longestnight | We got 99 problems (but Chaval aint one) -- Post-Quebec

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We got 99 problems (but Chaval aint one) -- Post-Quebec

[Sam had literally only just gotten back to the Pole when more things happened. Which is why, when the comm comes up, there's a large red-tailed hawk on the back of the chair behind him. The hawk turns her head, rearranging Sam's hair slightly.]

[Those that have met Eileen will probably know that it's a nervous gesture.]

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but Miguel beat me at rock, paper, scissors.

[And, really, it was probably going to be one of them that brought it.]

Dan, Miguel, and I went on a mission to Quebec. Chasing rumors of a demonic horse that was kidnapping kids. Supposedly to eat them, but it never got that far.

It's dealt with, now, but not before leaving a disturbing message.

[The comm switches over to a video, obviously taken of the creature's last moments, though he does cut off the end where it melts away.]

I also got Dan to translate, to the best of what I could pronounce, of what it had said before I thought to record it.

[The hawk's preening gets a little more aggressive for a moment as Sam starts flipping through the pages of his ever present notebook and starts reading.]

"You all should run. I'm the nicest thing that crossed through the cracks. They're coming." [A pause, glancing over the next bit.] "Too many cracks. Everything falling apart. Universes like...big ships on the ocean...crash together. Kuk enlists what comes over. He's recruiting the smartest ones. Smarter than me."

[Another pause, then a light bat at the hawk as she catches his ear. Which turns into petting her chest feathers for a moment before continuing.]

This last bit was in the recording, but I'll repeat Dan's translation for those of us who, like me, aren't Francophones. "Those coming through. You've already fought them in the Wilderlands. It's possible they'll remember you. Memory...funny thing, that. And they're not the only ones crossing."

[He sits back, picking up a pen to toy with it.]

We knew a bit of this. I think, though, that we didn't know the scope of it before now. I know some of you were in the Wilderlands. What sorts of things did you have to deal with?

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Oh, that is just amazing news. Just [he balls up a fist and briefly shakes it but the way you would upon hearing something good] great.

[He starts pacing, thinking, examining their options. And then he realizes there's really only one, when it comes to getting a good - and complete - view of this, rather than riddles and whispers from other myths.]

[He walks over to viewing window in the roof. Manny is overheard, so bright that he can still be seen despite the endless sun.]

Manny, I know you're tired. You've been trying to watch over so much. And the way Kuk is breaking things is tugging a bit on the cosmological fabric.

[Manny is a myth, but he's also a celestial body, in a universe breaking apart at the seams. The only difference between himself and the other celestial bodies is that unlike them he can actually feel the laws of physics trying to unravel.]

[Unlike the sun, Manny has to spend a considerable amount of energy not just constantly screaming in horror.]

But we need a clearer view. Can you give us that? You can always rest for a while afterwards. I can talk to Katherine and our other allies, make sure they know we need extra eyes until you're rested.

You could use an excuse for a staycation anyway, pal.

[There is a cost to this. Manny spots problems around the world almost hourly. But this is too important. They can compensate for a day or two.]

[Manny decides that he will try to peer through the layers of reality and answers by opening up a section of floor, and Jack backs away, giving it space. A crystal on a pedestal raises up, and then a focused beam of moonlight hits the crystal. It projects a holographic scene that takes up the entire space on the viewing platform in front of the Globe of Belief. The image looks like it's zooming past all of reality, zipping past cities, through the atmosphere, to...some kind of strange space that doesn't exist. Manny is trying to give them a visual of something paracausal that can only be "seen" with senses they don't have.]

[A vast and terrible being is pressed against a wall of frosted glass. That wall is cracking, pieces of reality are even falling off and falling through the vastness of space to strike what looks like Earth - but also worlds that aren't Earth.]

[Brief flashes of where the shards land on the worlds with Earth-like continents make it clear that some of these worlds are almost certainly not their Earth. Unspoken, Manny conveys that these pieces of reality must be retrieved and put back to slow Kuk's progress.]

[The view draws back slightly, and they see the universe they're in, loose and unmoored, crashing and bouncing off other vast realities in borderline cosmic cataclysm, breaking the dimensional fabric even more. The way Kuk is chewing at the Guardians' reality is untethering it, making it a chaotic element in the multiverse. This is even worse than Kuk just trying to get in, it means the boundaries of the nearest realities will be slightly damaged, too, making it easier for Kuk to break into those next, in the long swath of destruction around the multiverse it wants to make.]

[And peering through all the cracks are things from Outside. Beings terrible to behold. Some of the beings Manny blurs for them, because their minds threaten to flit away at the sight of some of them.]

[The problem is some of the worlds the Guardians' universe have slammed into are, in some ways, already slightly broken. This is why some of the Guardians were pulled from one dimensional crisis in an alien world into another. The last worlds some of them have been in were slightly cracked and that always makes it easier for the Great Powers of some worlds, or the magical Belief of Children in the current one, to yank them through the multiverse on yet one more adventure.]

[That things are following along after them isn't their fault. It is just simply that a hole is a hole. If good can be drawn through, so can the bad.]

[And the bad is slipping in, bit by bit. Beings from a world with bombs that unmade reality until monsters were created by thought given shape, or beings from where a world where the Green is crying out in anguish and magic has patched together the lands of many dimensions. Some of the monsters are from malformed mayfly pocket dimensions that were never once complete and whole.]

