Take Two, Part I

[sixthiteration]

WHO: Take Two I participants
WHERE: Everywhere!
WHEN: February 26-March 4
OPEN TO: ONLY Take Two participants — Reactions to the disappearances should have their own posts.
WARNINGS: Please warn in your subject line as needed
NOTES: Plot Basics | Cheat Sheet & Other Details | Color Combos

---

Morning, February 26. A message blinks across the devices of many in the village, sender unknown. Meet with a specified someone else, it says, dubious but not overtly sinister. Is this belated Valentine's matchmaking? An Observer attempt at forcing friendships?

Or could this perhaps be something that takes just a wee bit more effort?

Comments

kamala & desmond | closed

[morphogenia]

She has to wonder how stupid do they think she is. Granted people reading her public texts about the genius of T. Swift are bound to get the wrong impression. Enjoying stuff that is so girly is usually a big mark against someone. That's fine. Whatever! That just means she can evade obvious traps like this one.

It'll occur to her later the best way to win this would have been to stay home. She heads to the Inn as usual to cook and chat up the people living there. Everything seems so stupidly normal until the second a guy enters the kitchen. Suddenly she has an outfit change while out in the middle of a forest. Kamala might have screamed in frustration and okay maybe a little panic because hello random kidnapping??? But, the guy is clearly there. She narrows her eyes at him. "Let me guess: you're the mysterious Desmond I'm supposed to meet." Kamala pulls her leg back and lifts one fist in front of her while the other one hangs loosely at her side. Yes, the tiny girl is getting into a fighting stance. Be terrified. "Did you get a creepy text or send the creepy text? Because that's the difference between us teaming up or me punching you in the face until you agree to let me go home!" She'll address the bags later. Potential boss battles come first!!!

[moderndayassassin]

Desmond had a very similar type of morning. He blinked at the message and thought, alright, maybe he'd at least ask if someone knew who this Kamala was, but he doesn't like being told what to do. Especially not by the people who fucked up his life only a few weeks before. No. They could go to hell. So instead he went about his day, heading to the inn to see if he could find Bull, and he stepped into the kitchen.

Shocked, he finds himself teleported somewhere new ... again. "Motherfucker," he growls under his breath, and only then does he realize there's someone with him. Which means his assassin skills are weak to say the least at the moment, but he purposely ignores them most days now. He sees a teenager and she immediately puts up her little fists at him. He just furrows his eyebrows at her.

"You think that they'd teleport one of their own people to do whatever crazy shit is happening this week?" He glances over at the bags, startled. Okay, so this is new. Stranded, maybe, but not without supplies this time? What the fuck? "I'm Desmond, and no I didn't sign up for this, kid."

Natasha & Loki | closed

[tothefly]

After overcoming their overwhelming suspicion of one another upon teleporting to an unknown corner of the island, Natasha and Loki reach an uneasy truce. They'll work together for the length of the seven days, if only because they're both more suspicious of the Observers than they are of each other, and if they see an opportunity to investigate further, they aren't going to pass it up.

The first two days pass more or less quietly, as they settle into a routine collecting seeds, scouting the terrain and keeping an eye out for anything dangerous or potentially useful. On the third day, they stumble across the first of the remains of habitation, leading them to the Shipwreck Settlement. Scouting this collection of ruined ships, they find there isn't much left to tell them who lived there--but there is an old parchment map, rolled and tucked into a case fallen half behind a rotting bookshelf. The map reveals familiar geography, and allows the pair to orient themselves, deciding to make their way back towards the village.

By the fourth day out, Natasha and Loki are approaching the northern end of the eastern mountain range, but run into their first major hurdle when Loki runs into a swarm of fireflies while looking for water. They're out of commission for the entirety of the fifth day, while Natasha takes care of Loki, nursing him through fever and delusions and keeping him from hurting either one of them.

The morning of day six, they continue their journey westward, finally rounding the northern foothills, and feel like they're making real progress. Their extra bag is almost full of zoom seeds, and when they make camp that night, they're sure their trial is almost over.

Late that night, the giant spider attacks without warning, drawn in by the seemingly easy meal of two warm human bodies. It's not as easy a meal as it first seems, however, Loki and Natasha discovering their combined powers and managing to kill the thing, though not without injuries. The seventh day is spent bandaging wounds and resting, both of them avoiding talking about exactly how well they'd worked together. The sooner they get home the better, and not just because they both probably need real medical treatment.

GLAMPING -- or not

[sundr]

It isn't that Loki hadn't been aware of Romanoff's presence in the village. Despite her apparent and unsurprising penchant for both stealth and privacy, he'd known she was among the others doing whatever it is she does to pass the time and he never questioned whether or not she was aware of the same where he was concerned. Truly, he'd have to be a fool to think she'd missed word of his arrival, certainly not when he hasn't made any great effort to conceal himself, and he could only assume she'd been as happy as he was to ignore any sign of her continued existence as long as it suited.

