metalogs | OPEN | It's Raining Skyfallen

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OPEN | It's Raining Skyfallen

Who: Six

sixthdeadliest, OPEN
What: This time, the Convergence is dumping people in Little Love where Six has set up shop. Time to meet the new neighbors.
When: January, all-month
Where: Little Love, Kansas for most of the month. One prompt is in Central City, Michigan.
Content Warnings: Should be fine. Will update as needed.

[January 3rd - 10th: Little Love, Kansas (De-Aged)]
Six was rather irritated that he'd been transformed into a kid about ten years old, the same estimated age he'd been when One had found him. At least this time around, he was scrawny and a bit underfed, not starving and half-dead.

Still hated it though.

But life went on, and apparently so did the Convergences. And it looked like Little Love was their latest pick for a dumping ground.

He craned his neck to look up at the latest newcomer. "You're new. Just arrived or moving in from out of town?"

[January 11th - 31st: Little Love, Kansas (Normal Age)]
It felt good to be big enough to properly handle his magna blades again. Even with the shuriken constantly on his person, he'd felt naked.

Now that things were calming back down to their typical chaos, Six wandered the area to see what might need to be done to fully restore the weird status quo.

[January 14th: Alliance HQ and the surrounding area, Central City, Michigan (Nanite Checkup)]
Six adjusted his jacket. While he waited for the results of the tests to come back, he had plenty of time to kill. He might as well go out and about.

First order of business, coffee. He could put that gift card Prodigy had given him to good use.

Second, well, he'd just take in the local sights and browse the shops for anything he might need that Little Love didn't have.

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"Depends on where you are," Six said bluntly. "Central has the largest population of Metas, and you'll see anti-Meta protests break out from time to time, but overall it's tense tolerance. Excelsior used to be indifferent towards Metas but has since swung towards hostile, so I wouldn't be surprised if anti-Meta protests are more prevalent there. Honestly, I'd be more concerned with ending up as a test subject."

Dr. Fell probably would've felt right at home in Excelsior. Probably would've been a better option for keeping an eye on his nanites and studying them for a potential cure, but every alarm bell about unethical scientists he'd developed over the past five years screamed to high heaven on the rare occasions he went out there.

He paused as the server came back, ordering a simple burger and glass of water.

After the server took Leonardo's order and left, Six continued, "Sunset Falls is the most inviting towards Metas so any anti-Meta protests are rare, assuming there are any. I'm stationed out in Little Love where it's a 'live and let live' situation. Not a lot of Metas out there since it's so rural without a lot of the conveniences you'd find in a major city or suburb, but the general attitude is 'don't start none, there won't be none'. If there's an anti-Meta protest, it's a safe bet that it's out-of-towners trying to start trouble."

It's a helpful breakdown of the state of things, and Leo listens even if it looks a bit like he isn't, spinning his silverware, still wrapped in a napkin, around in circles on the table.

"Little Love is in Kansas, right? That's where I fell out of the sky."

Disoriented and injured as he was, he doesn't remember a lot of it. Just someone hauling him off and dumping him in front of a healer who kept him bleeding from death.

From what Six is saying, he should avoid Excelsior, but staying in Central City might be dangerous, too. Sunset Falls sounds like an option, but he's heard some stuff about that place that makes him not sure he wants to go there, either.

Kansas, though? Sounds terrible.

"I was told I should find a way to disguise myself, and that the Alliance could do that if I want to join up. But I don't know... Seems pretty species-ist to tell me to look human, if you ask me."

Six nodded in response to the location of Little Love.

In response to the last part, he stated bluntly, "People will always decide in groups and out groups for one reason or another. Doesn't make it right, but it's how things go. Particularly when you read up on this world's history: Warring Metas literally nearly brought about the apocalypse with the guilds working to make sure such a thing doesn't happen again. I doubt any of the Metas here today were involved in any of it, but they're the ones paying for others' mistakes with the ones who don't look human being the easiest to single out."

Their food arrived, and Six took a sip of water.

"From what I've been able to find out, the confluences had been rare events up until last year. Now they happen fairly regularly. And there's nothing more dangerous than scared civilians: They'll demand something, anything be done to make them feel safe again. In my world, it was civilians that pressured the UN into sealing away the entirety of Kiev into what's now known as 'The Bug Jar'."

Leo tears into his pizza with all the exuberance of a teenage boy, quietly thinking to himself that it's not NY pizza but he'll still take it. He's not acting like it, but he's mulling over what Six has said, about how warring Metas almost caused the apocalypse.

