On The First Day

[nml_mods]

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.]

Comments

Location: the orphanage outside of December

[love_and_peace]

[ When he opens his eyes, the ark is gone, and so is Wolfwood. The orphanage behind him looks the same, the courtyard blasted and filled with rubble, but the doors and windows are sealed, and when he looks closer he realizes that the blood on the ground has dried, and been mostly covered by sand. It's as though he blinked, and a week passed. How is this possible? ]

Is there anyone here?

[ Did he pass out? Did something happen with his gate? The ark had attacked, he remembered that much, and he'd raised a defensive dome over the orphanage to stop it from being destroyed, and then...?

Nothing. There's a hole in his memory. Where Knives and the ark have gone, where Wolfwood has gone, and Livio, he has no idea.

The last he remembers the ark was moving west. He'll worry about the lost time laster. For now, frantic that he's too late, Vash starts off in that direction as fast as his legs can carry him. ]

lost july

[nohumiliation]

[the city of julai is gone and in its place is the largest crater knives has ever seen. he'd spent a good few hours canvassing the rubble and leftover destruction for some kind of answers, but frustratingly, came up with nothing that could explain what had happened to the city he had intended to make his base of operations.

there was no doubt that the tremors he had felt earlier were the cause, or at least related to whatever nightmare this was becoming for him.

while he thinks, he walks along the border of the crater. occasionally he leans down to pick up stones to throw into the depths. the one he has now he rolls in his palm, rubbing his finger pads over the sharp edges until the skin breaks and bleeds, smearing blood over the stone's surface.]

the orphanage outside December x2

[graveresemblance]

[One moment Livio's surrounded by laughing children, his eyes on the horizon, but always on the sacrifices before him that made it possible for him to be here, scraps of fabric floating in the wind--

and the next there's a crack of-- thunder? and for a moment he thinks he's back on a very familiar moment of awakening. and maybe he is. Because when he opens his eyes and everything settles, he's surrounded by rubble, and blood.]

Hey...hey, where is everyone? Kids?

On the outskirts of a two-tomas town, in a bar

[mercifullyheavy]

The day had honestly been going smoothly, miracle of miracles. They'd managed to get into town unnoticed, Blondie's distinctive flash of "Look At Me!" red and mop of fluffy hair hadn't gotten him recognized yet, and they'd actually been able to find a table in the local bar to settle and get something to eat for the night. All in all, that was a major win in Wolfwood's book, and they didn't always get those very often!

So, of course, that just meant the universe had to decide to up and fuck them over one more time, right? It was around the time he was lobbing another snarling retort across the table to "Nico" after the 15th time he'd called him an "old deadbeat" (Hah hah, you little fuckin' twerp!) that he felt the world underneath them begin to shift, not even the shaking of the planet under his feet enough to disguise the very distinctive way the world shifted that made him heart drop right down into his stomach before the sound of thunder cracked in his head.

For a moment, Wolfwood felt himself almost disconnect from reality, his eyes going wide and his glass slipping out of his fingers as his memory flashed back to the last time he'd felt the same sort of jolt in the fabric of the air around him, and when he came to, the bar around them was already in a mild state of pandemonium. Voices were shouting, people were standing and rushing out into the street, expecting perhaps to see burning rubble where a nearby building had once been.

He looked up, strangely short of breath as he pushed away from the table to stand, looking from Vash to-...

Nico's chair was empty.

"Wh-where?" He looked around them, trying to see where he'd gone so quickly before looking back to Vash. "Where'd he go? What was that, you felt it too, right? What was that???"

Location: just outside of Some Rando Town

[aplantandherboy]

[Things have gotten a bit weird lately, haven't they?

Settlements appearing. Entire cities disappearing.

Delphinum and her boy suddenly popping in where they definitely weren't a few minutes before, just on the outskirts of some random little town she didn't recognize, is as disorienting to them as it was to anyone in any of those displaced cities. In the late sunset light, a towering muscular brown hulk of a man (who might be somewhere in his early twenties by his scarred face, youthful and sweet in a visibly easily distracted sort of way) sets down his burden, a rather small plant bulb somehow dwarfed by the human who'd carried it, the plant inside looking around in obvious surprise.

