"Okay, we'll leave it for some other time, then!"
Yuna knew very well when it was better to drop a subject, and that seemed like something Makoto didn't want to talk about at the moment. While the Hero Club's Fourth Tenet instructed them to talk to someone when they were troubled, Makoto was not a member of the Hero Club, so she had no way of making the rules apply to her. Well, when she felt like talking about it, perhaps she would, but until then, there was not much for them to do.
"Okay, it's camping time! Off we go!" the Hero Club member valiantly exclaimed, ready to lead the march. "Oh right! I should call Togo now!"
However, before she was able to get her phone back out and start the call, everything got blurry for a few moments. She did not quite understand what had happened until she heard other people talking. And even then, it took her some time to fully comprehend that her friends were not speaking random gibberish.
They were speaking other languages.
The only one of the group she was able to understand was Makoto, who continued to speak Japanese like usual. Rex and Caboose spoke what she was fairly certain was English, Rean had spoken in something else at first, and then had started to speak in English as well, and Two... well, she had no idea of what Two's language was supposed to be. It seemed quite fancy, though; befitting of a queen. It was a shame she seemed so... distraught while speaking it.
Suddenly, an idea.
She walked up to Two, knelt down in a very knightly fashion, brought her right fist up to the part of the chest where her heart was, and lowered her head, as one would do when talking to royalty.
"Wakarimasen, Joō-heika!"note she spoke in a quite deep voice. There was not much she could do in regards to language, so she'd have to calm her friend down through... silly actions!
edited 13th Feb '18 12:31:09 PM by Katarsus
Woods
From Caboose's perspective, Makoto had just admitted to the embarrassing fact that she had trouble understanding people when they spoke too fast. He completely missed the part where this had to do with language barriers. He slowed down when she called out to him. Deciding to make her feel better, Caboose said "I understand. I also have trouble understanding people when they speak, even if they talk slowly."
Freckles did speak perfect English, Rex was right! "I know that now, I just needed to check to make sure that he wasn't because I can't understand things that well normally!" he said without a care in the world. "I mean, robots can start speaking in Spanish for no reason so I should be careful. Freckles is my super replacement best friend currently demoted to second best friend." And then Rex was speaking about Latin for some reason? "The only Latin I know is Semper Fi, because Sarge kept on repeating it to me, along with orders to kill Grif... why are we talking about this again?"
Seriously, they were all wasting time for some reason. Caboose was beginning to get bored of holding all these sticks. "We can all talk while walking, right? Let's go!"
edited 13th Feb '18 1:38:42 PM by pillowmantis
Why is a yam attacking me?Cole was happy enough to be able to introduce people, even though he didn't quite recognize some of them. Still, he seemed eager enough.
Then the blurring happened, and...things started to sound strange.
"Ben?" Cole looked between him, and Arcade, when they talked, eyes going wider. "Ég skil ekki hvað er að gerast...?"* He looked steadily more upset, looking back and forth, then up at Eve, starting to breathe a bit harder. "Af hverju hljómar allir rangt, Eva?"*
On the mirror, Varric had an eyebrow raised, though seeming more put out than anything, looking over to Cole in some concern. "Cole, róaðu þig, það verður í lagi."*
"Mér líkar þetta ekki! Ég vil ekki þetta! Gerðu það aftur!Gerðu það aftur!"* Cole was huffing more, starting to look almost panicky, voice getting steadily louder.
Eve | Campfire | Ship Tease? Ship Tease.
Eve hugged Ben back one-handedly, smiling. "Hello, Ben," she said, before clamping one hand over her ear, as Cole squealed. "Cole, really?" she asked, looking at him. "That was loud." She waved to Hercules, and the world blurred.
"Kio estis tio?" note she said, tilting her head at Louie. "Ĉu tio ... Jipangese?" note She shook her head and looked at Ben and Arcade. "Angla?" note She stopped for a moment. She knew English. "Ben, I don't think the Writer did this just to spite you, I think he did it to prove a point," her voice was stilted, occasionally, but she was fluent, mostly. "Louie seems to be talking about...shimmering? Probably the world blurring."
[TOP SECRET]Ben glanced at Arcade, furrowing his eyebrows a bit as Arcade spoke.
"How do you know that?" Ben asked. "He's been trying to ruin the City Knights since I made it. He keeps taking away all the people who join. Except for Eve, and he took her away too for a bit. The only people who stay are Thomas and Louie." He then blinked in confusion when Cole, who wasn't even in Ben's group, was speaking in a different language too, as well as Cole's friend.