So, naturally, it shouldn't come as any surprise that whatever powers in control of this place seemed to have other ideas, and he'd nearly ignored the prompting to meet her by the device about his wrist, certain no good could come out of seeking her out, but--

Curiosity, as it so often does, won the war against wary suspicion, and Loki had made sure his stolen blades were well concealed before he'd left his home to find her.

He should have known better than to think it could possibly be so easy as just meeting her in the village to discover what it is the Observers think they can find from each other. After that new years party, after the monstrous trick that left them finding their way home from the shrine they'd been taken to, Loki really ought to know better than to think anything here could be simple. And that was proved thoroughly when they'd come within a stone's throw of each other and Loki had found himself ripped from the village once more.

They have supplies this time, at least. Provisions to tide them over, materials with which to make what Loki can only hope is a suitable enough camp to keep them from freezing to death in the middle of the night, instructions to be followed that Loki resents immediately, and--

A notable lack of the knives he knows he had on him before they were taken.

He can't help but let it raise his hackles. Natasha Romanoff is the last person he cares to turn his undefended back on. "Zoom seeds." He'd read about them when he arrived from the books available at the inn and he remembers being dubious about the benefits to eating the things when the cost to such a short lived enhancement seemed so miserable. His lips press into a thin line and when he speaks his tone is far from impressed. "How entertained they must be, thinking we'll scramble to keep up with every nonsensical task they force before us."

maine & cougar

[bloodbathing]

On the morning of February 26th, Maine receives a message on his device: "MEET WITH COUGAR ALVAREZ." He takes one look at it, snorts in dismissal, and promptly proceeds to ignore it. He has better things to do than obey orders issued by a smartwatch, especially after the bullshit it pulled in changing colors.

Maine still hasn't addressed what he discovered during that time. He's not sure if he should.

So Maine goes about his day as usual. He takes care of his morning routine, then he bundles up and runs from the North to the South Village. It's a distance that would intimidate many people, but Maine's grown accustomed to it. The seven-foot-tall space marine makes his way through the village, not unaware of but not paying close attention to anyone around him...

... And he just so happens to pass within ten feet of one Cougar Alvarez.

[thecatinahat]

Cougar's finally back to normal with his device no longer making him chatty. As a result, he's gone back to being even more silent than usual, which is probably very annoying for Jake and some of the others, because he's so quiet. He sees the message about meeting a MAINE, but he's not entirely sure who that is, which means recon.

He's in the middle of that very mission when all of a sudden, they're not where they were a minute ago. Wary, Cougar pats himself down and finds that he's still got everything he did before, but there's something more to worry about. It's only him and the tall man with him, and there are two bags.

Instantly, he's quickly opening them up, glancing through and hauling out camping things from the one, and nothing from the other. It's not quite panic in his eyes as he looks at the other man, but it's clear he doesn't like it. "You? Did you do this?" he asks, not accusatory, but trying to find some answers, and he knows some people here have powers.

Alec & Lucy Stillman

[houmaprotector]

Alec is used to strange traveling - he's just surprised by the sudden vigor in his steps. Taking it in on his device, giving him instructions Collection? With- hm.

Reading it over twice he shrugs it off mostly because this is his realm - and big green hands aren't particularly good at collecting tiny things. So. Well to the good. Making the rounds, he reflects on the nature of his human compatriots. How many of them might not know how to do proper specimen collection.

Fully aware he cuts a rather spectacular figure, the swamp thing approaches a woman, "...Excuse me, perhaps you can help me find this Lucy Stillman..."

As he moves closer.

[retributes]

The sight of him nearly stops her in her tracks, his voice sounding as intimidating as he looks. At first seeing the sight of Venom had startled her on New Year’s Eve and she’d gotten past it and now seeing whatever this being was supposed to be, she didn’t know what to say or do. But then she hears her name and she stares at him.

“I...” Was this who she was supposed to meet with? “I’m Lucy. That’s me.” This guy, this thing, this was Alec? “And you’re—” That was all she could get out as she was daring to step forward to meet him halfway.

A sharp tug at her navel, the air whipped around her, their entire surroundings morphed and when they came from point a to point b, her landing was rough. On her side, grunting as she rolls off her shoulder. What had happened? What was going on? They’d barely come within ten feet of each other.

“What the fuck...”

Samantha & Bobo

[fooloftheking]

Meet with Samantha Moon. Bobo isn't sure what the message is meant to be about, or what it's trying to get him to do but Bobo is pretty sure he's going to do absolutely anything but respond to that message. He's fairly certain he's never met this person, and he's not sure why he'd want to seek them out. He's got too much he needs to be doing instead. In fact, the message itself has him considering packing up things and heading for the north village for a few days. Just until all of this blows over. Whatever this is. So he heads out to get things done in the south before he heads back home. Which is when he crosses path with a blue haired girl he's seen around since he arrived. The sensation is a bit like being sucked into Hell, and Bobo comes to with a growl, eyes flashing red for a moment. A shame he hasn't anything else that goes along with those eyes.

