[Unlike the norm, Shiki appears on screen wearing his glasses. Holding his comm with one hand and fixing his glasses with the other by shifting his index finger against the bridge, Shiki opens his mouth to speak and is cut off by rushing air. Moving aside, he narrowly steps aside as a segment of the darkened street he's standing nearby is obliterated by a scythe made of wind. The clean slash in the ground is exposed only after the dust clears, a bit easier to notice despite the drizzle of the unending storm above.]

Jeez, what bad timing. [This is Shiki's only comment as he drops his communicator, the wind picking up as windows begin to shatter and parts of the brick walls around them come undone in the air. Out comes Shiki's knife and in one curt gesture, he slashes the air and the wind dies down instantly.

Unabated, Kagura, riding her summoned feather hangs in the air in plain sight of the camera, swiping her fan nonchalantly without a single word. Bladed winds come down from the sky and they disappear with swipes of Shiki's knife, before he turns over the blade and it shifts, turning into a full length katana.

The two exchange a little silence as if trying to reach each other and the feed cuts off in the next instant as Kagura's next attack destroys Shiki's comm.]

(OOC: Shiki's communicator was destroyed in this post and he'll be getting a new one sometime in the evening. His replies will be dated later in the day! Otherwise, feel free to action in! The fighting will be done with both parties in quite a bit of pain.)

[There's the sounds of a scuffle---with a girl's voice cursing and complaining about 'stupid idiots, I'm not handing over my marques or whatever the money here's called! I told that little girl I'd buy her some bread!' ---when the tablet's voice feed suddenly clicks on:]

Okay, now let me get this straight. We're supposed to be soldiers, off fighting this war, right? So tell me this---

[The girl speaking quickly grunts as she dodges the thugs' attacks. The sounds of her footsteps make a scurrying noise as if she quickly backpedaled away. Afterward, she takes a deep, irritated breath.]

---isn't part of our job supposed to be keeping the peace? Why are there still moron thugs running around?

[After she poses this inquiry, there's the sound of electricity cracking, and the tablet suddenly shuts off.]



[ooc: tags might be slow, sorry! action tags are welcome as well, for anyone who's up for it!]

[Standing in the rain, Shiki stood in front of a ruined castle. His communicator was soaked, the audio a little distorted and the video a little blurry. Not minding this at all, he could be heard walking under a little bit of cover, just to get out of the rain. The steam from his breaths could be seen and his voice sounded somewhat hoarse, as if he'd just been screaming for awhile.]

I wonder. If I killed enough soldiers, would I get sent back? How much would I have to kill for these people for the world to decide my ticket here is up?

Maybe if I volunteered for a lobotomy, I'd be able to work with this.

[Shiki fell onto his backside, setting his comm down and watched the ruins awhile longer.]

[Someone might have noticed Shiki was gone for a few days. Aw, who's kidding? The recluse's absence would have been appreciated by a few people who could live without borderline crippling cynicism.

He returns on video, standing in the rain. His clothes are soaked and so is he, a bit more filled out and taller, though ultimately a bit obvious a face if anyone's used to him with his red burial cloth set over his eyes.]

I don't care who does it or how.

Send me back. Send me back right now. You don't just let me get to see her after all I've been through and take me back here.

[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.]

[Exsilium might not be expecting to see a smiling face on their network so soon after the battle, but that's what you get with this guy being among your ranks. He gives the camera a little wave.]

Hello! Is everyone recovering from the battle? It's good that the Initiative can resurrect people, don't you think? Otherwise that would have turned out rather badly.

Anyway, I wanted to say thanks to the people who tried to come to the rescue of my world. If we've not met, I'm Elmer C. Albatross, the person who was sent back. After what happened, it might be hard to think about this positively. But there's a few things we can take to heart! Like the fact that people can be ressurrected, or that while one world may have been taken over, it probably wasn't your world, and you might still be able to return to your own someday!

As for mine, well... Not much can be done about that, now. I suppose Exsilium is my home, now. The friends I was travelling with are like me, so they'll survive no matter what. I just hope someday things will return to normal there, so the survivors can find reasons to smile again! You're all still here, fellow transports, so I hope you continue to smile on as well!

[Greetings, Exsilium. It's Sue Richards, in her white and black Fantastic Four costume, sitting in the DITR offices. She looks tense, but composed. Guess who drew the short straw on responding to this whole mess?]

Hello. I'm Susan Richards, of the Department of Initiative-Transport Relations.

