exsilium | Fifth Blood

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Fifth Blood

[Unusually for this network user, the transmission is purely Audio. A great deal of transports will of course recognize the voice as belonging to Kanaya Maryam. Strangers will hear a fifteen-year-old female, naturally rather mature and composed, doing her best to sound even more so. She speaks crisply and briskly with no mercy, like the distinctions between American and British English are to be stalked into a dark alley and shot in the back of the skull.]

The armageddon that occurred in the world of Elmer C. Albatross isn't the only one that's ever occurred in paradox space, you know. Just ask Asuka Langley Soryu or Rei Ayanami or Shinji Ikari. Any of them can tell you that the end of a world is always at least as ugly a thing as what happened on May Twenty-First. Anyone who escaped the planet Alternia before the meteors struck can reiterate the sentiments that Exsilium is a far better alternative to no planet at all. For many of us, Exsilium is our home now and we'll fight literally to the ends of an Earth for its sake.

I know not all of you feel that sort of debt to the Initiative. You do want to go home, this isn't your war, it's their fault. That's really too bad. Because if we let the United Earth have their way and don't develop Initiative in both senses of the word, we're all going to be post-apocalyptic refugees before long. We come from dozens of worlds. Would you like to take arms with the Initiative to fight against the reckoning, or watch each one meet the same fate Elmer's world did?

[An open question, Exsilium.]

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( Ouch. Jules winces when she stumbles across this one. And typically, she tries to evade serious things as much as possible, because they're all so raw and painful. Running is her preferred modus operandi.

However, one could say her world is already post-apocalyptic, so she feels like she almost has to make some sort of response. )

Your phrasing is certainly compelling. I don't think anyone would want to try and argue with it.

( As upbeat as she can manage, and always so very polished, so very English. A beat: ) You're right. I think some people might need a little more time to digest. I realise time is of the essence, in these sorts of situations, but um-- they might still be rather in shock.

[While Saori would normally have video on by default, she changed it voice. The last thing she wanted anyone to see was her shaking from everything that happened lately. A god afraid? Yes, but it wouldn't stop her from doing what needs to be done.]

Tch. Why is that even a question? Of course I want to fight.

It's not just for my home world. I was stuck in another one prior to here and despite its cons, I want it to be saved. For some of those people I left there, it's their only way to have a life and be happy. No one deserves their world being destroyed and the UE must be stopped.

[Kanaya pauses not for a long time but notably. The network ID and voice, both, of a stranger... who is Jules? We just don't know. Maybe she's friends with Collette. That girl is everywhere.]

That's a good point. I don't expect any of us to be jumping back into the fray immediately. However, after hearing complaints about how this had happened at all, entirely ignoring why and in what context... I felt strongly compelled to provide a counterpoint.

Oh. I didn't even consider how one's status as a two-time interdimensional kidnappee could play into this situation. [She's nonconfrontational - in fact, if anything, a little positively biased towards "Saori" (whoever that is, she has no information at this point other than adult and probably Japanese lady) given this common trait.] We're a noteworthy minority of the transport population, aren't we? Double the potential destruction, I guess.

Definitely. We... ( A pause, for breath, which is the only break in what seems like an otherwise entirely chipper appearance. ) Everything has its contexts, doesn't it? It's so dangerous to ignore that.

( For example, if someone happened to eat people but only because they have to in order to keep from turning into a terrible monster that would kill more people. That is certainly important, in terms of context. Imagine hearing that versus hearing someone just ate people for fun.

Perhaps it is best that she managed to filter that thought out before it became words. )

It might be good if people had... I don't know, something to try and take their minds off it. Something to refresh them a bit, you know? Remind them Exsilium doesn't give us only horrible things, but that we're really a community, here. We have our home worlds, or some at least, but this is also-- it might not be home, but we're all here for a reason.

( She's just blathering, and sometimes it means she makes little to no sense. What is coherence. )

Like a community barbecue, or something.

( Seriously, Jules. Her head just dropped into her hands because why, self. )

[Not all of us eat food or feel safe around fire, she doesn't say. She didn't make this post video for a reason - she's tired of people asking if she's a cosplayer or a roleplayer or a goddamn monster (though the last, her own species would tell her, is true).]

Are you sure we want to let off smoke signals? That could get us caught by the United Earth again.

[There. Humor. She was totally nailing this interspecies interaction thing, as she did on a regular basis and had needed to for going on two years.]

