trans_9 | (no subject)

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There was a city.

Traci moved into the observation deck, weak-legged. For someone whose entire being relied on something so simple as something as a place where people lived--it was like watching something you could never have--it was empty. She had felt it, while finding her staff, and then she had found the tube which had pulled her to the surface. And there the city had been, empty and huge and lifeless.

She wanted milk and cookies. Tea. Something comforting.

Her Staff was warm in her hand, but felt weak with shock--sick.

Traci sat down, hard, on a squishy green thing, staring at the huge statue in front of her, curled up around her staff, and said, quietly, "Well, shit."

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"Hey, Doctor, you in here?" Jaime called into the room from the door, looking around.

Traci, quite simply, froze.

And slowly turned and looked at him over the green cushions with big, saucer-like eyes.

"The doctor's my dad," she said, slowly.

3...2...1..

"I meant the other D--"

Recognition.

"Traci?"

She didn't even have time to answer that, because he was running over, and a flying tackle was involved, as he knocked her into the couch, pulling her into a huge, huuuuge hug.

"Traci Traci Traci!"

Flying tackle! Traci flew backwards, tumbling over her head, before being pulled into the hug, completely stiff, surprised. "Wh--"

"Jaime!"

HUG!

"Traci! Wait, I already said that." Cue the rambling. "We're on a sentient alien spaceship and I think we got forcibly conscripted for some kind of war, but there's no aliens around to beat up, and I'm so glad you're here, except I'm not, because I'd rather you be safe at home, but I'm still glad you're here anyway."

Then he kissed her, gently and sweetly, and made it abundantly clear just how much he was glad she was here.

She kissed back, sweetly, the way she knew how.

Then, when they stopped to breathe, "There was these guys, they had black hair and blue eyes and one was tall and the other was short and it was weird."

This whole thing was getting weird for Terry. Alien plant clothes. Superheroes from the past he'd never heard of. A blue guy with a tail that wasn't a splicer. Tim Drake. Tim. Slagging. Drake. He was surprised he hadn't started freaking out yet. Lord knew he deserved a good meltdown.

But not when there were other people who seemed to be melting down. Like the girl on the couch he spotted when he'd reentered to Obs Deck to try and clear his head a little.

"Hey, you alright? I think there's a med-wing or something, you need to go there?" He asked as he approached the girl. She was a stranger, but chivalry was one of his stronger aspects - one of the few areas he felt he excelled at over Bruce.

Terry was not aware that he was the first living human being that Traci had seen the entire time, besides the voices beside her when the pod had spit her out covered in mucus.

Traci was very aware of this fact.

Nevertheless, she managed to collect herself quite nicely as she got to her feet and was standing behind him in less than half a second. If he didn't know any better, he might think it was magic. "Who are you, where are we, and what the hell is going on? What are these plant things? Why was I naked?"

"Whoa, slag, calm down!" Terry said, turning around to face her, more then a little surprised. He hadn't been around someone that fast since the last time he faced Curare.

"My name's Terry McGinnis. We're in space somewhere, but otherwise, I have no idea what this is all about." He raised up his hands in the universal 'I'm unarmed, I'm not a threat' gesture. He really didn't want this girl attacking him before he could get a proper idea of what she was. "And trust me, I'm just as upset as you are that I lost my clothes when I woke up, too. If I don't find it, I'm pretty sure if I ever get back home, I'm fragged."

She had the Staff of Arion at his throat. Generally, staffs at people's throats are an unfortunate thing anyway, and Terry couldn't know what this one was made of, but considering she was pointing it in a rather threatening way, it wasn't something to be laughed at.

"If I find out you're lying," she said, through her teeth, "There will be consequences. I can be very dangerous."

He was very, very tempted to do what he would have done in any situation like this in Gotham. Knock the staff out of her hands, sweep the legs, maybe add in a punch for good measure. But this wasn't Gotham. He had no idea where he could be safe on this ship, and he didn't have the Batsuit. If she had any powers, he'd be in trouble.

So instead, he tried to talk again. "I swear, on my dad's grave, that I am not lying to you." And his dad's grave was something he'd never, ever lie over.

He didn't know how close he'd hit to home.

She lowered the Staff, no longer meeting his eyes, and instead lifted it to a gentle position, horizontal in both hands.

"So we're in space," Traci murmured.

Terry relaxed. He'd never really liked weird mystic weapons. Guns he could deal with. Knives he could deal with. Once it got into the magic area, he had no idea what to do. It was a huge relief to not have one pointed at him.