Across her bulb are a series of wires and little touchpads, a speaker bolted to the top. She's not the glowing-lined sort of plant, she's got too many limbs and too many bodies for that, but even at a distance the movement in the little bulb is awfully deliberate and aware, long fingers tapping the little touchpads. The voice that comes out of the speaker is tinny and artificial.]

Where is this?

[The bulky young man rubs a hand through his dark hair, frowning.]

Don't know. I'll look for a sign.

[And then off he boldly goes, tromping towards town with a determined look on his face. There's a static squeal from the speaker as several buttons are mashed at once, but he's fast enough that by the time the plant manages a coherent sentence he's already out of easy hearing range.]

Don't leave

Tom!

[Well. He'll be back, but by the way she crosses two sets of long, thin arms, alien expression set to mild annoyance and frustration, this is ... not even remotely the first time this has happened. There's a moment's long hesitation, and the speaker's volume is carefully ratcheted up bit by bit. Staying out in the hot sand, even with the suns working on setting, wasn't going to be comfortable soon.]

Hello?

outside the crater that used to be July (vanilla/canon vash)

[dontdeserve]

[ vash was heading towards julai with wolfwood, when voices and images flooded his mind, and then a crack and - instead of the city busy with life, human and plant, singing its own song, of cacophony and harmony, there is silence. And one that seems to have settled over years and years. Other than that, it feels like the same place.

And that is terrifying.

He knows he needs to find the plants that called out, he needs to find out how to go home.

But let him mourn for a little while, for people who were alive and different and kind and rough and happy and sad and everything in-between. ]

Finally getting around to posting my idiot - Also at the December orphanage CW Alcoholic tendencies

[celestialcrybaby]

In the grand scheme of things, less than a year was not a lot of time to get over losing someone. He knew this, he'd been through this more times than he could count. It was never easy, and after he'd left Dr. Bond's house and managed to shake the girls - and the small mob of bounty hunters and EFS soldiers - he'd told himself to just give it time. He knew the process, he knew how to take the pain and roll it up into a ball and sit on it until the sharp edges had worn away, until he could unravel it and finally be able to look at it again without cutting himself to shreds.

But this one, he couldn't sit on. He'd been trying, doing his best to at least remember only the happier moments - what few they had been allowed - and to keep putting one foot in front of the other, continuing on for both of them, now that he was gone. But the pain wouldn't let up, the memory of cigarette smoke, the sound of the church bells ringing so loud but not loud enough to disguise the sound of his final exhale of breath, the weight of his body in his arms as he'd reached to lower him into the ground and then been unable to let go until he'd sat with him for hours; all of it plagued his thoughts at every moment he wasn't forcing himself to think of something deliberately not in the shape of the hole his absence left in his chest.

There weren't many, perhaps not any aside from Rem, who's deaths had hit him as strongly as this.

So, less than a year after he had laid him to rest, dressed down in a simple button-down and slacks with his normal gear hidden in his rucksack to avoid detection, Vash had found his way back to December. It was still so empty and desolate, the population only now beginning to fill back into their houses and shops. He'd bought a bottle and a couple of glasses at the bar when he'd checked out of the inn that morning, the same brand and everything, though he knew it had been the drink of choice simply because it had been the only thing available that had any real kick and not because it was particularly a favorite. And he'd walked the few short iles to the orphanage, reaching the empty building around nightfall.

It was strange, seeing it as empty as it was, but he preferred it this way for now. He wouldn't have dared risk the visit if the children had returned, it wasn't worth drawing any danger to them just so he could have one final visit. He knew eventually, they'd come back with Miss Melanie, and that the yard surrounding the home would be filled with the sounds of children again. But tonight, he would give himself a chance to properly sit without the unending panic of knowing the world had been tossed into a chaos only he might be able to stop. He would try to give himself the chance to properly say goodbye, even if part of him felt like he'd waved that right when he'd told Wolfwood not to do just that when he was still alive.

