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nml_mods ([personal profile] nml_mods) wrote in [community profile] nomans_land2023-05-02 05:02 am
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On The First Day

It had been months.

Months of terror, of families ripped apart, refugees racing against the Ark in the sky, against the Plants that had once been their only source of survival on the world and had now been turned against them, raining lightning and death down on them like the hand of a vengeful God. Humanity pushed to the brink, fleeing their homes and communities, waves of refugees fleeing across the sands as more and more towns and cities fell to the reign of destruction that had been biting at their heels every step of the way.

And then, as the last descendants of the survivors of the Big Fall clustered in the city of Octovern, spiilling out into the streets, every available, livable space filled to capacity and beyond, what felt like the final days of humanity began. The sounds of artillery fire filled the air, the sight of the Ark and its grotesque ruler loomed overhead, and in the distant sky high above, the previously-inconceivable reinforcement ships from Earth took up orbit around No Man's Land. Throughout the night, explosions lit up the sky, thundering with deafening reports through the air, and yet the civilians below had settled into a still, terrified, anticipatory silence. They couldn't see, from their perspective, the figures atop the ruins of the Earth's space destroyers that had already fallen to the ground, locked in battle for the future of the people far below. But the sight of Millions Knives high above, terrifying and grotesque with the power of the Plants he had absorbed, was omnipresent, a never-ending threat, the harbinger of doom, biding his time until he could make good on his promise to wipe every last one of them off the face of existence.

And then something had changed.

Electrical currents rippled through the air above the downed ship, carrying screams on the wind. To the people below, Millions Knives' massive form had shifted, writhing, bellowing with unholy rage and pain and despair. And then it begun to unmake itself, shredding, crumbling, tearing itself apart at the seams and floating to the ground in tiny, shining, white particles. Tiny, white feathers drifted on the wind, closer and closer before, one by one, they began to settle to the roofs of the buildings, to the tops of cars and to the streets, and to the heads and faces of the humans staring up from below.

The instant that contact was made between feather and skin, a connection was made; between Human and Plant, between each person standing side by side, minds thrown open in bursts of light and expanding consciousness, and through the doors sprang multitudes of memories spanning hundreds of years. Suffering, laughter, pain, sorrow, joy, enslavement, death, pride, love. The Plants had made the connection to their creators - their keepers - that they had been silently pleading for since their first containment, and with it every man, woman, and child on the surface of the world began to see and feel and hear their stories and their cries for help. They did not want this war, they did not want this destruction. They had seen the promises of vengeance and a paradise for their kind atop the bones of humanity offered by Millions Knives and they had felt the hopes and dreams carried by Vash the Stampede of a kinder, more loving world, and they had made their choice.

Of course, but...what would he do at a time like this?


I wonder if he'll laugh again


I wonder if he'll follow his ideals again.


I see. You all know him as well. That young man with a gentle smile.


Little Red Brother.


Let there be love and peace in this world.


In the chaos that followed, as the bodies of the Plants began tumbling to the ground in a writhing mass and the screams of shock and confusion began to rise from the sea of humanity below, something rippled in the air, a last gasp of those silent voices before the connection was lost.

Help Us. Help him. Please.


This was...different. New. As if reality had taken the distraction caused by the calamity below to shift itself sharply to the left, and then snapped. It started at the core of the mass of angelic bodies as men and women began to rush to their aid, a shockwave in the fabric of creation that rumbled silently in the atoms of the world and ricocheted outward, along the ground, through the air, until it had enveloped the entire planet. Time froze for an instant, and to the eyes of all who had the capacity for sight, that leftward shift became manifest, the world doubling on itself as the ground shook beneath their feet.

Wails of confusion and fear rose into the night sky, and for a brief moment, it felt as if the world were about to unmake itself on the molecular level. But then, just as suddenly as it had come, the distortion snapped back into place with a loud, ear-splitting CRACK, and in the stunned silence that followed, only one thing could be certain; things were not the same as they had been mere moments ago, as if everything and yet nothing at all had changed, all at once.

