ZKC - Colliding Universes

Standing in the corner of the room was a rather tall and elderly looking gentlemen, although despite his appearance, he lacked a cane or anything that would be typical for a man of his age.

The man was leaning over a table and manipulating several small devices. Elsewhere, the siblings would hear a radio and hear some chatter on it coming from some of their cities patrols although none of it could be understood where they were standing.

Everywhere that Sakura looked were contraptions of some kind; odd looking devices that she had never seen before, although some she did. There was old-outdated medical equipment that was used once before the war, which all looked well maintained despite the years.

"Wow," remarked the young girl as she looked around.

"Sorry to bother you, this is an interesting place you have here. I'm Blues, and this is Sakura. Who might you be?" Blues said, unsure what else to say. He was a bit nervous, but letting that show was rarely a good idea...

The old man didn't turn to address the two Teens, instead he just kept on walking. "The owner of this place," he said after a moment and setting down what looked like an old watch.

"Obvious," Sakura said, folding her arms over her chest and looking rather annoyed.

The man turned partly, only enough for them to notice one eye looking at them. "If you truly must know," he said and turned to them fully, revealing something that caused Sakura to take a step back in disgust.

His face was disfigured, missing one eye and also an ear. He looked almost like he had been run into the ground multiple times while also had taken hot irons and placed them all over. "I'm simply known as Kren," he didn't seem to care about how Sakura reacted, perhaps he was just used to it. "This is my home," he looked up and around the place. "Where I can live my life in peace.."

He glanced over at the Radio for a moment and gave what one could discern as a disapproving grunt. "So, what brings two brats to my home?"

Blues was surprised, of course, but this sort of thing wasn't as unusual as he would have hoped. Magicians and normals had injured people through experiments or through hate often over the years. The scar hidden by his own hair was evidence enough of that.

"...We were on our way to investigate a library and a local military base, to secure books and old computer servers or rations respectively provided the sites were empty of people, when night came. After a run-in with the local wildlife, we found this apartment complex. I tend to analyze areas for threats, terrain, and unclaimed goods with psychometry, but this roof returned an empty result, like a void. The absence of information suspicious in and of itself, we decided to take a look."

The man let out a disapproving grunt. "You'll want to avoid the Library... and the base for that matter," he turned back toward his work. "Unless you want to deal with the rabble that infest the area..."

"I see. What kind of rabble? Are they a threat to Havens, or just...undesirable in some way? If they're full of people just trying to live their lives, I'd leave them well enough alone. I just like to secure resources where possible and stockpile computers and information before the latter disappears." Blues asked. The man seemed to be well aware of the environment, and the young man wondered just what sort of ability he had. However, he figured they wouldn't be welcome for too long.

"Dunno, just reports of a lot of movement in and around the library and base," remarked the old man. "If your curious, go and check it out..." his voice trailed off as a bright light shoon through a broken glass window, he looked out it. "There she is again.... the Aurora Borealis. Brighter today too..."

"That is odd...I wonder if someone set off a nuclear weapon somewhere in orbit...or if there's a big burst of solar radiation. Usually, an aurora this far from the poles and this bright is a sign of the Earth's magnetosphere working extra hard to repel something like that..." Blues said, finding the matter equally suspicious.

The older man shrugged his shoulders. "Been like that for the past few weeks now," he remarked and continued to stare out. "Mmm. ever since activity at that base started up now that I think about it-"

Suddenly the ground started to rumble, the building swayed a bit as steel groaned. "What the... again...?" the Elderly man scowled as he quickly braced himself. "Hold onto, this one feels like it'll be rough!"

Sakura didn't need to be told that as she snapped her ability on to stabalize the floor and their general surroundings, but as she was doing this, she felt something odd about this quake.

Blues used his psychokinesis to try and secure himself and belongings to their assorted places, resisting changes on the site relative to the roof as best he could. This also extended to Sakura and the man as he felt the shaking, albeit probably dulled by Sakura's power.

"Earthquakes and Auroras? What in the world is going on?"

The rocking got even worse and as this was going on, the Aurora intensified in brightness until it was lighting up the entire room. Sakura could feel that her ability was getting weaker until finally it sputtered out, causing the room to go from only shaking slightly to them to causing all of them to come crashing down onto the floor.

"This is more serious than before!" shouted the Elder as a series of cracks began to appear on the ceiling followed by a strob-like light effect coming through said cracks.

"Maybe we better get on the roof?" asked Sakura.