"Yeah, space, as much as I can figure out. I think there's a lot more to this ship, but I haven't really gone looking into it too much." And who could blame him, really? He was far from his home, his time, and, for all he knew, his other identity. It was a bit unnerving.

"Honestly, I'm just trying to find something from my home to keep me sane right now."

Traci stared at the floor for a moment, then back up at him. "How long have you been here?" If he'd been here for a while, he might know where Jaime was. The voice had said he was here.

"How do you know we're in space?"

That was a tough question to answer. Just how long had he been here? "About... a day, I think. Maybe a bit longer." It was a rough estimate, but it's hard to tell time in a space ship.

"Uh, hello, windows?" He said sarcastically, pointing to the blast shields across the room. "Unless there's another place where you see a lot of black and a bunch of really bright lights, this is space."

She hadn't really noticed the windows. The vast emptiness of what was in front of her was enough to make her turn back to him, just to look at anything else except that.

Traci had never been in space before.

"I'm Traci," she said, after a minute. "Do you know Jaime Reyes?"

"Jaime?" Again, he made a 'y' sound at the end. Accents die hard.

"Short hispanic kid? Kinda flighty? Yeah, he sort of yelled at me for talking about the future of Robin."

The first smile on her face since she'd gotten here. It disappeared almost instantly.

"I need to find him. The voice--" She looked at him. "Why was there a voice? Telepathy? I couldn't find the source. Where in space are we?"

"That was Stacy. Who is the ship itself. I think." Danny said, walking in not in human form. "And as for where in space? We don't even know which universe we're in, much less where exactly we are in it. Oh, I'm Danny Fenton by the way. Or Danny Phantom. Take your pick on which."

"Stacy?" It had been a female voice, but not a human one. Traci had enough experience with things that weren't human that she knew better. "Stacy is the ship? We're on a talking space ship."

Her father would have a heart attack.

"Do all the boys in this place have black hair and blue eyes?" One was certainly much shorter than the other, but the resemblance was there.

"Would snow-white hair and glowing green eyes make you feel more comfortable?" Danny quipped.

Terry relaxed slightly when the other boy showed up. No idea who this one was, either, but at least Traci would stop interrogating him.

"Wait, what?" He said at the hair and eyes comment. "Are you another one of those mutants like Kurt?" Why couldn't this place be normal? Why mutants? Why not just clown gangsters and splicers?

Mutants? Traci wasn't from that universe. She had thought the hair and eyes quip was a joke. Now, not so sure and cursing herself for not thinking of it, she backed up a bit, and looked between Terry and Danny.

"This is getting a bit too weird for me," she said. "What do you mean, snow-white hair and glowing green eyes? Or should I not ask that question?"

"Half-ghost. And don't ask me how that works, I'm just a C-student. Only explanation I've got is that my parents built a machine that opens a portal to what we call the Ghost Zone. It didn't work because my Dad forgot to turn it on, and when I looked inside to see If I could figure out what went wrong I accidentally turned it on. And well, it did this." He turned ghostly to emphasize his point.

Terry was speechless. He'd been pretty sure that all of this was real, but now... it was getting a bit too strange. He wasn't so sure this wasn't one of Spellbinder's tricks.

"What the hell is wrong with this place?" He said, slumping into one of the gooey couches. He'd been holding himself together pretty well until now, but he wasn't sure how much longer he could last.

"Hey, you think I never found this weird? My life's been one crazy thing right after another."

"Hey, my life isn't exactly normal." Terry shot back. "But at least it's a comfortable kind of weird." This ship, on the other hand, was a bit too much.

"At least back home, I know what I'm up against. Splicers, Jokerz, a few assassins... but here. Half-ghosts. Blue guys with tails. Mia. I swear, no one should have their ass grabbed by a girl that'll be at least 50 when they'll be born."

Traci watched this exchange silently, going over the things she'd learned in her head.

"Excuse me," she said, looking at Danny, "but you can't be half-ghost. You can't be half-dead."

"Logically, yes. Of course, logically we aren't supposed to be flying between universes in a living ship, so I think we can toss all logic out the window right now. Besides, I'm not even sure all the ghosts in my world are even the spirits of formerly living people anyways."

Terry stared at the white-haired boy.

"Okay," he finally managed to say, "I take it back. Your world sounds a whole lot more confusing then mine."

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