Re: The Arrival

[Johnny]

"Damn!"

There stood a figure covered in black armour, with dominant shoulder guards, round and large, breathing heavy, against a crimson sky. His skin was pale, and his eye was as crimson as the sky, but his hair was as black as his armour. It was long, and fell to his shoulders. He was leaning forward ever so slightly, but he still looked forward, across the immense garden that stood before him. It was an assortment of trees and cedars of rare sorts, with all sorts of gentle shrubbery and flowery blooms before him. It was all such a quaint site, except for the line of scorched earth, ending just in front of him, and the source of it all, a man in white. Though he was not quite a man at all. He was more machine then fauna. But enough of that for now. Things were getting most queer. This man, this thing, this thing that accosted him here; it drew near.

"I cannot permit you to leave, I'm afraid..."

Slowly in step, ginger, and not obscene, a figure in white robes approached him slowly. It had it's arm pointed at him. Not quite an arm anymore, though. It consisted of a very weapon like cylinder, where the hand ought to be, a silvery thing obviously a part of a machine, and it was covered with segment lines, and had a small targeting cylinder, along its left most side. It was, after all, the left side of his body, the left hand, that bore such a device so grand, a violation of the flesh of man; yeah, that was his hand. It would lay waste to the man in black, surely. The approaching monster had long, curly black hair, a blue eye that gazerd upon him with utter compassion of that right side of the face, the long hair covering his left eye. It made as if to make something hidden from view, Seth certainly knew this to be true. The man in black gazed up, straightening himself out, as the man aimed his queer arm, that twisted man in white, and prepared to end it there. He fired a beam of blinding white light, like nuclear flames it was. He hoped to trap, and annhilate this one, this black taint in his sanctified garden. He was almost done.

"My shrubs! My flowers! You will die!"

The man in black armor, Seth, he threw himself to the side, watching the blinding beam pass him by. It seemed the man could not move his arm after he fired. He slowly attempted to correct it. The smile of compassion upon his face did not vanish, but he uttered something most angry. For the beam had tore through a great deal of shrubbery, further damaging his beautiful garden. But Seth had already rose to a knee, his black cloak gathering in folds about his feet. It was time to escape from a fight he could not win, here, in this accursed garden, in the place called Xanadu. He lifted hands in front of him, revealing armor the same asthat all over his body. and prepared to depart this wretched place, prepared to accost this twisted man, with power given him in his journey. Upon his right wrist, materialized a larger band of metal, floating around it, an inch away from the talon like gauntlets, that adorned the flesh of his hands. His body was covered in obsidian armor, save the area of his head. Cold sweat escaped from pours, as he wondered if he had been fast enough. Time could only tell. A slight crackle of power that oozed of crimson red, spread from his own tainted lifeforce, to the ornament that was his tool, across the quicksilver which ran measureless symbols, becording the coordinates due.

"I'll see you in hell!"

He muttered this in a youths voice, then unleashed the power, as the man in white fired his shot. The two powers collided, as momentarily, the grim traveler became unstuck. Through space and tiem the power fluxed, until the power of that of the crimson red had won; the power of anti-thesis, which tore between worlds, had won. It was time to leave this accursed place.

All reality rippled through his vision, as the traveler traversed between realms. It was time to make it to another place to find where the day had been won.

Time sped up, time slowed down, all perception was blurred. He himself was blurred to himself, as all became jumbled in their dimensions and color, all was liek a twisted kaleidoscope; then all was finished, and all had ended...

His vision was dizzy, and he collapsed where he was, gazing with uncertainty bereft of emotion up at the twilight sky all about him. He sensed the dead milling invisible to and fro, as the red crackle of his travel crept and disappeared along the grounds outline, and he realized something quite clear. He had disappeared from that accursed garden, and had found himself here, at the threshold of a new world...

[Anyone may post if they like, or else I'll continue it]

[Johnny]

It's a wasteland...

He had finally awoke, this man in grim armor, of pale countenance, of strange manner. All about him was a wasteland. How very strange. How very quaint. It made him wonder. There were ever so many spirits milling about this place, as he lay there in the wasteland, having rolled over ontohis back somehow, though he wasn't certain as to how his cloak hadn't gotten wrapped all about him in the process. Oh well. Time would tell. For now, he rose ever so slightly, using his arms, straight as can be, to raise his torso from the ground. It was a little more labored then for most individuals, for his arms, as well as his body, were armored thoroughly. But this was only because he was tired.

He finally managed to sit the rest of the way up, and with a fluid movement, rose to a crouch, and then with a final heave, he straightened himself out. He was a man of dignity, and he certainly couldn't just lay here in the wasteland, could he?