Blues wasted no time. He grabbed the older man as well as Sakura and struggled to help them flee, in spite of clumsy footing, with his own fading power supporting. He moved to get them past the shaking Venus Flytraps and the assorted plants, out to open roof...

"Hurry!" He said, not wanting to be caught under a bunch of rubble...

What was once a night sky, was now being illuminated by a strobbing light coming from the north... "Isn't that where the library is?" asked Sakura as she pointed to the north, where thanks to the light they could make out a large series of ruins.

It was very bright, causing the teenager to turn away to shield hersef. "Bright...." she complained and despite having her hands shielding her eyes, it didn't help any.

The pulsating resembled that of a pulsar, growing ever brighter; Sakura could taste something metallic in her mouth and she didn't like it, she spat once on the ground and wiped her mouth, noting that the smedge on her hand was red.

Blues felt his head throb, shrapnel left over from years ago reacting negatively to the light, which he shielded his eyes from in spite of the glasses. He didn't understand what was happening..but it wasn't good. The whole world seemed to be turning upside-down!

"What...IS this?"

The world seemed to tear apart around them, their bodies all felt heavy as if there was some unforeseen weight being pressed down upon them. The sky, it changed colors, first from the bright white of the pulsar to that of blood red. Sakura and Blues could hear the echos of screams in their ears, hundreds.. then thousands.. it was as if hundreds of people were being killed at that very second.

Their bodies in intense pain, their eye-sight started to blur as their surroundings burned by fire; then.. there was darkness. They couldn't see anything, they couldn't feel, hear or taste. It as as if they'd entered into a void, they couldn't feel their bodies or the beating of their hearts.. they were - in essence - dead.

But at that very moment, a bright flash of light illuminated them for just a mere second....

Unknown amount of time later..

Sakura found herself waking up on a cold metallic floor, she opened her eyes but couldn't see a thing, it was pitch darkness. She lifted her head to clear her mind and shook it, as she reached out ot grab something her hands brushed across something metallic. For a moment moments she felt around this object, it was round and had some jagged edges on it, it was 'wielded' together at parts and as she ran across it some more she realiezd that she wsa in some kind of a cage.

This was obvious also by how this 'cage' was moving, there was a distant sound of a mechnical crank in the distance. "Where am I?" she tried to say but realized that she couldn't hear her voice. "Huh?" she blinked once and placed a hand around her throat. I can't... speak? she was surprised at this and even somewhat terrified, which startled her actually because she had never been scared before in her life. Something was, most diffenantly, strange.

*Meanwhile, in a car enroute to a Tokyo hospital*

Koichi Minamoto had been working hard with The Children constantly for the past several months, dealing with all manner of issues. Creatures which had no explanation, which they assumed were wartime experiments freed to breed. New criminals. Items popping up randomly. One such item was of particular interest...a bloody piece of Live Metal, the rare element that could hold an Esper's powers and soul, which was covered in blood and scar tissue. More disturbing, neurons were detected linked to the shard, which was etched with a serial number...this shard had gone missing from Babel four years prior, and had recently been ripped from someone's skull. It had been turned into the police after being found on the street. He didn't know if Shiho's abilities would detect anything about it...and wasn't sure he wanted her to try. This person was likely already dead. Or so they thought.

The DNA came back as one Toshiro Yuki, who was on the short-list for becoming a Special Esper at the same time. The details of the matter weren't clear, however...but he did know one thing. A youth matching his description had been found collapsed in the street three months ago, and registered as Level 7 on the detection equipment. The specific ability, however, was...elusive. Their mission? To get him calmly transferred to Babel Medical either while he was unconscious or after calming him down and verifying his condition. Sadly, Sakaki was busy extracting Akira's arm from Hatsune's mouth at the moment...

"Kaoru, Shiho, Aoi...we're almost to the hospital. Yuki-kun is showing signs of returning to consciousness soon...just in case, I'm releasing your limiters ahead of time. We know he has signs of brain injury, so we have no idea what he'll do. Try to restrain him only if needed, and avoid scaring him, alright?"

Tokyo

"Do we know who that boy is?" Kaoru asked, curious, as she looked out the window at the passing cars. Shiho watched her friend curiously while nibbing on a pocky stick, while Aoi was reading a book.

Elsewhere...

Sakura could the cage come to a sudden stop with a loud 'thud', it had arrived where-ever it was going. There was a loud clang as a door opened up, she could see light some distance down a tunnel.

