Child's Play

[Idran1701]

Staring around at the horizon for a minute or two, Sam frowns, switching his vision back to normal. Shaking his head, he turns back to the group. "Nope, I can't see him. We should prob'ly do what you said, Ale...", he says, trailing off as he stares up into the sky. Jaw dropped, he watches Max flying about in the sky. Grinning with delight, he looks back to his landbound teammates. "Wow, that's so cool! We're awesome!"

[Shinigori V2]

Janet nods, smiling. "Yeah, we're pretty sweet, alright. What are you guys gonna do, when we get out?"

Max:

Spoiler:

As you fly, a glinting light catches your eye. Maybe it's the sun shining off the ocean, or maybe it's something just by the cliff face, near the back of the forested land. It would be impossible to see on the ground, however.

[Spleen]

Darren was becoming increasingly annoyed that those who could fly were getting a chance to do so and so far no one had even handed him a gun. The "unformatted area" being a lush meadow he thought was kind of stupid, as well - he was imagining the files as dangerous flying cubes or something similar, not as grass and a lake. He just folded his arms and waited for someone to say if they actually saw the boy.

[BrainWalker]

Max halted his midair frolicking abruptly. He saw a flicker of light... but was it important, or was it just sunlight reflecting off the ocean ahead? He squinted, but couldn't make anything out from this distance. "Hey, Emmy, I think I saw something up ahead!" He waved his sister over and pointed in the general direction of the flash, but nothing was making itself evident at the moment. "I'm going to go tell the others."

Max descends to address the group, still hovering a few inches off the ground. "Okay, I'm not sure, but I think I might have seen something. Up ahead there's a forest, and cliff, and, like... an ocean. I know, it's crazy! I didn't see our guy, but I did see a flash of light over by the cliff, which could be something metal or a signal or something. Or it could be nothing, but it's the only lead we've got right now. You guys can start moving up the path if you want, but do you think Emmy and I should scout ahead? Whatever it was, it would probably be easier to see from the air."

[NebulaQueen]

It was beautiful, absolutely beautiful. Silvie's jaw dropped when she saw the scenery, and for a moment, she felt nothing but pure joy. Outside...when was the last time she had seen something like this? Her legs practically itched with the urge to run and jump and explore, but she stayed still, now enraptured by the sight of her fellow children flying in the sky. She shot a grin at Max when he landed. That was cool, she thought, really cool.

"That'd be a good idea," she said. "I mean, you two can see more than we can, right?"

[Idran1701]

Nodding, Sam strains his eyes in the direction Max said, seeing nothing despite his effort. "Yeah, that sounds good! How far away was it? And wow, there was really a whole ocean? Wow. Oh, did you see any animals? I was wondering if there were animals here. Was there any, could you see?"

[Kelne]

Emily boosted her own way higher, kicking in the magnification in an effort to get a better view of the area Max had pointed out. She winced at the result. The slightest motion of her head set her viewpoint out of line, and it was seriously disorienting to use while flying. Maybe with practice it'd get easier, but even so, she'd prefer not to use that function during combat.

Mission or no, this place was amazing. Would it change if it was formatted? She didn't know, but maybe it would be worth finding out.

[Besyanteo]

Again, Enzo regretted not having the ability to get in the heads of the other kids: If he could, not only could they have split up and searched basically safely, but Max and Emily also could have headed off right after that glimmer and made sure of exactly what it was before they all went together to check it out. Obviously, there was a chance it wasn't Robert, and if it wasn't then they were all going to find out together. Ah well.

"Well, let's go check it out, I say."

[Shinigori V2]

Emily zooms in on the area, and after she gets her bearings, can see...A little more clearly. There's definitely something there, on the top of the cliff overlooking a far ocean shore. As she looks, however, the light changes, going from a sparkling beacon to a pulsing light, alternating between a light blue and a dark purple. A moment later, the twins are finding their way towards the ground, landing with the others.

Emily and Max:

Spoiler:

Your descent wasn't optional- Whatever that pulse is, it shut off your thrusters and flight ability, even if temporarily. You will have to make the journey on foot, with everyone else.

[BrainWalker]

Max addresses Sam, "Well, little buddy, I did see some critters roaming around, but I didn't get a real good look at them. Maybe they're animals, or maybe..."

Suddenly Max finds himself descending the rest of the way to the ground.

"Hey, what gives?"

