Fandom Planar Binding (CLOSED)

[MyrtenRose]

“Come in” came a calm voice from inside.

Within was a war room; something almost all of them had seen enough times in their life to understand what it was, no matter how strange the construction; vines had curled even thicker to form a flat, rectangular surface in which a silvery liquid had been poured, the liquid shimmering as it rose into shapes that created an extremely detailed replica of what they could only assume was the city above; it showed towering spires and market squares, and the tiniest pinpricks of light moved through the streets, hundreds of thousands, if not millions of them.

There were three people in the room; Seated at the back, directly opposite them, was a man in a blue robe. The hood for it was down, showing his brown, tousled hair and bright blue eyes that glowed slightly, fair skin and a lithe build, a simple white shirt and brown trousers completing his look as he sat with one leg crossed the other and his hands together, clearly at ease with the situation.

He was also in their thoughts.

Only one person was immediately aware of it; Even Corrin, who had experienced telepaths on her own plane, didn’t even register his presence. There wasn’t any malice to the push into their minds so much as an automatic reaction, and the moment he felt that Tera’s own powers could feel him the sensation retreated immediately and he gave her a apologetic, wry smirk.

The one seated at the left was a young girl, seemingly even younger than Wednesday, and the one on the right didn’t appear human at all; his skin was coated in ice with yellow bits of light where his eyes should’ve been. Immediately recognizable to one of their party

Except that neither Ink nor the newcomer could hear or see the other.

"I hear you've been looking for me" The man said simply. "Just as well; after I found these two, I think its important that we talk"

"..." This was a sight so familiar that it almost stung. It was significantly less technologically advanced, more natural, but the purpose remained the same. She was reminded of the Imperial battle readiness rooms. So spartan, clean, efficient to the last detail. It also brought up memories of the alliance war room, a far more casual and less strict place where they had planned their rebellion against the new empire from deep space that had conquered it all. Good times...mostly...but it was not the time to get nostalgic. Particularly when she could sense someone pushing against her mind. She knew it to be the robed man, even before he smirked at her in apology. She shrugged it off, not really caring about the attempt that much, it wasn't like she hadn't done the same a few times already. He was here, and there was yet another child, which was not ideal, and then another one that seemed as inhuman as Ink. "So, you're Jace. I see." She kept her voice measured, difficult to get any tone from. "Tera Markov." She introduced herself, complete with a half bow, before proceeding immediately.

"Yes, to say we have questions would be an understatement. I have several if not a dozen, but I believe we should start with what this Ravnica is, and how it is we ended up here, and how we can get back to where we belong. They called us...planeswalkers. I could only presume that makes us rather important, with how much those things went after us."​

 

[Schnee Corp Lawyer]

Corrin glanced down at the table herself, a pang of remembrance flicking across her expression before it settled into a disarming smile as she clasped her hands in front of her. "What the others said. We've all been through a lot, and from what I understand, we were all... none of us left our homes in... err..."

"You sparked" Jace finished for Corrin, though his eyes rested squarely on Tera. Something about her introduction had set him on edge; nothing that most could've have picked up from the outside, but Tera felt the walls of his own mind close with enough force to reverberate slightly in her own, and Corrin rubbed the side of her head as she too felt a headache she didn't quite understand. Nonetheless, the man continued.

"Lets start there; You're here because you have a something like a planeswalker's spark. A latent bit of power inside your soul. The only way for a spark to activate is for the planeswalker's emotions to be pushed to the brink, the highest high or the lowest low. Agony, ecstasy, despair, fury, or some combination of those, or the extreme of any other feeling. I knew one planeswalker who sparked because he was incredibly hungry"

"That sounds incorrect" Spoke Wednesday allowed. "I wasn't doing anything distressing when I 'planeswalked'"

"Then you wouldn't be here" Jace answered simply. The girl narrowed her eyes but left it at that, mulling over her own thoughts as he continued.

"The obvious followup question; you're here because of a spark, but what exactly did it do?" He stood up and waved his hand at the table, and the city collapsed in on itself with a splash. a moment later new shapres arose; simple spheres that began to scatter throughout the room as Jace answered his own question. "It sent you to another plane of existence. This one, specifically"

a dozen droplets, miniscule compared to the spheres, all shot out of spheres scattered across the room to meet at the same one in front of Jace, disappearing into the mass. He paused there, looking at the group expectantly.

"....huh?" Was all corrin could say.

"Obviously" Was Wednesday's response, to which Corrin looked at her like she'd grown a second head.

 

[MyrtenRose]

She didn't let it show on her face, but she could sense something had subtly changed within the atmosphere of the room. Those eyes had yet to move from staring at her, and his mind closed off. He became more guarded. It was obviously a reaction to something she had done or said, but what was not so clear to her was why. Huh, typical. She came for some answers at last and got another question to ponder. Why that response? It was puzzling but no matter, she was not here for an answer to that. So she remained silent until he paused, crossing her arms and listening intently. When he had finished for the moment, she repeated his statement. "I...sparked." A latent power hidden within, buried even beyond her abilities with the force, and unleashed by pure emotion...yes, she could see that. The rage she had brought to that final confrontation. The raw feeling of triumph that had coursed through her when she at last struck down Valkorion and banished him from her mind, cast him into the abyss of the afterlife. The sheer joy she had felt when she kept her promise and made him pay for the awful situation he'd orchestrated, one where she had been forced into making the worst choice of her whole life. All of those raw, coursing emotions boiled over and this hidden ability activated. Yes, she could see that.

So that is what this was. A different plane of existence. That also made sense. It would explain why her connection to the Force was...muddled. Some abilities worked, but others did nothing at all. It was because this was not her galaxy at all. While others may have been confused or suspicious, she accepted it as the truth. It made sense and she could not see why he would bother lying about it. "So then, how would one use this spark to get home? Would it require another surge of powerful emotion?" ​

 

[MidwayLives]

"Sparked, huh?" Ink sat on his rear and folded his arms across his chest. "Then I guess I 'sparked' around the same time my dirtbag of a brother tried to take me out." To cover up the fact that another one of their siblings had very much aided the enemy. "...What I'd give to never have to see him again.." Ink mumbled, saliva glistening across his fangs as he spoke. "Grrr....."

Had Zeke heard such words, they'd have hurt worse than anything Ink could have possibly done to him physically.

As it were, Zeke merely adjusted in his seat.

"I was on the cusp of dying when I appeared here." He ran his good hand over the black ice spread across his chest wound. "...Is it the only thing keeping me walking at this point, Sir Jace?"

 

[Indolent]

Tera found no more dream to be in; she was back in the market stall as Corrin let out a strangled gasp and tried to shoot upwards, only to find she couldn't. She thrashed in a panic, and Ink felt sudden absence in his chest as one her legs suddenly became a spear of dragon flesh, passing right through him and skewering itself against the stone wall opposite her.

She started to process where she was, eyes swinging this way and that, before she glanced downwards and saw what she'd done with a horrified gasp. "O-Oh gods, are you okay?!" she sputtered as she let her foot transform into something human once more.

"I don't remember her dragon form having spear legs." some girl Corrin couldn't place outside of some vague sensation of pain commented from the back.

Kratos didn't react to that at all save for a small frown that culminated in a curious "Hrmmm". To anyone else that wasn't Atreus nor Mimir, it wasn't exceptionally obvious that Kratos was conveying that the incident captured his interest some. At least a lingering curiosity as to what had transpired on the mental plane to have that occur.

"Dragons carry many secrets, it appears." Came his wry comment as he released his grip.

"Corrin!" Ink exclaimed, happily, as he went to loosen his grip on Corrin's feet...

"Wait, wait! Hold on! What happened to you???"

Ink didn't get any answers.



*SPLLLLLURT*

"..."

Ink glanced down and saw the spear tearing through his t-shirt and going through his chest and again, tearing it's way out through the back of his jacket. Ink growled and violently ripped himself free from the implement in his chest, stepping off to the side and letting the bladed edge tear through his side leaving it looking as though he'd been stabbed and then someone had taken a couple of test swings at his side in an attempt to try and cut him in half with how lopsided he looked afterwards. Though, health-wise Ink appeared to be none the worse for wear. Unless you counted the look of grief as he looked at the significantly sized hole in his black leather duster.

"my shirt....my jacket...."



"Am I ok?!"

Ink placed two hands on Corrin's shoulders and looked her right in the eyes.

"Look at what you DID!"

Oily flesh pulled itself back together within seconds, though for a brief moment, you could have seen the view through Ink's chest. Placing one hand on his hip to steady himself, he reattached his side from where he'd been hanging kind of loose after slicing into his torso with Corrin's leg.

"I can fix up my shirt if I exert myself, but I can't DO jackets, Corrin! Jackets, hats, SHOES! They're all too complicated for me to try re-making! This was my favorite jacket and you shiskebabed it! I've gotten blown up, I nearly had a giant zombie crash on me recently, was buried under piles of rubble and kept this thing nice and pristine and you just....you...agh!" He yelled before looking down at Corrin's leg now that it was human again. He reached down and poked the sole of her foot with one of his claws, holding it there while he spoke. "I don't know what the hell happened beyond weird TK stuff but you better keep your feet, human, dragon, in between, whatever the hell away from me." He gave another SHARP jab with his claw against Corrin's foot before taking a step back and exhaling, letting out a deeeeep breath. "....but, i guess the question that's on my mind right now is...are YOU ok?"

"You are a child." Kratos interjected with nary any hesitation, his demeanor conveying a coiled tautness of the muscle that more than illustrated a wilingness to intervene on Corrin's behalf, though she certainly almost would have never needed it since she could take care of herself. However, while dazed and rousing from what looked to be possibly a difficult situation, even a God took a moment to gather his bearings.

"Too attached to your trappings. If we linger here longer than I suspect, we will lose our possessions and more." It was an incisive admonishing he delivered to Ink, his tone abundantly clear that he cared not if it provoked or angered him; it was something he needed to understand, reality was not what he would have it as in the end.

"...I'm afraid it se--" She started to say, but her voice was eclipsed by everything else as the atmosphere around them grew more...extreme. The room itself started to rumble, the thunder returning in full force and echoing in tandem with the dragon's own fierce cries of denial. Loud enough that glass shattered all around them, and before she could say or do anything else, she was thrust right out of the dreamland in an abrupt end. One moment she was there, looking over in sympathy and the next she opened her eyes to the sight of the marketplace and the others. She rose back up to her feet in an instant, and her right arm was already outstretched by the time she was standing again--



--if only to forcibly pull Ink away from Corrin with a swift exertion of the force before he could jab her at all. She kept him suspended in the air, glaring at him with narrowed eyes."I suggest you keep calm now." She stated it more as an order than a suggestion, however. Her expression shifted to a more disbelieving look after that was delivered. "I mean, seriously." She shook her head. "We end up on a mystery world after being...I'm still not entirely certain how to describe what we experienced in getting here, but whatever you would call it, we ended up here, separated from the people we know and surrounded by strangers, near instantly come under attack by legions of enemies, let's not even get started on the giant one that nearly killed her, and we have no real answers yet, or any idea how to return, BUT the thing you're most upset about, is your stupid piece of clothing?!" She raised up the arm that she wasn't currently using to keep Ink in the air, gesturing out to clearly express her annoyance with the man.

"She got herself hurt badly aiding you. Try to remember that, and get a grip on what really matters right now." Tera growled before releasing her own more literal grip and letting Ink drop to the floor before she stepped closer to Corrin herself. "Speaking of which, no no, the question is, are you alright?" The Sith addressed the dragon.​

He did not like that Tera, for all her abrasiveness and brash bravado, inadvertently veered onto the same lines of thought as Kratos. It was entirely too troubling to be reminded of himself in the past, to a great degree.

He simply just frowned and allowed the force user to rein that entire situation in as he peered towards Wednesday and observed the newcomer in their midst.

Actually, he did that with everyone as they all were still newcomers, in his midst.

The half dragon winced as Ink snapped at her, then sat up straight as Tera intervened. "H-hey, wait! Its fine, he's right. I should have more control than that by now, if anyone else had been standing there then... well it would've been worse than a jacket. Sorry ink." she murmured as she pulled her knees up to her chest, as if holding the legs there would keep them from any more impalements.

As Tera stepped closer though, Corrin had to glance the other way, voice quiet and terse as she mumbled.

"... I'm fine. Where are we though?" She asked, a bit louder, though still staring at the side of the wall rather than at anyone else "What happened? Last I remembered was... was...."

"Your leg snapping like a toothpick and piercing your femerol artery, spraying dragon blood everywhere and putting you scant few inches from the release of death?"

Corrin jolted at the new voice, except it didn't feel entirely new; something about it tickled the hazy side of her brain, She glanced up, and likewise, Wednesday's face also brought some twinge of recognition to her mind, and a twinge of pain to her leg, one hand subconsciously sliding down to rub the part of her thigh that had a bone potruding from it not long ago.

"Yea.... that. Um. Hi."

Wednesday met the greeting with cold silence.

"...my name is C-"

"Corrin, yes. Everyone was yelling at you a few seconds ago."

A flicker of frustration crossed Corrin's face, but before she could reply, the curtain that laid over the market stall slid open.

"You five are the planeswalkers that defeated Rhonas?"

A man stood there, one of the guardsmen in half plate bedecked in the orange and golds of the sun. He glanced over them before waving for them to follow. "Lord Jace can see you now; he was retrieving a few others he thinks may be related."

Corrin glanced back over to Wednesday, found the girl still staring at her unblinkingly, and that was enough reason for her to test her leg against the stone floor before she moved to follow the newcomer. It seemed like wherever they were, it was where the person they'd set off from that first town square to find was.

