RP: Land of Dreamers [Land of Dreamers Chapter One] The Descent Into Chaos

Re: [Chapter One] The Descent Into Chaos

Hanadi looked back over to Asher's immobilized form, and then rubbed at the back of her head as the winged woman began her own panicky motions. Really, she could give two shits if the midget lived or died at this point. The little loud mouth had insulted, and pointed a gun at her. Shrugging her shoulders she looked over as the Ivouri showed up, getting a grim view of the unfolding scene for himself.

"He's the doctor." finally saying to Oskar while pointing at the doctor. "Should be able to take care of sugarfluff over there on the ground if he's still breathing." Hanadi spat on the ground. She hadn't even been able to pistol whip the bastard for pulling a gun on her, let alone calling her names. But, if there was justice in this world, it was the fact he was on the ground now and she was not. Even if she hadn't put him there.

"Well this is a right fine mess..." she said more to herself then to the four-armed xeno in front of her. "You, fou-Oskar" catching herself lest she add insult to injury, both figuratively and literally. "Could you go about calming your winged friend and her little pet down while I take a look around for that missing friend of yours?" she was looking around, trying to get a good glance of the area, making sure that fifth alien hadn't managed to scuttle off. Saints knew what some of the more rough and tumble people of the town would do to a lone xeno.

"I have to find your friend before they either end up dead from a xenophobe here, or they die out in the desert. Muna knows you if any of you'd survive an hour out there."

He'd said there had been another alien on the craft behind him, and it was just as likely a place to start as any. A hand rested on the holstered pistol as she walked past Oskar, stopped, and turned about.

"Oh yeah, before I forget. See baldy over there?" she pointed to Najat who had been kneeling on the ground in front of Asher. "Don't make any sudden or stupid moves. She's a Temple Guard they're kind of like religious warriors, police, whatever. Basically, won't hurt you unless you try to hurt anyone else... Least I hope."

Re: [Chapter One] The Descent Into Chaos

"Ah, okay," he replied meekly as he turned to the small, winged girl and then paused. Wait, what other one? Shouldn't there have only been five total, six if you included the strange girl's pet. Grimacing a bit, Oskar held all four of his hands at Harmony.

"Ah, there--there," he replied in his typical, thick-accented Trade. "Everything is fine now. We just n--need to calm down now," the Abwehran explained, more to himself than the girl. "There's a doctor now to treat the Insane man and it looks like the crowd no longer wants to kill us, right Ms. Kikkawa," he asked the bespectacled Yamataian.

Re: [Chapter One] The Descent Into Chaos

"Wh- what are you even saying!?" Shiki said in terror and exasperation when his hiding spot was exposed so casually by one of the others from the liner. He wanted to believe her, he did, but something didn't exactly click with him. Maybe he was too suspicious, or just wasn't able to combine the ideas of 'not in the Empire' and 'not going to kill him' in his already shaken mind.

He had to get away.

"GET AWAAAY!" With his position compromised by Sayoko and no other options coming up in his mind, Shiki gave into desperation. He gave the girl a hard shove to the shoulder, putting all of his weight into his arm to get her out of his way, and charged to the entrance. Unfortunately, he put himself in view of Oskar and Hanadi in doing so, and couldn't think of any way to negotiate himself past the situation. The Abwehran was even talking to her, when she was menacing them with some kind of gun! Could he even trust him for that?

Thinking quickly, he held his pocket knife up, readying himself to somehow evade or survive her first shot and counterattack hard enough that he'd have a clear pass at fleeing. If he made a good enough show, Oskar might even back off and let him flee.

But something was wrong. His hand was bleeding.

The reason was obvious enough. In his haste to escape, he'd allowed his grip to slip and was not nervously clutching the bottom of the blade with all his force, slicing up the flesh of his palm enough that a steady drip of blood was coming off the bottom. He grit his teeth, trying to bear the pain long enough for him to think of what to do next. At least, that was what he told himself, when he was more or less frozen in place by fear and couldn't retreat or attack. His very instinct of 'fight or flight' was overridden by the combination of pain and shock.

He remained perfectly still.

Re: [Chapter One] The Descent Into Chaos

The Doctor had seemingly calmed down for a moment when he started to assess the situation better. Iyad crouched down next to Asher, on the side of him that wasn't occupied by Najat and took a pulse. The man was sure that the soldier was dead as a doornail, just by looking at all the wounds. Though, the result of that wasn't too apparent on the doctor's face as he got a reading. He looked confused, and decided to check again.