[thegreatexperiment]

Sam just figured it was some kind of a prank. What the fuck kind of name was Bobo anyway? She'd been ignoring the network for the last few weeks, ever since announcing that Danny was gone. Mostly because she just didn't want to deal. And the fact that she'd even checked the message at all felt like considerable effort on her part.

Which wasn't to say she wasn't getting out in the world again.

The fact of the matter was that she was forcing herself to leave her room for at least an hour every day. She had nowhere to be, really. So she usually just picked a path and walked it. A path that inevitably led right back to the Inn and her cold bed.

Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

And she was just about ready to call it a day--or, well, an hour, anyway--when she glanced up from the path and spotted a large man. The kind of generic white guy she'd seen around the village, but not managed to develop any kind of report with. Frankly, she had no interest in exchanging any words with him at the moment, but as soon as she laid eyes on him, she felt...something.

A decidedly not-good something. But something that prompted her to speak, after all. "What the fuck?"

And then the world felt like it exploded.

Reeve and Anne

[can_fight_ugly]

Anne is, understandably, suspicious when the message pops up on her device, considering not too long ago she was dealing with the ramifications of a color change. Still, she's at least vaguely familiar with the name its presenting her and so she'll go to find Reeve while keeping alert for anything that has even the slightest scent of being off.

There's nothing odd about the walk to Reeve's house, doesn't seem to be anything weird when she knocks on the door. There's nothing odd when he answers. Apparently he'd gotten a similar message to find her.

And then the other shoe drops and suddenly they find themselves on a hillock in a sea of hillocks, edged with forests and marsh lands. Anne stumbles, weighted down by a full pack of - something - and after a moment drops it to the ground in order to get her bearings.

"I wish I could say I was surprised." She takes a look around, frowning, and looks over to Reeve. "Does any of this look familiar to you?"

Re: Reeve and Anne

[plate_builder]

Fact of the matter is that Reeve didn't notice the message until the knock at his door. After the last few weeks he's thrown himself at the work he had before him. Getting as much as he could done before someone came to remind him to eat was always important. Still, he only looks at his device then to check the time, and was shocked by the message. Strange.

When he opened the door to see the target he opened his mouth to comment. And then they weren't there. This wasn't his house. These weren't the clothes he had been wearing. And damn if his head wasn't just about spinning. Reeve's fingers came up to his temples to rub at them with a sigh.

"I'm really getting annoyed at the teleporting," he grumbled, moving immediately to scoop up the bag Anne had set aside. He doesn't know if that bag is waterproof. He doesn't know if there are things in it they need, or that can be easily damaged. Dammit, though, it's heavy.

"Well then," he sighs as he shoulders the weight. "At least we are properly clothed."

Of course there's the other question, and he moves a bit away from Anne before he starts to slowly turn and evaluate the location they are in. He makes three full, slow spins before he pauses and sighs, facing in the general direction of the mountain raising in one part of their sight.

"That," he says, pointing up at the ridge of the mountain, "if I am any gauge of reading land, and I assure you that I am, would be the mountain with the shrine."

brigitte & jane

[whipshots]

This whole time, Brigitte had been operating on the half-assumption that the Observers had forgotten about her -- which was simultaneously a relief and a bitter disappointment somehow, a sort of twisting unease even as she tried to ghost under the radar, largely unnoticed. Just doing her own thing.

But then.

MEET WITH JANE FOSTER.

She's sitting up in bed, staring drowsily at the message on her device. Some people might recoil from that instruction-slash-command and do everything in their power to avoid it, but her obedience and curiosity is getting to her. While she's still thinking about it and mulling over the decision, the woman finally shoves her feet in her boots and strides down the stairs into the main room to grab some breakfast, distracted.

Unfortunately -- or fortunately -- ten feet isn't very much at all.

And both Brigitte and Jane live in the inn.

So when she reaches the bottom of the stairs, her gaze has just barely landed on an unknown brunette when her next step lands on inexplicable sand shifting unexpectedly underfoot, and Brigitte slides and hits the ground with an inelegant mmfph and "vad fan—"

[scrappiness]

And just like that, Jane is on her ass.

You'd think the landing would be softer with the sand, but it really isn't, and not at all helped by the overloaded bag strapped to her back that pulls her down as quick as an anchor. She lands with an audible oof, the breath knocked briefly from her lungs, and then spends a graceless moment rolling not unlike an overturned turtle, arms flailing in an attempt to create enough inertia to pop her over one way or the other.

Considering then the superior option of sliding her arms free instead, she plops fully onto the sand, squinting first across the landscape and then at her companion.

