10636/The Looking Glass: The Last Titan

The Looking Glass: The Last Titan
Date of Scene:	03 April 2022
Location:	Main Room - Titan's Tower
Synopsis:	Look, honestly it's all very confusing. Donna isn't Donna any more and the tower is a MESS. On the other hand, there's a way into Wonderland available now.
Cast of Characters:	Donna Troy, Terry O'Neil, Kian, Caitlin Fairchild, Madison Evans, Pol Hevonen, Gar Logan, Victor Stone, Emiko Queen

---

Donna Troy has posed:
These days, life in the tower is very much a 24-hour thing, a flurry of superheroic life that never entirely shuts down for the night. There is a natural rhythm to it, a pattern of Titans who are early risers and Titans who are late risers, but it's not the most regular of lifestyles. When there are worlds to save, you don't really do it by the clock. Aliens never invade by appointment.

    It is late in the evening, but a little way off midnight yet. Late enough that some of those early risers have gone to bed, yet early enough that not everyone with an early start has felt the need to yet. Life in the tower ticks on warm and bright, though perhaps a little quieter and more subdued than it would be a few hours earlier. Likewise, through the great glass walls of the main room the city lights burn a brilliant constellation of life going on in the 24-hour city below.

    There are no emergencies, no immediate calls on the Titan's time. Metropolis has settled down to barely above its weirdness baseline since the capture of the Crown and Scepter of Wonderland. The problem with angels is not entirely over, but New York City and the entirety of existence no longer seems to be under any immediate threat. It is a rare time of peace for the Titans.

Terry O'Neil has posed:
<<So I just came back from Ny'awk 'cause I wanted to take April out for food, for her birthday>> Vorpal broadcasts over the T-Comm as he Rabbit Holes into the main room. He's more than open about April's birthday, but his own? That's a secret he has told no-one. <<And we ran into a gang war. And there was this dude dressed like one of the spider-guys, but he was a total psycho. I had to stop him from outright mudering someone by throwing them up into the air over a building, and then melting someone's face off. He left me a /mess/ to handle and I had to provide a four-hour statement to the police about what went on.>>

He grumbles, <<He also was a massive asshole and flipped me off. I could use some consolation baking right about now, I never did get those empanadas con queso and I owe Ape a dinner.>>

He pads over to the couch and collapses on it with a *fwump*

Kian has posed:
    Between the post-Wonderland and post-angels and post-family incidents, Kian is more relaxed than he's been in a while.  Perched on the back of the couch with his usual tumbler of supersaturated sugar water, he's content to watch whatever's on the TV, whether or not it makes any sense to him.
    It's been a busy few months.  He's earned some relaxation time.
    That is, yes, there is a debrief he's expected to take care of, and some explanations, and the SETI (or maybe SEAI?) people *really* want to have some time with him to talk about Earth, but that doesn't have to be right now.
    So when Terry Rabbit Holes in and *fwump*s on the couch, all he does is reach down and provide a scritch behind the cat's left ear.  "Do I want to ask?  I suspect probably not."

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
"...and... as per Chapter 4 of the... Titan's Charter..." Caitlin mumbles every other word, eyes flickering from one monitor to another as she transcribes her thoughts. A word processor in one window, the official (if rarely invoked) Titan's Charter in the other.

"I believe... appropriate... vote of dismissal for myself, from the Titans... will better serve the community... and..."

Caitlin sighs heavily and leans back in her chair. She trusts it enough to not upend when she does; like all her other furniture, it's custom made. The redhead tucks a leg close and rests her knee on her chin, staring at the work on her computer screen with an expression of both resignation and despondance.

Madison Evans has posed:
    "AH HA!" Madison exclaims cheerfully as she moves a monsterously large painted figure around what appears to be a Monopoly-style board. Her creature, with strange bubbly skin, lands on the same space as a tentacled monster. "AND NOW I MUST DESTROY YOU!" she declare mellow-dramatically as she scoops up a pair of dice to roll. "And I get to add... THREE to my total! Sweet!" she declares after checking her cards. She shakes her dice over her head before opening her hands - and dropping her dice onto the board. "...snake eyes. NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!"
    The game: The Doom That Came to Atlantic City. It's like Monopoly - only fun.