The world of No Man's Land was as it should be, but all across the surface of the planet, pockets of reality had split open, sending the inhabitants of mirrored existences tumbling through wide, unseen rifts. People and places outside of time and space found themselves staggering to their feet in a world that was both foreign and familiar at the same time, found themselves face to face with their own reflection made flesh, tossed about by the pleas of a race reaching across the fabric of creation for aid in putting a stop to a war that had been fought time and time again, across reality after reality, without fail.


Thus began the new chapter in the history of No Man's Land.



[Wherever your character was, whatever they were doing, when the rifts in reality opened, they will have found themselves rocked by a massive earthquake that lastes a few short seconds before settling with a loud crack, like thunder. While no damage will be left in its wake, the characters themselves will realize that though the planet appears to be the same, it will quickly become evident that they are in an alternate reality of the place they call home. Are they standing in the rubble of a once-destroyed city now remade whole? Is the bar they had been taking refuge in suddenly gone, leaving them tumbling to the sand with nothing but their drink in their hand? And what of the friends that had been standing by their side seconds before? This is where your stories begin.]
cowgoesmoo: (surprised - by a cool new bug)

[personal profile] cowgoesmoo 2023-05-27 09:06 pm (UTC)(link)
[ People who don't eat food don't get to comment on the hungries of people who do eat food! ]

Duh.

[ Of course they should stick together. That's a silly thing to say -- why would they split up? ]

Well I didn't come here through my gate, probably. [ Probably. Who knows how gates work, anyway? That's advanced plant theory, and he's not there yet in his schoolwork. He's barely past fractions. He-- waitasec. ]

You've been here before?
dontdeserve: (pout)

[personal profile] dontdeserve 2023-05-27 09:34 pm (UTC)(link)
[ Vash will be keeping both eyes on his other self, to make sure he doesn't bolt, but he is hoping that at least his words were heard. He thinks they are important, if not necessarily the gentlest.

And he shifts a little.
]

I need to find Nai. And Wolfwood - my Wolfwood. ... I hope. [ yelp, that's hard to say out loud.

But he's not refusing outright. It's just that he's not confirming either. If what he finds out lets him think he should go, he will. But he is willing to accept that there are things that he doesn't know yet, so he might be more in the way than help.
]

Ah... well? Sort of? He kind of showed up right as we were reaching Julai, my Wolfwood and I. He - Knives had Meryl and Roberto, and we were going for them, so once he was resting and I could se that he was going to recover, we went on. He, well, the two of them found me ... after, a few months back. So not too long, but some. [ So. Yes, Wolfwood has been there for two years and change. But he's spent most of that time with only himself, and his other self, as company. Time that Vash can't give back to either of them. ] He thought I was a fake one there to take him beyond. When he first showed up.
dontdeserve: (Cry)

[personal profile] dontdeserve 2023-05-27 09:43 pm (UTC)(link)
Has he tried to fool a plant, though, any plant? Because that is different than facing humans and letting them believe something that they would rather believe. Even Vash knows that.

I was not expecting you to do it! But you know more about our powers than I do.

She says that the sisters here will help.


The worst part is that Vash is also bracing himself for it. But unless Tessla herself wants it, he will fight against anyone who tries.
nyctinasty: (Default)

[personal profile] nyctinasty 2023-05-27 10:20 pm (UTC)(link)
He's fooled his own timeline's Vash. It was enough. It would have to be enough.

It was a comparison, nobody alone could manage.

It'll be alright.


There's confidence in that, the steadiness of someone who surely knows what he's talking about. One way or another, it WOULD be alright.

I've dealt with this sort of injury before. It can be healed.