Wednesday fell in step right behind her

"That was its name...?" Kratos remarked, committing it to memory. It was a sordid fate to befall a great entity like it, encased in the motile sarcophagus of blue mineral as it were; it required little imagination for Kratos to have envisioned, perhaps, what it once looked like upon a time. More pertinently, Kratos pondered its personality. Was it anything like Ares or was it perhaps more benevolent than that?

That aside, the Spartan felt no need to answer Corrin's fleeting query for it came when they were fetched by the messenger bearing Lord Jace's summons. Where they were mattered not so much as where they needed to be.

Before Kratos felt in line behind the others to follow, his ears caught an errant grumbling.

"i'm the one who caved it's head in...."

Ink mumbled, more or less, under his breath.

He didn't want that mental one using her freaky mind powers on or anywhere near him again.

Hearing the mumbling, Kratos angled a glance Ink's way and while he solemnly wished that nothing grave would come to the boy, Kratos understood it tended to be such circumstance that transpired out of necessity to eliminate these traces of vainglory and to burgeon growth. If they would suffer to survive it hence.

The trip wasn’t a long one, though a bit winding; ‘below ground, in case the eternals decided to firebomb the place’ was what their guide explained as he led them through a set of stairs to what had been a small basement before a cadre of planeswalkers at war. The walls had all been destroyed and replaced with vinework, particularly thick pieces of greenery serving as pillars to hold up the ceiling above as the market turned base of operations thundered with footsteps. People were everywhere here as well, though less than the throng upstairs, and a few rooms hidden with thick curtains of green had been sectioned off.

It was two one of those that the soldier led them to, gesturing inside before his head lolled for a moment before he recovered and glanced around, looked at the group in confusion, and wandered off in a bit of a daze.

“Come in” came a calm voice from inside.

Within was a war room; something almost all of them had seen enough times in their life to understand what it was, no matter how strange the construction; vines had curled even thicker to form a flat, rectangular surface in which a silvery liquid had been poured, the liquid shimmering as it rose into shapes that created an extremely detailed replica of what they could only assume was the city above; it showed towering spires and market squares, and the tiniest pinpricks of light moved through the streets, hundreds of thousands, if not millions of them.

There were three people in the room; Seated at the back, directly opposite them, was a man in a blue robe. The hood for it was down, showing his brown, tousled hair and bright blue eyes that glowed slightly, fair skin and a lithe build, a simple white shirt and brown trousers completing his look as he sat with one leg crossed the other and his hands together, clearly at ease with the situation.

He was also in their thoughts.

Only one person was immediately aware of it; Even Corrin, who had experienced telepaths on her own plane, didn’t even register his presence. There wasn’t any malice to the push into their minds so much as an automatic reaction, and the moment he felt that Tera’s own powers could feel him the sensation retreated immediately and he gave her a apologetic, wry smirk.

The one seated at the left was a young girl, seemingly even younger than Wednesday, and the one on the right didn’t appear human at all; his skin was coated in ice with yellow bits of light where his eyes should’ve been. Immediately recognizable to one of their party

Except that neither Ink nor the newcomer could hear or see the other.

"I hear you've been looking for me" The man said simply. "Just as well; after I found these two, I think its important that we talk"

It had been centuries since he last elected to stand within a war room of his own volition. It was during the days of the warring city-states of Ancient Greece, the realm of the Gods of Olympus no less. He himself had been a General marshaling bodies to the battlefield under the banners of his homeland, Sparta. Save for the regalia that embodied and emboldened in its soldiers mind Sparta's essence, these war rooms were literally the definition of spartan. Nothing needed was present and anything needed was excised to the point of minimum where it mattered for making war and its multitudes of plan making.

Kratos was oft brutally efficient, the human personification of the spear commonly affiliated with the Spartan soldier, the literal spear head of his own campaigns that brought many a victory to the city state. Until the Barbarians, until the day his pride was sundered and cast aside for his own life which entered into an eternity of indenture to the Gods. Where there was glory, honor, and ultimately, legacy in passing down his name and deeds through Sparta's hallowed annals?

His taste for these turned to ash in his mouth just as it was symbolically, and literally, bound to his flesh. None of it was anything Kratos desired to revisit, as much as he truly understood the necessity for it.

It was why it was difficult to stomach his distaste much less conceal it from his features. Jace certainly saw through the facade.

That aside, Kratos did leverage his gaze upon his fellow planeswalker and affixed Jace a studious stare. In an instant, from his many storied years of dealing with many folks of different varieties, he understood.

He would likely not like this man. But he didn't need to.

"..." This was a sight so familiar that it almost stung. It was significantly less technologically advanced, more natural, but the purpose remained the same. She was reminded of the Imperial battle readiness rooms. So spartan, clean, efficient to the last detail. It also brought up memories of the alliance war room, a far more casual and less strict place where they had planned their rebellion against the new empire from deep space that had conquered it all. Good times...mostly...but it was not the time to get nostalgic. Particularly when she could sense someone pushing against her mind. She knew it to be the robed man, even before he smirked at her in apology. She shrugged it off, not really caring about the attempt that much, it wasn't like she hadn't done the same a few times already. He was here, and there was yet another child, which was not ideal, and then another one that seemed as inhuman as Ink. "So, you're Jace. I see." She kept her voice measured, difficult to get any tone from. "Tera Markov." She introduced herself, complete with a half bow, before proceeding immediately.

"Yes, to say we have questions would be an understatement. I have several if not a dozen, but I believe we should start with what this Ravnica is, and how it is we ended up here, and how we can get back to where we belong. They called us...planeswalkers. I could only presume that makes us rather important, with how much those things went after us."​

Corrin glanced down at the table herself, a pang of remembrance flicking across her expression before it settled into a disarming smile as she clasped her hands in front of her. "What the others said. We've all been through a lot, and from what I understand, we were all... none of us left our homes in... err..."

"You sparked" Jace finished for Corrin, though his eyes rested squarely on Tera. Something about her introduction had set him on edge; nothing that most could've have picked up from the outside, but Tera felt the walls of his own mind close with enough force to reverberate slightly in her own, and Corrin rubbed the side of her head as she too felt a headache she didn't quite understand. Nonetheless, the man continued.

"Lets start there; You're here because you have a something like a planeswalker's spark. A latent bit of power inside your soul. The only way for a spark to activate is for the planeswalker's emotions to be pushed to the brink, the highest high or the lowest low. Agony, ecstasy, despair, fury, or some combination of those, or the extreme of any other feeling. I knew one planeswalker who sparked because he was incredibly hungry"

"That sounds incorrect" Spoke Wednesday allowed. "I wasn't doing anything distressing when I 'planeswalked'"

"Then you wouldn't be here" Jace answered simply. The girl narrowed her eyes but left it at that, mulling over her own thoughts as he continued.

"The obvious followup question; you're here because of a spark, but what exactly did it do?" He stood up and waved his hand at the table, and the city collapsed in on itself with a splash. a moment later new shapres arose; simple spheres that began to scatter throughout the room as Jace answered his own question. "It sent you to another plane of existence. This one, specifically"

a dozen droplets, miniscule compared to the spheres, all shot out of spheres scattered across the room to meet at the same one in front of Jace, disappearing into the mass. He paused there, looking at the group expectantly.

"....huh?" Was all corrin could say.

"Obviously" Was Wednesday's response, to which Corrin looked at her like she'd grown a second head.

"My spark emerged when I died for the fourth time..." He frowned, mildly puzzled by the circumstances surrounding each instance. The nuance in these took a fleeting moment to become clear to Kratos. These deaths of his prior to his last, were all while he was within the thrall of his rage and unrelenting desire for vengeance. Vengeance born out of love for the loss of his family but vengeance nonetheless that ultimately superseded all else until almost nothing was left.

His final demise was while he acted out of the genuine desire to protect the last vestiges of his family and his own humanity-- his son, Atreus. He lingered upon the realization, pondering what were profound implications for him, before electing to move on.

"I suspect Ravnica to be a nexus? That is the best I can describe it, given the limited detail." Kratos remarked, intuitively understanding numerous aspects to these extenuating details. The tree of Yggdrassil was immensely helpful as a reference point among these concepts, even though its sphere of influence was infinitesimally smaller in the ultimate sense.

He didn't forget to add the following, "Kratos."

So that is what this was. A different plane of existence. That also made sense. It would explain why her connection to the Force was...muddled. Some abilities worked, but others did nothing at all. It was because this was not her galaxy at all. While others may have been confused or suspicious, she accepted it as the truth. It made sense and she could not see why he would bother lying about it. "So then, how would one use this spark to get home? Would it require another surge of powerful emotion?"

Her query again emboldened Kratos's personal missive to return home, the objective bolting to the fore of his mind. Jace likely would have seen it all too easily. Just as well, it was obvious that was the case for him anyway.

In any case, if the Spark required exemplary control over his emotions, Kratos understood in an instant. He was screwed.

"Yes, what she said. I have no desire for this spark; I already am a god, to be a planeswalker is another manacle I wish not to bear. If it helps me to return home, that will suffice."

 

[Schnee Corp Lawyer]

"Sparked, huh?" Ink sat on his rear and folded his arms across his chest. "Then I guess I 'sparked' around the same time my dirtbag of a brother tried to take me out." To cover up the fact that another one of their siblings had very much aided the enemy. "...What I'd give to never have to see him again.." Ink mumbled, saliva glistening across his fangs as he spoke. "Grrr....."

Had Zeke heard such words, they'd have hurt worse than anything Ink could have possibly done to him physically.

As it were, Zeke merely adjusted in his seat.

"I was on the cusp of dying when I appeared here." He ran his good hand over the black ice spread across his chest wound. "...Is it the only thing keeping me walking at this point, Sir Jace?"

"Perhaps" Jace answered Zeke. "despite planeswalkers being some of the oldest beings in the multiverse, how they function is not something that is fully understood, and sparking can often have strange effects. Its entirely likely your spark saved your life; the burst of mana when someone ignites is very powerful."

"Mana?" Corrin asked, still trying to wrap her head around all this.

"I'll get to that in a moment" Jace said with a calm smile before he glanced over to Kratos' question

"I suspect Ravnica to be a nexus? That is the best I can describe it, given the limited detail."

"Not at all." he said with a shake of his head. "The first plane one planeswalks to is entirely random. Thats one of the reasons why there's so few planeswalkers despite the trillions of lives in the multiverse; not only are sparks rare, but its just as likely that you end up on the streets of Ravnica as it on a plane without any air."

"So we entirely randomly all sparked and planeswalked to the same city at the same time" Wednesday cut in with a dull glare.

"...Well. Let me rephrase. Ravnica is not normally a nexus. There were... extenuating circumstances during your arrival."

"Not usually how people refer to a zombie horde."

"Honestly, they were the smaller problem" Jace replied, a bit of storm and ire to his words as he stared past the group. "Its a long story, but the short of it is that an extremely powerful planeswalker used a powerful artifact to attract as many planeswalkers to this plane as he could with the intention of harvesting our sparks. A fight your slaying of Rhonas was of great assistance with; its really the only reason I gave you the time of day initially, but..."

"....but?"

Jace stared at them all, eyes settling on kratos and Tera in particular. "...There's something very abnormal about you all, even for planeswalkers."

"So then, how would one use this spark to get home? Would it require another surge of powerful emotion?"

"Yes, what she said. I have no desire for this spark; I already am a god, to be a planeswalker is another manacle I wish not to bear. If it helps me to return home, that will suffice."

"Oh great, another god." Jace replied with some of his dryness returning. "We just got done with four of those. Let us know in advance if you're planning any multiversal coups. But no, nothing of the sort. Now that you're planeswalkers, crossing into the blind eternities, the space between planes, should be almost as easy as crossing the street. And the easiest plane to get to is almost always your home. But...."

"....If you could stop trailing off with those, I'd appreciate it."

"...As I said, there's something... very strange with you all." His eyes began to glow faintly blue, and wisps of energy dissipated towards them all, coiling around them with a tingle "Despite just igniting, some of you are channeling enough mana that you rival the planeswalkers of the last age. Except its... wrong."

"We still-"

"Right." Jace sighed "I guess we'll call this lesson two. Mana is everything in the multiverse. Its what creates souls, its what gives lifes, governs the laws of physics, lets planeswalkers and other mages manipulate the forces of magic. But there are ways to use mana, ways to make it flow, and with the exception of Wednesday, none of you are using it the normal way. I'd say your mana is tainted, but there's no malice to its. its more like its.... mutated." Jace murmured, almost talking to himself by the end.

"Always glad to be the odd one out."

"None of you seem to know what I'm talking about; mana doesn't work the same where you're from. It makes me worried that your home planes don't follow the same rules; there's serious danger that planeswalking to them won't work the same either."

 

[MyrtenRose]

"Honestly, they were the smaller problem" Jace replied, a bit of storm and ire to his words as he stared past the group. "Its a long story, but the short of it is that an extremely powerful planeswalker used a powerful artifact to attract as many planeswalkers to this plane as he could with the intention of harvesting our sparks. A fight your slaying of Rhonas was of great assistance with; its really the only reason I gave you the time of day initially, but..."

"...story of my life." She couldn't help but mutter bitterly. Some remarkably powerful being manipulating the situation with the intention of consuming people for his own gain...for kriff's sake, she had just managed to accomplish the goal she'd spent years working towards, ridding the galaxy of a man just like the one described. She'd sent him off into the afterlife, and now...now she was dealing with another like him. That alone was enough to bring a frown to her face, but it didn't stop there.​

"....but?"

Jace stared at them all, eyes settling on kratos and Tera in particular. "...There's something very abnormal about you all, even for planeswalkers."

