underlined the only remaining name: Taskmaster. "I believe we have enough information to move in with our young friend there." He told the nearest security guard, an Asian woman- the CSS commander- who was staring nervously at her phone. "Look alive, Jiao. We might have finally found a second generation New Ager. No more will we have to stick to—"

"Sir." Jiao interrupted him sternly. "Prisoner 616 disappeared."

Cornelius suddenly froze, the smile melting off his lips. "Jessica? How did she escape?"

"We're not sure, sir. I just got the update from headquarters."

"It can't have been the pheromones. All of our soldiers got injections to protect them against her powers, what did she use? How did she escape?" Cornelius sighed, pulling his glasses up. "She must be nearby, tell them to search the area. Close off the nearby streets, put the dogs out—"

"Sir, she didn't escape. She disappeared."

Cornelius stopped again. "What do you mean by disappeared, Jiao?"

"There are literally no escape routes she could have taken. There were guards outside her cell. The generators were working, the... the cameras didn't even skip a second or two. She just disappeared. No smoke, so it wasn't Victor." Jiao looked up from her smartphone. "The soldiers were completely aware of their surroundings, so not Zia. And there weren't any signs of an attack, so the Sisterhood couldn't have been involved with it, as we both know Luna isn't smart enough to break into our facilities. RUTH wasn't hacked so—"

"Did she leave something behind? In her cell?"

Jiao looked back at her smartphone, waving her finger above it. "Yes. A... tape. A cassette tape."

"A recording of her voice, then."

"A recording, yes, but not of her voice." Jiao looked up, narrowing her eyes. "It's that song... Owner of a Lonely Heart."

"Who's there?!"

Dirty Joe, the city's hobo, walked out from behind a pile of cardboard and washing machines, dragging his purse filled with books behind him. Despite the dirty attire that usually came with hobos, Dirty Joe was quite the educated fella, having simply run into a strings of bad events after he returned from his time with the army- events which involved, but were not limited to, the 2008 housing crisis, betting on Osama never being found and a very unlikely fire. "What the heck are you kids—" He began, before noticing Luna. "Oh. It's you again. Well, try not to light anything on fire this time, will ya?"

'Gunner', on the other hand, was sitting on a tire, bawling his eyes out. "I didn't want to hurt anyone... I didn't want to hurt anyone..." He constantly sobbed, rocking back and forth.

"Ugh, will someone shut him up?!" Scales growled, as Jonathan searched through the trash piles for a bigger shirt.

There was a bit of silence in Ruth's part, until she finally responded. I don't want to get into a physical body. She said, solemnly, before printing out a list of computer parts on the screen of Cornelius' phone and fading into silence.

"Can we not use that title? New Agers? Sounds like we're gonna join hands and chant 'kumbaya' whilst bringing forth our lord Ctulhu's new age of control." Benjy grumbled, clasping his hands. "Which, knowing Neil and his... slightly creepy tendencies, does not surprise me at all."

Standing up and walking about, Benjy's eyes settled on the ambulance phone. "Okay. Hold on. I've got an idea. What happens if you call 911... from an ambulance? They go as fast as possible to where you are, right? Which means... they'll come here, see Ruth, and... well, they'll wonder why everyone was knocked out. Zia- hopefully this is not asking much, but- can you plant some kind of image in their minds—"

And that was when Terry appeared. Benjy decided to remain in the back, away from the blonde. Partly out of just wanting to watch and knowing he could not help him in any way... and partly out of fear the Void would lash out at him.

"Because we are sick, alright?!" Jessica yelled, wiping away some half-formed angry tears from her eyes. "We're sick, all of us. That's what this is, a... freaking... epidemic! And I don't know how to cure it but I'm sure as hell gonna try so I don't have to stop talking to people out of fear that I'll accidentally tell them to jump off a bridge and they'll do it! Are you happy now? With your freaking answer?!" She groaned, putting the disinfectant Amy was looking for next to the sink.

"I want you to turn on your universal communicator. Is that not clear enough, Human? I have scanned your brain patterns and concluded that you are capable of logical thought, therefore your question does not make sense." The voice replied, as Michal's right arm gripped his left arm. "Release this arm so I may effectively control this flesh vessel, Human." The voice said, as Michal's spine suddenly tried to stand up.

