maskormenace | 001 ⚔ Video

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001 ⚔ Video

[The device is unfamiliar to Van, but he has always been a quick study. After a brief fumble with the initial direction of the camera, he appears upright on screen, a young man with earthy red eyes, wild black hair, and a stern expression that suggests he is attempting to, and only halfway succeeding at, controlling a barrage of intense emotions.

Probably confusion and disorientation, the same sort almost all imPorts feel upon their arrival, though some more so than others, particularly those who hail from worlds much less advanced than this one...]

I'm looking for two friends of mine.

[He's abrupt and to the point, seemingly unhappy with having to ask for help, but obviously knowing that he's without any alternative options at the moment.]

We were traveling together before I found myself here. Merle, Hitomi...I've been told that this is the quickest way to reach you if you've also been brought here by that Porter.

[If...

Van's expression darkens, and a gloved hand rises to cover the lens of the camera.]

...I would be grateful to anyone who has perhaps heard of them, or who recognizes the names Gaea or Zaibach.

[The latter said with such potent disdain it's a wonder the young man's voice didn't crack before he simply...disconnects.]

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[ Here is a boy a little older than Van, with brown tousled hair and hazel eyes. His smile seems effortless, but if you look very closely, there's sympathy in his eyes.

It's always difficult to come here alone. Gansey had found his friends quickly, but since then he's lost some of them. He knows every emotion running through this boy's eyes, even if his own stay under closer control. ]

I'm sorry, I don't know those names. If you can find it, there's a list of everyone who's here on your device.

Sometimes the Porter does lift people alone, though. I do know of Gaia, as in, Mother Earth? I don't know if that's what you mean. I've never heard of Zaibach before.

[Van's reply comes a little later, after he's taken some time to follow Gansey's advice and see if he can uncover Merle and Hitomi's names on his device. The attempt is, of course, a bust. They're not here, and that's a sad burden to bear. Nevertheless, he feels better having been able to confirm that for himself rather than take a stranger's word for it, and that's...better than nothing.]

It doesn't seem like they've followed me.

[He frowns, thoughts floating inward once more until Gansey mentions Earth and Zaibach, and then his attention snaps back to the other boy.]

Be grateful, then. It's better if they can't interfere here, too.

[There's no telling what kind of irreparable damage Zaibach could cause with a device like the Porter in their possession. With guymelefs alone they could destroy entire cities, empty whole countries...they needn't the kind of power that would allow them to breach worlds, too, and destroy those in the same vein.]

But...Earth and Gaea aren't one and the same. Where I'm from...this place, it's called the Mystic Moon. It hangs in Gaea's sky.

You mean it’s another planet?

[ Gansey frowns at that. If it is, he doesn’t think it exists in his world. There definitely aren’t two moons in the sky. He shakes his head. ]

I’m sorry, it’s none that I know of. There are others here from other planets, though, it’s not unheard of.

What is this Zaibach that you mentioned, then? Should we be wary of them?

[Van makes a soft noise of assent.]

They're completely separate worlds, as separate as this one appears to be from all the worlds other people are brought here from.

[He's never really imagined how many there could be. It's a little overwhelming to think about.]

As for Zaibach... [Here, his expression hardens.] Anyone claiming association with that name is someone you ought to be on your guard around.

But...as far as I can tell, at least, there's no one here to worry about.

[ All right. Well, Gansey is hardly going to ignore a warning like that. ]

I'll remember their name. Thank you.

What about you, though? [ Because as far as he's seen, Van has spent the majority of his time so far either worrying for other people, or worrying about them. ]

Do you have questions I can help with? I've been here a few months. I'll tell you what I can.

No.

[The answer it abrupt, a reflex, followed shortly after by a sigh and a shake of his head that suggests Van's response may not be quite what he'd meant to say.]

I mean, I have a lot of questions but no idea where to begin. I don't know much about this world, I've only seen a place like this once before, and...

[Well, his time on the Mystic Moon had been fleeting, hadn't it? He'd been able to slay the dragon and prevent harm from coming to Amano and Yukari, Hitomi's friends, and then he'd been brought home by a strange pillar of light. And Hitomi had come with him.]

Well, actually, there may be something you can help with. What do you know about tickets?

[ That answer is abrupt enough to startle Gansey. This boy is completely new, and he's not even from Earth; how could he not have questions? They'd plagued Gansey at first.

Maybe it's something else, though. Of anything he thought he might be asked, this certainly had not featured, and he looks a little perplexed. ]

Ah...speeding, or event? One is a lot more fun than the other.

How should I know. There was a lot of them.

[Plastered all over the leg of his guymelef, though to be perfectly honest, the majority of them had been peeled off and tossed away, and those he hadn't gotten around to discarding manually had probably been lost when he'd gone aerial with the Doctor.]