It sounds bad, and he can understand how a world comes to be this way, but that doesn't mean he has to like it. Still, Leo is used to hiding, and generally unused to being part of society, so ultimately it's not a big change for him. He thinks he'd rather keep his own looks and hide out, than try to integrate into a place like this.

He keeps those thoughts for himself, going for the obvious question between bites.

"The Bug Jar?"

Six never said he agreed with their attitudes, just that he understood them.

He took a moment to eat a bite of his burger. "Five years ago on my world, there was an accident. Nanomachines called 'nanites' that had been originally designed to cure diseases and such were unleashed in an unfinished state. They spread across the globe in a matter of hours, infecting every living thing on Earth. Because of their incomplete programming, they randomly mutate their hosts into what we call 'EVOs', the vast majority of which are feral and violent. Your friends, your loved ones, your plants, your pets, not even you were safe. It's like living with a time bomb in your head and knowing that every living thing around you also has a time bomb in it, but you can't see the timers.

"Kiev, Ukraine, had the misfortune of having a massive amount of nanites due to Earth's magnetic field funneling them towards it. Almost every living thing mutated immediately. Nobody knew what was happening or why, and people panicked, demanding their leaders do something to protect them. The solution the UN came up with was to encase Kiev in a spherical forcefield after evacuating those who hadn't mutated, but there's no guarantee everyone got out since there's no way of telling who mutated and who didn't. Since then, no one is allowed into or out of what became known as 'the Bug Jar'."

He took another sip of water.

"I suspect it's less to do with keeping people safe since the 'monsters' are outside of the forcefield, too, and more to keep people from thinking too hard about the ones they doomed. The majority of EVOs are feral, true, but not all of them. And, as I said, there's no guarantee that every unchanged person got out in time."

And given it had been a city, well, no farms for renewable food sources were in place. No one to maintain water treatment facilities. Not to mention all the feral EVOs that would likely pounce on a potential meal. Honestly, the last fate would've been the preferred one. At least it'd be quick.

Edited 2023-01-13 05:18 (UTC)

Okay well.

That's horrifying.

Leo grimaces, setting down his pizza for the time being in favor of sipping on his soda.

"Alright, Bug Jar, not a fun time. Got it."

He thinks over the idea of "EVOs", and how they sound similar to the human mutants in his world, minus the going feral part (he's pretty sure that's just a coincidence; most of the mutants he knows were jackasses to begin with). The oozesquitos weren't a threat anymore, but while they had been, anyone could be turned at any time.

Having that happen to an entire population... would definitely cause mass panic. Doesn't make the idea of the "Bug Jar" sit very well with him anyway.

"So..." He eyes Six over the top of his soda. "Should I be glad you didn't try to off me as soon as you saw me?"

Since he is, well... mutated.

Six shook his head. "I don't have a problem with sapient EVOs or Metas that just want to live their lives and don't want to hurt anyone. 'Don't start none; there won't be none'. I work...worked...with two EVOs on the regular for an organization similar to the guilds called 'Providence' which is working towards a cure. But like the guilds, it doesn't have a perfect track record. For four years, there wasn't even a hint of a cure, and the protocol was 'Contain or Kill' when encountering feral EVOs, but 'Contain' was a worse option for the EVO we caught. What was done to study the nanites in the early days...well, the road to Hell was paved with good intentions, not evil ones. The nanites themselves were supposed to heal living things, not horribly mutate them, after all.

"This past year we made some progress thanks to my finding Rex, an EVO who can control machines. Rex can cure most human EVOs by siphoning off an EVO's active nanites which reverses the transformation, but he isn't a perfect cure; he struggles with nonhumans and some people end up being labeled as 'incurable' when he can't do anything for them. Our current head nanite researcher, Dr. Holiday, is trying to come up with a more universal and permanent cure."

He took a few bites of his burger letting that sink in.

"The point of me telling you all that is that you need to understand things are very rarely as black-and-white as people think. This isn't a comic book; this is reality, and reality is very messy. If I'd told you what the Bug Jar was without context, you'd immediately condemn it as simply hating nonhumans when the situation is much more nuanced. The Bug Jar is terrible, the ill-treatment of Metas here is terrible, but neither was created by blind hatred because of physical differences." He glanced towards a few non-Metas in the bar, head turning just slightly in the process as his eyes scanned the room from behind his sunglasses. "You have a right to be angry at them for judging you without knowing you, but you don't know them either. You can't tell at a glance who got whipped up into someone else's anti-Meta hysteria and who might directly know someone who suffered greatly at a Meta's hands and doesn't want to see it happen to someone else. It goes both ways: They can't tell at a glance whether or not you're the sort of Meta who would use your powers to get what you want from them. Unpowered humans only have a chance in a fully-armed, well-trained group against someone with powers, and even then it's no guarantee. In the past when the confluences and by extension Metas were rare, it was easier to pretend things were safe and to go about their lives. But with the confluences showing up more and more, not just creating Metas in this world but dumping in new ones from others? They remember what happened before, and they know they don't stand a chance if even a handful of bad-intended Metas decided to work together. That terrifies them."