[One view even shows that great parasites have unlatched from the corpse of a great worm, slowly rotating around a dimension it failed to break into. They leave the sealed wound they were trapped near, a dimensional rift healed over, and head towards a new place they know they can get in. In that world, heroes within it firmly shut the door, but the door to the Guardians' universe is open a crack. They have somewhere else to go.]

[It is all infinitely worse than one terribly huge, evil, cosmic nightmare-being trying to break through one terribly huge door and commanding some minions to help It do it.]

[No, they are slowly hosting an infestation, and the detritus of a thousand broken worlds and weird dimensional cosmic conflicts is coming for them, vermin trying to squeeze in through the cracks.]

[The hologram disappears. The pedestal retreats. The light from above disappears as Manny powers down to rest from the effort of pushing the limits of his vision. It will take quite a bit of time before he wakes.]

[For a few seconds, Jack stands there, and tries to dig for something to say. He fails. Instead he lets out a loud yell aand kicks over one of North's beautifully ornate floor-length candleholders (currently unlit), tosses his staff away, as if it's utterly useless in the face of everything, and squats down on the floor, burying his face in his knees.]

We are. So screwed.

Edited 2024-06-23 01:41 (UTC)

We are still here. In an intact world. Not cast into the void. We are in a far better position than my first such mission.

[He's quiet for a little bit.]

The Guardians have never faced anything like this. Even when all of us were together. There were a few threats to the world but always something we understood. Something from inside our world - another myth gone out of control.

I know the others would do a better job of this, even with it being something new. And bigger.

Not yet we aren't.

[Stacia sounds serious, rather than her usual choices of sarcastic, perky, or (occasionally) gentle. And the expression on her face is a surprise to anyone save perhaps Elle. Stacia has been letting herself embrace the opportunity to snatch a bit more of childhood out of the jaws of responsibility, but this? This isn't an unusual situation for her.]

We -- my reality has been keeping itself from falling apart by the the skin of its teeth for years. This is bad, it's extremely bad, but we're not lost yet. We're going to need allies and we're going to need to change the way we do things, but this isn't the end. Not yet.

Stay where you are, I'm going to come give you a hug. Anyone else who wants it on that, meet me there.

Same here.

Hell, we're the ones who're supposed to end it.

[Hellboy glares at the flame-crowned lioness next to him.]

Not helping Hellion. Don't worry about it, last person who tried to make me kick it off got a very firm "Not interested" in the form of being stabbed and exploded.

Point is it ain't over 'til it's actually over.

Here's hoping these things can be stabbed and exploded.

Kuk Itself, though...

That's where I have no idea where to start.

It's good that you're here. I just...

I just wish one of the others was the one here to guide you.

They've at least got more experience to threats to this world, from this world. I've only dealt with a few since becoming a guardian, and only one that could've ended the world.

[The look in his eyes is tired but he doesn't say what he's thinking: And I probably don't have enough time to figure things out.]

Yeah, it sucks to have to shoulder all of the responsibility. We should definitely have a pity party into some ice cream or hot cocoa or something. But then we've got to get back up and get back to it, because even if all we can do is delay things, that's still more time to do something.

[She shows up on location, pulling a coat on over her romper because Jack runs frosty cold and she intends to give him a lengthy hug.]

All right, buddy, get over here.

Honestly, I was going to say 'fucked'. But that's not very PG.

[It's all a lot to take in. And some of it brushes against walls in Sam's mind that should probably not be messed with. But, at the moment, it's safe enough.]

[He stares at the screen, having had enough forethought to record it to look at closer. Later. Now, though, he sets it aside because he knows that look on Jack's face. He's been there before, after all.]

But that's the reason we're here, isn't it? I'm pretty sure there isn't a one of us that hasn't uttered those words at one time or another in our own worlds. A good chunk of us have stared at a coming oblivion and knew we were fucked.

More than that, we survived. [Mostly.] I think the kids unconsciously knew that something like this was happening. And their belief pulled people who have stood at the end of the world and flipped it off.

That's how I felt in the beginning. And even the middle, when it was obvious it was getting worse. That's even how I felt when it was just Bunny and I. My Bunny.

You know what I mean.

I know the universe brought you here as the Eleventh Hour miracle. Logically, I know that. But I already saw this thing take down my old friends one by one.

It's hard to not think it's going to just keep doing it with any new ones.

Honestly? I can't say that it won't.

[They've seen what is possible in this world. And they're not just fighting Kuk on that front. There's Project Prometheus as well. Which maybe doesn't understand what they're up against, but there's a memorial room that proves they aren't any less of a danger.]

You already gave us an out, Jack. You told us from the start that we didn't have to help you, didn't have to put ourselves on the line. And I'm pretty sure we all basically told you to fuck that. Saving the world...for most of us, it seems to be in our DNA. [Some of them, almost literally.]

I can't promise none of us will die. But we couldn't promise that back home, either. And if we're going to die, it's not going to be without one hell of a fight.

No. We're not.

[ This is, in many ways, a sheer matter of stubbornness. If the only way out and home is through, then Glenn has to believe that. No matter how long the long shot is.

But it's also a matter of experience. Habit, even. It's emotional muscle memory. ]

What we're here to do is bigger than us. [ He gets that much, even if he feels way out of his depth most of the time. ] That means it's only screwed when we're dead. Maybe not even then. It's only getting bigger, man.

[ The kids clearly haven't stopped believing yet. It's gotta count for something. Giving up is a luxury.

Complaining is free, though, Glenn plans to complain whenever necessary. That's just different. ]

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We got 99 problems (but Chaval aint one) -- Post-Quebec

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