Never mind. It's probably an obsolete problem by now...

[ A lot of them? Gansey is frowning now.

This boy does not appear to have a car, so a speeding ticket is probably unlikely. Probably. ]

It...may be. Where were they, exactly? Did you happen to keep one?

I pulled most of them off my guymelef, and those I didn't were probably lost in transport.

[ Pause. ]

I'm sorry, you pulled them from your what now?

[Oh. Right.

People on Earth don't have any idea what guymelefs are.

Van sighs.]

My armored suit. It's sort of like the steel carriages I've seen here.

[Cars. He means cars.]

Except it's a lot bigger.

Oh.

[ Gansey takes that in. 'Armored suit', Jesus. But he gets the gist, anyway. ]

Cars, you mean cars. Parking tickets?

Ah, I imagine they thought your suit was illegally parked. Which you'll probably get quite a lot if you leave it on the street. Where is it now?

And how big is it?

You're joking.

[Gansey doesn't sound like he is, however.]

A guymelef that's not moving is a lot less problematic than one that is on such narrow streets. I thought I was doing the right thing by leaving it there.

[Considering there was no place else to keep it at the time and he wasn't sure how to...unsummon it. The fact that he'd been able to summon it at all having been an accident, and a surprising one at that.]

I mean, it's over 8 costa tall.

[...8.2 costa, to be exact. Which is something like 8.9 meters.]

[ This means very little to Gansey, who can only shrug. ]

That doesn't mean there aren't parking regulations. You can get books to tell you that sort of thing, and then you'll know how to read the road.

[ Or possibly you could google it, but for a young person, Gansey is not that Internet savvy. ]

How tall is a costa, anyway? How many costa are you?

[ Just to get an idea. ]

[Books that contain information about traffic laws aren't of any value to someone who can't read the language they're written in, but instead of pointing out what he thinks is obvious, Van skips ahead and says flatly...]

I'm just a little greater than one.

[So when he said his guymelef is a lot bigger than a car, he meant it.]

[ Gansey pauses, doing some rapid math in his head. ]

Jesus. Well, what have you done with something that tall? I can’t imagine that fits in a standard parking garage.

[ He’s definitely interested, though. ]

The people of this world are relatively used to strange things. I’m sure they’ll understand.

[So it was either a traffic officer with a sense of humor who plastered the tickets on Van's guymelef, or one having a really bad day...got it.]

Temporarily, it's being kept about a block from the residence where I'm told I'll be staying.

[At least until he can figure out how to better control both summoning and making Escaflowne disappear again afterwards.]

All right. Well, what you want is to make sure it’s inside a parking space. Like a little box on the road –

Give me a minute.

[ He heads outside, and down the street to where his own Camaro is parked inside a white outline. ]

One of these. And sometimes, you have to pay for them, so keep an eye out. No one likes getting tickets.

Escaflowne isn't going to fit in one of those!

[He'd wind up double parked at the very least! And at the worst...well, he doesn't want to think about that.

He shakes his head.]

...I'm sure I'll be able to figure something out, either way. Thank you...uh. Who are you, anyway?

Well, perhaps you should speak to the Ambassador of whatever city you're in, I'm sure they could help.

[ Actually, he's not sure of that at all, but he figures it's the best place to start. What else are they paying those people for anyway? ]

I'm Gansey. I live near De Chima. If you're ever around there, I'm sure we'll run into each other.

That's not a bad idea.

[Of course, at this point in time the new Ambassadors have yet to be elected, so Van will have to remind himself to speak with whomever is voted into position later on.]

I'm Van, by the way. [And here his brows furrow curiously.] I was given a residence in De Chima, actually. So I guess the chances we'll run into each other are pretty good, after all.

Oh, well then! It's a good city. I think you'll like it, I always did.

My friends and I moved to a farm some distance outside, since government housing didn't really suit us. Here's the address.

[ He sends it, and it's literally in the middle of nowhere, because it was a field before they improved on it. It helps to have friends with powerful magic. ]

What job did they give you? They assign one to everyone at the start.

A farm sounds nice.

[Van actually means this. Something far away from the chaos of a modern city, something more like what he's used to back home, how could he not like the sound of that? He'll have to visit Gansey sometime.

But first...he makes a face when asked about his job.]

I...think they expect me to build toys? Fighting figurines called Clashmallets. Which I don't know much about. I mean, I'm not an engineer, I'm a pilot. What were they thinking?

You're a pilot?

[ That is singularly interesting information. One never knows when one might need a pilot. Gansey will bear this in mind.

He also doesn't connect it with the guymelef they were just talking about, because why on earth would he? ]

If it's any consolation, you don't have to keep their job. I think they assign them at random. Yours isn't the strangest I've ever heard. They signed me up to be a baby photographer, and I'd never done that in my life.

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that should have read 8.09 meters oops

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