Blake didn't really react to Dirty Joe at all; he certainly knew of him but he was better off if they just ignored him, given the trouble they were probably making. He let out a deep sigh as Gunner started crying and walked over to him.

"For fuck's sake, don't make me be the moral one. I am not a fucking therapist."

He mumbled to himself as he walked over and sat down. He purposefully avoided making eye contact by sitting to his left, thus putting Gunner in his blind spot, but opened telepathic communications.

This is private, you can say what you want. And I don't care if you don't like me being in your head. Matter is, you fucked up because somebody got to you. We got there fast enough so you didn't fuck up too bad. You stick with us and be more careful and you can fix that shit.

Blake paused. Although he felt like he would be better off saying it, he didn't really believe his own tone. But he carried on, trying to reach something that worked.

I don't get why your idea of freedom involves armed robbery but you can come back from this. Just tell us about that fucker you mentioned. The one who told you lies and shit.

Amy sucked in a breath, grabbing the disinfectant off the sink. "Sorry," she said. She'd thought...she shouldn't have jumped to conclusions. "I'm sorry," she repeated, walking over to Victor to help him with his hand, "but I...don't think it can be cured. Not like that, anyway." She pressed her lips together. "Don't get me wrong - I want to be able to cure myself too, but...I think," she paused, trying to find a good way to put it, "we need to let things settle first. Calm down."

She looked, concerned, at Victor. Both of them were breaking down, weren't they...? She guessed she was lucky she did most of that this morning. Or maybe it hadn't really hit her yet. "Are you okay?" she asked him quietly.

edited 13th Jun '15 7:40:18 PM by Serendipital

Benjy had a point about the suggested title for their ‘kind’, for lack for a better term. Even referring to them as different to the rest of humanity made her uncomfortable. It sounded so pretentious – ‘a New Age’. Always thought, and spoken, by Neil in way that she could almost hear the capitalisation. Not that Zi could talk but that boy had more issues than Zoo magazine in a therapist’s office. He believed he was acting with the good of humanity in mind, which she knew very well. But this didn’t seem the way to do it – anytime a group separated themselves from the rest of humanity and acted to ‘benefit’ it… Never ended well.

There were more immediate troubles, however. Benjy was a bit worried by Terry’s passenger and Zia couldn’t blame him. At least the tall teenager wasn’t beaten by the Void yet, though he visibly struggled, “Take it easy, Terry. Sit down for minute…” She suggested in a reassuring tone, hand on his shoulder to keep him steady, “I’d better see what I can do about the paramedics.” The telepath climbed into the ambulance and exhaled slowly, thinking of how she could make this situation make sense to the adults. An uneasy moment later Zi placed her fingers to her temple and carefully entered their memories – She concentrated on blurring or removing their faces from memory, then replacing the scene with something more pedestrian. A detour – official looking signs indicating they had to take a route near the scrapyard to the hospital. They had to pull over to re-strap Ruth into the gurney. Yes, that would make somekind of sense.

Zia didn’t put too much detail in herself, nor did she apply much pressure in the change – she tried to let them fill in the blanks as they slumbered. A few minutes and she walked back to the group, sitting on the edge of the ambulance backdoors, “Okay, if that worked they’ll think they had to take a detour – or at least won’t remember our faces.” Zi smiled, head ringing a little with the dreams of those behind them.

Terry took a seat, wincing at some of his injuries connecting, and hoping the others would not be too scared of his passenger...he supposed distance was wise. His powers lent themselves to insanity. If he wasn't careful, he could go to sleep and wake up some sort of warped Marty Stu or (depending on The Void) possibly worse.

He let out a sigh and tried to apply his powers to heal himself, it was slow going, but at least he wasn't too terribly torn up. He'd had a few close calls, but that might've just been beginner's luck.

Wiping his brow as a cut there sealed a bit, he looked around, wondering if he could work his magic on this girl.

"Hey, guys, do you think my healing aura would work on this girl?"

edited 14th Jun '15 10:53:21 AM by NickTheSwing

"Okay? All thing considered, I'm quite possibly the happiest a person could be at the moment."

