trans_9 | Hey, it's that void between worlds again [Open]

Ah, the Obs deck; one of the many places she'd yet to visit and with good reason. The first time she'd heard any mention of it was some time after being spat out by the pods. 'To meet the crew', they said. Even thinking about the number of people in that 'small' amount of space made her head throb in pain and so she had skipped it.

Today seemed tolerable enough and it was with amusement that she strolled upon an elf in full armor, stoically standing in front of the windows. There was never a lack of costumed people wherever she went, was there?

Whipping out her comm, she could only noisily type a response to the elf's words.

Hey, this wasn't a costume! ...okay, the Argent Dawn tabard was purely for looks, but everything else was standard wear for a paladin!

Those ears were good for something besides bouncing comically when he ran. He turned, smiling at the girl as she came up to him. "Aftern...I have no idea what time it is, never mind. Hello!"

Her lips tugged into a wry smile and she held up the little device. [Hello! Somehow I expected a more pleasant view from here. Though I have to agree, I've completely given up on trying to keep track of time in this place.]

Luckily, technology like wasn't completely foreign to Azeroth. They usually used voice, but this wasn't hard to adapt to.

"It's too sterile!" he said. "Looking at it from behind a barrier. It's just not the same as swooping your netherdrake down to skim it, the wind in your hair -- if you're not wearing your helmer -- and the glory of living!"

He looked back at the Bleed outside. "Might not be possible though..."

She looked down at the device and began typing away and only held it up after a good half a minute.

[What, did you use to 'fly' through the 'space' on your planet? Even with suprahumans and the like, very few people who could stand around in hard vacuum.] She could only actually remember one; Elyssa. Even Elyssa could only stand it because of her skimpy, little suit.

Small fingers deftly made their way over the buttons with speed, though a grimace was on her face. She held it up after a moment. [What exactly would you consider the 'glory of living', anyways?"

"Oh... there was a lot of magic involved," Mar said, as she began to type out her second question. "Outland used to be a planet, but it was broken into shreds a long time ago. When we went to it it was just a large chunk of land floating in the middle of the Twisting Nether. I don't know how that works, except for the fact that it did and no one died, though it was possible to fall off the side."

Hmm, second question. Oh, this one is easy, and it gets answered in his ringing 'hero' voice! "Stand against evil, defy those who would enslave or destroy the world! Have fun, slay your foes, make sure no one gets hurt more than is necessary, and get better armor and weapons for doing it all! Um, the enjoying the flights part I was talking about falls under 'have fun', by the way."

[Ah, magic. So it would be safe to say that this 'Twisting Nether' was just a mystical-fueled portion of space? By scientific standards I'd go ahead and say that it doesn't work. At this point though, when it's involved with the forces of magic I have learned this. It's magic; you don't have to explain shit.] She offered up a lopsided smile with the message.

And then promptly snorted in laughter at his take on 'the glory of living'. [I see; even the destruction of Earth doesn't get me away from the caped and colorfully dressed crusaders of good.] She paused for a moment and began clicking away with a decidedly grumpy expression.

[Captain Do-good, you wouldn't mind if I took a little (tiny) dip in your cognisphere, would you? Regretfully I have very few methods of actually communicating. One being this inefficient device and the other being telepathy.] The woman sighed heavily when she realized that the little machine hadn't given her anymore space to write and she lowered it and began typing again.

[Admittedly, many people don't enjoy us telepaths floating around in their heads. But I promise (with a cherry on top!) that I'll only read your current thought stream and leave the rest up to your repressed memories and subconscious.] Jokes aside, she found little reason to delve into others thoughts unless she was looking for something. Really, there were some things about people that were best left secrets.

"Oh, it's complicated. On the one hand, you have the Great Dark Beyond, which I guess it what you call space?" He holds up one hand. "And on the other, the Twisting Nether," he said, holding up the other. "See, the two don't meet up, normally. The Great Dark is where all the normal rules apply, and the Twisting Nether is where none of them do. But the Nether connects all words together. Draenor was destroyed by the orc Elder Shaman Ner'zhul by a spell that opened far too many portals to other worlds, so when the planet was rent by the energies its fragments were suspended in the Nether instead of the Great Dark."

Surprised? Mar is much smarter and more knowledgeable than he normally lets on.

"Sure," he said, poking one of his own temples. "Go for it. I'm pretty used to it."

"Much better! Thank you, my (delightfully) knowledgeable crew mate. So this 'Twisting Nether' (very dramatic sounding, by the way) of yours; is it some sort of dimensional (quasi-dimensional? pseudo-dimensional?) glue that binds these 'other' worlds of yours to each other?"