He tries to fire his boosters, but gets no response. He looks up and sees Emily descending and looking a little confused as well.

"Aww, weak!"

Just to be sure, Max turns on his infrared vision... which seems to be working okay. So, at least he's not totally bugged. But in out in the sun, everything is super-bright, so he quickly blinks it off again.

Max looks at his sister, as if looking for an answer. "So, I guess we're walking?"

[Spleen]

"Walkin' ain't so bad," Darren teased. "We all gotta do it. Come join the walkin' club."

[BrainWalker]

Max chuckled. "Well, I guess I'm a card-carrying member as long as I've got these." Max demonstrates the usefulness of his legs by doing a little moonwalk, like a dork.

[NebulaQueen]

Silvie giggled, and said, "C'mon Max, stop goofing around. Lets go check that stuff out!"

[Idran1701]

Laughing a little with Silvie, Sam nods in agreement. "Yeah! The faster we go, the faster we'll be there, so let's go now."

[Christian]

(Woah, people, slow down :D)

Alexis suppressed a giggle as Max did his best moonwalk. She hadn't seen anyone do that in years! It seemed as if they were going to walk towards the forest, so she began to move towards it, slowly at first so the others would catch up quickly. She was secretly a little glad that the twins couldn't fly anymore, she'd started to get a bit jealous, but on the other hand that was their power, and it sucked that they didn't get to use it.

"Are... are we going into the forest?"

[NebulaQueen]

"We sure are," she said. "Come on, follow me."

Without waiting for a response, Silvie bravely walked towards the forest.

[Shinigori V2]

The children walk towards the forest, as the sun continues to shine, and the breeze gets ever stronger. One by one, as they enter the forest, each notices the tingling sensation that runs through their bodies grow stronger.

Within the forest, the children occasionally catch a glimpse of creatures of many sorts, although they are rather odd: They don't seem to have any real bodies as the children do, only a shape, made out of green wires. The animals seem to be avoiding the children as much as possible. As the breeze blows through the leaves, the children notice the light is beginning to fade, and the sound of thunder can be heard in the distance.

Now, the children are at a three way intersection on the path that runs through the forest. It all appears to be roughly the same, although one path leads to the left, the other to the right. As they think about it, the forest has muddled their sense of direction- They have very little idea which way the pulsing light was coming from now that they're actually inside.

[Christian]

Alex didn't much like the oppressive feel of the forest. She glanced at the trees every now and then, looking out for low-hanging branches and bushes sticking out on the path. Finally, some time before they came up to the crossroad, she decided she just didn't want to have any more of it and had within a few seconds ascended one of the trees to sit hunched upon one of the branches. It felt... better... maybe because the others weren't around her anymore, making it crowded and hard to move.

"I... I'll just keep a lookout up here..." she said to the others as loud as she dared and then continued onward through the forestry.

At the sight of the juncture she frowned and jumped down to land quietly next to the rest of the team. "We... we should probably split up in twos... maybe...?"

[NebulaQueen]

"Maybe...but I dunno, isn't that kind of dangerous? I mean, every time a group splits up in the movies or TV or whatever, something bad always happens, like monsters or serial killers or an avalanche or something."

[Idran1701]

"Yeah. I don't really wanna split up either..." After gazing down each path, Sam thinks for a bit to himself before looking back to Alexis, smiling. "Which way do you wanna go? Both paths look pretty good to me, an' I can't figure out which is the right way to go anyway. I got all mixed up in that forest, it's really weird there. Neat weird, though!"

[Besyanteo]

Ah crap. A fork. Forks in the road weren't something he was a fan of: In all of literature and media and such that he'd seen to date, a fork in the road usually precluded the story's hero or heroes making a bad decision and suffering hardship for it. While this place still didn't seem like it was going to hurt them (so far), faster would be better right now. So what to do? Before beating his brain against the problem too far, he'd check to see if there was a simple solution first.

"Max, Emily; Do either of your boosters work again yet?"

[Kelne]

Emily frowned, "I think this place is messing with us somehow. So we'd better make sure we can find our way back." With that, she gathers a few twigs and shapes them into an arrow pointing back the way they came from. That much, at least, hasn't been muddled up. "It's not a trail of breadcrumbs, but it'll do," she said, grinning.

She did check her boosters, but no such luck. "No, no boosters. But somebody could climb a tree, maybe?"