Eve also spoke to him in (stilted) English. After he got over the fact that he was finding Eve's lilting accent... kinda cute... he stopped to think for a moment. Eve was a member of the City Knights! What was going on? Maybe Arcade was right.
He winced back from Cole for a moment, then looked at Eve. He managed to fight back a bit of a blush.
"What kind of point? That he can mess with us whenever he wants? News flash, we're not his toys to play with. We're people and we don't have to put up with the nonsense he throws at us," Ben stated firmly.
I can still hail the Horde even though the company has shamed us. Strength and Honor even if Blizzard has neither.Suddenly the whole area blurred for a brief moment and then things got very weird. Louie now was speaking in a language that Hercules had never heard before and so was the kid that had arrived with Eve and Arcade. “Τι συμβαίνει?” Hercules tried to ask but before he knew it, he gasped in shock, he realized that nobody could understand him at all. He was speechless, he couldn’t say anything to his friends or tell them what he was feeling about this situation and he started getting worried, how were his new friends meant to understand him if he was speaking a different language when all the others could even hear was him talking in a language they could not speak. At this sudden realization, Herc then let out a panicked scream and then darted towards Ben and in his panic he then grabbed his shoulders and then started shaking him like he was a ragdoll while shouting this in a panicked tone: “Τι μου συνέβη, Μπεν, τι μου συνέβη?!” He really didn’t know what else he could do he was out of his comfort zone and his brain was just not on his side in this circumstance.
Why was everyone speaking in different languages? Why couldn’t anybody understand him? It was just pandemonium incarnate for him and the rest of the group at the campsite.
edited 13th Feb '18 4:45:51 PM by TheStarscream759
"Yes mister Nigma, I'm certain we all do; it would take the intelligence of a dumb child not to quickly piece together what has happened" Wells said in a vaguely patronizing tone. "Just like it would also take a dumb child not to realize how troubled you are that I know something you don't" the militia leader added, his tone getting just a tad smug.
"Whoa, sir, we can't tell him" Nails added in, looking over as they walked. "A universe where Riddler finds out Batman's identity? There's no way that can end well; not as bad as the Joker finding out, but still pretty bad" the militia member went on.
"Good to know at least one of you still speaks the same language; and of course I'm not going to tell him. I may not approve of the idea of this 'Batman' fellow, but at least he's the right side of things. We wouldn't want to compromise him unfairly" Wells responded, shaking his head. "Consider yourself drafted to help me finish this up, Nails" the militia leader continued, stopping the procession for a moment to turn to the militia member and add, "you take the thief and put him in another hallway. Make sure he's searched thoroughly." To finish up, Wells turned to the rest of the militia group, pointed sternly to those currently dealing with Garrett, then pointed with some additional, emphasizing presses of his finger towards Nails, then pointed down a different hallway at the latest intersection they had come to.
The idea successfully transmitted well enough, half the militia group split off and followed Nails a different direction than Wells was leading the rest with Riddler.
Louie muttered something that sure did sound an awful lot like an exaggerated, "nani?!" as he first heard Lewis speaking on the Knights' channel, then looked over as everyone spoke in words he could not understand. He walked over, hesitantly asking about what was currently going on, possibly not actually directed at any of them specifically.
edited 13th Feb '18 4:54:06 PM by FirockFinion
You are reading this.It seemed that the group was still somewhat able to communicate, which was a little comforting. As soon as Cole started to freak out, though, Arcade moved to Eve's side to comfort him.
"Cole, Cole, we're still here..." he started to speak, then shook his head, "no, wait, different language..." he then switched to Latin and asked Cole and Varric, "nec iam posse intelligis?" *
I say that aloud too sometimes, just: "man, no life."Cole looked at Arcade as he came over to try and speak, but whatever was coming out of him was...gibberish, as best he could tell. There were words, intentions, but...he didn't understand. He didn't have his powers to read emotions, to catch what was being said...and it was all just sounds, noises, that made no sense to him. He whimpered, voice starting to take on a near whine as his eyes welled up. "Arcade...Ég vil að þetta stoppi, ég vil ekki að þetta haldi áfram, af hverju getur hann ekki skilið okkur bara??"*
Varric, for his part, just stared in confusion at Arcade, holding up a finger in a typical "wait a minute" manner, before speaking in a slow, hesitant, and rather broken-sounding accent. "Uh, Haltu þér. Ummm...Peut-être que...je peux essayer...Orlesian?* Heilagur framleiðandi mér finnst gaman að gera..."*
Eve | Campfire | Google Translate Is Fun
"Because I don't think it's just us," Eve replied, turning to the radio questions channel, and turning the volume up, so that people could hear the mix of languages that overlapped. "See?" she said. "Also, for all that we're people, you seem to think that Writer actually cares. He's ten-dimensional. We're three. Two, in some cases," she said, with a side-eye at Ben's Omnitrix. "Malbenitaj fremda fantomoj kaj ilia manko de deca karakterizado."