Even knowing why he was there, he couldn't quite form the words - any words - when he first arrived. He busied himself with putting his bag on the ground not far from the grave, taking out the bottle and the glasses, and moved to sit beside the stone that covered it. He cracked the seal on the cap of the bottle, pouring a full glass of the stuff and setting it gently on top of the stone, poured a separate glass for himself. And then he sat, drinking from it (something he hadn't allowed himself to do the day it happened) and just...let himself feel.

The alcohol, honestly, was probably a bad idea. He'd known that when he bought it. But by the time he had finished off the bottle and his tears had finally begun to slow down, the fog in his brain was at least thick enough that he didn't feel like he was locked inside of his own head, inside the horror of what had happened. He was able to sit, one of his knees pressed up against his chest so he could rest his head against it and stare at the stone next to him, and he was able to think about what it meant, who it protected just below the surface, without wanting to scream until his voice was so raw that he could taste the blood.

"I'm sorry I didn't come sooner. I should have, I know. I'm glad to see you're still safe." The fingertips on his right hand were brushing across the sandy texture of the stone, his nerves alcohol-addled enough that every bump and crack in the surface felt magnified tenfold, but it was soothing, grounding him, his mind latching onto the cold surface and imagining Nicholas inside of it. Closer to the surface than he was, close enough that maybe he would know he was there.

It was a silly thought, but it helped.

"I made sure Livio made it out ok, by the way." Fresh tears clouded his eyes, stinging sharply. "I couldn't-...You...Everything you'd said. They were going to-..." He dug his fingertips harder against the stone, hard enough that the texture hurt, before pressing his palm flat to the surface. "I'm sorry, Wolfwood. I'm sorry I called you a coward. I'm sorry I-...I'm sorry I didn't let you say good bye. I'm sorry I didn't tell you how much I cared."

He buried his face in his knee when the tears overwhelmed him again, rocking unconsciously as he wept. He'd thought he'd gotten through the worst of them, but they wouldn't stop, and it felt like his heart was breaking inside of his chest. It was too much, it hurt too much, every nerve in his body felt like it was burning up and his head felt like it was crammed full of shards of glass, and it hurt!

It was almost enough that, when the voices of his sisters cried out and the ground began to shake underneath him, he almost didn't even notice it. It wasn't until the distinctive, baffled sound of metal grating against rock ground out in front of him that he looked up, eyes wide as he finally registered what was happening, finally noticed that the shaking was coming from outside of his body and had rumbled enough that the sand beneath the Punisher cross had shifted and allowed the thing to begin tilting.

"Oh no, no, don't-...!" He lunged forward, bracing the massive gun on his shoulder and clung to it as he felt the air around him shifting, leaving him feeling distinctly sick to his stomach, and then the sound of thunder clapping inside of his head made him jump as everything suddenly came to a standstill, as if nothing had happened.

The world was still for a long, tense, quiet moment as he tried to process what had just happened, tried to grasp onto the fading memory of the psychic cry for help that was so familiar, and then he finally began to pull himself up, shifting the cross back to its proper standing place with awkward, fumbling fingers.

"'S ok, it's safe! No harm done, look!" He was too drunk for this. Or maybe he wasn't drunk enough? "It's fine, this is fine, I'll just...needa put a base under it or something...! I didn't think to do it before, that's my fault, I'm sorry, I'm-...I..."

The cross settled back to its upright position, he settled, hands still resting against the tattered rags that still clung to the thing after the last few months exposed to the elements, and finally glanced around himself to realize that the place looked...different somehow. Subtly so, but it was there. As if the damage that had erupted from the fight that had claimed Wolfwood's life was fresh.

