Under a Blank White Sky

"Let us begin."

---

They search.

Stretching out across the white void between the worlds, they search. Black arms with clawed fingers; they search with the glowing eyes embedded in their palms.

They search, and they find the worlds that float through the void. They rip their way in, three of them holding the rift open while four more of them grab their targets and pull them through.

Some, especially those from more mundane realms, only feel a strange pulling sensation before they fall into unconsciousness. They are the lucky ones. Some are able to see their abductors, as they struggle to stay awake, to not get pulled through - but their struggle is in vain.

They are dragged sleeping through the void, all deposited in the same place, like the prize chute of some twisted inter-dimensional crane game.

---

Sedd shifted restlessly in his sleep. It seemed that the rock he'd been resting his head on had changed shape since he'd lain down, and it was now rather uncomfortable. Opening his eyes, he took in the blank white sky above him, the enormous ominous structure off to his right... and the strange variety of sleeping forms scattered around him.

"Ah," he said, laying his head back and giving a small smile. It's going to be one of those days, isn't it?"

edited 10th Apr '12 9:21:18 AM by Sir_Screwloose

Pretend there's something clever written here.

Ignatius saw what pulled him through. He struggled, as was natural for survival, in the oddly empty way he did everything, but eventually passed through, sleeping.

He stood and looked around with his right eye, observing the area around him with cold movements. He saw the blank shapes and the blank sky, but he showed no reaction. He observed the sleeping forms and, stood among them, watching as they stirred and waked.

edited 4th Apr '12 4:56:47 PM by Replica

Makoto's expression was somewhat sour as she opened her eyes. Normally, she had no problem waking up, but something... disturbed her. Something happened in her sleep and now...

The kitsune sat up, the illusions that maintained her young-looking form practically an instinct by now. But this place... this empty place, where the hell was she?

Now on her feet, Makoto glanced around, noting the others that were rousing from her sleep. Similar situation? But kind of situation was it? This was highly unusual, to say the least.

Well... if these people were in the same boat as her, none of them were the cause, and thus not an enemy she'd have to beat the hell up in order to get an answer or two. That was both good and bad, at least...

Ainslie slowly sat up and rubbed her eyes before lettingout a yawn. Then she looked around and was shocked silent. Everywhere around her were others waking up, a couple already had, and this strange place. Ainslie didn't like it at all

Bubbles, last she remembered, had been fighting a giant monster with Blossom and Buttercup beside her. Then there was that pulling, those... hands, they looked like, and now she was somewhere else. Big blue eyes looked around as she hopped into the air, and remained there, floating above the ground effortlessly.

"Blossom? Buttercup?" She called, looking for them between the numerous sleepy people. Her eyes widened in fear. Where were her sisters?

What is so amusing about this? Why do you take lives? How can you forget?

Dreams.

Rosette remembered she had rarely had them. Ever since her arrival at the New World half a dozen years ago, hard work had quite literally robbed her of the ability to dream. The one time she did have a dream as vivid and lucid as this one was exactly at that life-changing threshold.

It was, therefore, not a stretch for her to assume the weird dream she had had just now was the herald of another twist her life had in store for her. Not to mention the imageries she encountered were weirder and more surreal than the abstract paint-splashed canvases her old master and present business partner, Mr. Elias Whitney, liked to show off to his high-profile guests. Not even the most absinthe-intoxicated mind could produce such a thing like claws from the abyss ripping the sacred boundary of heaven and earth and grabbing sleeping people en masse, dumping them at random around some sort of a temple structure.

She woke up with her head spinning, failing to comprehend what in the name of the Almighty she just saw in the dream. What she did realize after shaking her head a couple times and regaining her footing, however, was two things. First, she was no longer within the comfortable boundaries of her weaver's shop, but rather in an open space underneath a sky as blank and bleak as though splashed by a huge bucket of bargain bin paint. And second, scattered around her were a bunch of people she had never seen before. Some were awake, some still asleep, and most, if not all, did not seem to belong in this new place.