Pol Hevonen has posed:
For Pol Hevonen, the adjustment to living and studying in Metropolis has been less than smooth. Having lost a half a year of study to the invasion of self-deluded angels (something that is doubtless causing serious turmoil in the halls of the Vatican and the more scattered halls of the Orthodox church, not to mention the variety of scholars in the Muslim world) -- the destruction of his school made it mandatory to move.

And Pol has changed his field of study. Or at least attempted to add Magic to his curriculum, because it's now necessary.

And he's been called to Titans Tower because apparently there's some stuff he needs to do. Probably something like WHAT THE HELL TERRY?

"You melted someone's FACE OFF?" the over-tall man says. "And this is OK and the police just left you alone?"

Gar Logan has posed:
Gar Logan enters in comfortable clothing, heading over to an arcade setup that features two pads in front of the screen. Yes, it's one of those dance games. "Okay, who wants to get a beatdown?" he calls around, cracking his knuckles even if they won't be coming into play in this case.

<<Dude, that completely sucks, man. I thought those spider-people were supposed to be cool.>> he replies over the comms, before Vorpal turns up in his way and others begin to filter in.

"So, seriously, who wants some? Otherwise I'm just gonna work on setting a new high score." He heads over to the machine and starts it up, electronic music beginning to herald a game set to begin.

Victor Stone has posed:
    "NOT MY STAR SPAWN!!" Vic is sitting opposite Madison, and then laughs as she rolls a two. "Ha! That's what you /get/!" He swipes up the dice and starts to shakes them, peering around as he notices Terry coming in.

    <<Tell April happy birthday. Hey Cait, you know how to make empanadas?>> He hasn't noticed what Caitlin's working on at all, or he'd probably be over pulling out Granmama voice at her.

    He rolls the dice and moves his piece around the board, landing on one of his own gates. "Cultist tiiime. I'd come join you, Gar, but I think this is one of those games that takes ten hours to play."

Emiko Queen has posed:
Carting out a whole ass tray laden down with drinks and snacks, Emiko is not a cook (yet!) but she can pile things onto a tray with the best of them! Stopping by the board game, she flases a grin towards Maddie and Vic, "Your sodas and snacks, my good people!" She waits for them to get their stuff and winks at Maddie, "I'm rooting for you, Abholos? That looks like Abholos... hard to tell without getting up close. Still! Rooting for you!" She passes around towards Pol and Kian and the newly arrived Terry to offer drinks and snacks, looking over to Gar with a grin, "Give me a minute to dristribute food and drinks and I'll come whup your tail for a round or two!"

Donna Troy has posed:
    Barely has Terry had time to collapse in the sofa when he feels a build-up of static, hairs beginning to stand up on end. Kian too feels an odd ruffling of his feathers.

    Caitlin must be feeling tired, or perhaps it's the stress of recent days and the emotional resonance of what she's typing up, but the words on her screen seem to blur and shift before her eyes. After a moment or two she realizes something odd: it's only the words of the Titans' Charter that are blurring, while the word processor window in which she's drafting her letter of resignation from the team remains sharp.

    The digital chirping of Gar's game distorts oddly for a moment, but when he checks the cabling, everything seems fine.

    Just as Emiko steps away from the board game Madison's piece starts sliding across the board all on its own, apparently in pursuit of Victor's. It passes Mi-go, but does not collect $200.

    Faint traceries of purple dance across Pol's fingertips. His studies in magic have not progressed so far that this should be happening, but he has no doubt that it's something magical.

    Terry begins to sense something all too familiar. Chaos magic. Wonderland flavored chaos magic is in the air, though there's something about it that is /not quite right/. There is a subtle but noticeable change to the lighting in the room. Anyone looking out of the window will notice that the constellation of city lights seems to be in gentle motion.

Terry O'Neil has posed:
"I didn't melt someone's face, spider-psycho almost did, Pol! AND yes, beat his ass at dance-game, Emiko!" Terry says, peering up from his prone position on the couch, "For failing the 'Your Boyfriend Needs Comforting' roll so poorly. See? Kian got it right!" he say with a little grin-

And then his eyes go wide. His tail looks like a feather duster, and he sits up so quickly, he might knock Kian over-

"Danger!" he shouts all of a sudden, "Magic! There's magic afoot! Get Raven! Get-"

And then the /taste/ of the magic hit hims, and his level of alert seems to double. "Wonderland! Wonderland! Something is wrong- get tO thE ReGaLIa! We'Re aT RiSK?!"