[BrainWalker]

This forest definitely doesn't feel as inviting on the inside as it looked on the outisde. Plus, being unsure of his location and direction is not a sensation that he is familiar with, and it's definitely one that he doesn't like.

Max addresses Enzo's question; "Still feeling a little weird here. I don't think they work..." Max tries to fire his boosters but, as expected, he gets no response. "Nope. We're still grounded."

Max brings his hand up to his chin and ponders the two branching paths.

"I think we should split up. The problem in the movies is that they always split up into pairs, or groups of three, and then one person wanders off like a dumbass and gets themselves killed. So, as long as at least four of us stick together, and no-one wanders off on their own, we should be okay. Which is convenient, since there's 8 of us and the path splits in two."

"I think Emily has the right idea. If we did split up, we should probably meet back here at some point, since we don't have Enzo's link to communicate. I think splitting up is probably our best bet to find this Robert kid quickly and get the heck out of this forest."

While deliberation continues, Max decides to kick on his infrared vision again to see if he can pick up any faint pulses of light down either path.

[Shinigori V2]

Max flips on his infrared, and with the darkness from the coming rain, he can see the highlights pretty clearly-

Down the left path, there is a signature from something. He's too far to tell what, but there's definitely something there.

Max:

Spoiler:

Something about the signature makes you feel a bit fuzzy in the head. It's important, somehow. But it's also not Robert. You're not sure how you know, but you're positive.

[BrainWalker]

Well, there was a hunch that paid off. Although it left him feeling even less comfortable than before. Max shakes his head and turns off his infrared vision.

"Hey, umm... I think I may have just made our decision a little easier. Or a little harder. With night vision, I was able to see pulses of light down the left path, but... umm... it's not Robert. I'm sure of it, somehow. But I think it may be whatever is affecting our powers."

Max sits down for a minute to clear his head. "Whatever's going on down there, I don't think we should ignore it, but I'm also sure that it's not our guy."

[Idran1701]

Sam stares down the path in infrared, curious to see what Max saw. "Huh. Well, if it's messing with our powers, then it's something bad, right? So we should go and beat it up or something! And then we can come back and go the other way and I bet Robert'll probably be that way. Oh, unless this thing kidnapped Robert or something! I dunno why it'd do that...um...oh, unless it's something in here that's trying to figure out how to stop us, an' that's why our powers are working all screwy! We'd better hurry!"

[NebulaQueen]

"I'm with Sam," she said. "Even if we don't beat it up, we should at least check it out."

[Besyanteo]

Beat it up? Oh Sam. To be fair, the environment felt pretty real, but that didn't change what it was. This was the unpartitioned portion of a data storage unit. Somehow Enzo didn't think that beating something up would do any good, or even be possible. Still, they should at least try to learn what the hell the thing was.

"Well, I guess let's go ahead and split up if you guys are sure... My suggestion is that Darren, Janet, Alexis and Max go that way, and see if you can find Robert, while Emily, Sam, Silvie and Me go to check out the weird light."

He tried to divvy up genders and skills appropriately for the two groups, but honestly he just wanted to see Darren go off with someone that seemed to be able to keep him on his vaguely-better behavior. Anyway, Alexis's skills should help them find Robert, right?

[Spleen]

Darren shrugged, and looked to the teammates Sam had suggested. While he was doing that, he happened to glance to the left. He saw something there that caught his attention, and starting walking towards it, away from the group, slipping away from them without a word.

[Shinigori V2]

Sam, Enzo:

Spoiler:

Darren doesn't get distracted easily. If something's got his attention, something's likely up.

[Christian]

Alexis had shrunk into the background as the rest of the kids argued what to do. They were talking about beating someone... or something... up? Well, she'd be of no use there, but she could just sneak around and see if she could catch sight of whatever it was.... well, maybe she hadn't really told the others that she could do that.

"Maybe if I went on ahead... she mumbled, drowned out by the others. It wasn't bad though, someone else was taking on the role of leader, so she was sure they'd figure out the best way to do things.

"Alright." she said as Enzo divided up the teams. Maybe she could get to know the others for a bit then, although she was sad that Silvie...

What was Darren doing now? She followed after him as quickly as she could, sliding between shrubbery and undergrowth, trying to catch up to him. "D-Darren? Where are you going?"

[Besyanteo]

Enzo mumbled something, but what it might have been was hard to make out. Then he wordlessly followed Darren. Something in the back of his mind was telling him this was wrong, but that voice was so distant, so unimportant. That girl was important right now, and he was going to see what she wanted.