He looked up at the sky, but could not located the source of the dim light all about. The solitude scared him a little bit. This reminded him of the last world, and the four worlds before it. All the handiwork of that...violation of flesh, that had tried to annhilate him. Five worlds, all sterilized, in the name of seeking perfection. Five worlds, annhilated, in the fruitless labors of man, which led to the eventual birth of Zero, the Patriarch.

Hopefully, it is over...

He looked all about, his crimson gaze gathering in the wasteland about him. Then he decided there was only one way to be certain. He held out his right arm before him, and that same, thin band of quicksilver materialized around his wrist. It was slowly displaying a change of symbols, as it slowly recorded the basic happenstance and location in the improbability equations, as pertained to this particular universe. It sped up all of the sudden, registering a mixture of symbols from a variety of alien cultures and numbering systems. Then it stopped. It was decided that not enough data could be registered, as they were beyond the worlds boundary, thatseperated the hyperspatial areas between the world of the living and the dead.

"What the..."

That made no sense, none at all. There shouldn't have been a traversable nomansland between the worlds of death and life, unless someone had done something incredibly ill advised, as pertained to terra-forming the basic levels of the plane in itself. Not the smartest thing to do. However, this reassured him ever so slightly. The Patriarch hadn't been here yet. This was good. Perhaps he used a different system in his equations, and thus he wouldn't be able to find him here. That would certainly be most favorable.

The band of quicksilver vanished, and he felt at his left side and behind him, on his right. Good. His weapons were still there. It was the nature of the multi-verse, that no matter where anyone goes, they are always in danger. He'd learned the hard way to always be prepared. And there were even worse things to be found then 'The Patriarch'. However, he wasn't worried. He had something like a work ethic, that forbid him from losing, if at all possible, unless it had a more favorable outcome. He had a deep sense to this code of honor. It's strange system was beyond words, and more a feeling of he knew what he must do.

His two katana's, forged of the bones of a creature that he'd encountered on his first step of the journey, were still there, as well as the wakizashi of the same sort. He'd used his own power to balance it out with steel ,to form another, more potent alloy. The bone made it more flexible. It also made it more assuredly...deadly.

But enough of that. He again materialized that device which he used to weigh and measure the multi-verse around him, and he checked it. It registered that the nearest departure point from the strange boundary, to the living portions of this world, was exactly twenty miles away from him.

You've must be joking...

He started walking slowly, his black cloak, which came tucked under the enlarged round shoulder guards, which gave his apperance a bit of a larger, more intimidating look (fights can most often be doged in such a fashion), barely above the ground. He had quite a bit of walking to do. He was beginning to wish he'd spent all of his garbunks on that hovering chariot ten worlds ago. However, he still had a multi-verse approved Garbunk Account Card full of garbunks, although he still had yet to find more then one other world that accepted the currency. Luckily, he also carried a far more practical small purchase of a few gold coins, which he kept in a fold in his cape, near the shoulder guards.

But regardless, he still had twenty miles to walk. He started walking, whistling the tune to 'Meatplow', by Stone Temple Pilots. He then stopped, wondering where exactly he had heard that.

[Yu Elysia]

Faint waves of mist and of fog rolled across the dreary 'wasteland', as the man had so precisely put it, coating the ground in fresh dew.. Though the dew had little point, seeing as though all the grass and shrubbery upon the land was dead. Dead. Wilted and curling at their tips, each plant was 'dead'. Strange, how you can label something as simple as a plant as 'dead'.. Do you mourn for it? Do you feel sorry for it? Of course not. You step on it. And why not? It's not like it's going to whip back at you.

But what about a person?

"Tick.. Tock.. Tick.. Tock.." The faint sound of a man's voice echoe'd in the distance amongst the mist and the fog, and the wandering spirits as they roamed the land of the morbid. A repetition, alliteration.. The same words, over and over again. "Tick.. Tock.." And again. And again. Were a person to listen to this monotonous voice repeat this over and over for too long, they dare might go insane. Especially if laid upon the ears of mortals, of the living, for their ears are still quite physical, and not toned perfectly to the vibrations of a dead man's voice box.

"Tick.."

And it stopped. And from the mist, there stood a man. A tall man.. Height reaching around 6 feet to 7 feet. A vague estimate, though the fog shrouded him, so it was reasonable. Clothes adorned the man, unlike most of the spirits wandering the land.. This man wore a top. No sleeves.. Just a simple black, leather top with straps crossing over the chest to keep it attached to him. He also wore something that resembled a loincloth, but much longer, and was made of black leather.. It reached down to his ankles, and covered him adequetly. The space between his top and bottom articles of clothing was high, showing off his skinny stomach.