She looked at Hercules and put a hand on his arm. She couldn't tell what language he was speaking, so Eve hoped that the physical contact would calm him down. She looked at Louie. "What... I think. Umm... sakusha wa sore o jidōtekini henkan shimashita? Maybe?" note She paused. "Mi vere esperas, ke tio pravas..."
Eve looked at Arcade as he spoke in a language that she somewhat recognised. "Latina?" she asked herself. "Both... comprehend...I?" she tried to translate, and she shrugged. "I'm not great at Latina, it's a dead language." She hugged Cole gently, again relying on body language instead of any actual language. Varric, however, caught her attention. "That language is familiar somehow..." she paused. "Peut-etre que.... peut-etre que...eble tion... maybe that?" she said. Where had she heard this before? She clicked her fingers together. "Dr Tearju. It's her language. Ish. He has an accent that I can't place. I can't really speak it, though."
[TOP SECRET]Prison
"You've already let slip a valuable clue you complete imbecile! I know he's an aristocrat and, given how few people in Gotham are aristocrats of Batman's build, height, and with the free time that Batman has, I'm sure I can puzzle the rest out! You might have me here locked up but you've helped me more than you know! Once I get back to my home universe, I'll have puzzled out who Batman really is and it's all thanks to you! If you think the Joker's bad, why don't you ask that meddling bat who his archenemy truly is! You do-gooders are such fools! HOOOOOHOOOHEEEEHEEEE!" the Riddler cackled madly as he was being led away.
Riddler's right in this instance. The Adam West show verse where he's from had Riddler being the more popular of Batman's villains and Batman considered him his archenemy, not the Joker.
"Huh. You know now that you mention it I have seen some versions of me that -" Whatever Morty was about to say next was cut off when the city blurred around him again - and the reptilian part of his brain that had been industriously whirring away somewhere in the back of his skull immediately kicked into overdrive, flooding the rest of his body with a precautionary surge of adrenaline as Morty dropped into a kind of semi-alert crouch, noticing that he'd been teleported back to the doorway of the library.
He looked at his hands - he was still the same species, check that off. His clothes - they were the same. The scenery around them had become... well... it was still the same as it was before.
Something wasn't right.
"Did, uh, did everything just go blurry on your end?" Summer craned her face up against the screen to get a closer look at what had happened.
"Looks like it." said Rick, who had finished slugging back another drink. "L-looks like *urp* nothing's changed, though."
"Oh man." Morty tapped his fingers together and stared out at the distant woods. "What if there's a - a bigfoot or something out there?"
edited 13th Feb '18 9:13:42 PM by Locoman
Ben was being shaken like a rag doll by the distraught Hercules. He had to do something to shake free of the hero's grip. Four Arms should do the trick. He readied the Omnitrix, selected his alien, but an ill-timed shake by Hercules nudged the face just as Ben slammed his hand onto the watch.
There was a sudden flash of light, and in an instant Ben shrank to a few inches tall and tumbled to the ground, free of Hercules' grip.
"C'mon!" Grey Matter exclaimed. "Well at least that got him to release his hold on my person." He looked up at the now gargantuan Eve, his yellow eyes widening. "I think I understand what is happening to us now. Clearly the Writer had some kind of reality-bending field in place that was allowing us to communicate despite our worlds having differing languages. The Writer must have just cancelled the field, reverting us to our original mode of speaking!" he stated. "The only question is whether this current change is permanent, or if the Writer will reinstate the translator field at some point." He crossed his arms.