He looked back at Leonardo.

"The irony is that giving in to their fear might create the situation they're so afraid of. A self-fulfilling prophecy."

Leo listens, even if it looks like he's now more interested in his pizza than what's being said to him. Fear causing self-fulfilling prophecies is also something he's familiar with. It seems like no matter what dimension he's in, people are people.

"Sooo, what you're saying is, I've somehow managed to land in the middle of a ticking time bomb. Cool."

He doesn't really want to be around when things explode and they start implementing their own "Bug Jar"-esque solution around here. But he also doubts he has a choice. He doesn't know of a way to get back to his actual dimension, and just going back where he was before... he'd rather not do that either.

"I guess the whole goal of the guilds is to try and smooth things over? Make people see Metas as people who will help them, not hurt them?"

He hasn't taken much interest in either of them, if he's being honest, but he can at least understand the goal.

"Hell is other people," Six noted dryly.

He took a moment to eat more of his burger as he decided how to respond.

"The Alliance, yes. The Society is more complicated. It comes down to their primary guiding principles.

"The Alliance believes in using their confluence-given powers for the sake of others: to protect the world and so on. They do their best to smooth things over, but one of their methods is promoting its members as celebrities. As a result, it will get recruits who are more interested in self-promotion than actually assisting others.

"The Society believes that one should use their powers for their own gain first and foremost. They run a program to help keep young Metas from becoming 'villains'..." He raised a hand to indicate the air quotes. "...but honestly the resources they provide their members are just as easily used against others. Though they do try to keep their members from starting another apocalyptic event."

The guilds were messy and complicated like that.

Ah, so they both suck. Sounds about right.

"See," he stops to obnoxiously suck on his soda, "this is why I don't join any kind of organizations. I mean, I'm leader of the Mad Dogs but that's different."

Or well, he was the leader. Guess his brother gets the reins back now that he's here.

"I'm kinda thinking my best bet here is to go back to hiding in the sewers."

He isn't thinking through how that would work yet. Not really.

It wasn't until he'd become Rex's trainer and handler that Six realized that teenagers weren't nearly as deferential to authority figures as he'd been with One. (Then again, most teenagers hadn't been taken in when they'd been a step or two away from dying in an alley and told in no uncertain terms that if they caused more trouble than they were worth, they were being put right back where they'd been found.) Therefore, he bit the inside of his cheek to suppress the reflexive "Don't do that" on the tip of his tongue.

If there was any surefire way to motivate a teenager to do something you didn't want and could probably lead to them getting seriously hurt, it was a flat "no".

He took a bite of his burger, carefully considering his plan of attack.

"It's up to you, but I hope you have the logistics worked out without any of your old contacts to rely on because I can say from personal experience that digging for your meals out of the garbage is hardly worth it even when you're desperate."

Lead the kid into asking the questions so Six can give it to him straight:

It wasn't two garbage organization options and one more pleasant one. It was three very nasty options.

Six is a smart man - giving Leo a flat "no" would have shut him down quickly. After all, they'd only known each other for a half hour or so; it took more than getting him out of a scrape to get Leo to be deferential.

What he says instead, though, is reasonable, and even if Leo doesn't want to acknowledge it, he kind of has to. The thing is that his family had always gotten by with what money their dad was able to get, and later with the infrastructure that Donnie was able to build, to make their home habitable. Leo's never had to attempt to make it on his own, and he doesn't really know how.

He's clearly not happy about the reality check, his face falling as he hunches a little more protectively over his last pizza slice.

"So what did you do?"

He'll just deflect this back to Six. Then again, he's a human and an adult, so if he wanted to make it outside the guilds he'd probably have an easier time. Other than that whole pesky undocumented thing, but Leo is pretty sure there's ways around that if you're crafty.

The kid was at least stopping to think things through. Good.

"I took stock of what I was going to need right away and made a plan for what to do if I was here for longer than a few weeks." He rolled up his left sleeve, revealing not just one of the wrist devices that held his magna blades (along with the folded-up sword sheathed in it) but a bandage over a cotton ball in the crook of his elbow. "I didn't come to this world by myself. When I said every living thing on my earth was infected during the Nanite Event, I meant it. Last year someone was bleached of his nanites by accident and has had to live in quarantine ever since because nanites are in the food, the water, even the air. Fortunately the ones I'm carrying don't leave my body even when drawing blood, but there's no guarantee I won't ever go EVO."