At a second look, she noticed that a good number of the figures around her were armed in one way or another. Since all she had on her person was the colonist's toolbox with a hammer, some nails, a hatchet and a carving knife, that was either a very good or very bad thing.

There was only one way to find out - approach the others who have woken up. It might be a foolish move in terms of self-preservation, but she was Sam Champlain's daughter after all. And her father was nothing if not for his foolhardy bravery.

edited 4th Apr '12 5:32:01 PM by ArgeusthePaladin

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All sentient creatures dream, that much is known.

Andalites must dream of warm rich grass, of asparagus-spear trees, butter-yellow moons casting their light down on a warm and familiar scoop nestled among rolling plains. Taxxons might dream of red hills, red skies, the reassuring warmth of the Living Hive, and perhaps a day where their eternal hunger can be forever sated. Hork-Bajir dream of towering trees, the familiar songs of home and family, the warmth of a hearth and the vivid stories told by seers. Even Yeerks must dream, perhaps remembering the warm sludge of their home pool and the reassuring pressure of their thousands of siblings.

Two creatures slumbered on a wooden platform. The platform itself was a dull and utilitarian construction, little more than a few branches lashed together. Its location, however was awe-inspiring; it was located seven hundred feet of the ground, built around the trunk of a tree twice the breadth of a sequoia. It stood among many thousands of similar trees in a deep valley, all of them towering monuments to vegetable engineering. It would have been picturesque, if not for the clouds of black and oily smoke that billowed from ugly gashes in the valley, the heavily fortified dead tree filled with grey sludge, and the eerie red lights of spacecraft that hovered motionless in the sky.

The two beings who were lost in slumber were certainly not human. One was a gracile, delicate thing, with an equine body, two pairs of slender-six-fingered hands, and a mouthless face topped with two twitching stalk eyes. Her name was Aldrea, an Andalite and freedom fighter, and she dreamt of a vanished home and a dead family, of her father, whose legendary act of kindness had created the greatest scourge in the galaxy, and of the faraway home world that she might never see again.

The other was a seven-foot tall reptilian behemoth; he was all coiled muscle and ebon blades, with pockmarked skin stretched tight over a long spiny neck and wickedly curved beak. Dak Hamee, Seer of the Hork-Bajir, had not left the valley that he had grown up in, and yet he had never felt so far from home. His dreams were hallucinogenic and uneasy; nightmares where Mother Sky unleashed a torrent of slugs on the valley, and Father Deep retaliated by spawning an army of twisted beasts- beasts that Dak led, monsters that taught the People to kill, to harm, to hurt their brothers.

For the past few weeks, life had been increasingly hard for the resistance fighters. Patrols through the unoccupied areas of the forests had increased. The ragged and weary band of guerillas had had to relocate several times, always keeping to the trees, clutching their scavenged, mud-choked shredders or wooden spears tight in their reptilian hands. They hid from troops of Yeerk-infested Hork-Bajir, or, more recently, the nightmarish yellow worm-things that had been unloaded from a ship not long ago, and now prowled around the Yeerk pool with cannabilistic fervor.

With a start, Dak awoke. The most recent nightmare had not been a pleasant one. The worm-things were crawling over the mutilated bodies of Aldrea, of his father and mother, his friends and comrades, hatching more and more of the rubbery bloated things, only for an enormous clawed hand to swoop down and carry him away... into blackness. It was startingly vivid, and he barked a harsh yell of shock as he awoke, leaping to his feet and flashing his blades. Aldrea was safe, sleeping in her peculiar upright way. But the platform, and the trees, and the valley were all gone, replaced with a featurless gray wasteland. It resembled the Outside, beyond the valley, where no Hork-Bajir had ever gone. But how had he gotten here?

But then, with a sinking sense that something far worse than he imagined had happened, he looked up- and stared dumbfounded at Mother Sky.

From horizon to horizon, it was a pure, untarnished, white.

edited 4th Apr '12 5:47:11 PM by Locoman

The phrase "Toph enjoyed sleep" is a massive understatement. The phrase "Toph enjoys the ability to sleep so much, that if you try to take it away from her, she will bury you under 100 feet of earth" is also an understatement, but not as much as the first phrase. In other words, when it was Toph's time to sleep, she was going to sleep, and nothing was going to stop her. Except the occasional attack by a random person, one of her students, a wild animal, or on the worst cases, Sokka.