The man had smooth, frosty pale skin that covered him completely.. No skin looked different from the rest. No dirt, no bumps, not even a wrinkle. Just smooth skin, completely pale. Cascading down the man's back was a full head of hair.. Long, jet-black strands of hair, smooth as silk, and tainted with the dreary mist of the land, scattered with the fresh dew. And the man's face.. It held the most complex set of red eyes imaginable. Two crimson optics settled perplexingly amidst a sea of white, and constricting upon black orbs.. Dilating inside the red, staring upon the other man.

"..Tock." The man finished, as he gazed upon this other fellow.. This.. Person, who dared to walk upon his plane. His eyes widened, and then became half-lidded.. Repeating this stage awkwardly for several minutes before ceasing, as the man took a step forward, and began to walk closer to the other fellow, inspecting the fellow closely. "..You.."

A cracking, whispery voice.

"..You.. Who are you? You do not seem like the other spirits, here.. Dare you come here without permission of the Fates?!" His eyes narrowed, almost angrily, almost insane. "Speak!"

[Johnny]

((Someone else with long black hair and crimson eyes? Wow, what a small world...XD))

There came that ridiculous din of noise through the mist, through the illusion of the wasteland. It was, in fact, very nearly driving Seth to the point that his darker half was creeping to the surface, and desperately wanting to choke ther thing till it no longer breathed, then rip out it's heart, which pulsed to the same beat. It was quite maddening, after all. But for now, Seth retained his self control. He used his ability of empathy to merge the same sort of solitude the environment around him possesed, with his dark sides nature, and thus avoided unnecessary bloodshed. At least for the time being. Drowning the darker half in that solitude turned it into something far more vile, and darker. It waited...

"Tick.Tock.Tick.Tock..."

But for now, Seth was indeed at peace. He did what any practical person would do in the event of undue annoyance, and simply ignored it. But soon enough, he started whistling the same tune he'd been after he got tired of whistling 'Meatplow'. He started whistling the lyrics 'to 'Barabara Allen', and soon enough he had begun uttering a few of the words.

"...and from his heart, a red, red rose; and from her heart: a briar..."

Soon enough, the incessant mimickery of a timepiece had ended at a 'tick', but he had barely noticed. He'd just kept walking on his way, remembering full well that his dictatel had indicated that the 'voyage' had been redirected due to the existyence of this, a retanslation of the basic world of the dead, into something that acted as a 'slide-trap waypoint', basically redirecting the voyage from it's original course to here. Either that, or the wormhole had simply deposited him here physically, everything else was just a coincidence, and his dictatel was wrong; perfectly logical. Either way, though, he just had a lot of walking to do. He was about halfway there...

Then the supposed ghost that had been trailing behind him, probably out of some energy attraction due to the fact he'd just transported himself from a parallel world. It didn't bother the more reasonable of Seth's psyches, though, as long as he didn't do anything inappropriate.

Suddenly, the illusion of memory that were the voice showed itself. Certainly, something that made Seth wonder. He looked as Seth would if he were more dead then a planeswalker, and had an obvious purpose about him, as he gazed upon him.

He spoke.

"..You.. Who are you? You do not seem like the other spirits, here.. Dare you come here without permission of the Fates?!" His eyes narrowed, almost angrily, almost insane. "Speak!"

Now the dark half did awaken slightly. Fates. Fate. It remembered a secret knowledge that Seth himself did not know, about the attack so long ago.

Seth whispered, the dark half surfacing, making him utter something with a much more serious, contemplative expression. It wondered aloud, like a damnation. "Fates. Lord of Cruel Fate. Hmm....", it wondered, then decided that based off what religious knowledge concerning probabilities that they knew, there shouldn't have been any relationship. Finally, it answered the question for the both of them, answering on Seth's behalf. "We are a planeswalker. You shouldn't have pan-dimensionally terra-formed your world in such a way, if you didn't want us to materialize here."

It stared at him with eyes as narrow slits, a far more alive version of the man standing before him, this thing from the mist. Yes. It reminded the dark-half of something. It couldn't quite put it's finger on the mental refference though.

"And what of you? What is your purpose in stopping me?"

It started to take over a bit more, that darker half now granted a measureless patience. It chuckled, smiling ever so slightly.

"Who are you, who trods on this obviously forbidden ground?"

He let his hands edge to his weapons ever so slightly, underneath the concealment of his cloak. However, the thing didn't feel quite right. Though his blades emitted soul-poison like isolated radiation, if the thing were from around here, it wasn't assured the weapons nature would work on him.

He lety his hand fall away from the handle of the katana a bit. Hopefully, since he had no wish to kill anything at the moment, the thing would simply do him the courtesy, and not force him to resort to violence. Violence rarely properly answers a question...