[Spleen]

"Saw a girl over there," Darren mumbled, listlessly. "More important than this shit."

[Kelne]

"Hey, woah," Emily says, jogging to catch up with Darren and the others, "Weren't you supposed to be going the other way, Darren? Alexis?" And why had Enzo meekly fallen in behind rather than raising the issue? He'd worked out the division after all.

[NebulaQueen]

Silvie began to walk forward, her eyes peering at the distance, until Darren broke her out of her daze.

"So...everybody else sees her too, right? It's not just Darren and me?"

[BrainWalker]

Still sitting, Max watches his teammates wander off. "So I guess we've decided to abandon the plan we just came up with and chase a mysterious stranger." Max was a little exasperated, but it was as much about the loss of his powers and the uncomfortable atmosphere in the forest as it was about everyone's lack of focus. He had seen her, too, but he was trying to make sense of what he had seen, whereas others reacted more quickly, with action.

Getting up, Max speaks with feigned disinterest. "Well, I guess I just gave a speech about sticking together, so..."

But honestly, he was curious about the girl, too. Not as curious as he was about that pulsing light, but there's probably not much he could, or should, do about it on his own.

[Idran1701]

Following along with the group, Sam stares off in the distance at whatever's got everyone's attention. "What girl? I didn't see anyone." Kind of confused, he decides that for now going with everyone's the best idea, since with all the weirdness this doesn't seem to be the best place to get left behind. Staying near the back, he keeps an eye on the others to make sure no one falls behind, especially the younger kids. He keeps to the side in back, though, still eager to get a glimpse of whatever's got everyone - especially Darren - so interested.

[Shinigori V2]

Mission: 01- Lost and Found.
Database: Unformatted Land
June 12, 3756.
10:33

Janet goes quiet, as the group starts down the left path. Overhead, there's a crack of thunder, as the light of day begins to turn to cloudy shadow. The kids can hear the occasional raindrop fall through the leaves in the trees above.

But as they travel, each swears they're beginning to hear something.

More and more, as they move down the path, each of the children can hear it more and more- Singing. Very feint, very high, beautiful voices. A choir of angels, the children are sure of it. The source is coming from dead ahead. As they walk, the trees begin to become illuminated with a pulsing light- Light blue, pulsing dark purple. And still, the choir becomes more clear, and something about it catches Alexis' attention.

Finally, the children clear the forest, and find themselves at the top of a cliff, overlooking the ocean. In the distance, over the water, lightning dances through the sky, and rain falls heavily. It's heading that way, but that's not important yet- They're all data, so there's not any danger of, say, catching a cold or anything.

The thing that might catch their interest is both the source of the pulsing light, now and before, and the angelic choir. She stands just before them, overlooking the ocean, and the scene ahead.

"She" is the girl that four of the children saw in a flash, briefly. Her back is turned to them, but they can tell that she is like them- Wunderkind. Her hair is a very pale blue, almost white, and cut short, save for a very long braid that reaches the middle of her back. She wears a white cloak with pale blue trim that's covering most of her back from view.

Without turning, she begins to speak. "You've finally arrived."

Alexis:

Spoiler:

One of the voices in the choir that accompanies this girl is very familiar to you- It's based off of your mother's work at the opera. You can pick out the pieces of her voice very, very clearly.

[Idran1701]

Sam stays silent for a few moments, trying to process the sight. While he might have expected to find their goal here, he wasn't expecting someone entirely new, and for a couple seconds it throws him for a loop. Finally, though, he speaks up, cautiously and curiously. "Um...hi. Who're you? Are you a friend of Robert's?"

[Shinigori V2]

The girl turns, sending her braid swinging. As she does, the group manages to catch a lot more of what she actually looks like.

Her skin is a little pale, as if she hasn't been in the sun all month. Her eyes are a little disconcerting- Her left eye is a blood red color, her right is covered by what appears to be a high-tech eye-patch. Her cloak, from the front, only covers her shoulders, but bears a large metal plate protecting her neck. Otherwise, she's wearing a suit identical to the other children's, a white bodysuit, along with pale blue briefs, gloves and boots. Her gloves and boots are clunky and thick, like those of a Heavy unit. There's a sudden flash of lightning behind her as she answers:

"My name...is Thirteen. And I've been waiting for you."