She didn't like this one bit. The man had closed himself off after she introduced herself, she'd felt that much, and consistently his gaze had lingered upon her. It was a bit unnerving, if she was being honest, but at least Kratos was included this time. Still, the implication to what he was saying...she liked that even less.​

"Oh great, another god." Jace replied with some of his dryness returning. "We just got done with four of those. Let us know in advance if you're planning any multiversal coups. But no, nothing of the sort. Now that you're planeswalkers, crossing into the blind eternities, the space between planes, should be almost as easy as crossing the street. And the easiest plane to get to is almost always your home. But...."

Should be almost as easy as crossing the street, and the easiest one to get to is almost always your home...yeah. She didn't need the force to sense that there was a mighty big "but" coming at the end of that sentence.​

"...As I said, there's something... very strange with you all." His eyes began to glow faintly blue, and wisps of energy dissipated towards them all, coiling around them with a tingle "Despite just igniting, some of you are channeling enough mana that you rival the planeswalkers of the last age. Except its... wrong."

"We still-"

"Right." Jace sighed "I guess we'll call this lesson two. Mana is everything in the multiverse. Its what creates souls, its what gives lifes, governs the laws of physics, lets planeswalkers and other mages manipulate the forces of magic. But there are ways to use mana, ways to make it flow, and with the exception of Wednesday, none of you are using it the normal way. I'd say your mana is tainted, but there's no malice to its. its more like its.... mutated." Jace murmured, almost talking to himself by the end.

"Always glad to be the odd one out."

"None of you seem to know what I'm talking about; mana doesn't work the same where you're from. It makes me worried that your home planes don't follow the same rules; there's serious danger that planeswalking to them won't work the same either."

It was as she thought. In that regard, mana was similar to the force, even if it worked differently. Her familiarity with the general concept didn't comfort her much though, given what was being said around the revelation of lesson two. "So, what you're saying is, even with this ability to cross planes in this way, because of this strange mutation, our homes....our very lives may be cut off from us for a significant length of time? Do I have that right?" She questioned, her frown deepening as she spoke.​

 

[Schnee Corp Lawyer]

"...story of my life." She couldn't help but mutter bitterly. Some remarkably powerful being manipulating the situation with the intention of consuming people for his own gain...for kriff's sake, she had just managed to accomplish the goal she'd spent years working towards, ridding the galaxy of a man just like the one described. She'd sent him off into the afterlife, and now...now she was dealing with another like him. That alone was enough to bring a frown to her face, but it didn't stop there.



She didn't like this one bit. The man had closed himself off after she introduced herself, she'd felt that much, and consistently his gaze had lingered upon her. It was a bit unnerving, if she was being honest, but at least Kratos was included this time. Still, the implication to what he was saying...she liked that even less.



Should be almost as easy as crossing the street, and the easiest one to get to is almost always your home...yeah. She didn't need the force to sense that there was a mighty big "but" coming at the end of that sentence.



It was as she thought. In that regard, mana was similar to the force, even if it worked differently. Her familiarity with the general concept didn't comfort her much though, given what was being said around the revelation of lesson two. "So, what you're saying is, even with this ability to cross planes in this way, because of this strange mutation, our homes....our very lives may be cut off from us for a significant length of time? Do I have that right?" She questioned, her frown deepening as she spoke.​

"...Potentially" Jace said evenly. He sat back down in his chair and pressed his fingers together as he regarded Tera.

"Markov. You said that was your last name, correct?"

 

[MyrtenRose]

"...Potentially" Jace said evenly. He sat back down in his chair and pressed his fingers together as he regarded Tera.

"Markov. You said that was your last name, correct?"

Her gaze fell as she heard that answer. It was frustrating, to put it mildly. She wasn't supposed to be here, this wasn't her home, and the very idea of being cut off from all the friends, allies and people that looked to her to lead, to fight, to make a difference...to be cut off for a potentially long time again, even...it was frustrating. Truth be told, she had half a mind to just turn around and storm out of here to go find something to zap with lightning, if only to vent this frustration. In fact, she'd turned away slightly to go do so, and the only thing that stopped her was his question. "...Yes. Why?" Tera questioned sharply. "What does that matter?"​

 

[Schnee Corp Lawyer]

Her gaze fell as she heard that answer. It was frustrating, to put it mildly. She wasn't supposed to be here, this wasn't her home, and the very idea of being cut off from all the friends, allies and people that looked to her to lead, to fight, to make a difference...to be cut off for a potentially long time again, even...it was frustrating. Truth be told, she had half a mind to just turn around and storm out of here to go find something to zap with lightning, if only to vent this frustration. In fact, she'd turned away slightly to go do so, and the only thing that stopped her was his question. "...Yes. Why?" Tera questioned sharply. "What does that matter?"​

"Perhaps a great deal." Came Jace's reply. His eyes glanced over the group as he weighed something in his thoughts before he spoke again.

"I'll be frank. I don't know what you are. It seems that every time something new shows up in the multiverse out of the blind eternities, it puts planes at risk. The reason I called you all here was to determine whether or not I should be letting you leave this plane at all."

Wednesday arched an eyebrow at that, and Corrin's shoulders tensed reflexively as she took a slow step between the others and Jace, which brought a wan smile to his face as he put his hands up to placate.

"I determined otherwise. I've no desire to cause distress, just to explain my hesitance in helping you. what I'm not sure is how much I can help you. You're something I've never seen. But there are other planeswalkers. Older ones."

"Like Bolas" Corrin said, her expression still cautious.

"And others. Not quite as dangerous as the god pharaoh himself, but close. They have been around a very, very long time, and have seen more than I'll ever come close to in my life time, and not for lack of trying." His eyes settled on Tera again.

"And one of the oldest is named Sorin Markov."

 

[MyrtenRose]

“Tch.” She grunted in an annoyed manner. Whether or not he should let us leave, he says. Just lock us down here, hmm? Please. If you even try, you’d come to see the rage and power that brought me to the Emperor’s attention in the first place, she thought to herself, still not lifting her gaze up from the floor. Fortunately for him, he chose otherwise, or so he said. A wise choice. But when he mentioned he was unsure of how much he could even help, given how they were all a mystery to him, she shook her head. “Well. Glad to know after all the things we fought through to get here, we find that you don’t know how much you can even help us at all. Splendid, really.” The biting sarcasm was thick in her voice as she again shook her head and started resuming her turning around to walk right out of this room.​

"And one of the oldest is named Sorin Markov."

She didn’t even make it a single step, as his final words made her freeze up. Her eyes widened, and she could feel his stare upon her. Tera slowly turned back around and this time, lifted her wide-eyed and surprised gaze to stare into the man’s eyes. “Sorin Markov.” She repeated, rather lamely. “Are you—are you suggesting what I think you’re suggesting?”​

 

[MidwayLives]

"Perhaps" Jace answered Zeke. "despite planeswalkers being some of the oldest beings in the multiverse, how they function is not something that is fully understood, and sparking can often have strange effects. Its entirely likely your spark saved your life; the burst of mana when someone ignites is very powerful."

"Mana?" Corrin asked, still trying to wrap her head around all this.

"I'll get to that in a moment" Jace said with a calm smile before he glanced over to Kratos' question

"..."

Zeke glanced down at his chest wound.

He'd formed a thick translucent layer of black ice over the hole the Mercenary had torn into his flesh. Jagged trails of ice ripped at the frayed edges of the wound and trails of bright blue blood, almost resembling anti-freeze, leaked from the gaping hole. In the depths of the wound, there was the slightest spark of a white flame dimly illuminating his wound and the dark blue tissue inside of the hole. Zeke was a full-blooded ice elemental and so too had his parents been. At least on his father's side. His grandfather on his mother's side of the family was a fire elemental, and not just any, one of the rarest of them all. A white flame elemental. The hottest fire that one could manifest. He'd passed away not long after Zeke had been born and he only fondly remembered his grandfather as a kindly old soul who'd never so much as harm a fly.

The reality of him being one of the fiercest elementals out there always puzzled Zeke, even as he got older. Was this perhaps a sign of his grandfather looking out for him from the beyond? A sign of latent abilities? Or was it just a sign? Zeke thought to question it further but ultimately decided better of it. Whatever the truth of it was, it wouldn't have made him any happier than to think it was a sign from his grand-pere.

<"I see. Thank you.">

"Not at all." he said with a shake of his head. "The first plane one planeswalks to is entirely random. Thats one of the reasons why there's so few planeswalkers despite the trillions of lives in the multiverse; not only are sparks rare, but its just as likely that you end up on the streets of Ravnica as it on a plane without any air."

"So we entirely randomly all sparked and planeswalked to the same city at the same time" Wednesday cut in with a dull glare.

"...Well. Let me rephrase. Ravnica is not normally a nexus. There were... extenuating circumstances during your arrival."

"Not usually how people refer to a zombie horde."

"Honestly, they were the smaller problem" Jace replied, a bit of storm and ire to his words as he stared past the group. "Its a long story, but the short of it is that an extremely powerful planeswalker used a powerful artifact to attract as many planeswalkers to this plane as he could with the intention of harvesting our sparks. A fight your slaying of Rhonas was of great assistance with; its really the only reason I gave you the time of day initially, but..."

"....but?"

Jace stared at them all, eyes settling on kratos and Tera in particular. "...There's something very abnormal about you all, even for planeswalkers."

Ink let out a low rumble from his throat.

"Trillions....?" He splayed out his fingers and silently began to count before giving up.

"Too much to even think of..."

He laid his head back down and slightly closed his eyes. The picture of an annoyed feline who simply couldn't be bothered.

"Oh great, another god." Jace replied with some of his dryness returning. "We just got done with four of those. Let us know in advance if you're planning any multiversal coups. But no, nothing of the sort. Now that you're planeswalkers, crossing into the blind eternities, the space between planes, should be almost as easy as crossing the street. And the easiest plane to get to is almost always your home. But...."

Both brothers blinked at the mention of god.

<"God...?">

"I wonder if..."

<"He knows...">

"Bob...">Both brothers said together.

Well, 'Bob' didn't enjoy being referred to as such ('hey, hey! Let's not use the 'G' word, huh?') and neither brother had ever actually MET him. But Ink's stepfather claimed to and was actually brought back to life on Bob's good graces. Hell, he was the reason alone why the entity ( in Bob's own words, he was just a 'hyper advanced alien and nothing more' ) went by such a childish sounding name. Ink glanced over at Kratos and turned his nose up at him and laid his head back down. Zeke looked and attempted to smile with his eyes. No need to show blatant disrespect to someone who'd done nothing to deserve such treatment.

"home...feh. like i'd ever wanna go back."

"...As I said, there's something... very strange with you all." His eyes began to glow faintly blue, and wisps of energy dissipated towards them all, coiling around them with a tingle "Despite just igniting, some of you are channeling enough mana that you rival the planeswalkers of the last age. Except its... wrong."

"We still-"

"Right." Jace sighed "I guess we'll call this lesson two. Mana is everything in the multiverse. Its what creates souls, its what gives lifes, governs the laws of physics, lets planeswalkers and other mages manipulate the forces of magic. But there are ways to use mana, ways to make it flow, and with the exception of Wednesday, none of you are using it the normal way. I'd say your mana is tainted, but there's no malice to its. its more like its.... mutated." Jace murmured, almost talking to himself by the end.

"Always glad to be the odd one out."

"None of you seem to know what I'm talking about; mana doesn't work the same where you're from. It makes me worried that your home planes don't follow the same rules; there's serious danger that planeswalking to them won't work the same either."

"Hey!" Ink snarled, swatting at the wisps, in much the same way a cat would paw at a mouse it'd captured or a toy. Zeke merely sat back and listened only to stiffen up as Jace finished speaking.

<"To struggle returning home is unnacceptable. My brothers...they...they need me.">

"whatever. i'll live here then."

Ink glanced away.

"anywhere's better than going back home."

 

[Indolent]

"Oh great, another god." Jace replied with some of his dryness returning. "We just got done with four of those. Let us know in advance if you're planning any multiversal coups. But no, nothing of the sort. Now that you're planeswalkers, crossing into the blind eternities, the space between planes, should be almost as easy as crossing the street. And the easiest plane to get to is almost always your home. But...."

"No." That was really the only affirmative Kratos gave. Jace certainly knew what the god intended in his answer but it was his tone that was the only real clue the others had at intuiting his meaning.

Once upon a time in the thrall of Kratos' own vengeful rage, he may have considered involving the cosmos beyond to exact his revenge upon the Gods of Olympus and whomever else may have wronged him in the intervening time-frame.

All he wished now was to return to the solace of his solitude, with his family upon his homestead hidden away from the waking world. He still had yet to process his grief, to mourn the passing of his wife; there were her ashes still to be dispersed from the hallowed peaks of her home in Jotunheim and what was to be a journey of healing and coming to terms with his own son had already gone awry. This was a fork in the road. Nay, it was less an abrupt fork and more an ephemeral riptide and the road was a cosmic torrent.

When the wisps flitted around his persons and entered his field of view, his stern expression grew sterner and just perhaps, there was a fleeting something of a pause to their seemingly erratic movement when he laid eyes upon them. Then he looked away, listening closer.

"Right." Jace sighed "I guess we'll call this lesson two. Mana is everything in the multiverse. Its what creates souls, its what gives lifes, governs the laws of physics, lets planeswalkers and other mages manipulate the forces of magic. But there are ways to use mana, ways to make it flow, and with the exception of Wednesday, none of you are using it the normal way. I'd say your mana is tainted, but there's no malice to its. its more like its.... mutated." Jace murmured, almost talking to himself by the end.

"Always glad to be the odd one out."

"None of you seem to know what I'm talking about; mana doesn't work the same where you're from. It makes me worried that your home planes don't follow the same rules; there's serious danger that planeswalking to them won't work the same either."