She felt a sudden sharp pain in her back, enough to make her grunt as she doubled over onto what felt like hard sand. Her hands dug into it, she could feel it cut her skin, which made her quickly get back up as she looked around in the dark trying to find whatever - or perhaps whoever - had hurt her; but her eyes hadn't adjusted for some reason like they usually did.

After a few moments of looking, she decided to just walk toward the light and see where it lead.

Tokyo

Minamoto had found the details sparse, but shared what he had as they drove. He might have to talk to the Chief, Oboro-san, or perhaps Director Tsubomi...

"Yuki Toshiro-kun was on the short list to become a Special Forces Esper four years ago at the same time as you three, according to his file. However, something happened...I haven't been able to determine what, but the fragment of Live Metal we found had been tied to key parts of his nervous system and went missing around that time. I'm still conducting an investigation, but I don't want Shiho to try to read the fragment. Sakaki will try to join us as soon as he can safely extract Hatsune-san's mouth from Akira-kun's arm. Because of that though, we've no idea the extent of the brain damage. We could be dealing with a vegetable, with a normal person...or someone like the Major." Minamoto's eyes narrowed slightly at the mention of Hyobu, who had taken a bullet to the forehead at the end of the Second World War, to become a criminal Esper unlike which the world had ever known.

Minamoto drove the car into the parking garage, as Shiho leaned forward. "So something happened at Babel, and was covered up...and now an inconvenient person has turned up alive. I don't mind reading the live metal, Minamoto. You don't need to protect me from seeing the bad side of people." Shiho said, noting that Minamoto was trying to protect her again. He did the same when her papa, a high ranking police official, brought her artifacts of unsolved cases to solve with psychometry.

Aoi adjusted her glasses, a thoughtful and worried look on her face as she briefly looked up from the book. She didn't want to think that the Chief or someone else they trusted covered up some sort of incident...

Tokyo - Hospital

"A Vegetable huh..." Kaoru's voice trailed off. "Why didn't he join us though if he was originally a candidate? It was just Shiho, Aoi and I in that facility..." her voice trailed off a bit as she recalled the harsh treatment of one of their handlers shortly before Minamoto joined them.

Somewhere in Japan...

Sakura walked... and walked... and walked... it seemed to be taking forever but as she walked she could 'feel' the air changing around her, it was an odd feeling like something she was very accustomed to. She could feel that there were others just beyond this tunnels exist, the air pressure constantly changing in and out.

The answer to that question came when she stepped out into a large sand covered arena; a tall metallic fence circled the outside of this arena and standing around it were people who looked to be cheering and passing money amongst one another.

It occured to her that she must've been captured after passing out, but why did things feel so.. different... she hadn't yet noticed the biggest change and wouldn't for awhile.

She looked around and noticed another indivisual approuching from another tunnel, but she didn't see him due to her eye-sight but rather she could see him thanks to her ESPer ability, the constant fluctantations of gravity as this person walked. Tall.. heavy.. were the first two words that came to mind based on how they parted the gravitational waves.

This person then walked out into the open and Sakura noticably took a step back, saying this person was tall would be an understatement, even at this distance, they towered over her. It was a heavy set man with muscles all over his body, it was actually quite disgusting to look at really and the odor this person gave off made Sakura gag. The man, if you could call him that, was only wearing a loincloth to protect his lower regions, everything else was open bear. Not.. what I wanted to see... Sakura thought with a disgusted look, but again, something strange - she felt she knew this person as a flood of memories rushed into her mind.

She had fought him once before and it was very recently to, she recalled that she had lost that fight.. but how could that be she wondered? This had never truly meet this man.. yet somehow she had?

Tokyo

"I don't know, Kaoru...but I think there was some sort of incident. He was classified as a runaway esper after that. He may well have become one of The Children had he stayed. His folder listed him as 'prospective C-04', and the Chief is taking a special interest in this." That designation did imply that the young boy had been seriously considered, but vanished before he could become one of them. Minamoto parked the car and got out, walking toward the elevator as he talked with the girls.

Elsewhere

Sakura felt the ground shake as the smelly man entered the arena, giving a roar for the spectators. Someone high and to her right would cry out.

"Closing betting offices, odds are 50 to 1....aaaaaand start the match!"

The man rushed toward her in a surge of speed, fist drawing back...he'd end this quickly, before she had a chance to use her abilities. She looked as though she was in a daze...