He laughed, blandly and bitterly.

"She's right. Pain pills and stuff like what you're taking are no good for trying to make a cure. Believe me, I want to be go back to normal just as badly as you do, but this isn't just some flu that you can take a pill for."

He winced a bit as he dabbed some disinfectant on his cuts.

Now that Terry was patched up and healing the last of his wounds, Ciro busied himself with cleaning up the rest of the ambulance. He couldn't exactly make the vehicle sparkle, but at least they could sit in it now without feeling queasy.

Once finished he put the dirty towels into the bin Benjy had been puking in, and then dumped the whole lot into a trashcan outside of the ambulance. Hopefully the paramedics would think they'd just forgotten to restock if they noticed the missing supplies.

"Okay, so, once Terry feels a bit better we call the hospital, tell them where we are, and bail..." He hauled himself up so he was sitting next to Zia and Terry. "You said the others were near here, right? We bail over to where they are, and... hope the doctors hold onto Ruth's body until we know what to do with her."

All in all, they hadn't achieved much with this. With their illegal activity, done for a noble cause or not.

He'd been trying to avoid the thought but now, with all the commotion over, it festered in his mind- this was criminal. Kidnapping, carjacking, maybe even assault, that's ten years at least. And all the fines on top of that. He chewed on a nail, absently, as his thoughts grew more panicked. That's if Dad doesn't kill me first. And, crap, if Elly and Don found out too...

Terry nodded, he wasn't liking sticking around this ambulance, it just seemed kinda wrong, but he guessed they needed it to help Ruth. Still, the sooner this ended the happier he'd be.

this girl...maybe I could try at least.

Terry tried to apply his healing aura to Ruth, not knowing what her circumstance was, but guessing it was something about the mind.

Zia shook her head and bit her lip, looking over her shoulder to Terry’s healing efforts, “There’s nothing to heal, Terry. Her body and brain is physically fine, just no mind. Totally empty.” She explained, though she understood why he wanted to try. Ciro was adding up their potential criminal sentence for their exploits, “We don’t need to call anyone. Once we leave this alley I can wake them up – they won’t remember us. They should, if I dun gud, think they came to this part of town because of road works.” Zi explained, placing a reassuring hand on her friends shoulder and hoping he could calm down, “It’ll be alright… Your Dad doesn’t have to know. We can figure out what to do at the scrapyard. Plus, prison is unlikely to keep you considering.” She added with a smirk, trying to catch his eye.

"Oh...I see..."

Terry looked down, hoping that there was something someone could do, to help her. It hurt, seeing her left like this with nothing able to be done.

You could...

No.

It may be your only shot, boy.

No, especially not when its you suggesting it.

Terry looked out and asked, "So, what happens next? What do we do now?"

-then they'll have to explain that their brother's in prison because he abducted an unconscious girl and-

Ciro nearly jumped when Zia's words cut through his thoughts. It took a second for him to register what she'd actually said.

"Sorry, guess I was, uh, was thinking loudly." He thought about stopping there, but his next words were already in his head. Zia was going to hear them either way. "Maybe it's the powers or something, I dunno, but my mind's been in overdrive all morning. Freaking out about everything. I feel even more jittery than usual."

He didn't want to talk about why committing crimes made him panic the most. He didn't want to think about it either. "Anyway, thanks. A lot." Letting out a quick breath, he looked back at her and smiled. "I'll try and stop being a worrywart. We did learn something about Ruth, and Terry got help with his injuries, so that's good."

It wasn't going to help them if they stuck around, though. "We're gonna head over to the others at the scrapyard near here." he said, in reply to Terry's question. He hopped back out of the ambulance. "Then Zia will do her thing and get these people back on track."

Lightly shaking his head in disappointment of Gunner, Cornelius starts walking off and calls out "I'll be scavenging for materials here, I did some research on devices I'll like to build. So if it isn't too much Precision, keep me informed of anything major that happens." With his words spoken, Cornelius looks down at his phone and briefly sends Ruth a message "Really? What changed your mind?" The message sent, Cornelius proceeds to focus on collecting the parts listed.