"Strange... His pulse is erratic, starting for a few seconds, and dying in the next, then starting again. It's as if his body is denying the fact he's dead!" Iyad looked up at Hanadi. "Istislah! Feel free to send any of the outlanders my way if they're as bad as this one. Tajah! Assistance please!" Answering the call, the woman that had brought him down, picked up the bloodied Yamataian begrudgingly. Not to get too much of the rude alien's blood on her, she simply drug him by his shoulders, letting his heels slide through the sand.

Most of the Sund Wakir seemed to approach the shuttle more, now that the threat had pasted. Some of them almost seemed even inclined to help, but with Asher's little show of threats, they were still not sure of the visitor's intentions. With curious eyes they all watched as Hanadi handled the situation and Najat seemingly providing back up. Then, a strange amount seemed to take interest in how the Abwehran was calming the Lorath. Though, most of the crowd was taken by surprise when they saw Shiki appear in the doorway, with a knife in hand. A general atmosphere of 'What the hell is going on' seemed to hang heavy.

If Shiki was sharp enough, he'd likely notice the Fatboy Asher had been using earlier to defend himself against the pirates. Then again, anyone with a general view through the front door could see how the dented weapon had landed somewhere close behind the pilot's seat.

Re: [Chapter One] The Descent Into Chaos

"Yes...I don't think they want to hurt us any more...I mean hell, even I can tell he's at least a doctor." she said, pointing to the one who was working on Asher before he got dragged away. "This kid, on the other hand, needs to learn to calm down." Sayoko groaned, glaring at Shiki and his knife. "I mean, if they were trying to kill us, I think they would already be able to, and probably would have well before we realized what was going on."

Re: [Chapter One] The Descent Into Chaos

"Chiharu. Damn. It. I'm not some kid!" Shiki's nerves were already on fire, but Sayoko's comment about him being a kid were vexing enough to snap him out of shock. He squeezed the knife even harder as fear turned to anger, causing the drip to become stream of read for a moment before he even realized what he was doing.

It hurt.

It hurts. It hurts. It hurts.

Ithurtsithurtsithurtsithurtsithurtsithurtsithurtsithurtsithurtsithurtsithurtsithurtsithurts.

While his hand had been only slightly cut up in the seconds before, his reaction had deepened it enough that the puddle of his own blood on the floor of the shuttle entrance threatened to stain the whole sole. He dropped the knife, and let his arm hang limp by his side, as desperation finally gave way to acceptance that he had no control over his situation. In a scenario where he had two working hands, he might have had the chance to pick up Asher's laser rifle and improvise a plan. On the other hand, without the pain from the wound, he'd probably still be scared and nervous and trying to hide himself until found.

Either way, he'd pretty much given up and resigned himself to whatever fate was going to befall him at this point. He had neither the skills nor the will to resist it at this point.

Shiki fought back the urge to cry at the moment, although his cheeks darkened a few shades and he had to feint a sniffle as a heave. Appearing to be a maniac was bad enough, but a crybaby would probably have him treated worse. It wasn't that he was one, either. But it was pretty obvious that they weren't going home any time soon and they'd just landed themselves in a shit-terrible situation, only to make it worse.

A bunch of idiots!

He cleared his throat and closed his right fist to minimalize the bleeding, taking care to not actually look at the actual wound. "A- al- alright. I dropped it." Although he tried to keep a good face up, the words felt sarcastic and slightly desperate. He gestured to the bloodied pocket knife on the shuttle floor, resting firmly in the center of a small puddle of red. "See!"

Re: [Chapter One] The Descent Into Chaos

Harmony looked up at Oskar as he came closer to her, backing away for a split second before coming closer, grabbing him almost. "Hey whats going on here! You were on the cruise ship where did it go!" Harmony seemed generally scared, though it was simply because of the fact that she had woken up under dead bodies and still hadn't calmed down yet.

That was where Peace came into play. The larger animal went over to Harmony's side and sat next to her, half purring half growling as he tried to calm her down. Harmony seemed to grab onto the animal as she looked around at the others, still not realizing she was half covered in blood from the bodies that had been on top of her. Peace was licking her face though, doing his best to clean her up, and it seemed like the contact with her bonded companion was calming her down a little.

Re: [Chapter One] The Descent Into Chaos

The Curdatl had been standing there, not ten feet away from Shiki while he had his breakdown. At first, she thought him merely mad while he seemed to be waging an internal struggle over the issues arrayed before him. Instead, Hanadi wore a funny look on her face at the poor man's expense before shaking her head. Really, she could've laughed at him.

Her hands were on her hips while he dropped the knife, having wagered the alien didn't even have the faintest clue how to use it beyond 'Pointy end away from you.' A sigh and moment later, she sucked at her teeth while considering what to say exactly.