The more calm and reassured Vash was, the more that reassurance will pass on to Tessla. He can't see them from where he is, but if he kept pushing this rustbucket to its limits, it wouldn't be long. Couldn't be long.
love_and_peace: (laugh - but he doesn't mean it)

[personal profile] love_and_peace 2023-05-27 10:31 pm (UTC)(link)
[ They have to find Nai, yes. And the other Wolfwood – Vash smiles a little at that. My Wolfwood. He wants to ask so many questions, about how this Vash met his Wolfwood, if they've been traveling together long, if he had his suspicions at first or if his Wolfwood knew what subtlely was. If they both favor a weapon bigger than they are. If his Wolfwood carries that same deep self-loathing, that same guilt over what was done to him, and what he was made to do, and if so, if he's found a way to ease that ache.

But their stories are so different, he's learning, that any similarities at all seem to be coincidence more than anything. Meeting Wolfwood, and Meryl, before July? Someone named Roberto, and then being held by Knives? He's not sure his Knives, his brother from his world even knows that Meryl exists. He hopes that's the case. She'll be a lot safer if she manages to stay below Knives's radar.
]

We'll find him, if he's here. Your Wolfwood.

[ But even as he says it, he knows it's a lie. There's no we here, is there? This Vash needs to go find the rest of his team, his Wolfwood, his brother Nai. Maybe with his different history he'll have a different ending, too? That's something to hope for, certainly!

With a deep breath to steady himself, Vash rises to his feet with hardly a wobble. Just a little further to go. He's almost there.
]

But first, I think we should go drag my Wolfwood out of whatever bottle he's crawled into.

[ He knows the man too well by now, and there's no question in Vash's mind where Wolfwood is hiding. ]
graveresemblance: liv (Default)

[personal profile] graveresemblance 2023-05-28 03:04 am (UTC)(link)
[Va--VASH??? he tries not to visibly look closely at the kid-- that isn't the most..common name, right? maybe he was named after....the little face is a little familiar as well...and the mole...

no, no, he isn't going to worry about it]


Nice to meetcha, Vash. Sorry it's under circumstances like this. I'm lookin' for some kids that were at an orphanage in December-hereabouts.

[oh, ration bars, he hasn't seen any like that before.]

No, I'm okay. You go ahead and have it. Are you okay? Are you hurt?
cowgoesmoo: (Default)

[personal profile] cowgoesmoo 2023-05-28 03:24 am (UTC)(link)
[ His tummy been rumbling for awhile now, so, with an annoyed huff, Vash breaks off a bite-sized piece of that gross ration bar and pops it in his mouth, chewing and swallowing as fast as he can to try and avoid tasting the nasty thing. ]

Me? Nuh-uh. [ Whoops, Rem taught him better manners than that, sorry. He gulps down the gummy mess, and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. ] Sorry. I haven't seen any other kids, except my brother, and I'm not hurt, but the friend I'm looking for is!

[ He points out into the desert, back the way he came. ]

Have you seen a big pile of feathers, bigger than a person? [ He considers that description for a second, and adds: ] It might be mean.
louboutinjudas: (Angry - looking up)

[personal profile] louboutinjudas 2023-05-28 03:39 am (UTC)(link)
[ He didn't want the sight of his own corpse to be upsetting. He'd seen plenty of corpses, made plenty of corpses, and he'd already been told that this guy was him, so the shock should have faded. But there was just something about looking at your own face, pale and slack, that was... unsettling.

It almost made the bullshit coming out of the guy's mouth sound reasonable.
]

What do you know about the people that matter to me, huh? Are you talkin' about the kids? [ He gestured broadly behind him, indicating Hopeland and the whole southwest in one angry wave of his hand. ] Because the only thing I want to hear you say about them is confirming that the Eye left them alone after what I did for 'em.
graveresemblance: (pic#16391184)

[personal profile] graveresemblance 2023-05-28 04:25 am (UTC)(link)
[a big...pile of mean feathers. that's...well, huh. he's relieved this Vash isn't hurt, though, and he's got some sort of food. and he's got a...brother. coincidence...surely!!]

Where's your brother? Nearby?