"If this permeates all, then it fueled the magic gifted to me by gods and titans alike... hmmm." Kratos considered for a moment how that it was an intriguing notion that something so primordial-- disregarding the literal Primordials that came before the Titans-- had fueled the deities' powers of his plane and that it was a fleeting concept, born of arrogance and conceit, to consider their powers their own when it stemmed from an ubitious source ultimately. Even his own godhood likely originated from this through Zeus and his forebears. That said...

That was assuming the rules were one to one across all planes; Jace suggested that it was likely not the case for his own as well as the others'.

Which was troublesome as it meant Kratos could not just simply return home.

It was as she thought. In that regard, mana was similar to the force, even if it worked differently. Her familiarity with the general concept didn't comfort her much though, given what was being said around the revelation of lesson two. "So, what you're saying is, even with this ability to cross planes in this way, because of this strange mutation, our homes....our very lives may be cut off from us for a significant length of time? Do I have that right?" She questioned, her frown deepening as she spoke.

"Hmmm." Came his ponderous murmur. Whether it stemmed from her asking something that was already implied in his prior statements or it was an vocal tone born from mild annoyance that his efforts were to be stymied remained to be seen.

"...Potentially" Jace said evenly. He sat back down in his chair and pressed his fingers together as he regarded Tera.

"Hmmm."

"Markov. You said that was your last name, correct?"

"Perhaps a great deal." Came Jace's reply. His eyes glanced over the group as he weighed something in his thoughts before he spoke again.

"I'll be frank. I don't know what you are. It seems that every time something new shows up in the multiverse out of the blind eternities, it puts planes at risk. The reason I called you all here was to determine whether or not I should be letting you leave this plane at all."

Wednesday arched an eyebrow at that, and Corrin's shoulders tensed reflexively as she took a slow step between the others and Jace, which brought a wan smile to his face as he put his hands up to placate.

"I determined otherwise. I've no desire to cause distress, just to explain my hesitance in helping you. what I'm not sure is how much I can help you. You're something I've never seen. But there are other planeswalkers. Older ones."

"Like Bolas" Corrin said, her expression still cautious.

"And others. Not quite as dangerous as the god pharaoh himself, but close. They have been around a very, very long time, and have seen more than I'll ever come close to in my life time, and not for lack of trying." His eyes settled on Tera again.

"And one of the oldest is named Sorin Markov."

“Tch.” She grunted in an annoyed manner. Whether or not he should let us leave, he says. Just lock us down here, hmm? Please. If you even try, you’d come to see the rage and power that brought me to the Emperor’s attention in the first place, she thought to herself, still not lifting her gaze up from the floor. Fortunately for him, he chose otherwise, or so he said. A wise choice. But when he mentioned he was unsure of how much he could even help, given how they were all a mystery to him, she shook her head. “Well. Glad to know after all the things we fought through to get here, we find that you don’t know how much you can even help us at all. Splendid, really.” The biting sarcasm was thick in her voice as she again shook her head and started resuming her turning around to walk right out of this room.



She didn’t even make it a single step, as his final words made her freeze up. Her eyes widened, and she could feel his stare upon her. Tera slowly turned back around and this time, lifted her wide-eyed and surprised gaze to stare into the man’s eyes. “Sorin Markov.” She repeated, rather lamely. “Are you—are you suggesting what I think you’re suggesting?”​

"He is. If you and this Sorin are blood, he may know something. A way to access these despite the troubles of planeswalking 'normally'." He slowly turned and stared into Tera, as if he were gauging her reaction accordingly while deciding whether or not to strongly suggest that they do this.

After all, the situation occurring upon Ravnica was not his business and he had no interest in interfering. It was no different from his presence on Alfheim when the Dark Elves waged war with the Light Elves and won; he knew not the extenuating circumstances and cared not to involve himself beyond means that suited him such as restoring the Light to the realm to recharge a Bifrost lamp for the temple that enabled him to walk the nine realms and potentially beyond.

 

[Schnee Corp Lawyer]

Corrin found herself distracted by the proceedings, her gaze going between Ink and Zeke; they didn't look anything alike, but they were... different in the same way. Was this just another species common to existence, just not her own plane? The conversation moved on without her as Jace nodded at Kratos' ascertation

"Blood, or one of his... projects. I wouldn't call him an ally, but I also wouldn't call him an enemy; he's helped against some powerful enemies of my group in the past, but he also seems to enjoy playing a bit of God himself on planes, particularly his own. Thats where you'll find him, and its truly his world; Innistrad."

"How do we get there?" Wednesday asked, the obvious question

"Planeswalk, how else? It shouldn't be simple, so long as I can find someone left on Ravnica willing to take you there. I'd take you myself, but while I can tell you're in a hurry, I can't in good faith send off without giving you some time to prepare. Innistrad is not a safe place, to put it lightly" He said with a wry frown. "I'd suggest taking at least a few days to get your bearings and learn how to channel pure mana instead of whatever it is inside most of you; I could tell that your first planeswalk disrupted something inside you, like pure mana is proactively at war with whatever you took along for the ride, and sending you to that plane of any plane before you got a good grasp of the basics would feel like sending an unarmed man into a gladiatorial pit."

"What exactly will this... 'channeling' do for us?"

"It depends on the mana you're attuned to, and the planeswalker themself." He answered. "I am attuned to blue mana, and I've found I have a knack for illusions and mental manipulation. A friend of mine could channel white mana, and it made his body invulnerable. Another ally can channel both red and black mana, giving him the power to inflict madness upon others."

"Interesting, outside of the weird color theory fixation." Wednesday said blandly. "You do know we have no idea what any of those signify."

"If you're willing to stay, I know someone who can run you through all of that, give you a good grasp of it all" Jace answered with a shrug.

 

[MidwayLives]

Corrin found herself distracted by the proceedings, her gaze going between Ink and Zeke; they didn't look anything alike, but they were... different in the same way. Was this just another species common to existence, just not her own plane? The conversation moved on without her as Jace nodded at Kratos' ascertation

Ink noticed Corrin staring at him and looked away, unable to meet her gaze. Perhaps feeling a touch apologetic about snapping at her as he had. He huffed and nestled his chin against the floor, having taken to laying on his stomach with his legs splayed out behind him. It'd been too long since he slept in a bed. When he got too stressed out, he lost control of his body and he'd leave oil residue on whatever he was pressed against. He could feel his shirt was soaked. Tired of the constant complaining he heard among the non-Gifted soldiers (always made when they thought they were out of earshot) he'd thrown his bedframe away and just laid on the mattress.

Still, he didn't want to look at Corrin right now. Too much going on and too much thinking was liable to only make him madder.

Zeke, tried at least to be more gracious. He quirked his head at Corrin and gave a soft, short, wave with his uninjured hand. As the dragon girl looked him over, she'd see that he'd kept his left hand pulled over slightly under the lapel of his jacket. Black ice covered the majority of his hand with singed chunks of ice tearing every which way and burned flesh exposed underneath. Two of his fingers had been burned to such a degree that they'd bent inwards, the ice charred nightshade black, resting against his mangled palm.

<"Hello."> He reached out to Corrin, specifically, his mind touching hers.

<"I apologize for the abrupt intrusion. I noticed you glancing and thought I'd comment. I'd speak as you all do but my kind lack mouths in our natural states. My name is Rene Beaumont....but you can call me 'Zeke.' ">

"Blood, or one of his... projects. I wouldn't call him an ally, but I also wouldn't call him an enemy; he's helped against some powerful enemies of my group in the past, but he also seems to enjoy playing a bit of God himself on planes, particularly his own. Thats where you'll find him, and its truly his world; Innistrad."

Zeke shook his head.

<"I'd rather not judge based on word alone. This 'Sorin' will leave his own impression, I'm sure. If he is to become an obstacle to us, that'll be dealt with at that time."> He rose to his feet and tucked his burned hand into the left side pocket of his jeans. <"Better to follow up on whatever leads we have...">

"Planeswalk, how else? It shouldn't be simple, so long as I can find someone left on Ravnica willing to take you there. I'd take you myself, but while I can tell you're in a hurry, I can't in good faith send off without giving you some time to prepare. Innistrad is not a safe place, to put it lightly" He said with a wry frown. "I'd suggest taking at least a few days to get your bearings and learn how to channel pure mana instead of whatever it is inside most of you; I could tell that your first planeswalk disrupted something inside you, like pure mana is proactively at war with whatever you took along for the ride, and sending you to that plane of any plane before you got a good grasp of the basics would feel like sending an unarmed man into a gladiatorial pit."

"sounds like fun to me..." Ink murmured at the comparison Jace had used.

<"...If I am to be in any kind of shape to return home to my brothers.."> Zeke started as he looked over his good hand and clenched it up into a fist, the crinkling and cracking of ice shifting around as a stream of freezing air flowed out of his sleeve. <"Then I should at least make a passing effort to learn more about the powers that saved my life.">

Or at least, gave him a little bit longer.

To try and fix things.

"It depends on the mana you're attuned to, and the planeswalker themself." He answered. "I am attuned to blue mana, and I've found I have a knack for illusions and mental manipulation. A friend of mine could channel white mana, and it made his body invulnerable. Another ally can channel both red and black mana, giving him the power to inflict madness upon others."

"Interesting, outside of the weird color theory fixation." Wednesday said blandly. "You do know we have no idea what any of those signify."

"If you're willing to stay, I know someone who can run you through all of that, give you a good grasp of it all" Jace answered with a shrug.

That got Ink's attention for a change!

Propping his elbows up, his ears twitched.

"...I kinda get it. Well. I don't know jack and shit about all the planeswalking stuff but the color stuff. That makes some kinda sense to me. Gifted are different depending on what type you are. Physicals have red eyes, mentals..." He narrowed his eyes over at Tera. "...They have blue eyes. Mutations have green eyes and elementals? They got yellow eyes." He rubbed at his own eyes. " 'Course, I'm a 'Surprise' so I get the yellow eyes and my good looks from my old man. Get my teeth..." He pulled at two of his prominent fangs. "From my ma." About the only thing his folks had ever given Ink.

At least as far as he knew. He'd been a child when his father had led a zombie rampage across L.A. back in the 80s. It'd ended with his father being killed, mere inches away from his beloved son and Ink was left none the wiser.

His parents had been made up to be dirtbags and so dirtbags they'd be.

Ink sat back on his haunches and tapped his claws against the floor. "I'm more than willin."

 

[MyrtenRose]

"He is. If you and this Sorin are blood, he may know something. A way to access these despite the troubles of planeswalking 'normally'." He slowly turned and stared into Tera, as if he were gauging her reaction accordingly while deciding whether or not to strongly suggest that they do this.

"....."​

"Blood, or one of his... projects. I wouldn't call him an ally, but I also wouldn't call him an enemy; he's helped against some powerful enemies of my group in the past, but he also seems to enjoy playing a bit of God himself on planes, particularly his own. Thats where you'll find him, and its truly his world; Innistrad."

"N-no, that's not possib--" She didn't even manage to get the word out completely before she realized it was an untrue statement. It was entirely possible. Her family lineage went back more than a millennia, with them being among the Sith that rediscovered Dromund Kaas alongside Vitiate. After the Great Hyperspace war, they helped rebuild their civilization in secret, hell, her ancestors had forged Kaas City itself so long ago. So much so that even today, the Markov family was among the nobility. Or at least, they had been, before her. She knew who her parents had been, her grandparents, great grandparents, but...to go so far back, she had no clue of their names, who they were...so it was entirely possible that this Sorin Markov was responsible for her lineage.

It wasn't just the surname, either. She had this...spark. He did too, Jace had just called him one of the oldest ones. The name matched, this hidden power made more sense now, and the timeline could easily line up with someone ancient. Her hand covered her mouth as she slowly came to believe it was more than just simply "possible", or so she began to hope, at least. "Could it truly be? I'm...not the last one?" Her voice was scarcely more than a whisper. Tera reached out, pulling a chair to her so she could sit down to process this.

Her eyes shifted back and forth rapidly, those grey irises glancing at everybody, the Sith clearly lost in deep thought for several seconds before she seemed to make up her mind. "You know, among the Sith...it's common to be guarded. Kriff, it's advised. So many of them, of us, care for nothing but their own personal ambitions. They're constantly looking for opportunity to advance themselves, and take out rivals in the process. They probably spend more time fighting each other than their shared enemy...and I know none of that means anything to you all, but it's a funny thing. If I showed weakness like this, emotional vulnerability or anything close to it, too many of them would stab me in the back. So I had to be guarded among my own people, but with strangers I can be so...open." She struggled to even say the word.



"There are even many who follow me as a leader back home that I can't share things like this with, but you all...you're not from my home. You're not rivals or dangers I have to be concerned with, or...well, the point is I hope you don't mind me talking too much about a stranger's past while we're just sitting here. My past. I imagine some of you won't care much, considering we've only just met, and I understand that...but I shall share this regardless. You see, the thing is...I'm the last of my family, or I thought I was before here, now. Back home, on my world, there was this individual. He saved us from war, constructed a great hidden civilization, led us through centuries of prosperity...my people, our culture looked up to him as our god emperor. For everything that he had done for us. That's what I grew up with, and I bought into it as much as anyone. So when the time came that I, a young warrior, was granted the title of Emperor's Wrath, his enforcer, his right hand for all intents and purposes...I thought it was the highest honor of my life. I was serving our greatest lord more than anybody else in the whole of the empire." She let out a painful, regretful sigh.

"It was years before I learned he didn't care one damn bit about us. We were his people, and he didn't care. He would have gladly devoured us all of life to fuel his own. We were simply a means to an end. A tool to be discarded. When I discovered that truth, that he already had the intention to attempt to kill us all, I turned against him. I stopped his mad plan. He didn't like that. His servants, they slaughtered my parents. Our manor, razed, the rest of my family massacred, but he didn't stop there." She pressed a hand against her forehead, still surprised she was sharing this much with strangers. "My former Emperor, he took my wife."

