Once Upon a Time...

[morethanmyth]

They likely felt the world shift, a fragmentation of all they thought they knew. It was the way a fictional character might feel if they could feel every page turn in the book they lived in. It was the beginning of a new story and that meant an end to an old one and they would each feel that.

To some it would feel like they had just died. To others, it would feel like they had just been born. To many, it would feel like both at the same time. It all really depended on who they were and what they were leaving behind.

In any case, this world had something New appear in it. After lightning crackled in the evening sky without any storm fueling it, they would find themselves waking up in the streets of a small town called Burgess. It was a perfectly ordinary Pennsylvania town, a place where the modern mixed with the old, American suburbia at its finest, making it all the stranger that something extraordinary would happen somewhere so ordinary.

[ooc: Make a subthread for each character and those of you that would like to toss your character at someone else before Bunny and Jack show up, tag a subthread already there.]

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[spellitonce]

Nico masked the bubbling fear in her chest with fury, glaring up at the guy on the street lamp.

"Fine," she snarled, "get your bad guy monologue over with, then."

Her hands are locked too tightly on the Staff to do anything else with them, so she starts chewing on the inside of her cheek. Maybe the Staff needs more blood for some reason -- maybe it has something to do with her being intangible.

[letskicksomeice]

"Well, for one, I'm not the bad guy. I'm here to make sure the bad guy doesn't get you first," Jack said, jumping off of the street lamp, flipping, and landing gracefully on the ground.

"You are, as you've probably noticed, in a world different from your own. There are some bad things happening here, something threatening to rip this world apart, and me and my team-mate think that it's pulling people from other places out of their worlds and into ours."

[spellitonce]

"Who's the bad guy? What did it do to me?" Nico hadn't stopped glaring, and she'd only stopped chewing on her cheek to speak. "And why should I trust you?"

It sounded ridiculous, but then so many other things in her life had become ridiculous since she'd followed Alex down that secret passage. Maybe this was some other weird sub-plane of existence, like where Chase had found the Gibborim the second time.

[letskicksomeice]

"We call it Kuk, after the Egyptian god of primordial darkness. We think that that's what the Egyptians were worshiping back then; actually, my team-mate thinks almost every god of darkness and death that people worshiped through the millennia were just facets of it. As for what it is, think Lovecraft. An empty sentient thing outside of time and space. Another enemy of ours pulled the world's stupidest move and, thinking he was going to gain an army of darkness from it to use as his own, he opened the gate that locked Kuk away from the world a crack."

Jack walked towards her, but he moved slowly and tried to keep his gestures from looking aggressive.

"Just a crack was all Kuk needed to stick its foot in the door. It's captured most of the other myths of the world it thought would be a threat and it's imprisoned them so it can feed off of the belief people have in them. It's trying to shove the door open more and more to get all the way in to destroy the world and in the process, the world's gotten a little more...unstable. Belief and fear, human emotions - they can all influence it more than they used to in the past. That's how we think you got pulled in from your world - there are cracks now. You fell through."

Jack leaned against a car with a sort of casual grace that came either from years of practice or possibly personal coaching from James Dean.

"I'm not here to hurt you or make you do anything you don't want to do. The Man in the Moon, the spirit that chose me and my team-mate as Guardians thinks you have what it takes to be one, but you're hardly more than a kid. You shouldn't have to fight. I just want to make sure you wind up somewhere safe, though. Kuk goes after anyone he thinks will be a threat. So, I can't give you any reasons to trust me - I'm a stranger. All I can offer is to actually try to earn it if you give me the chance."

[spellitonce]

He stopped moving before he got close enough that she would have had to start backing away. She appreciated that.

She also appreciated the information, even if she wasn't entirely sure she trusted it. At least she knew what they wanted her to think now. She couldn't help but roll her eyes when he started in on how she ought to be kept somewhere safe.

"Yeah, people keep talking about how I shouldn't have to fight, but somehow they're never around when someone has to," she says, a little more bitterly than she'd intended. "If we somehow manage to push this thing back out of your universe and rescue your friends, can I go home?"

[letskicksomeice]

"It's your best chance, at least," Jack said honestly. "The kids are unconsciously reaching out for heroes right now. Trying to go home would be like swimming against the current up a river. When it's over, when they feel safe, and when changes to the world's belief stop and nothing will be pulling you in, you'll have a better chance. And the more powerful spirits are imprisoned - if anyone can send you home and change you from a myth back to a normal human, it'll be one of them."

She deserved honesty so he gave it to her.

"I can't make any promises, though. This has never happened before. All I can promise is we'll try our best to send you home as soon as there's a way."

[spellitonce]

It just figured that she'd be more likely to get pulled through than any of the adults calling themselves heroes these days. Still, she'd have thought that one of those Young Avengers would have been more likely to be tapped for a job like this. She's not a hero, she's just trying to keep her friends alive and out of the hands of people who want to split them up -- and maybe deal with some of the problems their parents left behind.

"How many other people are coming through?"

If this thing (whatever it was) got her, could it have gotten her friends too?

[mywarrenmyrules]

Speaking of arriving, one did just then - leaping from a hole that just fell out of the ground and landing at Jack's side.

"How's this coming, mate?" Bunny asked, glancing at Nico and glancing again, harder, at her staff.

[letskicksomeice]

"We're not exactly sure - hey, Bunny," Jack said amicably as Bunny appeared. "Bunny, Ms. Suspicion. Ms. Suspicion, the Easter Bunny."