[his gaze follows Vash's finger]

Like a Thomas? I haven't seen any yet.
cowgoesmoo: (quiet - considering new info)

[personal profile] cowgoesmoo 2023-05-28 04:38 am (UTC)(link)
[ He shakes his head at the first question. No, he's here all by himself -- this is his important mission! ]

I dunno what a Thomas is, sorry.
graveresemblance: (pic#16391177)

[personal profile] graveresemblance 2023-05-28 05:39 am (UTC)(link)
[where the heck-- did they just get separated or maybe the brother told him to stay put and he didn't...]

You don't? It's a bird used for transport. They're pretty big.
cowgoesmoo: (angry - with a fresh black eye)

[personal profile] cowgoesmoo 2023-05-28 05:58 am (UTC)(link)
A bird?

[ He knows when he's being messed with, okay. Nobody uses birds for transportation. They're too small! ]

I guess, sure.
graveresemblance: (pic#16445953)

[personal profile] graveresemblance 2023-05-28 06:24 am (UTC)(link)
No, no I'm serious. They're huge, and they don't fly. [he's really not!!! VASH]
cowgoesmoo: (quiet - considering new info)

[personal profile] cowgoesmoo 2023-05-28 06:52 am (UTC)(link)
[ He seems to really mean it? And he has been nice so far... ]

Okay, then maybe? If it's got long white feathers, then yeah!
plantussy: (aspen)

[personal profile] plantussy 2023-05-28 03:23 pm (UTC)(link)
[ He was not prepared for the help and flushes slightly at the dusting-off and straightening. Vash has to fix his arm as well, before he's fully standing up. ]

Ah.... thank you, miss.

[ November and December? That doesn't make much sense to him, but he's heard weirder city and college names. Not around where he's supposed to be, though. Damn. ]

I was starting to think I was hallucinating, but honesty this is stranger than that... are those two suns? [ It's like being in a weird sci-fi movie, except they added cowboys to it. Nai would have loved it. ] Uh, I'm Vash. Vash Saverem. Nice to meet you?
el_llorono: (Pensive)

[personal profile] el_llorono 2023-05-28 04:15 pm (UTC)(link)
[He was silent for a good few seconds, suddenly sobered by what the other him had snarked out, by the weight of the reality. The kids, protecting the orphanage, making sure they never had to worry about being taken and used the same way he and Livio had been, tortured and twisted into monsters when they should have been just children. In the end, what he'd done had been both what got him killed, and the proudest thing he'd ever done. But the pride of it weighed heavy on him, because even having come to accept what had happened and where he was, he was still dead.

It was also something he didn't feel like shouting out into the wind. It was too personal, too important. So when he spoke again, it was from a spot a couple of feet to the side of Wolfwood, after he'd stood to move closer so he could sit near him and didn't have to shout, but there could still be a polite distance between them.]


I promise. After what I did...the Eye never touches another kid. That's why I know Livio is fine...he...Vash helped me break him out of what they did to 'im. After that, there is no Eye of Michael. An' Livio went on to protect the orphanage after.

[There's a heaviness in his voice, hesitations where he tries not to give too much away. Give him the peace of knowing he saved them without burdening him with the fact that it was the last thing he ever did.

Even if, looking back on it, knowing how much it had hurt Vash (and still did, if the trips he made to visit his grave even all these years later, well after the Punisher he had used for his headstone had become a sand-blasted, deteriorated pile of scrap, were any indication) he knows he would do it all over again, if given the chance.]
louboutinjudas: (Ehhhhh?)

[personal profile] louboutinjudas 2023-05-28 05:06 pm (UTC)(link)
[ He twitched – but just a little, don't make a big thing out of it – when the dead guy's voice was suddenly much closer. Not being able to see his opponant wasn't so unusual, but not being able to detect them at all was not doing good things for his already jumpy nature.

Having an answer that made sense would have been nice, too. Wolfwood shook his head hard, frustration written in every line of his being.
]

Will you stop saying that? [ The embarrassing tears from earlier were nowhere to be seen – anger's always been more effective at getting his point across anyway. ] That blond asshole helped me wake him up from what the Eye did, sure, but then he shot himself. [ It wasn't something he'd ever forget, or he thought he wouldn't, anyway. How in the hell did the dead guy not remember that? ] Livio died on the damn sand steamer. He shot himself in the fucking head and went over the side. He's dead.