"This place is really big on quantum displacement," she says, not seeming all that concerned about it apart from a slight wrinkling of her nose.

Karen Page and 7

[to_defend]

So. 7 receives a message on her device telling her to meet a complete stranger. While she's made a lot of headway in terms of meeting people and being less guarded in general, this is particularly suspicious and instead of straight up meeting her intended person, 7 decides to tail her instead.

She's not even sure if she's following the right person, but she'd looked her up in the directory and found her room and parked herself in the Inn until someone left that room and then tried to follow surreptitiously behind.

-- but somehow, impossibly, suddenly she finds herself knee-deep in a mucky water and surrounded by trees and bugs and marsh. She splashes around for a moment, taking in the surroundings and looking for a dry spot to perch, finally settling on the crooked knee of a tree root, and find that the woman she'd been tailing was somehow there as well.

"What -- just happened?"

[digging]

For Karen's part, she was entirely oblivious to having anyone paying particular attention to her at all until she found herself stepping one moment atop the dry and solid boards of the inn's floor, and then the next into the dark sludge of a marsh. The change is abrupt enough that she stumbles, booted feet wedging into the sediment as a flailing hand finds a velvet-green loop of vine and catches a hard hold of it just in time to prevent her splashing down face-first into the muck.

Her head snaps around at the sound of another voice, the face one she knows of despite not formally knowing the person behind it. She hesitates a tick and then frowns, deeply, with a glance to her lifted arm, swaying with the resistance of the vine. The device circling her wrist is still lit up with the message she'd received just before all of this had happened.

"You're 7," she says, a sighed statement rather than a question. Firming her hold on the vine, she pulls one foot free and then the next, splashing through the knee-deep water to a bit of slightly more solid ground.

"I guess this is going to be a monthly thing now." She looks to her watch, at the messages beginning to roll across the display, a quick confirmation that they at least aren't the only ones in this sort of predicament, and then looks back to 7, eyebrows lifted. "Are you OK? Any injuries or anything?"

Thor and Ashley Magnus

[connatural]

If ever there was a message to make a woman pay attention and look into it, being told to meet with Thor pretty much would do it. Ashley's met a lot of beings in her days, but a god has never been one of them. Not that she can't help but to wonder if maybe that's how all of this happened, who might be behind it.

So she heads out, seeking out whoever this Thor is in the village, not even sure of where they might be.

Which is when she finds herself staring at a guy who definitely fit the bill of what she thinks a god might look like, if you didn't count how Bull kind of had that look, and she heads purposefully towards him.

And finds herself stepping in the grass near trees, stumbling a step or two before catching herself. "Whoa. Whoa. Wait, what just..." She blinks, looking around.

[assemble_the_lovbacken]

When Thor had received the message on his strange wrist device with a name he didn't recognize, he wasn't entirely sure whether he wanted to find this person or not. Although it had been a bit of time ago, the ordeal that he, Jane, and Loki had gone through with the foxes was still fresh in his mind. And, despite his brother's protests to the contrary, Thor isn't entirely convinced that Loki isn't behind all of the recent teleportations and strange occurrences. Yes, Thor has been told that the village and their captors tend to make random things like this happen (personally, Thor is waiting for one of these alleged feasts to come about, but so far, no luck), but a lifetime of Loki's trickery has made him weary to believe that strange events could be the handiwork of anyone else.

Instead of actively trying to find this person, he's sort of doing the opposite. The downside of it all, of course, is that he doesn't know who Ashley Magnus is, but he knows he hasn't met her. This leads him to some bizarre behavior, like taking routes he doesn't normally at inopportune times. It's all for nought, because as soon as he lays eyes on a blonde woman he doesn't recognize, the ground from underneath him shifts, and if he closes his eyes, he can almost convince himself he's speeding along the Bifrost, on his way back to Asgard.

Wouldn't that be nice?, he thinks.

But as soon as that thought crosses his mind, he's landing on the ground, belly-down, with a rather heavy thump. The wind gets knocked out of him, and he groans, rolling over onto his back whilst coughing and trying to catch his breath.

"This village is the worst," he mutters, voice hoarse. He coughs again before managing to hoist himself up to a seating position, blinking himself to wherever he might be now, and glancing around. He spots the blonde woman he didn't recognize before they'd been teleported.

"You must be Ashley Magnus." He holds up his wrist device and taps it. "You're the one my bracelet told me to find. Admittedly, I tried to avoid you all of today because I had a feeling we were ill-fated if we met, and — well." Both hands go up as if to use their surroundings as the conclusion to that succinct story. "I suppose the positive is that we've never met before, but we are meeting now." He gets to his feet, wipes his hands off on his clothes (Midgardian ones, thank goodness), and holds a hand out to her. "I'm Thor Odinson."