She rubbed her hands together in uneasiness. "She was beautiful, and brilliant, and he knew how much I loved her...so he used her against me. He...hollowed out her mind, took possession of her body, used her form to fight against me. He did real harm, to me, to people who had nothing to do with it, and eventually I had to accept that I couldn't reach her. That she was gone, so I had to do it. I killed my wife." Her voice carried a lot of pain, and her head fell as she did everything she could to keep her eyes from tearing up. Even now it was difficult to tell if she actually meant those words, or if she was still trying to convince herself of the necessity of what she had done.

"My family was gone. My love too. He got what he wanted, in punishing me for turning against him. I felt like I had nothing. I...isolated myself. Days, weeks went by in a blur. I got low. I contemplated...ending it. That's when she visited me, her spirit, reaching out to me with one last message. She told me, among other things, that she wouldn't let me throw my life away on a memory of what was, or even on a dream of what might have been. She inspired me, in that way only she could." Tera exhaled slowly. "So I did what I could, took all my rage, my hate, everything and aimed it at him. I wasn't going to be satisfied until I killed my former emperor, painfully. Excruciatingly. I wanted him to hurt as much as he'd hurt me. I devoted my existence to destroying him. I hated him with such raw emotion that went beyond any I'd ever felt before. I vowed I would not be his wrath, but his executioner. More than that, for her, I vowed to be better. He'd made the galaxy worse off for his presence, and now I aimed to make it better off for mine." Her grey eyes were lit ablaze with hatred even simply telling the story.

"It took a long time, but I did it. It took all my power, and all the power of my allies, but I achieved it. I obliterated him. That's actually the moment when this spark went off, and I ended up here. My elation, the sheer triumph and satisfaction I felt seeing the fear in his eyes as we all fought against him together, and I struck him down...it was the strongest, the best I've ever felt. But even all that didn't change the fact that I was...alone, in a sense. The last of the Markovs, by blood or by marriage." She lifted her head up to stare down Jace.​

"Planeswalk, how else? It shouldn't be simple, so long as I can find someone left on Ravnica willing to take you there. I'd take you myself, but while I can tell you're in a hurry, I can't in good faith send off without giving you some time to prepare. Innistrad is not a safe place, to put it lightly" He said with a wry frown. "I'd suggest taking at least a few days to get your bearings and learn how to channel pure mana instead of whatever it is inside most of you; I could tell that your first planeswalk disrupted something inside you, like pure mana is proactively at war with whatever you took along for the ride, and sending you to that plane of any plane before you got a good grasp of the basics would feel like sending an unarmed man into a gladiatorial pit."

"What exactly will this... 'channeling' do for us?"

"It depends on the mana you're attuned to, and the planeswalker themself." He answered. "I am attuned to blue mana, and I've found I have a knack for illusions and mental manipulation. A friend of mine could channel white mana, and it made his body invulnerable. Another ally can channel both red and black mana, giving him the power to inflict madness upon others."

"Interesting, outside of the weird color theory fixation." Wednesday said blandly. "You do know we have no idea what any of those signify."

"If you're willing to stay, I know someone who can run you through all of that, give you a good grasp of it all" Jace answered with a shrug.

"But now I have this information, you're telling me there's a chance I'm not actually the last of my family, and that changes everything for me. Whatever kind of man he is, whatever's he's done, if there's even the slightest chance we actually share blood...yes, I'm willing to stay, learn what it is necessary to have a grasp on...pure mana. I have to meet this man." If it took days, or weeks, or however long to get her bearings on these new abilities...so be it. In different circumstances, she'd be wondering what color or colors of mana she might be attuned to...but as of now, other questions dominated her thoughts.

"...holy jeez...." Cinder finally spoke up after hearing all that. It wasn't the most eloquent thing to say but that's about all she could say. She'd had a hard time, in her past, but that story...sheesh. She sat in silence before she turned to Jace and questioned him. "So, like....how many colors are there in the, uh, mana spectrum?" She stifled a laugh at how ridiculous those last two words sounded together, cause it didn't seem appropriate after all that, but she couldn't mask the smile.

Tera briefly glanced around the room once more, before she just abruptly stood and at last, made good on her intent to leave the room, slowly walking right out. At least for now. They were going to be spending days together, after all, learning all these things. She had no idea of the layout of the city, but she didn't care. She just wanted to find some place quiet, maybe by a river or somewhere with a good view of nature to just sit down by and contemplate.​

 

[Schnee Corp Lawyer]

<"Hello."> He reached out to Corrin, specifically, his mind touching hers.

<"I apologize for the abrupt intrusion. I noticed you glancing and thought I'd comment. I'd speak as you all do but my kind lack mouths in our natural states. My name is Rene Beaumont....but you can call me 'Zeke.' ">

Corrin jolted slightly at the mental touch, expression uncomfortable, but she tamped the feeling down; like he said, he literally didn't have a mouth, and she tried to 'think' back to him without jumbling it with her other thoughts.

'Nice to meet you Zeke |am I doing this right? Its kind like dragonspeak but to one person I wonder| my name's corrin. if you're here then I'm guessing you're |is it a guy or a girl? Its voice kinda sounds masculine? Except its not a voice its thinking-| also a new planeswalker, right?'

She wasn't very good at it

"....."



"N-no, that's not possib--" She didn't even manage to get the word out completely before she realized it was an untrue statement. It was entirely possible. Her family lineage went back more than a millennia, with them being among the Sith that rediscovered Dromund Kaas alongside Vitiate. After the Great Hyperspace war, they helped rebuild their civilization in secret, hell, her ancestors had forged Kaas City itself so long ago. So much so that even today, the Markov family was among the nobility. Or at least, they had been, before her. She knew who her parents had been, her grandparents, great grandparents, but...to go so far back, she had no clue of their names, who they were...so it was entirely possible that this Sorin Markov was responsible for her lineage.

It wasn't just the surname, either. She had this...spark. He did too, Jace had just called him one of the oldest ones. The name matched, this hidden power made more sense now, and the timeline could easily line up with someone ancient. Her hand covered her mouth as she slowly came to believe it was more than just simply "possible", or so she began to hope, at least. "Could it truly be? I'm...not the last one?" Her voice was scarcely more than a whisper. Tera reached out, pulling a chair to her so she could sit down to process this.

Her eyes shifted back and forth rapidly, those grey irises glancing at everybody, the Sith clearly lost in deep thought for several seconds before she seemed to make up her mind. "You know, among the Sith...it's common to be guarded. Kriff, it's advised. So many of them, of us, care for nothing but their own personal ambitions. They're constantly looking for opportunity to advance themselves, and take out rivals in the process. They probably spend more time fighting each other than their shared enemy...and I know none of that means anything to you all, but it's a funny thing. If I showed weakness like this, emotional vulnerability or anything close to it, too many of them would stab me in the back. So I had to be guarded among my own people, but with strangers I can be so...open." She struggled to even say the word.



"There are even many who follow me as a leader back home that I can't share things like this with, but you all...you're not from my home. You're not rivals or dangers I have to be concerned with, or...well, the point is I hope you don't mind me talking too much about a stranger's past while we're just sitting here. My past. I imagine some of you won't care much, considering we've only just met, and I understand that...but I shall share this regardless. You see, the thing is...I'm the last of my family, or I thought I was before here, now. Back home, on my world, there was this individual. He saved us from war, constructed a great hidden civilization, led us through centuries of prosperity...my people, our culture looked up to him as our god emperor. For everything that he had done for us. That's what I grew up with, and I bought into it as much as anyone. So when the time came that I, a young warrior, was granted the title of Emperor's Wrath, his enforcer, his right hand for all intents and purposes...I thought it was the highest honor of my life. I was serving our greatest lord more than anybody else in the whole of the empire." She let out a painful, regretful sigh.

"It was years before I learned he didn't care one damn bit about us. We were his people, and he didn't care. He would have gladly devoured us all of life to fuel his own. We were simply a means to an end. A tool to be discarded. When I discovered that truth, that he already had the intention to attempt to kill us all, I turned against him. I stopped his mad plan. He didn't like that. His servants, they slaughtered my parents. Our manor, razed, the rest of my family massacred, but he didn't stop there." She pressed a hand against her forehead, still surprised she was sharing this much with strangers. "My former Emperor, he took my wife."

She rubbed her hands together in uneasiness. "She was beautiful, and brilliant, and he knew how much I loved her...so he used her against me. He...hollowed out her mind, took possession of her body, used her form to fight against me. He did real harm, to me, to people who had nothing to do with it, and eventually I had to accept that I couldn't reach her. That she was gone, so I had to do it. I killed my wife." Her voice carried a lot of pain, and her head fell as she did everything she could to keep her eyes from tearing up. Even now it was difficult to tell if she actually meant those words, or if she was still trying to convince herself of the necessity of what she had done.

"My family was gone. My love too. He got what he wanted, in punishing me for turning against him. I felt like I had nothing. I...isolated myself. Days, weeks went by in a blur. I got low. I contemplated...ending it. That's when she visited me, her spirit, reaching out to me with one last message. She told me, among other things, that she wouldn't let me throw my life away on a memory of what was, or even on a dream of what might have been. She inspired me, in that way only she could." Tera exhaled slowly. "So I did what I could, took all my rage, my hate, everything and aimed it at him. I wasn't going to be satisfied until I killed my former emperor, painfully. Excruciatingly. I wanted him to hurt as much as he'd hurt me. I devoted my existence to destroying him. I hated him with such raw emotion that went beyond any I'd ever felt before. I vowed I would not be his wrath, but his executioner. More than that, for her, I vowed to be better. He'd made the galaxy worse off for his presence, and now I aimed to make it better off for mine." Her grey eyes were lit ablaze with hatred even simply telling the story.

"It took a long time, but I did it. It took all my power, and all the power of my allies, but I achieved it. I obliterated him. That's actually the moment when this spark went off, and I ended up here. My elation, the sheer triumph and satisfaction I felt seeing the fear in his eyes as we all fought against him together, and I struck him down...it was the strongest, the best I've ever felt. But even all that didn't change the fact that I was...alone, in a sense. The last of the Markovs, by blood or by marriage." She lifted her head up to stare down Jace.



"But now I have this information, you're telling me there's a chance I'm not actually the last of my family, and that changes everything for me. Whatever kind of man he is, whatever's he's done, if there's even the slightest chance we actually share blood...yes, I'm willing to stay, learn what it is necessary to have a grasp on...pure mana. I have to meet this man." If it took days, or weeks, or however long to get her bearings on these new abilities...so be it. In different circumstances, she'd be wondering what color or colors of mana she might be attuned to...but as of now, other questions dominated her thoughts.

"...holy jeez...." Cinder finally spoke up after hearing all that. It wasn't the most eloquent thing to say but that's about all she could say. She'd had a hard time, in her past, but that story...sheesh. She sat in silence before she turned to Jace and questioned him. "So, like....how many colors are there in the, uh, mana spectrum?" She stifled a laugh at how ridiculous those last two words sounded together, cause it didn't seem appropriate after all that, but she couldn't mask the smile.

Tera briefly glanced around the room once more, before she just abruptly stood and at last, made good on her intent to leave the room, slowly walking right out. At least for now. They were going to be spending days together, after all, learning all these things. She had no idea of the layout of the city, but she didn't care. She just wanted to find some place quiet, maybe by a river or somewhere with a good view of nature to just sit down by and contemplate.​

There would have been a few moments of surprised silence around the table, except Wednesday cut in almost immediately.

"Save it for your autobiography, no one asked."

"Wednesday, don't-" corrin started to snap

"shush. Go grab her so she doesn't wander off too far. Blue man, continue." The dragon gave her a sour look, but nonetheless stepped off after Tera through the door way. "Tera, wait up, we shouldn't get separated!"

Wednesday took a moment to watch her go before turning back to Jace. "What the child asked. Thats actually useful information."

Jace tilted his head at Wednesday. "I was hoping you would be the one to show them all this. Even if you're new to planeswalking, you clearly know how to spin mana into spells."

It was hard to tell if there was a shift in her expression, but after a few seconds of staring Wednesday replied. "Are you stupid?"

"...It wasn't you then" Jace replied, thoughtful.

"I think if you and miss laser sword back there could split the difference between your under sharing and her over sharing, this would all be a much smoother conversation. What wasn't me?" Wednesday asked.

"Your mind is warded." He answered "By someone with a very strong connection to white mana. An extremely practiced mage."

"Hrm."

"You didn't know" Jace guessed "Do you have any idea who it could be?"

"I have my theories."

"Now who's undersharing?"

"No one anyone of you would know." Wednesday replied with a thin smile. "Needless to say though, they're not around to play professor."

"..." Jace narrowed his eyes at the girl for a moment, before he huffed. "Fine then, there's someone else who owes me a favor. I'll have them run you over the basics, give you a short boot camp as it were. They can't leave Ravnica for a while anyways."

 

[MyrtenRose]

There would have been a few moments of surprised silence around the table, except Wednesday cut in almost immediately.

"Save it for your autobiography, no one asked."

"Wednesday, don't-" corrin started to snap

"shush. Go grab her so she doesn't wander off too far. Blue man, continue." The dragon gave her a sour look, but nonetheless stepped off after Tera through the door way. "Tera, wait up, we shouldn't get separated!"