"What just happened...?"

december, an empty bar

[littleblades]

[ the sounds of a piano ring out through the quiet streets surrounding a just-about abandoned bar with a broken swing door.

inside sits nai at an old piano that has certainly seen better days, his fingers moving across the keys as he plays. he still isn't tall enough to reach the pedals, the tips of his boots just barely scraping the scuffed floorboards. as he plays, his face scrunches in irritation when he hits an untuned key, but he keeps at it until the song is finished. it's expected from a piano that had been covered in dust and debris until nai had discovered it during his explorations.

but out-of-tune keys or not, when nai finishes the song he straightens with a huff before starting all over again. as a perfectionist, he'd play this over and over until his fingers bruise and bleed. without vash here beside him, he'd learn to play both sides of the duet meant for them alone. ]

A few days after arrival; feel free to use it as a backdrop for other stuff or with meee

[doubletimefeel]

The town outside December still had a population, or at least was reclaiming one, and it's there Midvalley has stayed for now. A population meant food, shelter and company, and more importantly paying customers.

Not of the sort that had brought Knives' attention; an assassin Midvalley certainly was, and he absolutely would and did kill for money, but ... maybe not so soon. Not while he was still recovering, but as far as he's concerned killing is a secondary skill, the primary one is music. And to a confused populace, some coming out of a living nightmare, others just beginning before being uprooted and tossed here, an evening spent with music to enjoy is a better evening than usual, and it seems they're willing to pay for it. The number of people who've turned up at the bar he'd taken up with was growing evening by evening, mostly adults but some not, and the proprietor seemed quite happy to pay his fees with the business that was turning up.

The musician might need to take longer breaks than usual between sets to catch his breath and drink away the fatigue, but he's good at what he does, and the mellow, easy sound of baritone saxophone is easily heard through the open windows and doors for the scattering of tables and chairs just outside.

Stay a while and relax. Peace never lasts, but there's no harm in enjoying it while it does.

that town at the end of the anime but also this could be anywhere because of shenanigans

[stungunmilly]

[Milly's hard at work when you-know-what happens. It's pretty scary at first, being underground during a sudden earthquake. She stays still, trying not to worry as she breathes out and waits for it to pass. Once it does, she climbs back up, sticking out of the well in an almost comical way.]

Please don't worry, I'm alright! Could someone find Mery-

[But there's no other workers there!]

Hello? Helloooooooooooo!

[Maybe it's a joke! They're all playing hide-and-go-seek! Oh, or maybe it's a surprise party for her since she's been really helpful these last few days! That would be fun! Although it doesn't really make sense that they'd do that in the middle of an earthquake. Milly then reminds herself that they wouldn't know an earthquake is coming, but still! Once it happened, you think everyone would come out to make sure she was fine! Now she's getting a little angry, if they're really all being so careless about each other's lives like this.

She shakes her head, shaking away all these imaginary situations too. The only thing that mattered was what was actually happening, although... she didn't know what that was either.

Milly pushes herself up out of the well completely, brushing herself off as she stands.]

Hm... Is anyone around? You can yell surprise now! Or wait, am I supposed to be surprising you?

Somewhere Out There

[nyctinasty]

That cry for help is familiar in the worst way.

It brought back memories.

Not so much the earthquake or how everything goes nauseatingly sideways with a sound that makes his ears ring terribly and sets off a headache he could really do without. Nor how it's suddenly daytime, and it was evening about thirty seconds ago.

And his house is missing.

... His entire house is missing.

AND HIS FIG TREE IS GONE.

Knives Millions, scourge of humanity decades upon decades past, stares blankly at where there should have been an adobe structure and now was just rocks and dirt and no sign life had ever been there at all. Replacing the tree was out of the question, as was replacing the home. He squints balefully upward at the ever scorching suns, then takes a slow look around and picks a direction. If he recalled correctly, some iles in that direction would be a town. As much as he'd rather not deal with humanity at all, there might be some answers as to what the hell that was and where his house had went.

And who had cried out in a way that tore at memories he'd rather leave in the past with sharp claws of urgency.

For anyone familiar with him, he still looks recognizably "Knives", but the devil is in the details; black hair and not blond, a chapped weathering of visible skin as if much time has been spent in the wind and sand, a fine tracing of wrinkles of all things - nor does he look like the mid twenties young adult he in theory 'should'. He could pass for pushing forty, not helped by the subtle limp in his stride. Even his clothes have seen better days, faded and careworn but comfortable, once possibly fashionable but now merely serviceable.