Hawke and Nida

[skyward_eyes]

MEET WITH MARIAN HAWKE

Nida, out on his morning patrol, almost frowns in annoyance at the message that he receives on his device. Yes, that was a goal in the long run, right? Cards, but clearly something else is going on here. Something he doesn't have too much of a chance to think on. The woman must already have been out and about because he was coming up the path from one direction, the person from another, and before he was even close enough to call out a polite morning greeting they aren't on the path.

Instead he's stumbling to get his balance on the rough footing of a saddle between two mountain peaks. He's more than quick enough on his feet to recover from a clearly about to be misplaced step, and as instinct he slams his green-power into place. No, he is not getting another busted ankle, thank you very much.

"I swear if I ever meet the people playing with us here like this, I will sunder them more absolutely than Hyne was," he snarls powerlessly at the sky. At least, he realizes as he breathes out and catches sight of his own breath in the air, he was in warm clothes. Almost immediately he was stuffing gloved hands into pockets to keep them warm.

"Hawke, I presume? Nida. We've talked on the network some. Don't suppose you happen to have your Naughty Faith cards, do you?"

No, probably not. And there is definitely a huge sack at his side. He'll deal with that once he isn't so fucking pissed off. No... Wait...

First he's jerking his hand back from his pocket and pulling up the network. No, no he's got a bigger concern.

[championofsnark]

Hawke is almost always on the move, and she's outside of the village when she gets the message, blinking at it. Hmm. The name is familiar, he's the fellow who took over the Dojo, she never forgets names. Was he sending her a reminder that they were supposed to meet? It is sometimes like her to forget exact plans. It's why she heads back toward the village with her weapons sheathed, and she spots him about a second before the world around her shifts.

"Andraste's tits, are you kidding me?" Hawke immediately rights herself, she has an unnatural sense of balance, and rubs the bridge of her nose in frustration. "When I said I wanted to explore the bloody terrain, I meant on my terms!" Although really maybe she was asking for it, in a way. Just putting it out there into the universe that she's too curious to stand still for long, and now here she is.

"Wicked Grace," she corrects with a sigh, "and somehow I'm very skeptical." Still, Hawke tries to shake it off, because it isn't like he did this. She manages a smile, stepping forward to offer her hand. "Nice to meet you officially, oh." He's already using his network instead, well that's fine. Probably not a bad idea.

Betty & Takashi | Closed

[chondrion]

"Never listen to a dubious message on this thing," Betty says to herself. She sweeps her hair out of his eyes and looks over at the person she's been stranded with...somewhere. She hadn't explored to this particular place yet, and she has regrets right now.

"So," she says as she stuffs her hands into the pockets of the borrowed jacket she was luckily wearing. "This is what I get for not ending up stuck at the temple last month."

[rebornpaladin]

"I don't think that's how it works," Shiro mutters, frowning as he turns in a slow circle to take in their surroundings.

"Since I was." If he sounds annoyed, he thinks that's justified. He stops when the toe of his boot hits something. Sitting behind them is a bag. A large one. Shooting the woman his wristband had identified as Betty a baffled look over his shoulder, he kneels, opening it, and sits back on one knee with a letter in his hand.

"Why does this not make me feel better."

chloe decker & john wick

[thevulnerability]

Chloe has adjusted to the smartwatch constantly altering her of texts and updates, but the vague command of MEET WITH JOHN WICK doesn't do anything to put her at ease. She hates ambiguity nearly as much as she hates being told what to do by bossy shadow Observers, which is the only thing she can think to attribute this to.

She has every reason to ignore it, but she's not going to. Instead, she gives in to whatever fate awaits her and tracks him down, asking around until she's pointed in the right direction to a man who she finds out pretty immediately is the one she's looking for.

"Hey, are you--" She's barely within a few feet of him when the world changes around them completely and, in an instant, she's gone from standing in the settlement to somewhere in the wilderness, with nothing but her and him a huge bag sitting between them.

She manages to look, at the most, annoyed.

"I guess that answers that question."

[withafnpencil]

So, this must be what most people warned him about; the so-called exercises that the "Observers" figure it was time for another and which John has been rather interested in experiencing. He hadn't expected it to happen quite so fast and wanted to fully heal from the injuries he arrived with. But, seeing as that wasn't going to happen...

He wasn't nearly on the ball as Chloe was and had been over by the river that separated the north and south villages doing some fishing when his device alerted him to meet. As soon as she starts, though, John figured out who she was.

Still teetering on his feet a little after that very abrupt scene change, John looks at her then down at the black bracelet on his wrist.

"All you get on your device was to meet me, right?" he questions. There wasn't anything else coming through anyway.