That sharp comment got a small smirk out of Tera, if a hidden one given she had her back to them all. The girl was truly a bold one, not many spoke to Sith in such a manner. None that wanted to keep breathing, at any rate. There were plenty of her fellow lords who would have slain her for that, or at the very least, removed her tongue, but she was just amused by the commentary. Actually, that was an indeed an intriguing thought. An autobiography on the holonet...briefly, she pondered how much such a writing would have sold for on there, moreso if she went to one of her more dramatic allies to help embellish things. To work their magic on it. She chuckled inwardly at the mental picture of it, before briefly glancing back over her shoulder and then turning around fully to address Corrin without breaking stride. "It will be alright, Corrin." She reassured as she walked backwards.

"I won't lose track of them, and we'll be here for days yet to learn what we need to know. Anything I miss now, I shall pick up later." She hesitated, just enough for it to be noticed. "Besides, I needed a moment or two to think...in a quieter, more tranquil place, if I can find one. You're welcome to join, if you wish." ​

Wednesday took a moment to watch her go before turning back to Jace. "What the child asked. Thats actually useful information."

Jace tilted his head at Wednesday. "I was hoping you would be the one to show them all this. Even if you're new to planeswalking, you clearly know how to spin mana into spells."

It was hard to tell if there was a shift in her expression, but after a few seconds of staring Wednesday replied. "Are you stupid?"

"...It wasn't you then" Jace replied, thoughtful.

"I think if you and miss laser sword back there could split the difference between your under sharing and her over sharing, this would all be a much smoother conversation. What wasn't me?" Wednesday asked.

"Your mind is warded." He answered "By someone with a very strong connection to white mana. An extremely practiced mage."

"Hrm."

"You didn't know" Jace guessed "Do you have any idea who it could be?"

"I have my theories."

"Now who's undersharing?"

"No one anyone of you would know." Wednesday replied with a thin smile. "Needless to say though, they're not around to play professor."

"..." Jace narrowed his eyes at the girl for a moment, before he huffed. "Fine then, there's someone else who owes me a favor. I'll have them run you over the basics, give you a short boot camp as it were. They can't leave Ravnica for a while anyways."

"Aheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeem, this "child" has a name, you know." She remarked. "Speaking of, hey all I'm Cinder!" She greeted with a wave and immediately fell silent after, glancing back and forth between the goth girl and the blue wizard as the two spoke. Somebody had secrets it seemed, but she wasn't gonna pry, especially given how the girl seemed liable to bite her head off for even attempting to do so. "Boot camp, huh? So, what magics do you guys have here, like what can you do with them? Control the elements? Fly? Oh oh, do you have like, flashlight spells?"​

 

[MidwayLives]

'Nice to meet you Zeke |am I doing this right? Its kind like dragonspeak but to one person I wonder| my name's corrin. if you're here then I'm guessing you're |is it a guy or a girl? Its voice kinda sounds masculine? Except its not a voice its thinking-| also a new planeswalker, right?'

She wasn't very good at it

Zeke blinked.

<"Dragonspeak...? Are you but a Mutation-type? No..."> Zeke shook his head. <"Forgive me. I imagine you're not from my 'plane' is it? You likely have no idea of what I speak. I refer to this method of communication as 'thought-speak.' Had I the time and energy, I'd make a glamour in which to speak to you in a manner you might find more comfortable but..."> He glanced down at his bevy of injuries. <"I still need time, I'm afraid."> At the inquiry that Corrin likely hadn't intended for him to 'hear', Zeke's eyes turned up and he 'smiled' at Corrin.

<"I'm told by my siblings that my voice carries a distinct accent to it. Though I've lived apart from my homeland of France for decades, I find some solace in that it'll always remain a part of how I carry myself. As for my gender..."> Zeke leaned back and crossed a leg over the other. <"My kind live for hundreds of years. We can shift our bodies however we please. Give ourselves whatever we'd like. Longer hair, a seductive curvature, anything you might think of or desire. To confirm to one identity or another is a question of interest more than a guarantee. I suppose I identify as a male. My parents desired a boy, my siblings an older brother. So it's the role I've played...."> Zeke's eyes turned down towards the floor. <"....Poorly at at that, I suppose.">

<"...Ah, yes. I arrived in this plane, as it were on the cusp of death. Even now with whatever strange new abilities my status may have granted me..."> Corrin could see the fleshy interior inside Zeke's chest cavity through the viewable ice frozen across his chest. The bout of white flame burning within. <"...If I were to ever lose it. I fear I'd not make it another step.">

"But now I have this information, you're telling me there's a chance I'm not actually the last of my family, and that changes everything for me. Whatever kind of man he is, whatever's he's done, if there's even the slightest chance we actually share blood...yes, I'm willing to stay, learn what it is necessary to have a grasp on...pure mana. I have to meet this man." If it took days, or weeks, or however long to get her bearings on these new abilities...so be it. In different circumstances, she'd be wondering what color or colors of mana she might be attuned to...but as of now, other questions dominated her thoughts.

Zeke raised his burned hand and attempted to close it into a fist. He got about halfway before the pain became too much. His eyes wincing as he pulled his uninjured fingers back from his palm, the remaining two were too damaged to do little more than give the slightest of twitches.

He'd never heard of a 'sith' or much of what Tera spoke.

But he understood the importance of family. To the point that he'd been more than willing to die if it gave his remaining siblings a chance to flee, to run and be free in a world that saw to oppress them or treat them as human weapons.

Ink grit his teeth and laid back down on the floor, folding his arms behind his head. He had deigned to ignore most of Tera's speech. On one hand he was still pissy about being held around like a disobedient kitten and on the other?

"fuck family..." Ink growled, under his breath, minature bubbles rolling across his skin and popping, as though his body itself was rebelling at the mere thought of doing something for 'family.' What a total crock it all was. His own folks hadn't wanted him, he got pulled from the only halfway decent substitute family after the government thought he'd been getting 'too close.' and when he'd been thinking that he'd finally been doing all right...his own brothers turned on him and were more than fine with 86ing him and tossing him out like yesterday's trash.

"Save it for your autobiography, no one asked."

Ink huffed and thumbed over to Wednesday.

She had the right idea.

Zeke slumped back in his seat. He'd been that cold once. Uncaring of what the others around him thought.

He supposed that he would have always been like that. Had he not formed a bond with the other children who'd been pulled from their homes, their countries, to try and give America a secret advantage in Gifted weaponry.

"..." Jace narrowed his eyes at the girl for a moment, before he huffed. "Fine then, there's someone else who owes me a favor. I'll have them run you over the basics, give you a short boot camp as it were. They can't leave Ravnica for a while anyways."

"For Bob's sake, then let's get goin already! Make whatever weird magic phone calls you gotta and let's get the show on the road!!" Ink snarled, his skin bubbling and boiling.

"Speaking of, hey all I'm Cinder!"

Both brothers winced.

What an unfortunate name.

 

[Schnee Corp Lawyer]

<"Dragonspeak...? Are you but a Mutation-type? No..."> Zeke shook his head. <"Forgive me. I imagine you're not from my 'plane' is it? You likely have no idea of what I speak. I refer to this method of communication as 'thought-speak.' Had I the time and energy, I'd make a glamour in which to speak to you in a manner you might find more comfortable but..."> He glanced down at his bevy of injuries. <"I still need time, I'm afraid."> At the inquiry that Corrin likely hadn't intended for him to 'hear', Zeke's eyes turned up and he 'smiled' at Corrin.

Corrin tried to listen to Zeke’s thoughts and Tera talking at the same time and then Jace but she only marginally succeeded, and before she could even formulate a response she’d gone after Tera with a haphazard wave for her mental conversation in response.

. "It will be alright, Corrin." She reassured as she walked backwards.

"I won't lose track of them, and we'll be here for days yet to learn what we need to know. Anything I miss now, I shall pick up later." She hesitated, just enough for it to be noticed. "Besides, I needed a moment or two to think...in a quieter, more tranquil place, if I can find one. You're welcome to join, if you wish."

Corrin frowned as she slowed her steps, but the stop was brief before she hurried to catch up. “Are you sure? What if they leave? I get it, believe me I do, but this city’s a lot bigger than any I’ve ever been in, I just… don’t want us to get separated.”

"Aheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeem, this "child" has a name, you know." She remarked. "Speaking of, hey all I'm Cinder!" She greeted with a wave and immediately fell silent after, glancing back and forth between the goth girl and the blue wizard as the two spoke. Somebody had secrets it seemed, but she wasn't gonna pry, especially given how the girl seemed liable to bite her head off for even attempting to do so. "Boot camp, huh? So, what magics do you guys have here, like what can you do with them? Control the elements? Fly? Oh oh, do you have like, flashlight spells?"

“No one asked” Wednesday pointed out while Cinder was still mid-sentence. She rolled her eyes as the child kept talking, but at least this time it was something she also wanted to know.

"For Bob's sake, then let's get goin already! Make whatever weird magic phone calls you gotta and let's get the show on the road!!" Ink snarled, his skin bubbling and boiling.

“I’m already talking to him.” Jace answered blithely before his head tilted Cinder’s way.

“The length of answer that requires is why I can’t take the time I’d teach you myself; the most basic answer I can give is magic can do, well, anything really. It all depends on what mana you can attune to. And- one moment.” He suddenly cut off, his face scrunching up as he looked towards the ceiling in with concentration.

“Bad connection?” Wednesday guessed idly

“You have telepaths back home as well?” Jace asked, not looking down

“Phones” Wednesday replied.

“The same world as he?” Jace asked.

“Decidedly not”

Jace let that conversation go after that, focusing on whatever negotiation was going on from within his own mind. The silence stretched on for a minute, before he grunted in pain as his eyes suddenly began to spew black smoke, his back arching involuntarily. Even Wednesday’s eyes widened, but before anyone could respond his hand shot out to warn them back, and a few moments later the smoke dissipated as he slumped back into the chair.

“...okay. Deal made.”

“I admit. I’m a bit more interested than I was to meet this teacher.”

“He’s usually harmless” Jace assuaged as he rubbed at his temple with both hands.

“Sure. That looked entirely pleasant.” Wednesday answered, a bit of genuine amusement touching her eyes “If you’re making payments on behalf of us, that seems to imply you want something in return. Bold assumption.”

“You’re an anomaly, as I said. My options are to help you or treat you as a threat; ignoring you isn’t on the list” Jace answered. “He’s got an estate in the city; you’ll meet him there, he’ll spend a week or two running you through the basics, and then he’ll take you to Innistrad”

“How do we know he’ll keep your bargain?”

“I’m usually harmless too” Jace answered, his smile a bit grim.

 

[MyrtenRose]

Corrin frowned as she slowed her steps, but the stop was brief before she hurried to catch up. “Are you sure? What if they leave? I get it, believe me I do, but this city’s a lot bigger than any I’ve ever been in, I just… don’t want us to get separated.”

"Well, for starters I do not believe they would do that. Not without me, considering where we're going...who we're supposed to be going to." Part of her was still simply trying to wrap her mind around that possibility, that her progenitor was from a realm beyond her galaxy. Mind-blowing, to say the least. "More than that, the Force is with me. I can sense them. I'll know where they are. Trust me, I don't see getting separated and lost to be in my future, no matter how big the city is." She cocked her head to the side. "Though, I will agree with you, it is a rather big city. A sight to behold, I must admit. I've been all over my galaxy, to so many worlds I've lost count and it is rare to see a city quite like this." Tera glanced from side to side just taking it all in before her gaze settled back on Corrin.

"How are you doing, though? I mean, you're walking, so that's a good sign everything went superbly when the kid patched you up, but that was a hell of a hit you took. You don't have any lingering pain at all?" ​

“No one asked” Wednesday pointed out while Cinder was still mid-sentence. She rolled her eyes as the child kept talking, but at least this time it was something she also wanted to know.

"I'm not afraid to take on people three times my size, so you better believe I will punch someone a little smaller than me. I suggest you keep that in mind before you run your mouth again." Cinder spat back.​

“The length of answer that requires is why I can’t take the time I’d teach you myself; the most basic answer I can give is magic can do, well, anything really. It all depends on what mana you can attune to. And- one moment.” He suddenly cut off, his face scrunching up as he looked towards the ceiling in with concentration.

"......anything at all....." Her annoyed with Wednesday expression shifted into a small curious smile as she pondered the possibilities...magic. Not aura, semblances, real magic, like the maidens but...to an even greater degree from the sounds of it. If her imagination was the limit...this would be a really fun playground!​

Jace let that conversation go after that, focusing on whatever negotiation was going on from within his own mind. The silence stretched on for a minute, before he grunted in pain as his eyes suddenly began to spew black smoke, his back arching involuntarily. Even Wednesday’s eyes widened, but before anyone could respond his hand shot out to warn them back, and a few moments later the smoke dissipated as he slumped back into the chair.

“...okay. Deal made.”

“I admit. I’m a bit more interested than I was to meet this teacher.”

“He’s usually harmless” Jace assuaged as he rubbed at his temple with both hands.

“Sure. That looked entirely pleasant.” Wednesday answered, a bit of genuine amusement touching her eyes “If you’re making payments on behalf of us, that seems to imply you want something in return. Bold assumption.”

“You’re an anomaly, as I said. My options are to help you or treat you as a threat; ignoring you isn’t on the list” Jace answered. “He’s got an estate in the city; you’ll meet him there, he’ll spend a week or two running you through the basics, and then he’ll take you to Innistrad”

“How do we know he’ll keep your bargain?”

“I’m usually harmless too” Jace answered, his smile a bit grim.