So when the Blind Bandit felt someone tugging her, she immediately prepared a snarky comment and attempted to earthbend. What made her open her eyes wasn't the fact that she didn't earthbend, or that she didn't make her snarky comment, or anything like that. It's because something was pulling her through the air- and since her feet didn't touch the ground, she was truly blind. For some reason, she didn't scream, and only struggled, trying to break free, but after what seemed like seconds, she fell asleep.

And when she woke up, she breathed a sigh of relief as she could "see" again. However, what surprised her was that she didn't sense the trees, or the animals, or the wind, or her friends cooking breakfast- all she could sense was some shapes that she supposed were buildings and people. She had no idea if the ground was earth, but she immediately got up on her feet, staring at nowhere in particular, one eyebrow raised, one hand scratching her hair and one question on her mind: where was she?

On the other side of the group from the Blind Earthbender, a young woman in blue buckskins was snoozing peacefully.

Korra hadn't noticed she was being pulled from Air Temple Island and had slept right on through it.

She yawned then, long and loud, and slowly sat up rubbing the sleep from her eyes.

“Tenzin, its way too early...” She trailed off as she looked around, at the blank white space, the buildings, and then at the others lying around. She glanced down at herself, then she brought up her right hand and pinched the side of it with her left.

“Ow...” Okay, she wasn't going insane. She was actually here...unless she could feel pain in dreams too? That would be a weird experience.

Korra got to her feet, glancing around in puzzlement.

“Okay...I do not recall taking a nap here last night...” She said, loud enough to be heard by everyone else.

Sedd sat up and stretched, working out the kinks that came from sleeping on the hard ground all night. Leisurely getting to his feet, he turned around and looked at what his head had been resting on.

It was a marble slab set in the ground, about six feet by three, with an intricate carving of an eight legged, serpentine creature, with a frill of feathers around its neck. A placard at the bottom of it simply held the word IHDISITH.

"Not a bad likeness..." he muttered to himself before striding over, past another slab, to the massive structure. It looked like some sort of temple, though to what god was unknown. The gate at the front was locked and barred, with no other obvious entrances. Slightly more concerning was that the door was framed by two huge stone hands, the eyes carved into their palms holding an eerie significance.

"Bit ostentatious if you ask - " he stopped suddenly when Dak stood up and yelped, seeming surprised for the first time since waking up.

He leaned against one of the walls, taking in the scenery - the six stone slabs circling the area they were in, and the miscellaneous trees and houses littering the area beyond that, placed haphazardly with no regards to logic, some of them lacking all color, or looking half-formed. Even the ground itself faded between patches of actual dirt or grass, and that unsettling dull greyness.

"So... any guesses as to what's going on here? Anyone?"

edited 11th Apr '12 9:44:11 AM by Sir_Screwloose

Pretend there's something clever written here.

Red Arrow felt that someone grabbed him from behind while he was conducting surveillance against a suspected League of Shadows-building, disguised as a corporate office.

Dammit. The archer tried to fight back, but he couldn't do so.

The last thing he remembered was that he fainted.

---

When the archer woke up, he saw that he was facing the ground, face first.

"Who the hell pulled me..." Red Arrow muttered as he stood up. "to this place?"

Dusting off his black leather jacket, Richard Miller stood up and walked around in the strange dimension. One minute, he was on leave and taking a break from his work for the VSSE, and now he was here.

Fumbling around, Richard looked for anybody else who would know what was going on, checking his pistol to see if it was in working shape.

"Hello, anybody here?"

edited 4th Apr '12 7:04:51 PM by PaulieRomanov

At the first look, the dark-skinned young man who took the initiative to explore the temple complex seemed to be one of those New World natives. Her suspicion, however, were cleared when she realized that his figure of speech was quite different from what she knew of the New Worlders, who for all she knew would quote the sky, the earth, the water, the flora and the fauna in every other sentence as thought they were sentient beings. Then again, she never had been and never would be an expert on New World peoples' culture.