He went on, "My name's Jack, by the way. Jack Frost."

[spellitonce]

Nico took a step back -- annoying weirdo is one thing, annoying weirdo plus giant rabbit is a different kettle of fish, since it means that she's out-numbered. And she doesn't care for the way he's looking at her Staff.

"Rabbits are an invasive species in Australia," she said pointedly, then resumed chewing on the inside of her cheek.

[letskicksomeice]

"Oooh. She does not hold her punches, does she."

[mywarrenmyrules]

Eyeroll. That and the "gonna eatcha" taunt make up, oh, about 50% of what he hears from new acquaintances who don't already know what a pooka is.

"Humans are an invasive species on every continent but Africa. What's your point?"

Oh it's just a curious glance. With that-could-be-more-deadly-than-it-looks curiosity.

[spellitonce]

Nico finally tasted blood and grinned as the sensation of magic loosed to her command rolled through her body. Now the odds were a bit more even.

"Thanks for the science lesson," she said, keeping her voice flat. "My point is, you could have just soured things here for your buddy Jack if I were a little more suspicious about your intentions. I'm pretty good at running when I put my mind to it."

She straightens the rest of the way up from her defensive crouch, shaking the cramps out of first one hand, then the other. "Well?" she asked Jack, lifting her chin defiantly. "Did whatever grab me grab my friends too, or are they back home, safe as any one of us ever gets?"

[letskicksomeice]

"Depends. What do they look like? We've ran into a few people already. We sent them to the pond across town to meet up while we gathered up the rest."

[mywarrenmyrules]

Bunny just spread his paws, looking as sarcastically baffled as possible. "How does that even follow?"

His sarcasm gave way to a much more pointed look, as he stepped a little closer, protectively, to Jack.

"In case you haven't noticed, the amount of call we've got to assume you newcomers are all harmless is not high. Pardon me for checking in, but you're not the only one with friends to keep safe."

He sniffed the air as she spoke, glad that Jack had decided to speak to her downwind, whether the frost spirit had done it consciously or not. Was that blood he smelled?

Aside to Jack, he added, "Wait 'till you see the one I just talked over. Bloody Pitch would applaud if he met him."

[spellitonce]

"Check in on your friend all you want," Nico replied, "you're the one who's boss vouched for me. Unless you're changing Jack's story?"

She frowned thoughtfully at Jack. "They're my age, mostly. Blond guy with a dinosaur? A girl who's a living rainbow? One of them's a shape shifter, I have no idea how she'd look."

She wasn't going to get very far on her own right now. And she could defend herself now that she knew how to make her magic work here. She could probably at least trust them enough to see where they wanted her to go.

[mywarrenmyrules]

"I gotta say, I have questions for Manny."

Nico could have all of the eyerolls. They were all for her.

"Right now, mostly about the guy who threatened to eat me."

[letskicksomeice]

"Haven't seen your friends so far and I don't really remember him showing anyone like that in the crystal, but the shapeshifter might be here, for all we know."

He looked between Nico and Bunny.

"We, uh, kinda question the Man in the Moon's judgement calls sometimes, is what he means - especially lately."

It didn't used to be that bad...until it got bad.

"And we don't exactly do everything he says, especially when it doesn't make sense. Like him wanting kids and teenagers to be Guardians rather than telling us to try to just send them back home as soon as we can. Some of the people we've gathered so far are way too young for this."

Said the skinny teenage boy that was a full four inches shorter than her.

"Honestly, you seem a little too young for it, too."

What with the raging paranoia, combativeness, and massive chip on her shoulder and everything.

[spellitonce]

Bunny could roll his eyes all he wanted -- Nico was a teenager, and she could roll her eyes with the best of them. She was more than happy to demonstrate the ability when Jack started talking about how she was too young for the fight.

"Duh I'm too young for it," she said. "And yet, somehow, this isn't the first time I've had to fight monsters from beyond the dawn of time. Idiot adults make a mess of things, and the kids are always the ones left to clean it up."

Nico crossed her arms and glared at both of them. "And sitting around isn't going to get me home to my friends any faster. So if you don't want my help, fine, I'll just have to do what I can on my own."

[mywarrenmyrules]

Her declaration of having already fought monsters made Bunny glance at Jack, pausing for a moment as his irritation softened.

There was more than the usual teenage sass at work here. This girl was aggressive like an abused animal - snapping at everything, ready to bolt at a moment's notice.

No kid should be in that situation, but as she'd pointed out, she already was.

"If Manny's recruiting child soldiers that other people have already recruited . . . that's still not a call we can stand by. But whether you end up in the fight or just stick to finding your way home, you don't have to do it alone. That's why we came here."

[letskicksomeice]

Yep, Jack had glanced over at Bunny at the exact same moment, making the exact same conclusion.

"Why don't we go meet up with the others so you can see if anyone you know is there, then you can figure out what you wanna do from there, okay? We'll figure something out."

[spellitonce]

She couldn't believe she just talked them into letting her help when she still wasn't completely sure she trusted them.

"Fine," she said. "Point me toward this lake of yours, and you two can keep scouring the area for whoever else is wandering around."

[mywarrenmyrules]

Bunny pointed.

"Can't miss it."

Hopefully she'd actually go there, instead of running off.

[spellitonce]

"I'm going to see if I can find any of my friends," Nico said. "But I'll head that direction in case one of you finds them first."