"...No kidding." She agreed with Wednesday on that much, that totally looked pleasant. She had not winced at the sight of that, definitely noooot. But an excited look swiftly replaced it. "Guys, guys! If we're going to learn magic, like...another power on top of the powers some of us may or may not already have, that's like....I mean, it makes us like superheroes! Oh my gosh this is like our origin story! We come together in a strange way, fight through hordes of foes on the way here, seeking to get a grip on our new abilities...it's so very like some of the comics I used to read when...when I got a chance to. OH! We should give ourselves like superhero names!"​

 

[Schnee Corp Lawyer]

"Well, for starters I do not believe they would do that. Not without me, considering where we're going...who we're supposed to be going to." Part of her was still simply trying to wrap her mind around that possibility, that her progenitor was from a realm beyond her galaxy. Mind-blowing, to say the least. "More than that, the Force is with me. I can sense them. I'll know where they are. Trust me, I don't see getting separated and lost to be in my future, no matter how big the city is." She cocked her head to the side. "Though, I will agree with you, it is a rather big city. A sight to behold, I must admit. I've been all over my galaxy, to so many worlds I've lost count and it is rare to see a city quite like this." Tera glanced from side to side just taking it all in before her gaze settled back on Corrin.

"How are you doing, though? I mean, you're walking, so that's a good sign everything went superbly when the kid patched you up, but that was a hell of a hit you took. You don't have any lingering pain at all?"

Tera found that to be only... sort of true, now that she thought on it.

In her core, the force was there, as ever present as it had ever been, staunch ally and tempting antagonist. Yet while she could still sense the minds of her erstwhile partners below with relative ease, they were the tiniest bit dimmer than they'd been than when they were next to her. It was almost as if the Force was emanating from her, rather than through. A power that held sway over an entire galaxy, perhaps universe, dropped into one where it held no sway, where Tera was its lone torch, a single star in an otherwise endless back of its formerly omniscient presence.

If that affected Tera at all, Corrin didn't catch it at first as she glanced to the side with a small, irritated huff as she crossed her arms.

"She healed me? really? I'm fine, everything's all in working order, but I'm a little surprised that a cleric acts like... that."

Wednesday couldn't be farther from her two younger sisters, both experts in the art of healing magic themselves, than if... well than if she was an entire dimension away from them.

"I'm not afraid to take on people three times my size, so you better believe I will punch someone a little smaller than me. I suggest you keep that in mind before you run your mouth again." Cinder spat back.​

"Promise?" Wednesday asked in a tone that was uncomfortably encouraging, unwittingly playing into the conversation taking place above.

"...No kidding." She agreed with Wednesday on that much, that totally looked pleasant. She had not winced at the sight of that, definitely noooot. But an excited look swiftly replaced it. "Guys, guys! If we're going to learn magic, like...another power on top of the powers some of us may or may not already have, that's like....I mean, it makes us like superheroes! Oh my gosh this is like our origin story! We come together in a strange way, fight through hordes of foes on the way here, seeking to get a grip on our new abilities...it's so very like some of the comics I used to read when...when I got a chance to. OH! We should give ourselves like superhero names!"​

"..."

Wednesday responded to that with a look that bordered on disturbed that held for a moment before she turned to Jace.

"The faster you can give us that address, the better."

"The rest of them already know it." Jace answered, and indeed, the others could discern an image drifting into their minds, and an innate sense of how to get to it, even Corrin and Tera above, the dragon jolting suddenly at the unwanted addition to her thoughts. Wednesday affixed him with a frown.

"I take it you can't get past the wards."

"didn't even try. Too dangerous. Guess you'll just have to follow them."

Her eyes narrowed at the idea of being so beholden to a group she was so far not impressed with. "Or I could wash my hands of this entirely and figure out my own way home."

Jace shrugged. "Sure. Not my problem. Besides, you seem like the type who loves leaving mysteries unsolved."

Wednesday didn't answer, though if looks could kill this would already be a funeral.

 

[MidwayLives]

Corrin tried to listen to Zeke’s thoughts and Tera talking at the same time and then Jace but she only marginally succeeded, and before she could even formulate a response she’d gone after Tera with a haphazard wave for her mental conversation in response.

Zeke waved back without a sign of annoyance present. They'd talk again, he was sure.

“I’m already talking to him.” Jace answered blithely before his head tilted Cinder’s way.

Ink snorted in mild disgust.

"Mentals...."

Zeke was a touch more understanding.

<"I appreciate what little aid you can offer, Monsieur Jace.">

“You’re an anomaly, as I said. My options are to help you or treat you as a threat; ignoring you isn’t on the list” Jace answered. “He’s got an estate in the city; you’ll meet him there, he’ll spend a week or two running you through the basics, and then he’ll take you to Innistrad”

“How do we know he’ll keep your bargain?”

“I’m usually harmless too” Jace answered, his smile a bit grim.

Ink ran his snake-like purple tongue over the edges of his fangs.

"Great. Glad you managed to be the magic equivalent of the Yellow Pages. Thanks for all the help."

Ink grumbled as he readjusted his jacket, looked over his shoulder at the hole Corrin had left, huffed, and stomped in the direction of Corrin and Tera.

"...No kidding." She agreed with Wednesday on that much, that totally looked pleasant. She had not winced at the sight of that, definitely noooot. But an excited look swiftly replaced it. "Guys, guys! If we're going to learn magic, like...another power on top of the powers some of us may or may not already have, that's like....I mean, it makes us like superheroes! Oh my gosh this is like our origin story! We come together in a strange way, fight through hordes of foes on the way here, seeking to get a grip on our new abilities...it's so very like some of the comics I used to read when...when I got a chance to. OH! We should give ourselves like superhero names!"

Ink stopped and Zeke glanced over at Cinder.

Both looked....forlorn, but for differing reasons.

Was hard to tell a normal's age sometime. While Ink was more or less bound to a general lifespan given he was only half-elemental, a full blooded one like Zeke would live twice a regular person's lifespan. But this girl couldn't have been older than what? Fourteen? Fifteen at best? The same age as...

Ink frowned and balled his left hand up into a fist, the other gripping tightly onto the doorframe.

The child that'd been there when Ink fought with the Crusaders. Her parents hadn't done anything wrong but just so happen to raise a family on the street where the Gifted fought. On behalf of the US government, Ink after subduing 2 out of the 4 'terrorists', approached the family's house. The girl's parents were frightened by his ghoulish appearance but were somewhat relieved when he explained he was an agent of the government.

What they didn't know was that it meant they had to die.

No body could be allowed to witness signs of Gifted activity.

Ink ripped them limb from limb all while the girl had been powerless to stop him. He'd torn through dozens of families, hundreds of normals before. This was absolutely no different to him. He would have taken out the child as well but the Crusaders protected her. As though they were the good guys and he was the monster. Just like everyone kept telling him. That he'd always think to himself. Ink flared his nostrils and tucked his hands in the pockets of his jeans and slouched out the doorway. Red drops of blood stained the floor from where he'd clenched his hand too tightly.

Zeke didn't get up or leave. He'd met the child that Ink had traumatized. She wanted absolutely nothing to do with Zeke's attempts to rescue her and she horrified him when she revealed the extent of what Ink had done to her, her parents, and how he'd thought nothing of it. All this misery spreading it's fingers across centuries of human history. Just to keep a secret that everyone in power already knew.

It was what made Zeke act. To try and get his brother to see reason. To stop seeing normals as the enemy.

Before he had to....

Stop him. Permanently.

Cupping a hand over where his mouth would be if he had one, Zeke spread a thought across to everyone still in the room.

<"..As delightful an idea as that is, I think it best we hurry along to where we're needed.">

The rest of them already know it." Jace answered, and indeed, the others could discern an image drifting into their minds, and an innate sense of how to get to it, even Corrin and Tera above, the dragon jolting suddenly at the unwanted addition to her thoughts. Wednesday affixed him with a frown.

"I take it you can't get past the wards."

"didn't even try. Too dangerous. Guess you'll just have to follow them."

Her eyes narrowed at the idea of being so beholden to a group she was so far not impressed with. "Or I could wash my hands of this entirely and figure out my own way home."

Jace shrugged. "Sure. Not my problem. Besides, you seem like the type who loves leaving mysteries unsolved."

Wednesday didn't answer, though if looks could kill this would already be a funeral.

Ink snarled and shook his head as though he were a wet dog shaking it's coat.

"Grrr!!!!"

Damned mentals! Sticking their who knows whats in his thoughts! A map or something would have been just fine!

Zeke took it without complaint and nodded as he finally rose from his seat.

<"Thank you again.">

 

[MyrtenRose]

Tera found that to be only... sort of true, now that she thought on it.

In her core, the force was there, as ever present as it had ever been, staunch ally and tempting antagonist. Yet while she could still sense the minds of her erstwhile partners below with relative ease, they were the tiniest bit dimmer than they'd been than when they were next to her. It was almost as if the Force was emanating from her, rather than through. A power that held sway over an entire galaxy, perhaps universe, dropped into one where it held no sway, where Tera was its lone torch, a single star in an otherwise endless back of its formerly omniscient presence.

If that affected Tera at all, Corrin didn't catch it at first as she glanced to the side with a small, irritated huff as she crossed her arms.

"She healed me? really? I'm fine, everything's all in working order, but I'm a little surprised that a cleric acts like... that."

Wednesday couldn't be farther from her two younger sisters, both experts in the art of healing magic themselves, than if... well than if she was an entire dimension away from them.

Tera chuckled. "She's something, that's for sure, but yes. I tried to do it first, test out how well I've picked up on a new technique and it didn't work out...my abilities have been hit or miss here. It's been rather aggravating, not going to lie, though I think I'm beginning to understand why." Now that she wasn't fighting, adrenaline high and mind concentrated on potential threats or on the way to meet an expert and get answers to some questions burning in her head, it was easier for her to pick up on how different the Force felt here. She frowned but didn't elaborate, instead continuing on with: "After I failed, she stepped up...or something inside her did, at least. It seemed to me like she had been possessed."​

"Promise?" Wednesday asked in a tone that was uncomfortably encouraging, unwittingly playing into the conversation taking place above.

"Count. On. It." She said through gritted teeth.​

"..."

Wednesday responded to that with a look that bordered on disturbed that held for a moment before she turned to Jace.

"What?? It's a good idea--"​

Cupping a hand over where his mouth would be if he had one, Zeke spread a thought across to everyone still in the room.

<"..As delightful an idea as that is, I think it best we hurry along to where we're needed.">

"...Oh you guys are no fun." She crossed her arms and pouted, holding that expression for a while as she continued to listen to the others.​

"The faster you can give us that address, the better."

"The rest of them already know it." Jace answered, and indeed, the others could discern an image drifting into their minds, and an innate sense of how to get to it, even Corrin and Tera above, the dragon jolting suddenly at the unwanted addition to her thoughts. Wednesday affixed him with a frown.

"I take it you can't get past the wards."

"didn't even try. Too dangerous. Guess you'll just have to follow them."

Her eyes narrowed at the idea of being so beholden to a group she was so far not impressed with. "Or I could wash my hands of this entirely and figure out my own way home."

Jace shrugged. "Sure. Not my problem. Besides, you seem like the type who loves leaving mysteries unsolved."

Wednesday didn't answer, though if looks could kill this would already be a funeral.

Whoa, that's kind of...freaky. Cinder couldn't help but think that as a foreign image just...emerged in her mind, and for lack of a better word, she could just feel how to get there. Freaky but she kinda liked it. That is such a cool power! This guy could be like, Professor Mentallo! .........Okay, as superhero names go, that isn't the best. Even she had to admit that, but it was the first to come to her after she felt that. Though she didn't put any more thought into choosing one for him, instead choosing to stick her tongue out towards Wednesday when it was revealed the mean goth chick would have to follow her and the others if she wanted to get anywhere.​

Ink snarled and shook his head as though he were a wet dog shaking it's coat.

"Grrr!!!!"

Damned mentals! Sticking their who knows whats in his thoughts! A map or something would have been just fine!

"...What's with him?" ​

"The rest of them already know it." Jace answered, and indeed, the others could discern an image drifting into their minds, and an innate sense of how to get to it, even Corrin and Tera above, the dragon jolting suddenly at the unwanted addition to her thoughts.

"Ha." Tera chuckled again, taking that jolt as a sign that Corrin also felt what she had just experienced. "Well now I'm doubly sure we won't get separated. Nothing to worry about." She continued to walk, winding her way through the streets, before gesturing out to a clearing overlooking a river. "I think I found a suitable place, just over there. Seems quiet enough for me." Even as she said it, though, part of her mind was reaching out with her own mental prowess, reaching out to Jace and knocking on the figurative wall that blocked him off from her. If we're exchanging information like that, there is one more thing I want to know, if you're willing to answer. ​

 

[Indolent]

"....."



"N-no, that's not possib--" She didn't even manage to get the word out completely before she realized it was an untrue statement. It was entirely possible. Her family lineage went back more than a millennia, with them being among the Sith that rediscovered Dromund Kaas alongside Vitiate. After the Great Hyperspace war, they helped rebuild their civilization in secret, hell, her ancestors had forged Kaas City itself so long ago. So much so that even today, the Markov family was among the nobility. Or at least, they had been, before her. She knew who her parents had been, her grandparents, great grandparents, but...to go so far back, she had no clue of their names, who they were...so it was entirely possible that this Sorin Markov was responsible for her lineage.

It wasn't just the surname, either. She had this...spark. He did too, Jace had just called him one of the oldest ones. The name matched, this hidden power made more sense now, and the timeline could easily line up with someone ancient. Her hand covered her mouth as she slowly came to believe it was more than just simply "possible", or so she began to hope, at least. "Could it truly be? I'm...not the last one?" Her voice was scarcely more than a whisper. Tera reached out, pulling a chair to her so she could sit down to process this.