As for his (rhetorical) question, unsurprisingly she had not a clue. If his attitude - and that of some other peoples... things... that had just woken up - was of any indication, however, she seemed to be in no immediate danger. For the moment, she stayed silent. Certainly, she had her share of questions, but at least until she knew beyond any shadow of doubt she was not in a life-threatening scenario, she'd keep her guard up and focus wholly on the survival side of things.

She grabbed her carpenter hammer and held it tightly. Not that it would help if a fight would break out, but it gave her some sense of security...

Support Taleworlds!

Miller headed forward, after seeing that his standard-issue pistol did in fact, work still yet. Wandering around this dull gray land, the young VSSE agent, clad in a leather jacket, looked around, and saw a strange sight.

It was a young girl in a traditional kimono, with fox ears. He knew from studying Shinto folklore that this was a kitsune.

Keeping his pistol holstered, Richard walked up to the girl slowly.

"Excuse me, ma'am, what is this place and why am I here?"

"I've not seen your face before. And those outlandish clothes! Wouldn't be one of the Fiendlord's agents, would we?"

"Ha! Fat chance. Look at him! That boy's not built to lift a sword, let alone serve in the Fiendlord's army."

"Heh. Suppose you're right. Now run along, boy, before we're forced to lock you up in the towers!"

"Stop that at once!"

"Queen Leene!"

"That man is my friend, and you will treat him as such."

"But, Your Majesty, there's something…strange about his look."

"You refuse to obey my orders?"

"No, I—forgive me, my lady! Please, enter!"

"Hee hee…"

"Her Majesty awaits you."

"Ah! There you are. Please leave us. I need to have words with this man in private."

"As you wish, Your Majesty."

"Come nearer. Don't be shy."

"Hee hee… Fooled you, didn't I, Crono? It's me! But everyone keeps calling me Leene for some reason. I'm glad you came. We were only together for that short time at the fair, but somehow I knew you'd come for me. Thank you, Crono. What's happening!? I feel…I feel like I'm being torn apart! Help me, Crono! I'm scared! It's like…I'm dying. Please, Crono! Help—!"

---

She had that nightmare again. Darkness and cold... That's what she felt when she had been nonexistent. She did not know how long she... didn't exist. It felt like she was there simultenously for a second and for an eternity. She supposed that was what happened when one was discarded by time. Marle, looked around. This was certainly not anywhere in the Kingdom of Guardia, nor anywhere in or out of time that she knew off. Crono did not look to be here, but there were others that she did not recognize here. Marle sat on the ground, at least glad that she was not in that dark, cold place again.

edited 4th Apr '12 8:29:42 PM by GameGuruGG

Wizard Needs Food Badly

As the incessant noise resonated about the place due to people's chattering overlapping, its noise also woke up another member of the newly snatched group. Yawning groggily, a head full of ruffled golden hair mumbled something with his eyes still closed. Well, not like most people would've been able to correctly guess his gender at first glance, due to the attire and position he was in.

Eyes finally opening sleepily, the oddly attired stranger propped himself up and looked at the group. "Oh hey, does Tripeace have new members or something?" He chirped out cheerfully as he began putting on a hairband.

Always be ready to do the unusual and unexpected.

Red Arrow went to test the comm equipment he had with the wireless earpiece placed inside his left ear.

"Aqualad. Can you copy?"

The archer got only static so far. "Come in, Mount Justice. Come in Green Arrow? Robin? Anyone?!"

More static was heard on his earpiece while trying to contact his comrades, which was not working.

"Great. The comms aren't working."

Maria blinked wearily when arms hoisted her from the softness of the grass she'd been sleeping on to... somewhere else. They weren't very pretty arms but at least they weren't hurting her and being randomly teleported didn't seem like the worst fate ever. Even though there were people around, the Grim Reaper was still tired and, after rearranging her scythe and firmly moving the bunny rabbit back into its position in her arms, she rolled over and went back to trying to sleep. Hopefully everyone would be nice and quiet, or maybe give her a blanket, that'd be nice...