"Sheesh, calm down xeno and stop being such a spaz." she'd lifted her glasses up, rubbing at the bridge of her nose. In all the 'excitement' her head had started to ache.

"I think it's pretty clear no one is going to harm you since we're even taking care of loudmouth on the ground over there." Hanadi held up her hand after massaging the bridge of her nose, wiggling the fingers.

"Besides, don't you think you should get your hand looked at?" the archeologist suggested and pointed out the fact there was a perfectly good doctor tending Asher, as well as the small girl behind him with a medical kit.

Re: [Chapter One] The Descent Into Chaos

"Eh?" Oskar muttered one of the Yamataians, a man--or was it boy--stumbled out of the shuttle. At first the Abwehran was confused as he tilted his head to look at Shiki. But then he saw the knife, as well as the blood, and tensed. He probably would have panicked some more if the boy hadn't dropped the knife into the sand and relented. Exhaling loudly in relief, the heavy-grav worlder glanced back at the winged girl.

"Well, she's calmed down now, he muttered in the harsh-sounded Abwehran and wiped the beading sweat from his brow. "By the void it's like an oven," the man continued to mutter in his own language and grimaced. "Not to be sounding ungrateful or anything, but now that we aren't in any immanent danger of death could we move to some place cooler. Some of us were raised in much cooler climates than this," he asked in accented Trade, his tone rather timid now that the danger had passed.

Re: [Chapter One] The Descent Into Chaos

Najat's eyes flicked around the scene. It had been worryingly chaotic for a moment, but now Hanadi and Oskar seemed to be taking care of it, and a doctor had shown up to take care of the wounded. She stood up and dusted herself off. There was one person who wasn't being watched over, though, and she had even been the one who left her there.

She turned around and walked back to the doorframe of the bar, looking down at the freespacer propped there. "Are you... well?" she asked, trying to use small words.

Re: [Chapter One] The Descent Into Chaos

"I'm not a spaz! Do you have any idea what just happened!?" Shiki yelled at Hanadi angrily, raking his bloodied right hand across his face. In hindsight, this was probably a terrible idea, but it was only a reaction because he felt his already sweaty face being pelted with tiny granules of sand. The result was that he had just made several thick streaks of red across his face while gesturing aggressively in a crowd of armed aliens whose customs he did not recognize or know about.

He clenched his blood hand again, feeling strange that it didn't hurt, but too driven to really concern himself with it. "We've almost died twice. TWICE."

Stars were forming in the corner of his vision, and things that probably should have hurt, didn't. The fluid dripping from his hands wavered between the inky black one perceives red as at night whenever he glanced at them, despite it being midday under what might as well have been the hottest sun he'd ever seen. "And you're calling me a spaz?!" Reality was starting to be encroached by... something else, but he fought against it, swinging away at it with his will.

----

What Hanadi saw was a young man cover his face in fresh blood while gesturing angrily, mutter a few words and seem to stand still, alternating between gesturing and silently pantomiming an epic battle between good, evil and an army of Floatcrabs.

At some indeterminate point, she also heard the words "I am not a spaz," spoken in perfect clarity, immediately before he went on to say "The greatest swordsman fought with a wooden sword," and "I am tired of being mistaken for a girl," in a mess of other words in a language that did not exist, or that she did not recognize, before he finally collapsed onto his back and stopped flailing around.

Re: [Chapter One] The Descent Into Chaos

Her head lolled about, the Freespacer giving Najat a look from her seat down on the ground within the doorframe. Nova swung out an arm wide, giving her a thumbs up.

"E-e-E-E-Everrrryyything is jus' shiny o-over here." a slurred sing-song response.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This just isn't my day. Inwardly groaning while the alien ranted at her in his own language at first. He'd even been dumb enough to rub that wounded hand on his face! Really, she just wanted to roll her eyes before the next thing she knew the xeno had started to act funny. Well, funnier.

Gibberish. Just plain gibberish. That's what he'd started speaking. Gestures followed, and finally the woman began to grasp the situation.

"Oh for the love'a...Hey, Hey! Doc!" yelling over her shoulder just as Shiki hit the ground. "Got a live one over here, and he's out of it!"

Re: [Chapter One] The Descent Into Chaos

Sayoko groaned, taking what few supplies were in the kit and trying to at least stem the blood from his hand. "Oskar, if you wouldn't mind relaying to the nice lady with the gun who has all the respect at the moment what happened, and per chance asking what bloody planet, or even system we're in? Hopefully the navigation board didn't short out during the crash, and Mister Indestructible will be able to at least get our coordinates out of it." she said, looking over to him calmly, though inwardly she was on edge of breakdown herself.