Cissie and Aqua | closed

[cisskabob]

MEET WITH AQUA

The message is strange, and Cissie isn't sure what to make of it, but she knows Aqua and likes her, so she doesn't think too much of it, or spend too much time questioning why she's been sent this kind of message. She hasn't been here long enough to be immediately wary of these things yet. Because of those things, she sets out to find the other girl. Once she finds her, she raises a hand in greeting. "Hey! Did you get a weird messa--"

Before she can finish her question, something happens, and Cissie finds herself on the ground, in a strange place. She pushes herself up, alarmed, looking around. She spots Aqua nearby, and two large bags. They're in what seems to be a forest, and Cissie carefully checks herself over before pushing herself to her feet gingerly. "...Are you okay?"

[aguidingkey]

The message is a strange one. Like Cissie, Aqua hasn't been a resident of this world long enough to be suspicious of any strange messages. She doesn't even think that it might be a trap, that the mysterious overwatchers might have something sinister planned. Well, she does imagine that they have something planned; she just doesn't know what exactly. Still, she figures it can't hurt to find Cissie.

Unfortunately, when she does find Cissie, she doesn't even get a chance to say anything before she wakes up in the middle of a forest. That is a new one. She's beginning to think that being teleported to new locations seemingly at random is a trait of this world. It keeps happening and she isn't sure what to make of it.

Pushing herself to her feet, she picks up one of the bags, opening it to see what's inside. Surprisingly, it's empty. Weird.

"I'm fine," she answers almost automatically. It's true for now. "I'm a little confused as to why we're here and where we are, but I'm not hurt. What about you?"

Bull and Fern | Closed

[ataashihunter]

Bull looks down at his wrist and shakes his head in confusion. Meet with Fern? He has no idea who that even is. But something tells him he should do that so he sets out to find them. When he does find Fern it is more by accident than anything else and he doesn't have time to say anything before they are transported.

Bull lands on the ground with a heavy thud, hard enough to knock the air out of him and he utters a low curse in Qunlat. Then he sits up and looks around, spotting Fern. "Hey, you alright?"

[poaceae]

Fern only gives the message a glance. He doesn't pay much attention to his watch in general. It's boring compared to real life adventures. So when he finds himself suddenly dropped (literally) onto a pile of rocks somewhere high and cold he's only perturbed for a moment. He quickly stands up and brushes dirt and leaves from the weird clothes he's been shoved into yet again- thermal underwear, denim overalls, hiking boots, and a bright orange scrub top and black peacoat pulled comically over a large lump. He pulls the top pieces off to pull a grass backpack out before replacing them and settling the pack properly on the top layer.

"Yeah, I'm okay," he answers mildly, checking out their surroundings. This is definitely some kind of magical quest, and he is so into that. The large bag nearby catches his attention.

"What's this now?" Kneeling next to it, he begins pulling items out and tossing them aside.

Wash and Jacob

[notyourrookie]

A message from apparently no-one to meet up with someone he doesn't know. There's no possible way that could be a trap right? Certainly not ominous at all.

Of course he's going to investigate. This place is a pain in the ass and he wants more information. It's not exactly the first time he's walked into a potential ambush. He'll just have to be careful.

The best place to go, obviously, is the South Village. He needs to head down there anyway. The walk gives him time to think, and plan a little, and he ends up skirting around the central square, keeping an eye out for anyone suspicious. Unfortunately, it turns out that everyone looks suspicious here. With all the supposed travel between worlds, and general weirdness, he's not that surprised. Annoyed, but not surprised.

And then everything sort of... stops for a minute, and the next thing he knows, he's on his back on rough ground, staring up at the sky.

"What the fuck?"

[relentlessness]

And sometimes the suspicious are perched atop a rooftop, crouched down by the chimney and considering the message he got and what to think of it. He's never heard of this person, but the title on it leaves him a bit uncertain about the meaning of this. He's always suspected templars in this place, and wondering if this is finally his proof. Considering using the thing they call texting to check with others, but before he could even put it into the bracelet with the messages, he suddenly finds himself falling. He takes a breath and then does the only thing he can. He trusts in the fall. While there's no cart of hay waiting for him at the bottom of the fall, the ability it seems this place gifted him with protects him as he falls on his back, feeling little of it as it protects him from the fall, immediately springing to his feet. Instantly checking his hip for his knife, pushing back to the hood of his under jacket. While it might not be obviously an assassin's hood, he isn't taking the chance. "Let me guess. Agent Washington?" Arching a brow as he asks, English accent heavy as he rolls that title. Unless, somehow, that is a name.

Seifer and Zevran | Closed

[firacrux]

For Seifer it was just another day. Starting up at the blacksmith early to get his smithtern chores underway, completely oblivious that something strange was soon to happen. With no wrist device to alert him that he was about to have a surprise meeting, or that he even should be having a surprise meeting, he remained blissfully unaware. Minding his own business making charcoal.

He was soon to be in for quite the surprise. Hopefully someone else would be around to tend the fire that he was very soon to be absent from. Sorry, boss, that charcoal's going to have to wait.