[ It was concerning, actually. If the dead guy couldn't remember something as important as that, did that mean that everything else he was saying was wrong too? About the Eye, and the orphanage?

Shit. Wolfwood looked out across the sands, scanning them once again for any signs of a town, of a filling station, anything. Anything that could mean water, transport, a way to get himself to Hopeland.
]
dontdeserve: (Conceal)

[personal profile] dontdeserve 2023-05-28 06:09 pm (UTC)(link)
Yeah.

[ Quietly. He hasn't lost hope but he is Concerned. ]

Wolfwood - yours - was worried that mine would have taken his place.

[ which is why they came to December. Vash moves to stand next to his other self, ready to join him or... support him if necessary. And he would be willing to talk about his story. But Vash might want to hear it from his Wolfwood, after all. ]

And yes, let's go get him. Also, how are you... doing? And do you have a preference how I should call you.

[ Both questions get a small shrug out of Vash. He knows the first one is not too likely to get a proper answer, but he has to ask. The second question, well. Not that he has a preference himself, but it seems right to ask. ]
love_and_peace: (smile - even tho your heart may break)

[personal profile] love_and_peace 2023-05-28 06:28 pm (UTC)(link)
[ Vash doesn't really hear the questions, to be honest. All he heard was the fear that there's another, younger Wolfwood in the grave just up the road, and it's just one more horror to add to the day's pile. Because it means they're going back to the orphanage, doesn't it? To see who's there. To see who's in the ground.

Some small part of Vash, deep inside, can't stop screaming. He fixes his fake smile in place -- a little lopsided, but it'll do for now -- and he pats the other Vash on the shoulder companionably.
]

I guess it's too confusing if we're both Vash, isn't it? [ Come on, friend. Shall they head out? Wolfwood -- both Wolfwoods, apparently -- are waiting for them, and Vash only has so much longer he can keep himself together.. ] The name is yours, if you'd like it.

[ He reaches up and gives a lock of his hair a tug, the mirror of the way Wolfwood did just a few minutes earlier, out in the street. ]

I guess I can't be Blondie anymore either!

[ It looks like hers though, doesn't it? Finally at the end of his run, he looks like her. Could he take her name, call himself Saverem? Has he earned that name yet?

...In his heart, he has to admit that the answer is no.
]

I guess that just leaves the Stampede.

[ A whirlwind of destruction, for a little while longer. ]
dontdeserve: (Conceal)

[personal profile] dontdeserve 2023-05-28 07:29 pm (UTC)(link)
Well, if I say it I wouldn't be confused, so if you want me to call you Vash, that still works. [ Yes, yes, downstairs they are heading. ] And I wouldn't have called you Blondie anyway. I'm... not great with the whole nicknames thing.

[ Vash breathes out softly. ]

I wish I knew where all the Dependents are. I think they are what called us here, and they must have had a reason.

[ He is not quite expecting Wolfwood to be awake, but he is looking inside the common area all the same. ]
mercifullyheavy: (Drunk And Angsty)

[personal profile] mercifullyheavy 2023-05-28 08:20 pm (UTC)(link)
[The sound of a voice - no, wait, two voices, separate but the same but different in their own ways - and the sound of heavy boots on the stairs was almost enough to draw him back to the land of the "living." He was still muzzy, though, the bitter taste of stale alcohol in his mouth and the throbbing behind his eyes telling him what had put him into that state before he was able to remember exactly why.

He gave a soft groan, pulling his arm away from the bottle that was tucked into the crook of him, turning his head to blink out at the bar around him in absolutely bewilderment.]


Wh-...'sat...? N'le-Nogg'n...? [His head rolled again, coming to rest with his chin on the table as he squinted up towards the stairs from underneath the disarrayed mess of his hair.