"Knowing the Writer, he will probably force us to partake in some sort of unethical and/or immoral challenge in exchange for reinstating the field, knowing full well that cooperation while we speak separated languages will be next to impossible for the majority of the denizens of this City!" Grey Matter thought aloud. "Or he could just be messing with us. One or the other." He shrugged, then put his hands on his hips.
"Any ideas on what we should do about our predicament?" he asked.
I can still hail the Horde even though the company has shamed us. Strength and Honor even if Blizzard has neither.Naturally, guess who was the first person to respond. "Yes, hi. Why are you answering with an irrelevant anime meme? This isn't a hard question, if you don't know what that was about just say so. Ugh, who else is on?"
I gave Morty a look. "On a break day? ...Well, I suppose if it was harmless...kid, you wanna go bigfoot hunting? I've never found one before, maybe it'll be a learning experience." Or an excuse to go outside away from all this currently even louder than usual noise. Either/or. "Bring some snacks if you want." Still not sure why I was going out of my way to drag him along.
i guess you can watch me shitpost i guessTwo, Outside Woods - When You Unknowingly Understand Each Other
Ah. It seemed Makoto could find a way to communicate with the others. The language they were all speaking in sounded somewhat familiar to the one the people of Land of Seas used - and which Five loved sprinkling her dialogues with - but Two didn't know it well enough to try and attempt conversation or even saying "help".
The handsqueeze was reassuring, and for a moment the bluenette smiled uncertainly, but then Makoto had to go and attend to Caboose - who seemed not at all worse for wear. If anyone would be unaffected by this change, it would probably be him. Rex meanwhile addressed her in a familiar language! She had heard it being spoken by the people of Cathedral City and didn't really know it very well, but she could at least try and make out some sort of answer. "Eu entendo, ruim na linguagem, desculpe."note She replied, completely butchering the pronounciation, but nevertheless speaking in a fairly broken Portugese.
And then Yuna approached her like a knight would approach a ruler. It seemed she was trying to get her to smile somewhat, since her voice went all deep. it worked out somewhat: Two couldn't help but laugh nervously, even as her face lit up with crimson embarrassment. She knelt down in front of her, helping her stand up. "Elevare meas miles. Est nihil opus esse."note She said, smiling warmly as they both rose back to their feet, the bluenette's hands on Yuna's shoulders. While there was still a language barrier between them, she hoped her pink friend got the message.
Letting go off her shoulders, she looked over to where Caboose and Makoto went. "Abeamus."note She said before making a world-known wide arm gesture to follow her and going after the two. It seemed that they would have to manage on body language and simple gestures for a bit.
Yuna had a very... odd reaction to the sudden problems in communication the group was facing was facing. She knelt down in front of Two and pledged loyalty to her or something.
"Ok so, I either understand less Japanese than I think or... did she seriously call her queen just then?" Rex asked Makoto.
Of course, Caboose still wasn't done rambling and missing the point of the conversation. He assumed Makoto was like him in that she didn't completely understand what people told her because she was slow and not, you know, speaking a completely different language than her original one. There was also something about him being a Marine. The title had become less special over the centuries for sure.
"You know, Caboose, I have more problems trying to understand you than anyone else in here"
And that was hardly hyperbole. Two at least understood the basics of what Rex was saying and responded with her own attempt, with mixed results.
"That... wasn't Spanish. But I got the gist of it!" Rex said, giving her a thumbs up to lift her spirit "Todo va a estar bien"*
The two girls continued doing their thing. Two was a little embarrassed about Yuna's behavior but it seemed to calm her down somewhat. They went after Caboose deeper into the woods. This sure was going to be a great night, yes sir.
"...maybe building a campfire wouldn't be such a bad idea right now. The worst that can happen is that the forest burns down, but hey, no one can get hurt today so no biggie"
As soon as the distraught Hercules saw Eve put her hand on his arm he then relaxed and then watched Ben change into Grey Matter in which he started explaining the current situation but even if he were able to speak the same language as Ben, Herc would still have trouble with the big words that Grey Matter was using. But at the very least he understood the gist of what was said even if it was something he already knew.
But Herc was still in a state about not being understood because he was speaking a different language from the others so all he could do now was wander over to where Eve was, look at her with a lost puppy sort of look just looked down at the ground and closed his eyes in thought just thinking about how he was going to get through this. He wanted to do this whole camping thing but he stuck having to deal with this. It was quite frustrating to say the least.
Arcade shot Eve a small smile and corrected, "can either of you understand me." The fact that they apparently had a few languages in common was a good sign, even if they didn't go by the same names.