Steph & Kalen

[spoileralert]

MEET WITH KALEN.

It was an obvious trap. Like, an absurdly obvious trap. The question is, what kind of trap? Naturally Steph has to investigate, like a proper Robin.

He isn't difficult to find. She may not have been socializing much but she had been noticing faces and names, spending enough of her time wandering to know her way around both villages in the dark. Which naturally doesn't end up being necessary, because like so many others he can be tracked starting from the inn.

She keeps a safe distance, of course, but it isn't easy to hide in broad daylight and spy through windows. And the moment she shifts too close she finds herself standing on a mountainside wrapped up in all her warmest (least comfortable) clothes.

"Well, that answers that."

arg speech to text

[lifeofadeathseeker]

It had to be the strangest trap that Kalen had ever seen. Who was Stephanie? Why was finding her important? What was even the point of this trap?

He was actually going to try the network first, but he was beaten to it and teleported to the side of a mountain. Kalen didn't have much in the way of clothes but apparently, this was to be remedied.

He had been on his way to the Inn, which was something of a hike since the house he had taken over was on the edge of the South Village. He was unhappy, to begin with, but now he was downright irritable. He glanced at himself first, noting the new clothes then back at the other person he had ended up here with. He scowled.

"I suppose that you are Stepanie Brown."

Tim and Vanille | Closed

[mrsarcastic003]

Meet with Oerba Dia Vanille

Tim raises an eyebrow at the slightly cryptic message, and he considers ignoring it. He's not particularly inclined to acquiesce to a request from their kidnappers, but... He's also curious, and any information would be an improvement over the almost zero information he has now (he's read as much as he could while at the Inn, but there's only so much available). Maybe something will come of this?

He hasn't been out as much as he could be while he gets acclimated to his new surroundings, but he's been paying attention when he does. He knows who he's looking for, even if they haven't actually made introductions. He smiles a little in greeting when he approaches. "Hi, I'm--"

He doesn't get the chance to finish his introduction before they vanish from the village, redeposited on the bare side of a mountain, and redressed in their warmest gear.

"...Tim." He blinks around them in shock. "Uh. What happened?"

[tosavecocoon]

Vanille hasn't been that good about meeting everyone or even just watching them around the villages. Most of the time, she's too busy with her animals. In fact, that's where she is when Tim approaches her and she's just turned to see who's approaching, mostly because the kirin are reacting to the presence of a stranger by backing away, when they get pulled unceremoniously out of their spots. She stares in surprise for a few moments before planting her hands firmly on her hips.

"Well, that wasn't very nice. We were in the middle of talking!" she huffs, though it's mostly for theatrics. "I'm Vanille. I guess we're supposed to do something else again. That's usually what happens when we get moved like this." Spotting the bags on the ground, she kneels down to pry one open. "Look at all of these supplies. And a note?"

Pulling the note out, she stands and moves so they both can look at it. "We're supposed to gather shadow dust." Whether they do or not will probably be mostly their choice, but she has a feeling they may not like it if they don't cooperate.

Billy & Peggy

[demiurgency]

Of course Billy knows the name Peggy Carter, you can't be an admin on Heropedia and not know about the woman who fought alongside Captain America in World War II and had one of the longest tenures in history as a SHIELD agent. There's a statue of her outside SHIELD Academy, even, and they don't just do that for anybody. Honestly, he'd love to meet her. But even Billy knows better than to just blindly follow mysterious messages that appear on his band with no sender attached. He shows the message to Tommy, then heads to the dojo to try and find Nida, to show him, too, get a second opinion.

So isn't it just his luck that Peggy lives right next door to the dojo? She's heading down the road towards the rest of the village just as Billy's coming up it, and he's barely got time for his eyes to widen in recognition, the hand with his green band on it halfway lifted in greeting, before suddenly everything lurches and shifts. Billy stumbles mid-step, then automatically looks around. A forest? What's...?

"Not again," he groans before he can stop himself, then looks up and back at a noise, realizing he's not alone. Peggy's here, too--maybe this was their plan all along. Ugh. Just after he'd finally settled back in at home. "Uh--sorry, are you okay?"

[womanofvalue]

Peggy had been following the instructions because she knew all too well what happened when you received a direction that you didn't follow. Then again, she also has seen the "rewards" one gets when you do follow them. Either way, it's led her out to find this Billy Kaplan, unsure of what to expect apart from consulting her notes to find the generics about the young man, since his arrival.

She'd been on her way out when suddenly she saw someone who looked like he could fit the description, but before she can even ask what's happening, they're suddenly in a forest. Sitting up carefully, Peggy glances around them for immediate signs of danger, cautious to trust so quickly.

"Stunned," she admits, her tone slow. "But I think I'm fine." No concussion, no acute injuries, just another odd experience. "Are you Billy, then?"