She pocketed the device and turned her visored gaze to the elf.

"I'll admit that through my own (extensive) knowledge of portals, there's always a risk of them collapsing, malfunctioning (having your code overwritten by a clever ex-team mate), or the like. Rending a planet from the portals themselves, I have yet to see, though."

Whoa! Parentheticals! That made him reel mentally a moment. He blinked hard, then pulled his mind together.

"There's a lot of speculation that it was a plan going back to the Old Gods themselves," Mar said. "As for the Nether, from what I overhear from the mages and warlocks, it's basically the chaos to oppose the order of the Great Dark Beyond."

She had to laugh at the expression on his face and the sudden pause it caused his mind.

"My apologies, Captain Do-good. You see, the (unfortunate) downside of having (no choice but) to communicate telepathically is that I (unfortunately, again) can't filter my thought stream. It means you'll be witness (or listener, rather) to everything I have to 'say', even when I (really, really) wish you and others couldn't."

A short, annoyed sigh escaped her lips but it didn't seem to weigh down her good mood any.

"Ah, so 'chaos' and 'order' (respectively) are tangible forces, then." She furrowed in eyebrow in both a bit of amusement and disbelief that was apparent in her mental voice. "Old Gods? Don't tell me that Lovecraftian horrors just roam (presumably mentally obliterate) around, there?

"What's with the Captain title? Crusader was a lot closer. In fact, that actually IS one of my titles. One of my favorite ones! And anyway, I can pretend pretty easily that I didn't hear things, so just give me some sort of sign and I'm all over that."

Lovecraftian? He couldn't place the adjective, but he could figure it out by context -- Lovecraftian meant Old-God-uh...ian. Yeah. "Oh, they don't roam. Usually they get imprisoned in poorly-thought out jails which they later utterly corrupt, forcing a group of us heroes to go down and finish them off ineffectually."

"It seemed fitting at the time, though you're right. 'Crusader Do-good' has much more of a melodious (and delightfully corny) sound to it, as far as suprahuman tags go. And though it's (much) appreciated, the biggest problem it ever presents is that I can't lie (no matter how much I would love to be able to.)"

Poorly-thought out jails sounded awfully familiar to some of the areas used to incarcerate repeat-offender supervills. Sometimes she could swear that the 'unwritten rules' were only in place so that her egocentric fellow capes would always be in need.

"And then you (presumably) save the day and leave with the spoils and fame while the big, bad (as in terribly pathetic) enemy crawls off to plot his (or her) eventual escape and revenge (only to later fail. Again.)? Why yes, I know just what that's like."

"If I ask you something you'd rather lie to, feel free to not answer," he said casually. None of this registered as particularly strange or unusual to his mind, after all.

He lifted a hand to stroke his goatee thoughtfully. "Well, to be fair, the heroes of Azeroth did kill both the Old Gods that we came across, death just seems to not matter quite as much to them as we'd like. But it is true that an unusually large number of things we defeat tend to come back later none the worse for wear. Same business, I take it?"

"Oh, I (certainly) plan to take such liberties. I must say, though, your cognisphere is (surprisingly) calm, given the circumstances. I gather psychics and telepaths are a common occurrence?"

If it was anything like she could imagine these 'Old Gods' being, she wasn't really surprised by the inability to kill them. It kind of held true with bargin superheros. They just never stayed dead.

"Sort of but for completely (ridiculous) reasons most of the times. See in the (colorfully dressed) world of suprahumans, heroes and villains (respectively) have 'codes of conduct' that they follow. 'Unwritten rules', they call them. One of them follows that heroes and villains (usually) don't kill (not outright) each other. Its (heavily) frowned upon so sooner or (sooner than later) later the supervills and their thugs are right back in their (not so) secret lair, plotting against the heroes once again."

"Some of the other members of the Horde, especially shamans, developed techniques like this to speak with people from afar. That way they could relay information and instructions to us while we're out in the field. Besides, I've been through a lot."

Yogg'Saron practically drove people insane just looking at it. It was hard to get too worked up over pretty much ANYthing else, after that!

"You know, not killing seems very heroic and noble and all, but why do the villains subscribe to it?"

"Ah, (the standard) magic, I assume? Things would be (exceedingly) simple if we could have relied on it. As far as villains go, most of them except the psychotic (Baron Womb) or genuinely evil (Deathmonger) ones avoid cape-killing simply because they know the superhero community will rise up in the name of justice (revenge) for their fellow cape. You won't just get defeated and spend some time in (poorly protected) jail. They'll (happily, slowly) kill you and everyone associated (minions) with your villainous schemes."