Her eyes shifted back and forth rapidly, those grey irises glancing at everybody, the Sith clearly lost in deep thought for several seconds before she seemed to make up her mind. "You know, among the Sith...it's common to be guarded. Kriff, it's advised. So many of them, of us, care for nothing but their own personal ambitions. They're constantly looking for opportunity to advance themselves, and take out rivals in the process. They probably spend more time fighting each other than their shared enemy...and I know none of that means anything to you all, but it's a funny thing. If I showed weakness like this, emotional vulnerability or anything close to it, too many of them would stab me in the back. So I had to be guarded among my own people, but with strangers I can be so...open." She struggled to even say the word.



"There are even many who follow me as a leader back home that I can't share things like this with, but you all...you're not from my home. You're not rivals or dangers I have to be concerned with, or...well, the point is I hope you don't mind me talking too much about a stranger's past while we're just sitting here. My past. I imagine some of you won't care much, considering we've only just met, and I understand that...but I shall share this regardless. You see, the thing is...I'm the last of my family, or I thought I was before here, now. Back home, on my world, there was this individual. He saved us from war, constructed a great hidden civilization, led us through centuries of prosperity...my people, our culture looked up to him as our god emperor. For everything that he had done for us. That's what I grew up with, and I bought into it as much as anyone. So when the time came that I, a young warrior, was granted the title of Emperor's Wrath, his enforcer, his right hand for all intents and purposes...I thought it was the highest honor of my life. I was serving our greatest lord more than anybody else in the whole of the empire." She let out a painful, regretful sigh.

"It was years before I learned he didn't care one damn bit about us. We were his people, and he didn't care. He would have gladly devoured us all of life to fuel his own. We were simply a means to an end. A tool to be discarded. When I discovered that truth, that he already had the intention to attempt to kill us all, I turned against him. I stopped his mad plan. He didn't like that. His servants, they slaughtered my parents. Our manor, razed, the rest of my family massacred, but he didn't stop there." She pressed a hand against her forehead, still surprised she was sharing this much with strangers. "My former Emperor, he took my wife."

She rubbed her hands together in uneasiness. "She was beautiful, and brilliant, and he knew how much I loved her...so he used her against me. He...hollowed out her mind, took possession of her body, used her form to fight against me. He did real harm, to me, to people who had nothing to do with it, and eventually I had to accept that I couldn't reach her. That she was gone, so I had to do it. I killed my wife." Her voice carried a lot of pain, and her head fell as she did everything she could to keep her eyes from tearing up. Even now it was difficult to tell if she actually meant those words, or if she was still trying to convince herself of the necessity of what she had done.

"My family was gone. My love too. He got what he wanted, in punishing me for turning against him. I felt like I had nothing. I...isolated myself. Days, weeks went by in a blur. I got low. I contemplated...ending it. That's when she visited me, her spirit, reaching out to me with one last message. She told me, among other things, that she wouldn't let me throw my life away on a memory of what was, or even on a dream of what might have been. She inspired me, in that way only she could." Tera exhaled slowly. "So I did what I could, took all my rage, my hate, everything and aimed it at him. I wasn't going to be satisfied until I killed my former emperor, painfully. Excruciatingly. I wanted him to hurt as much as he'd hurt me. I devoted my existence to destroying him. I hated him with such raw emotion that went beyond any I'd ever felt before. I vowed I would not be his wrath, but his executioner. More than that, for her, I vowed to be better. He'd made the galaxy worse off for his presence, and now I aimed to make it better off for mine." Her grey eyes were lit ablaze with hatred even simply telling the story.

"It took a long time, but I did it. It took all my power, and all the power of my allies, but I achieved it. I obliterated him. That's actually the moment when this spark went off, and I ended up here. My elation, the sheer triumph and satisfaction I felt seeing the fear in his eyes as we all fought against him together, and I struck him down...it was the strongest, the best I've ever felt. But even all that didn't change the fact that I was...alone, in a sense. The last of the Markovs, by blood or by marriage." She lifted her head up to stare down Jace.



"But now I have this information, you're telling me there's a chance I'm not actually the last of my family, and that changes everything for me. Whatever kind of man he is, whatever's he's done, if there's even the slightest chance we actually share blood...yes, I'm willing to stay, learn what it is necessary to have a grasp on...pure mana. I have to meet this man." If it took days, or weeks, or however long to get her bearings on these new abilities...so be it. In different circumstances, she'd be wondering what color or colors of mana she might be attuned to...but as of now, other questions dominated her thoughts.

"...holy jeez...." Cinder finally spoke up after hearing all that. It wasn't the most eloquent thing to say but that's about all she could say. She'd had a hard time, in her past, but that story...sheesh. She sat in silence before she turned to Jace and questioned him. "So, like....how many colors are there in the, uh, mana spectrum?" She stifled a laugh at how ridiculous those last two words sounded together, cause it didn't seem appropriate after all that, but she couldn't mask the smile.

Tera briefly glanced around the room once more, before she just abruptly stood and at last, made good on her intent to leave the room, slowly walking right out. At least for now. They were going to be spending days together, after all, learning all these things. She had no idea of the layout of the city, but she didn't care. She just wanted to find some place quiet, maybe by a river or somewhere with a good view of nature to just sit down by and contemplate.​

"... I only seek passage home." That was literally his only addition, sans spilling out his entire life-story. The difference between them was he never had the impulse nor consideration to openly share like that. He was far too reserved... and perhaps, in a way, it was a flawed facet to the Greek god. It was difficult for him to embrace his humanity to that degree; at least Tera had been able to in her storied life which was something Kratos could appreciate.

Still, though the pangs of pain flared within his chest when she was forced to slay a loved one through the machinations of yet another malevolent God. One that pulled the strings behind the play that unfolded within her Galaxy for some time, it seemed like. The scale was grander and the players adorning its stage infinitely more numerous indubitably. But in the end, reduced to its most barest components.

It was ultimately the same, the utter absence of humanity in the maestros that otherwise would've averted unnecessary loss.

"Hmm."

That sharp comment got a small smirk out of Tera, if a hidden one given she had her back to them all. The girl was truly a bold one, not many spoke to Sith in such a manner. None that wanted to keep breathing, at any rate. There were plenty of her fellow lords who would have slain her for that, or at the very least, removed her tongue, but she was just amused by the commentary. Actually, that was an indeed an intriguing thought. An autobiography on the holonet...briefly, she pondered how much such a writing would have sold for on there, moreso if she went to one of her more dramatic allies to help embellish things. To work their magic on it. She chuckled inwardly at the mental picture of it, before briefly glancing back over her shoulder and then turning around fully to address Corrin without breaking stride. "It will be alright, Corrin." She reassured as she walked backwards.

"I won't lose track of them, and we'll be here for days yet to learn what we need to know. Anything I miss now, I shall pick up later." She hesitated, just enough for it to be noticed. "Besides, I needed a moment or two to think...in a quieter, more tranquil place, if I can find one. You're welcome to join, if you wish."

"Aheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeem, this "child" has a name, you know." She remarked. "Speaking of, hey all I'm Cinder!" She greeted with a wave and immediately fell silent after, glancing back and forth between the goth girl and the blue wizard as the two spoke. Somebody had secrets it seemed, but she wasn't gonna pry, especially given how the girl seemed liable to bite her head off for even attempting to do so. "Boot camp, huh? So, what magics do you guys have here, like what can you do with them? Control the elements? Fly? Oh oh, do you have like, flashlight spells?"​

"Girl, temper your enthusiasm. If you can." Kratos interrupted, noting she carried the same degree of inquisitiveness as his son. It was only bolstered by an unrelenting exuberance.

"I do not manipulate the elements nor fly. Nothing." ... "My axe does cold but that is all."

He wasn't sure why he humored her question before glancing towards Jace.

"Well, for starters I do not believe they would do that. Not without me, considering where we're going...who we're supposed to be going to." Part of her was still simply trying to wrap her mind around that possibility, that her progenitor was from a realm beyond her galaxy. Mind-blowing, to say the least. "More than that, the Force is with me. I can sense them. I'll know where they are. Trust me, I don't see getting separated and lost to be in my future, no matter how big the city is." She cocked her head to the side. "Though, I will agree with you, it is a rather big city. A sight to behold, I must admit. I've been all over my galaxy, to so many worlds I've lost count and it is rare to see a city quite like this." Tera glanced from side to side just taking it all in before her gaze settled back on Corrin.

"How are you doing, though? I mean, you're walking, so that's a good sign everything went superbly when the kid patched you up, but that was a hell of a hit you took. You don't have any lingering pain at all?"



"I'm not afraid to take on people three times my size, so you better believe I will punch someone a little smaller than me. I suggest you keep that in mind before you run your mouth again." Cinder spat back.



"......anything at all....." Her annoyed with Wednesday expression shifted into a small curious smile as she pondered the possibilities...magic. Not aura, semblances, real magic, like the maidens but...to an even greater degree from the sounds of it. If her imagination was the limit...this would be a really fun playground!



"...No kidding." She agreed with Wednesday on that much, that totally looked pleasant. She had not winced at the sight of that, definitely noooot. But an excited look swiftly replaced it. "Guys, guys! If we're going to learn magic, like...another power on top of the powers some of us may or may not already have, that's like....I mean, it makes us like superheroes! Oh my gosh this is like our origin story! We come together in a strange way, fight through hordes of foes on the way here, seeking to get a grip on our new abilities...it's so very like some of the comics I used to read when...when I got a chance to. OH! We should give ourselves like superhero names!"​

"If you are easily unsettled by words, you have a harsh road ahead of you in your training. Whatever it may be." Kratos remarked, seeing himself in her far too much.

It was getting extremely obnoxious meeting so many similar individuals to himself.

Return to hermit.

"No." He brooked no argument regarding the very idea. Even though he knew not the implications of a superhero, he understood the latter half of the word. Sillier yet was the proposal of a team, if that was what she was implying.

Tera found that to be only... sort of true, now that she thought on it.

In her core, the force was there, as ever present as it had ever been, staunch ally and tempting antagonist. Yet while she could still sense the minds of her erstwhile partners below with relative ease, they were the tiniest bit dimmer than they'd been than when they were next to her. It was almost as if the Force was emanating from her, rather than through. A power that held sway over an entire galaxy, perhaps universe, dropped into one where it held no sway, where Tera was its lone torch, a single star in an otherwise endless back of its formerly omniscient presence.

If that affected Tera at all, Corrin didn't catch it at first as she glanced to the side with a small, irritated huff as she crossed her arms.

"She healed me? really? I'm fine, everything's all in working order, but I'm a little surprised that a cleric acts like... that."

Wednesday couldn't be farther from her two younger sisters, both experts in the art of healing magic themselves, than if... well than if she was an entire dimension away from them.


"Promise?" Wednesday asked in a tone that was uncomfortably encouraging, unwittingly playing into the conversation taking place above.



"..."

Wednesday responded to that with a look that bordered on disturbed that held for a moment before she turned to Jace.

"The faster you can give us that address, the better."

"The rest of them already know it." Jace answered, and indeed, the others could discern an image drifting into their minds, and an innate sense of how to get to it, even Corrin and Tera above, the dragon jolting suddenly at the unwanted addition to her thoughts. Wednesday affixed him with a frown.

"I take it you can't get past the wards."

"didn't even try. Too dangerous. Guess you'll just have to follow them."

Her eyes narrowed at the idea of being so beholden to a group she was so far not impressed with. "Or I could wash my hands of this entirely and figure out my own way home."

Jace shrugged. "Sure. Not my problem. Besides, you seem like the type who loves leaving mysteries unsolved."

Wednesday didn't answer, though if looks could kill this would already be a funeral.

"I am going, then. Farewell, mind-sorcerer. I will never see you again." He turned to depart--

Tera chuckled. "She's something, that's for sure, but yes. I tried to do it first, test out how well I've picked up on a new technique and it didn't work out...my abilities have been hit or miss here. It's been rather aggravating, not going to lie, though I think I'm beginning to understand why." Now that she wasn't fighting, adrenaline high and mind concentrated on potential threats or on the way to meet an expert and get answers to some questions burning in her head, it was easier for her to pick up on how different the Force felt here. She frowned but didn't elaborate, instead continuing on with: "After I failed, she stepped up...or something inside her did, at least. It seemed to me like she had been possessed."

"Count. On. It." She said through gritted teeth.



"What?? It's a good idea--"



"...Oh you guys are no fun." She crossed her arms and pouted, holding that expression for a while as she continued to listen to the others.



Whoa, that's kind of...freaky. Cinder couldn't help but think that as a foreign image just...emerged in her mind, and for lack of a better word, she could just feel how to get there. Freaky but she kinda liked it. That is such a cool power! This guy could be like, Professor Mentallo! .........Okay, as superhero names go, that isn't the best. Even she had to admit that, but it was the first to come to her after she felt that. Though she didn't put any more thought into choosing one for him, instead choosing to stick her tongue out towards Wednesday when it was revealed the mean goth chick would have to follow her and the others if she wanted to get anywhere.



"...What's with him?"



"Ha." Tera chuckled again, taking that jolt as a sign that Corrin also felt what she had just experienced. "Well now I'm doubly sure we won't get separated. Nothing to worry about." She continued to walk, winding her way through the streets, before gesturing out to a clearing overlooking a river. "I think I found a suitable place, just over there. Seems quiet enough for me." Even as she said it, though, part of her mind was reaching out with her own mental prowess, reaching out to Jace and knocking on the figurative wall that blocked him off from her. If we're exchanging information like that, there is one more thing I want to know, if you're willing to answer. ​

"Perhaps the sorcerer's intrusive presence of the mind. Or he grieves his favorite piece of clothing's attire. Difficult to tell, easier to not care." He continued and completed his exit, bearing an easy stride to where the educator in the way of being a planeswalker was, by following the unnatural homing sense implanted by the mental endowment.

Perhaps he may make the effort to bolster his mental fortitude, that lend to untold dividends for the physical many times over.