Mm. Quite right. ( Said so seriously, and yet there is still a note of humour playing through her words. )

Yes, I imagine there are probably better plans than a barbecue, per se. But, you know, if there were something that might just lift the spirits a bit. Perhaps not with actual spirits, though, I think alcohol on a city wide scale and with so many younger individuals would not be so completely wise.

( To put it lightly.

Oh! ) I'm Jules, by the way. Lovely to meet you.

"Younger individuals" are going to get alcohol no matter what in this anarchic city, [It's not video, so "Jules" can't see Kanaya's eye twitch. How much more can she say without revealing herself as an overly gutsy seven-sweep-old? Fifteen-year-old, she almost thinks more often now.] but I see your point.

I'm Kanaya. The sentiment is shared. [It's not really. What is Jules but one of those adults who comes along, thinking children are inherently some different and lower class of being and not to be trusted with horrors many grown humans never experience like combat? She's on edge. She should be more sympathetic to her (i n f e r i o r) culture.]

Oh, I know. But getting an entire city drunk at once with so many of us having weapons and powers and then having everyone be hungover the next day, that'd almost be a cruel set up for anyone who hasn't been that drunk before. To be honest, "younger individuals" is a bit of a euphemism, really it should include my big brother. Never let the man drink more than a couple of cosmopolitans, or it's a total disaster.

( She's teasing, because how to deal with anything when she isn't trying to make jokes is ridiculous. And because she misses her brother so much. Jules doesn't underestimate children, she'd just rather everyone had to be spared the grisly things. It's not really an easy to ease into conversation, however.

A quiet sigh. ) Kanaya. ( And she repeats it again, under her breath, to commit it to memory. )

What's... [A cosmopolitan? No, Kanaya can't expose her ignorance.] An alternative, then? Anyone who's been here long enough will admonish the dangers of a virtual reality party. [She's never actually experienced these horrors. Just heard about them enough times to be reluctantly wary.]

Yes, and that makes me even more determined to undermine them.

[As common as a Japanese lady was, there was something else beyond that for. Though that was for another time. ]

The funny thing is, when I first arrived there, I technically died in my home world. I quickly grasped onto it as my second chance and live the life I couldn't. Through some rather complicated events, I bounced between my home world and the other. I knew I could do more for both worlds despite how small I am. Now that there's multiple worlds at stake, I don't think I could ever leave here without knowing they will be safe from harm.

Gosh, I'm not really certain. I'm still a bit new, myself. I've only been here a couple of months. Do you think people would enjoy something a bit formal? Or just some sort of big party for the transports? A fancy dress, something like that. Fun, a chance to get a bit dressed up, or just silly.

( Jules just enjoys parties, it's true. )

A virtual reality party seems like it would be potentially massively disappointing.

What they shouldn't be doing is toying around with science like that. They should turn off their machine and wait for us to just disappear.

That would be the responsible choice and one that would keep other universes from getting invaded like that. It's because the Initiative made the idiotic choice of laying bread-crumbs that this happened.

I've never been one for simply remaining idle, especially when so much is at stake.

Why are you using me as an example?

I'm sorry, Shiki, have you still not once heard the part where I explain that there are transports who would much rather stay than vanish? You have a point about the Troll Pandora's Box that was opened, but it can't be shut.

A lot of transports just don't know that coming somewhere like this could literally save one's life, do they? Some of my [she skips a beat] best friends are in a similar situation. My sympathies.

[A pause as off-camera she chews the inside of her cheek.] ...So would your experience imply that you could be killed in your original universe, but returned to life in - for example - Exsilium, then be sent there alive again? [This question might or might not be of huge personal interest to her.]

Ah, you're describing a do-over of the masquerade in Versailles. December Three Thousand Three Hundred Twelve. It was pleasant enough, and I can see the appeal of, for example, a biannual repetition, but I'm not sure the Initiative will want to take that kind of transportation risk in light of what just happened.

[His voice is a little irritated.]

Please don't mention my name. I don't want to be asked about... something I didn't go through.

[Kanaya veeeeeery subtly puts a very casual filter onto this thread. Not an actual attempt at encryption - she's not capable of that - but enough that another network user couldn't read this by default.]

I knew I could count on you, Alice.

You didn't?

[She had not expected this.]

No.

[That's all he'll say on the matter.]

But... you're colleagues with Asuka... [She doesn't understand.] Did you get conscripted before her?

[Instant guilt.]

Because you know more about what actually constitutes an apocalypse than anyone I've ever met? [FLATTERY!!] For the record I didn't mean to imply you were actually open to questions, the use of the verb ask was purely rhetorical, that might not have been clear...

That doesn't mean you get to tell everyone!

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