He slid his sleeve back down.

"I knew I'd need them to be monitored, that maybe the technology here might be different enough to get information on at least detecting any potential indicators of when they might activate. That was going to cost money and a lot of it, and my skillsets don't carry over to the private sector that well, so that automatically eliminated the possibility of staying unaligned. I ultimately decided on the Alliance because it was similar enough to Providence that if anyone I worked with back in my world showed up, they'd likely be drawn to it due to the familiarity of it. Not to mention the guilds usually jump right on each confluence for recruitment purposes, so being in one of them would raise my chances of hearing if my colleagues ever did show up."

He finished his burger.

"I requested assignment to Little Love since it was largely ignored by both guilds and if I did go EVO, there'd be time to bring me under control before civilians got involved. There's no telling what form I'd take or abilities I'd have, and being in the middle of a city is a recipe for disaster. I might get called on a mission elsewhere, but for the most part I'm out there when I'm not in Central for my monthly checkup.

"They're using me, so I decided to use them, too."

Wait, does he have weapons hidden up his sleeves? Rad.

Leo does not let himself get too distracted by this, though, listening to his explanation as he finishes the last of his pizza. It makes sense - the guilds give money, and knowing when the confluences are going to show up is useful. He would really rather none of his family showed up here, but it sounds like there could always be a chance, so knowing when it's going to happen could mean he would be able to be there if any of them were unfortunate enough to get dragged to this dimension.

They're all good reasons, really, even if Leo himself doesn't have to worry about the nanite stuff. But even if he joined a guild, he would likely have to stay on the downlow in Central City, unless he wanted to masquerade as a human all the time.

But still... Kansas? He represses a shudder.

"...Well, I'm not against that philosophy." Lord knows he's had to deal with Big Mama enough to Get It; letting yourself get used to use them back is a play he's utilized himself. "Why are you telling me all this, though? Do you just enjoy counseling wayward teens or something?"

He did mention some Rex guy earlier...

Six paused for a moment, considering how to answer. Rex had never bothered to ask something so deeply personal.

"You look like you're about...what? Fifteen? Sixteen? At about half that age, I lived on the streets, having to choose between digging through the garbage for my latest meal and finding someplace to hunker down to get out of the rain...or making trades for them that still sometimes give me nightmares. I was out there for a few winters before someone took me in right when I was about to become just another piece of trash rotting in the gutter."

He finished his water and reached for his wallet, counting out bills for the server's tip. He'd pay for the meal at the register.

"None of us picked coming here and becoming pawns in this world's games. An adult wants to go out and risk life on the streets? That's their business, but I can't stomach the idea of knowing a kid's out there because I know just how bad humanity can be towards a desperate kid. You're old enough to have a better chance at making it, and if I try to force a decision on you, you'll bolt. But I can arm you with what I know about this world so you can make a decision that works for you."

Leo's never known what it means to be truly homeless like that. Sure, he grew up in a literal sewer, and more recently took up residence in an abandoned subway tunnel, but those places were home. He'd had a bed and food and a dad who at least made sure he didn't die. And he'd had his brothers, who Leo knows he his nothing without.

He's older than Six was, but even so... He's not sure he's confident in his ability to make it. Not that he wants to admit that out loud to this guy.

"That's awfully nice of you." He swallows the last of his soda. "But I'm also old enough to remember what my dad taught me about stranger danger. So if all this helpful advice is you trying to get close to me so you can," he waggles his hand, "do something nefarious, just know I'm pretty sure I could wipe the floor with you."

Bold words to say to someone who just showed off the weapons up their sleeves, maybe, but Leo feels like Six wouldn't actually try to kill him in public (then again, he's been wrong before).

Six smirked. "You're welcome to try, kid, but I wasn't ranked sixth for nothing."

He got up from his chair.

"Besides if I wanted to do something to you, I could've done it after leading you out of that crowd."

He turned his back towards the kid.

"I need to head back to Alliance headquarters. They've probably got the latest batch of results ready by now. I was just killing time."

Leo stays put in his chair, since this seems like where they will clearly part ways.

"Sure thing, Sixteen or whatever." He's just being a punk now. "Have fun with the whole nanite situation."

He'll wait until Six is gone to head out his own way.

"Good luck with your sewers."

Six started to walk away, and in the less noisy atmosphere of the little eatery, Leonardo would notice that Six's steps made almost no sound whatsoever despite not taking any sort of care to do so. He even startled the man at the register, the other man not having noticed his approach.

Okay, he has to admit: that was pretty impressive.

He'll remember this guy.

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OPEN | It's Raining Skyfallen

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