"Hmm. You know, I'm just saying, if I was a villain, I'd find a way to kill some heroes and blame it on the other villains. Get both sides nice and weak, then, world trembling in my iron fist, chaos and despair and danishes for breakfast."

Then he smacked his fist into his upturned palm as the logic hit. "But villains can't do that because you could find out about it in their heads! I see how this works!"

She laughed, the noise a light, melodious sound in his head. "My, you sound as if you'd actually put up quite the fight. A plan more thought out than the (perpetually bumbling) villains we usually run by. The danishes are a delicious touch, by the by."

Ah, if only it were as easy as he made it seem then she could probably be happy. It would have given her a bit more work to do on that lonely space station, in any case.

"As much as that would be the best (slash worst) way to utilize my psychic powers, unfortunately my telepathy can be fooled by things like self-delusion and psychosis. Or (thankfully rare) things like neurocamouflage. They're not infallible."

Oh, hey, that was a pretty cute mental laugh. Don't think he didn't notice that!

"Lucky for you no one seems to have thought of it! But on the other hand," he said, tilting his head to indicate the hilt of the sword on his back (Zin'rohk, Destroyer of Worlds, the old version, which he always wore when there was no fighting to be done because it just looked awesome), "if people on Azeroth had powers like yours instead of just your average paladin spread, maybe I wouldn't have thought of it either. If you can't win with power, you gotta win with cleverness, after all."

"You're right! I'll admit, it's not usually the first thing that comes to mind for most of the (spandex and masked) superhero crowd. Plenty, like Major (asshole) Havoc are convinced that sheer force wins the day. It couldn't be further from the truth."

She took a moment to study the sword strapped to his back, then turned her visored gaze back to him.

"Well, I'll agree. It does look (to be particularly '90's' about it) 'awesome'."

"Hey, that went a bit deeper than I was purposely thinking," Mar said -- not seeming at all bothered by the fact, just curious. "Was that intentional, or does it just happen? And what is a nineties?"

After a beat, he added, "Oh, uh, yell if the questions get a bit too much. I won't stop thinking them but you can ignore them if I don't ask them out loud, right?"

"Hm...a bit of both, maybe," she teased. "And 'the 90s'(other than being the known for dirty flannel shirts, the rise of 'boy bands' and terrible indie films) is an abbreviation for the years between 1990 and 1999. The current year on earth when I was (inexplicably) saved was 2010."

Her mouth curved into a smile. "I'll assure you that you don't want me yelling in your mind. I deal with it all the time and it's a headache (quite literally!). As for ignoring the questions, really I could (easily) do so even if you ask them out loud. Most people can."

She paused and raised her eyebrows, barely visible over her visor. "But if you're asking 'can I ignore them just because you're asking them aloud', then no. To be quite honest with you (and I can no longer be anything but), you don't even need to speak. We could (seemingly silently) be having a conversation, all," she tapped her forehead. "Here."

"Oh, I was being metaphorical!" he said, brightly. "Actually yelling in my head, yes, that would probably hurt a lot, and whenever possible I prefer my pain on the outside of the body where a good burst of healing can fix it right up. So let's not do that. There have been enough people up there rearranging the furniture." If there was one thing he wouldn't miss about Azeroth, it was priests forcing him to walk off the cliff by the mine during the battle for Arathi Basin.

"Easiest for me to keep speaking out loud, though," he continued. "It helps me focus, and then, excessive literalness aside, you totally have my permission to ignore anything I don't say out loud if you want to." That way he could save any real flirtation for when he figured out just how to go about it here on this ship. It wasn't like Sunstrider Pavilion existed as a picnic venue any more, and -- hey, she was probably picking up on all this. Oh well! He wasn't gonna stop thinking things!

"Oh, I don't know. Hearing things you never were meant to (or don't mean to) is the best (slash worst) thing about being a telepath!" She patted his arm in a mock comforting manner. "If it makes you feel better (it probably won't) I'll only project my thoughts when I respond to you instead of making your head a temporary home throughout this conversation."

Crossing her arms underneath her chest, she glanced back out to the Bleed. "Though there certainly are a variety of denizens on this ship (all as noisy as the babbleroar on Earth...) you could probably go about flirtation the same way you did before as long as it doesn't include terribly cheestastic, horn-dog pick-up lines (like 'nice shoes', wanna fuck?').

Raising one hand to tap her chin, she tilted her head to the side. "Well actually, if you are going to use such lines let me know in advance. I'd like to watch as I can always use a good laugh (at other's expense, no less).

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