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Ignatius walked through the area, tuning out the noise of the many people calling out to each other or whoever they were missing, and towards the temple, where another figure was already standing. He coldly and silently observed the structure and attempted to find a weak point in the gate, although coming up with nothing.

"Hm?" Makoto's eyes turned to the human in the leather jacket. Her eyes briefly flickered to his holstered gun before returning to his face. "No idea, guy. Looks like someone got to me during my sleep. Little cowardly, that."

Looked like just about everyone was waking up now. Well, except for one lone girl, who seemed content with her sleep. Makoto regarded her for a moment, then nodded at Man-In-Leather-Jacket to follow her as she walked towards said girl.

"Can't think why'd we all get kidnapped. Either we've all annoyed this one guy at some point, it's random, or we're chosen heroes." Makoto theorised, sounding fairly cheerful for someone who had woken up in a near empty world. "Still, a note woulda been nice, you know? Just a heads-up that- Oh wow I can't tell if she's creepy or cute." Makoto suddenly said, having reached the sleeping girl.

Sure, she had a scythe with a... skeleton on it, and her toy was cut in half, but she looked like a kid. Waking her up seemed cruel - especially since Makoto doubted she lived in this place.

After a moment's thought, Makoto shrugged and sat beside the girl, carefully arranging her tails into a makeshift blanket. Cross-legged, Makoto looked up at the man with the gun, smiling in a friendly manner. "By the way, name's Makoto! What's yours?"

This post was thumped by the Shillelagh of Whackingness

Token Loli!

... Huh. Her bed felt a lot harder and colder then usual... definitely not as comfortable... what was up with that? Ai shifted in her sleep, the bright pink heart-printed baggy pajamas she was wearing making her stick out like a sore thumb. If a sore thumb was neon pink and shaped like a teenaged girl. She rolled over, trying to get comfortable, but she simply couldn't manage it. What was up with her bed?

Ai sat up and opened her eyes, looking around. Okay, what was...

Why was she outside...? Why was the sky white...? Who were all these people?! Where was she?! Immediately, the pink-haired girl shot to her feet. Where were her-Oh, they were right there. Each of her cards lined up on the ground... that was helpful at least. She snatched them um and stacked them, before looking around. Everything was so... blank. And there was a girl in a kimono and someone with tails and...

"H-hello?"

edited 5th Apr '12 9:40:11 AM by AnnoR

"Oh, dear. The toad, the monkey, and the dog have all screwed up."

The kitsune kept talking about a woman with a scythe, which confused Miller, but he knew that she didn't know where she was either.

"My name is Richard Miller. And you are?"

The sheer oddity of the card-bearing girl's clothing - at least compared to the standards in her world, triggered no small amount of intrigue from the weaver. Rosette stood still for a while, observing her like a weird bulb of overgrown cotton sticking out of the field like a sore thumb indeed. Being ill-educated about the possibility of other races and peoples with entirely different cultures and codes of dressing in the multiverse, Rosette jumped to the most probably conclusion - to her that is. Who else in the world she knew possessed such fabulously overcolorful dresses◊?

Thinking so, she took a deep breath, walked towards the newly awakened girl, bowing - awkwardly and probaby in an incorrect fashion, if she might say that herself - in the traditional manner of greeting of the Southwestern Natives. Or at least according to what little she had picked up of it.

"O-si-yo, dto-hi-tsu?" she said, her voice severely distorted as she struggled with each syllable.

To her defense, she had never really been a proficient speaker of the Southwestern Native tongue aside from the few lessons she picked up from a friend in the plantation.

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Toph could sense all of the people waking up, and immediately thought of what to do. The first idea that appeared on her head was to erect a pillar, stand high and proud and demand answers from whoever did that. Of course, she didn't know if the ground was earth, so she changed her plan to include only the last part of the previous plan. She gritted her teeth and pointed at the group:

"Alright, all of you! I want to know how do I get out of here, so whoever did this, spill it!"

And with that, she concentrated, feeling everyone's heartbeats, and waiting for someone to lie. For the others, it looked like her gray eyes were staring at an invisible creature in front of her.