Though, he didn't seem to be sharing any with Cole, which was still a problem. Still panicking slightly, he placed the mirror on the ground and took Cole from Eve's grasp.
He had a few vague memories of how his mother or Daisy used to calm him down when he was young. He held Cole close, shushing softly and rocking back and forth. Running a hand up and down Cole's back, he started to softly sing the first song he could think of that had a slow enough tempo, Blue Moon.
"Blue moon... you saw me standing alone... without a dream in my heart. Without love of my own," he crooned. It was a little awkward, since he figured he was a pretty terrible singer, but he gave it his all while listening to Ben with only a little bit of his attention.
I say that aloud too sometimes, just: "man, no life."Everyone still sounded wrong, and it wasn't stopping. Varric still made sense, but everyone else was just making noises that might as well have been jabber for all that he was catching of it. They still seemed to be communicating with each other, at least somewhat, but...
Even as he was sniffling, trying to fight back a panicky urge to start wailing, Arcade suddenly took him from Eve, holding him and rubbing his back, rocking him. Cole went quiet for a moment, a little startled at the reaction.
Then Arcade started singing, in a tune that Cole didn't recognize or understand, but...the noise was still pleasant. He raised his head, looking up at Arcade, blinking a little. The man still seemed a little panicked and out of place with this, but...he was still being very...fatherly.
From the ground, Varric just raised an eyebrow at having the mirror set on the ground, mumbling something under his breath, but he watched Arcade, maybe a little critically. After only a second, though, especially on seeing Cole finally settle down a bit, leaning himself back against Arcade, Varric just leaned back in his chair, contemplating, before making a few more notes on the papers on his desk.
Louie did clearly cheer up and look a bit hopeful that Eve said something he could understand, even as he also tilted his head slightly at the strange thing that she had said exactly. He started to speak, asking her to clarify, then paused as he thought a little more, apologized, then started again, only more slowly and trying to speak as clearly as possible.
Being more familiar with other iterations of Batman, Nails yelled back in a sincere, absolutely certain tone, "dude, even Superman is more Batman's arch nemesis than you are! Don't kid yourself!" Which was the final comment on that conversation for the time being, as the two groups moved out of earshot from each other.
"Batman? Superman? The Joker? The Riddler? Why do the people of your universe use such silly titles?" Wells thought out loud, stopping in front of an empty cell and holding an arm out to motion for the rest of the group to stop as well. He got the cell open, then stepped aside to let the pig orc and a couple other militia members move in with intent to deposit Riddler inside.
You are reading this."Well, I mean-" Morty looked from the woods to Summer, who was currently yelling out the window at a passing megafreighter.
"-You're saying this like it's not entirely in-character for our very bored friend to do something like spawn an army of hostile bigfoots on what you charmingly call a 'break day,'" pointed out Rick. He rolled his eyes. "Ship, take Summer home. Priority override Phoenix-Zeta Twelve."
"Wait, what-?" Summer pounded on the controls as the ship slowly whirred to life; the mustard clouds of the planet giving way to the ebon blackness of space.
"Summer, I told you you can't *urp* you can't get to us - look, we'll get back to you, ok?"
"Honestly? I don't really know either" Wells said simply, as the militia members took off the handcuff and then left the cell, shutting and locking the door. Wells let out a sigh and looked at the militia group.
"Can any of you lot understand me? No?" Wells asked them; from the lack of response, he took that as a no. "Okay then, the hard way it is" the militia leader muttered. He pointed his finger towards the group, sweeping his arm to indicate he was motioning to all of them and not any in particular, then pointed his finger down at the floor, then at Riddler a couple of times. Then, he took out his walkie talkie and just held it up, waving it a little, before walking off, grumbling about the remaining time left to go call his family.
There was silence for a bit, before someone in another cell slightly down the hall spoke up. "Why are you guys talking about Superman? As in the comic book hero?" some guy asked, sounding perplexed.
You are reading this.

Garrett said nothing, but he seethed visibly as Wells blasted the "pathetic" efforts. Still, he didn't admit that the ill-conceived plan was his; let the Riddler defend himself if he wants.
At that point the translation effect gave out. Garrett remained confused for a few moments before realizing what was going on. Now he couldn't understand any of the people around. Then again, his dire situation was clear enough that he needed no additional clarifications.