[She's good at reading from a teleprompter, but this is obviously not extemporaneous.]

On behalf of the Initiative, we would first like to extend our condolences and apologies to those affected by yesterday's events--

[Sue stops, and her expression darkens.]

--No. You know what? I'm not reading this. I'm not making excuses for them.

[Oops. Sue just went off-script, and her spokesperson persona drops in favor of what she's really feeling, a simmering, controlled anger.

There's a strangled noise of outrage offscreen from Saul, but it's rapidly cut off.]

Thank you, Medusa.

Not at all, Susan.

[Sue takes a deep breath, squares her shoulders, and addresses the camera again. This is no longer someone playing the role of a bureaucratic functionary. This is the woman who has stood against gods and won.]

( tl;dr )

[OOC: Pink is Medusa. Medusa and Saul appear courtesy of Ammay and Heather. I'll hit up all the replies, but your comment might also get answered by any member of the DITR. Even Saul after Medusa lets him go.]

[ She was bored. So very bored. She wasn't training, because that's what they wanted from her, and the last thing Merida wanted to do was satisfy the people who wanted her to fight for them. She wouldn't do it. She wouldn't! And that was the end of it.

However, this didn't leave her with much to do. She wandered the city, even explored a bit of the Outlands, but she didn't go far. She was daring, but she wasn't stupid. She knew this world was dangerous, and she didn't want to lose her head without a good reason.

So she finally takes the painstaking time to learn to use the strange device she had been given upon her arrival. It took her plenty of attempts to get it working properly, and even when she does, there are several segments of very brief footage of the redheaded princess growling at her tablet in frustration. ]

Oi, is it working now? About time. [ She clears her throat. ] I want someone to tell me more about the land outside this city. [ It was much too crowded, too cluttered here. She wanted a freer space. ] A good place to explore, t'actually, you know, move around - that's what I'm lookin' for. How do you even stand it in this city?

[ She taps her chin. ] An' while you're at it, tell me what you do around here t'keep busy. I'm goin' out of m'mind.

[Saul's not a fan of using video on this thing. Anyone could be watching, and he's sure that's the case — which means he's about to show a hand of cards he never really wanted to — but he also knows he needs to come across as sincere and non-threatening as possible if he wants this request to be taken seriously. Text wouldn't work, voice... might, but also might not.

He still has his doubts, though. What he's about to do is ridiculous, even by his own standards. He'd laugh at anyone else making a suggestion like this, and he's half-tempted to laugh at himself, too, but when the feed clicks on and his image appears, he's all business. Literally: in a suit, at a desk, weapon laid out (for those who'd notice, the weapon is disengaged, the safety on; he's learning!), hands folded.]

This — [indicating the weapon, then lacing his fingers back together] — is a shotgun that's been modified to use non-lethal electrified bullets. The charge measures about 500 volts, and —

[There go his hands again, moving to retrieve one of the cartridges. He lifts it to the lens, waits for it to focus, then continues speaking.]

From what I understand, that should be enough to temporarily incapacitate a normal human being. But the problem is, I'm not sure. I've been using blanks on the dummies over in the Hold, so I have no idea what effect one of these things would actually have on a living, breathing person. So...

[He trails off, lowers the cartridge, and shifts uncomfortably in his chair.]

I realize how unorthodox and just plain sketchy a request like this is going to sound, but... who's willing to let me shoot them, and who's willing to be the medic present if-slash-when this happens? I'm looking for someone over eighteen, healthy, preferably human. I can compensate you with fifty doll—uh. Marques. Or we can negotiate, if necessary.

Serious inquiries only. Thanks.

 [Kagura had decided to come to the Initiative. This time, of course, not to try and take it over, but to train. She'd felt odd ever since she was out by that strange boy. And, being the stubborn woman she was, would not admit to being sick. She'd just fight it off. Her body could regenerate. It always had. It always would as long as Naraku still had her heart.

After successfully getting the annoying trainer to leave her be, the place was hers. She closed her eyes for a second, overcome by nausea, but opened them with overwhelming resolve to stay upright, flicking her wrist to hit the target with a wind blade. Just one more....this time, she used her whole arm, creating a tornado.

It  disappeared right away as she dropped to her knees, clutching her stomach. She felt like retching up it's contents, but she couldn't do that now. Not here. She forced herself to stand, the camera left on the floor, as she wobbled her way to the door. One can assume that thud a few seconds later is her collapse.]

((OOC: So yeah. Radiation. It sucks. Feel free to come find her!))