Re: [Chapter One] The Descent Into Chaos

"Are you even aware of what is going on outside?" Najat asked Nova, her brow furrowing in irritation. This wasn't exactly the best time for her charge to be sitting around so drunk she could barely even speak.

Re: [Chapter One] The Descent Into Chaos

Nova had been shuffling her bare legs a little, as if trying to walk from a seated position when one came to rest on the doorframe. Really though she hadn't the foggiest of what was going on right now beyond, 'A lot of weird people were in a circle.'

"Nawww....jus' shome people in'a big'ol shurkle..." she peered past Najat and over at the crowd before looking back at the Guardwoman. The scientist hiccuped slightly as the alcohol continued to send her internal systems through the ringer.

"G-G-Gotta cute lady talkin' to me tho'. So sh'all shiny." Nova had reached out, patting one of the Iromakuanhe's legs appreciatively before letting out a noisy yawn.

Re: [Chapter One] The Descent Into Chaos

"You," Najat replied, her cheeks reddening despite herself, "are very drunk. I am going to sit here and make sure you do not hurt yourself." The burly Guardswoman slid down to the ground, plopping next to Nova and pushing lightly on her shoulders to prevent her from continuing to stand up. "The situation outside seems to be taken care of."

Re: [Chapter One] The Descent Into Chaos

The Freespacer hadn't been paying much attention as the woman assigned to watch over her sat. She wasn't paying much attention to anything at the moment, head swaying slightly, eyes fluttering again. Her lips compressed themselves into thin lines while she tried to form more then a muzzy thought. But it was to no avail. Oh well. It was warm though, hot. Seemed like ever sense she'd gotten those shots from that odd doctor while her body hadn't rejected them, it had taken time to adjust.

The rise and fall of her chest grew more shallow as Nova fell into another light slumber. A frown creased her face though while she squirmed, attempting to get into a better position, eventually culminating with an arm and leg draped over Najat her head resting along the side of her neck.

"Hrmmmphfmm..." mumbling while feeling somewhat more comfortable despite the heat.

Re: [Chapter One] The Descent Into Chaos

Sayoko was holding her head after patching Shiki up, leaning against a wall, looking at her book. W..why is my book so much bigger now...a..and barking at me? she thought to her self, or so she thinks, possibly saying it out loud. "I d..didn't drink that much." she heard herself say as she started to waver back and forth, the floor turning bright purple in her vision.

"I think t..there is something i..in the air.." she tried to say, but came out as "Book...eating me...booze hound?" as she finally fell over, possibly finally passing out from the stress, if anyone didn't know better.

Re: [Chapter One] The Descent Into Chaos

Sayoko seemed to think he was a messenger or liaison between them and the aliens. The young Abwehran couldn't help but grimace as he pulled out his flask again. "Damn it, I'm not a go between," he muttered in Abwehran as he uncorked his flask. Before he could take a drink, something caught his eye. Slowly, the four-armed man stared at the opening of his flask for a moment as if mesmerized.

For some strange reason, his whiskey was slowly leaking upward from the opening and into the air. Coiling and rising, the whiskey slowly began to take some form of shape. Confused, Oskar brought a finger and began to wipe his goggles. But his gottberre whiskey still writhed under the desert sun. It's form began to take on a recognizable shape though, which caused the Abwehran's eyes to widen under his goggles. And then, the damned thing did the craziest thing ever, it spoke.

"OSSSKAAAR~ What in the void do you think you are doing drinking in a crisis!? Didn't I teach you better!?" the feminine-shaped whiskey snapped in his mother's voice.

"MEIN GOTT," Oskar shouted and dropped his flask, the metallic object falling perfectly into the sand to keep it upright.

"And don't you dare tell me you were just 'calming your nerves' you cheeky brat! You've been chugging the juice as if it were water and you are going to stop you here me!?"

"Yes mother, I'm sorry mother," the young Abwehran cried out in Abwehran as he fell back upon his backside and stared as its flask in shock and horror. How could she know!? He had been so careful to hide the fact that he was dependent.

To everyone around him, the four-armed xeno seemed to be shouting his guttural language at his own flask in a panic. He seemed to be going crazy just like the rest of his group.

Re: [Chapter One] The Descent Into Chaos

"Ah - " Najat started to say as she felt the freespacer flop down on top of her. Almost instantly, though, the girl fell asleep, and the guardswoman's mind raced furiously to figure out a way to rationalize not waking and moving her. She settled on letting her sleep off the alcohol, though she did shuffle around a bit to keep Nova's soft breaths from tickling her neck. She tentatively moved a hand to Nova's back and leaned her own head against the doorframe, keeping the other hand on her weapon as she warily watched the world outside.