At least most of the bottles stacked on the table near his head had been left unopened. But the fact that they were there at all spoke to an unrealized intent to make use of them, regardless of their current state.]
love_and_peace: (x8)

[personal profile] love_and_peace 2023-05-28 08:50 pm (UTC)(link)
[ He needs to take the stairs a little slower than usual, but he won't say anything about his condition if Vash won't. He laughs a little under his breath at the nicknames comment -- no, that's Wolfwood's thing, isn't it? Refusing to call anyone by their name and instead coming up with his own titles. At first Vash had thought that it was a way of keeping his distance -- after all, for most of the time they've spent together, Wolfwood was working for Knives. But now?

Now it's just charming.

The very drunk man at the bar downstairs blinks blearily up at them, and Vash amends that to mostly charming.
]

You started without me?

[ What he needs are food and sleep, but what's here, now, are Wolfwood and alcohol. Clearly this is what the universe wants for him in this moment, and who is he to argue with the universe? ]

You'd better have saved me some!

[ He just has to keep his feet under him long enough to get to that barstool, and then he can stop moving for awhile. No problem. ]
dontdeserve: (Kind)

[personal profile] dontdeserve 2023-05-28 09:50 pm (UTC)(link)
[ It was charming indeed, and Vash never really thought it a way to distance himself as much as a certain irreverence that Wolfwood held towards everyone and everything, but the more nicknames he had, the more fond he was. The more directly he addressed anyone, the more trouble that person was just about to get.

He blinked slightly between the two of them, his stomach twisting slightly with concern, but.. at least there was no talk of anyone leaving alone. He breathed out softly, motioning at the other Vash to take a seat, before going to dig out for something NOT alcoholic - for Wolfwood, he needed some hydration. And something resembling utensils. He still had some cans of food in the coat pockets, so he just. Set two of those in front of each of the other two. Sleep would hopefully come in a bit, but they both needed to eat. Vash especially.
]

Both of you, have something besides the alcohol. Please?

[ He settled down, offering the utensils also, then pulled one leg up so he could hug it against himself. He wasn't reaching towards alcohol. He wasn't reaching towards food, either. In all fairness, he wasn't the one who'd gotten exhausted every possible way. ]
dontdeserve: (Cry)

[personal profile] dontdeserve 2023-05-28 10:15 pm (UTC)(link)
There are more sisters. I hope we can find them, there are so many more, and they are all wonderful. [ He knows. He's spent a very, very long time caring for them.

And he is doing as much as he can to maintain her state, rather than degrade, although the cocoon bleeding is worrying him. There is so much that he is not certain about, but calmer does seem to be better. He thinks.
]

If everything works out, there will be so much to show you. Some of it might be complicated, and some you might not want to see again, but ... if nothing else, there is Delphinium. She is one like the other sisters, only she will talk to us, from her bulb. She is very nice.

[ ... that might not mean much coming from him, but on the one hand, he means it - on the other hand, it is not as though she can tell. Yet. ]
Edited (... weird formatting ) 2023-05-28 22:16 (UTC)
rejuvenation: (8)

[personal profile] rejuvenation 2023-05-28 10:38 pm (UTC)(link)
[ Laying in his arms like this, surrounded by his warmth through the coat and the softness of pretty black-and glowy feathers, Tessla learns a peace she hasn't felt since she was deemed large enough for the serious experiments. It's like he's taking away her pain a little bit, hiding the stabbing, ripping, tearing agony behind kind eyes and kind words. ]

I... would like to see more sisters.

[ Tessla whispers, her voice slowly starting to sound more like just her and not entwined with the other plants - but so, so much fainter. It hurts to speak, but she doesn't want to go back to the bed of sisters quite yet. With the edge of her misery dulled slightly, the little girl carefully turns her eye-wing to look up at her brother and then the sky.

She likes the sky. It has pretty colors. ]


You feel sad, red brother.

[ Tessla says, a tremor in her voice that ends in a raspy, wet breath. Her eyes slowly close, and her grip on his coat loosens as her consciousness wavers. ]
Edited 2023-05-28 22:41 (UTC)

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