Altaïr and Phryne

[eaglesonofnone]

He was confused to see the name appear on his device, much as he'd been confused about the one on Malik's, but after some discussion, he had dressed for the temperatures outside and had gone out.

His knee had healed well enough for such things thanks to the water of the hot springs and Malik's attendance - well enough for Malik to let him go out without being his shadow, at least - which left Altaïr trying to decide just how to pronounce a name with that spelling. English was difficult at the best of times, but that particular arrangement of letters mostly left him shaking his head and hoping he'd be found by this person who had his name on their device.

The positive was that it seemed he wasn't the only one. Most citizens of the village were peering about, some obviously knowing who they sought, others in much the same state as he. It was practically by accident that he met with the person whose name he couldn't pronounce - and that was when the landscape around them shifted. Marshland? His brows lowered as he looked around them, a frown immediately showing under his cowl. "...Let us hope there are no foxes."

[fishingfortrouble]

After some of the other things that have popped up on the devices, a simple request to find another person seems comparatively innocuous. Not that Phryne isn't aware that it could very well be worse than it initially seems - the note is vague enough that there could be a more sinister motive behind it - but Phryne's always been curious by nature and that alone is enough to have her heading out to see if she can find the person she's tasked with meet with. A task that is certainly made more difficult by the fact that she doesn't recognize the name.

Although the sudden shift in the landscape does help, even if it had been only by accident that her path and Altaïr's had crossed.

"Altaïr, I presume?"

Her pronunciation of his name, while perhaps not perfect, is a sight better than it would have been if she'd tried the rest of his name as well. But she knows very well when something is beyond her, and if they're going to be spending at least some time together in the near future she'd much prefer their first impressions of each other to not involve completely mangling his name.

Alistair and Pepper

[nobroth]

After a little asking around, Alistair had heard that Pepper Potts (he really did hope that 'pepper' was a nickname, otherwise being named after a pepper pot was a little unfortunate) was a red-haired woman who lived with some of the forge people.

He was still terribly amused at thinking of an entire race of forge people.

But he was headed that way, looking for a fellow redhead, when he spotted the lady. Pretty, he thought, but didn't feel any of the old nervousness. Instead it was simple for him to lift a hand in greeting, start to speak, and then suddenly find himself - and her - in what looked like a meadow with forest nearby.

Blinking, Alistair looked around before saying a single word. "....Well."

[scovillescale]

Despite the fact Pepper truly was not amused with the device on her wrist dictating a meeting she didn't set, both curiosity and caution fed the desire to find out what it was all about. The last thing she wanted to do was revisit the Shrine Movie Theatre just because she didn't make at least a good faith effort to observe what was going on from a careful distance. So out she went, first to find someone who might recognize the name.

She should have guessed that this would not end with careful distances and continued occupation of the village, she really should have. She didn't even have a chance to respond to the silent part of the redheaded man's greeting before they simply weren't there anymore, and where they now were just baffled her. Not the content of the surroundings, obviously, but the why.

She looked to her left, to her right, and then behind her before her gaze swung to her new device-friend. Shaking her head briefly, she closed the distance between them and offered her hand.

"I'm Pepper, and I'm actually hoping you're Alistair." What? Just because she was in the middle of a meadow who-knew-where, with someone who might already know her name, didn't mean she had to forget her manners and not introduce herself anyhow.

beverly & jason

[ethnobotany]

By now Beverly has been a resident of this planet or simulation, whichever it really is, for long enough to be at least mildly suspicious of a message like this. She also knows the unfortunate habit that the Observers have of making their plans happen regardless of whether or not the residents want to comply. Her decision isn't to purposefully avoid finding Jason - true, she doesn't exactly know him and would have a harder time finding him than others - but she can't say she's actively looking for him.

So when she finds herself suddenly on the ground in what looks like a marshland. A forested marshland. Luckily, the spot of ground she slowly picks herself up from is relatively dry. That's a small mercy. Still, the whole situation has her more than a little annoyed. So much so, that she huffs out the first thing that crosses her mind.

"Really, the getting instantly transported out to some remote location is getting very old."

Fortunately, she doesn't seem to be hurt, so she pushes herself to her feet, glancing over at the only other person who seems to have been brought with her.

"Are you all right?"

heeere we go

[scathefires]

Jason’s been here long enough to know better, honestly, and he was trained to be suspicious a long time before he ended up in the village. There’s really no excuse for him to follow the instructions that appear on his wrist device - no excuse except that he’s bored and impulsive and trained to take risks.

Surely that would never backfire on him.

“Yeah, you’d think they could come up with a more original way to torture us this time,” he answers, laid out flat on his back on the ground, making no effort to immediately pick himself up. He sighs loudly and rubs a hand down his face.

“Yeah, I’m OK. Only thing injured is my pride.”