While his pace isn't particularly hurried, it is relentless. Somewhere in this direction is a town, and they better have the answers he wants.

Outside December

[plantussy]

[ Faceplanting in sand isn't something you expected when you were just on a bus, nor was the weird screaming about a red brother(?) Vash briefly thinks he's blacked out and woken up in the desert somehow, and the fact that he has no bars on his phone could be proof of that.

...however, he's pretty sure there were never two suns on Earth.

Was this another stupid scheme to mess with him? He almost prefers being stabbed by one of his brother's lackeys than being dropped off at...whatever this is.

He's limping a bit towards what looks like some form of settlement, hoping they have a phone he could use. Vash doubts this excuse would work on his professor, but maybe he can take his finals again. Why did this have to happen today?

So there's a Vash heading towards December, with no link to Plants and lacking the sturdiness of his other selves. Completely human and endlessly confused. ]

+1 More El Woowoo, Spooky Flavored!

[el_llorono]

It wasn't every day, when something in the physical world managed to throw him for a loop. He had mostly gotten used to being incorporeal, only able to really interact with things if he absolutely focused and simply spending most of his time chattering mindlessly at Vash as he followed behind his wandering footsteps. The man couldn't hear him, not that he really wanted to try, all things considered; he knew he could, in theory, he'd been able to make himself heard to Livio all those ages ago, and he knew that Vash's mental capabilities were far more metaphysical than any humans'. But he also didn't want to cause him any added grief, so his prattle was just that; quiet, filling the silence, feeling a little less lonely despite being always near his side.

So imagine his surprise when one day, as they were walking the long road to Home, they both found themselves shocked by the sound of voices, telepathic voices that even Wolfwood could hear, and the ground shaking in such a way that both of them stumbled in tandem. It was still instinct, to reach out to catch himself as he fall, his voice shouting out in surprise, and for a moment, the world almost seemed to move in slow motion as he watched Vash in front of him, jolting even as he fell, twisting his body and looking back in surprise.

Looking at him.

He shouted again, this time in confused shock as he saw Vash's eyes go as wide as saucers, heard his name ringing out in recognition at the same time he felt his hand impact something solid. Fabric over metal, a bracket where prosthetic was socketed firmly into bone, warmth of skin through a coat and from the suns beating down on his shoulders. He shouted out Vash's name as they collided, tumbling to the ground, and then all was still.

He lay face down in the sand for, honestly, he wasn't sure how long, before finally realizing that something had changed, something huge. And though he had made physical contact with the man, the first contact he'd had with anything living in actual decades...it hadn't lasted. He should have been under Nicholas. Or, more accurately if the world had stopped being fucking odd, should have been laying through Nicholas, and he'd accidentally shifted through people enough times in the past to know how uncomfortable it was if they were merely human. The few times it had happened with Vash, it had been like his entire, non-existent body had been elecrocuted, and he had worked very hard to be mindful of where they stood in relation to one another ever since.

But none of that was happening now. He groaned, lifting his head and glancing up at the desert around him, and despite knowing how futile it was normally, he couldn't help calling out when he found himself alone.

"...Vash? Needle-Noggin? Come on, Spikey, where'd you go?" Ahh, shit. He rolled to his feet, turning in place and looking all around him, finding no sign of him anywhere. "Damnit! Your mom's gonna tan my hide if I lose you, come on! How in the Hell did you disappear this quickly???"

Somewhere, anywhere

[rejuvenation]

[ Anger is a poisonous thing, and rage is the end of the line. Somewhere, anywhere, the very air feels dense with anger, and the heated growling and shrieking is adding to the madness.

A large ball of feathers, some dipped in blood, can be found in the sand. Nothing can even be seen inside the twisting of wings, only the occasional feather-clad and clawed hand or foot, and the flash of glowing eyes. The horrifying sound, however, is reaching for miles.

Some realities are full of horrors that aren't named Millions Knives. ]