He whirls about, and his eyes become fixed on the windows and the world outside. The world that seems to be... sailing away from them?

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
Caitlin looks at the other monitor and frowns at it. A few keystrokes, a couple of hotkeys; she brings up her operating system settings and flickers through them. She even goes so far as to turn the screen on and off. When the Charter remains blurry, Caitlin massages the bridge of her nose between thumb and forefinger.

"Must caffeine," she announces to no one, and with a lurch she exits her desk and collects a teacup on her way to the door. Her path ambles towards the dorms and the elevator beyond, where a quick caffeine fix can be easily had.

Kian has posed:
    Kian knows the feeling of static well -- it's hard for him not to.  More on instinct than anything else he stretches and re-folds his wings.  "I'm not the only one who felt that, right?" he asks.
    Just as automatically, he reaches out with his /rhy'thar/ to see if it's anything he can make sense of.
    Probably not, but it can't hurt to try.
    He reaches down and grab's Terry's shoulder.  This may or may not be a good idea.

Pol Hevonen has posed:
"Cas? Are you seeing this?" Pol says out loud, talking to his twin who timeshares his body. Cas is in their "astral castle" -- a section of the subjective shared reality that touches on the Dreaming, the Astral Plane, and probably a few other places that don't exist.

"I am," Pol's twin's voice says, which shouldn't be audible in the real world, but is.

"But what are we seeing?"

The wisps of purple flicker across his hands and Pol activates the myth of the Scutum, covering his body in skin-hugging protective chainmail.

"Anyone know what this is?" they ask, two voices in very close synch. They stare simultaneously at the purple-speaking Cheshire Cat. This has to be his fault but is he to blame?

Madison Evans has posed:
    "It doesn't take that long!" Madison protests with a laugh, as she grabs a bag of cheetos, and a soda - both things that would never be allowed in her home. She digs in - only to stare in fascination as her Yog-Sothoth starts moving around the board of its own accord. "How- who's- what's-" She doesn't bother to finish any of her questions, however, as her gaze fixes on Terry, and then looks in bafflement around the room.. "Magic is a foot? Is that- necessarily a bad thing? Some people call Jedi 'Sorcerers'!"
    She hastily puts down her snacks as she rises to her feet, lamenting quietly, "I still don't have a lightsaber, though..."

Gar Logan has posed:
Gar Logan rolls his eyes toward Vic, then he gets a lot smaller. And a lot more feathery. "You're just a big chicken! Bawk-bawwwwwk!"

At which point things get a little erratic with the game, and the room, and reality in general. "Um. It's a good thing I'm not a hen, because we'd have a couple eggs right now."

He goes back to normal, gravitating toward the others. "What insanity is about to befall us this time, that is more insane than the usual insanity that makes up the life of a Titan?" he declares, gesturing dramatically with a hand extended.

Victor Stone has posed:
    Vic had grabbed his snacks from Emiko and was about to dive in when Madison's Yog-Sothoth starts chasing his Cthulhu around the board. He frowns and looks up at Terry, and Kian, and Pol, then glances out the window. Well. This is all... weird.

    He gets to his feet and says to Terry, "The Regalia? Really? What's going on, Terry?" He doesn't sound accusatory, really. Concerned, and moving into 'serious crisis mode,' more like.

Emiko Queen has posed:
Emi takes in all the reactions, draws in a deep breath, lets it out slowly. Then she's setting down the tray and reaching for her phone, trying to shoot off a text if she's able.

hey babe, titan trip to WL, bbasap! <3

Hopefully that gets through so at least there's someone on the other side that knows why they're missing... or perhaps the tower itself? "Is it us travelling? Or the Tower? Is it just me or does it seem like the Tower is headed to Wonderland?"

Donna Troy has posed:
    The world is not sailing away. As Terry watches, the lights outside rise up into the sky and slowly fix themselves in place again, as if the tower was tilting over to look down on the city. It takes a few moments to realize that he really is looking at stars now. Stars shining with the unblinking brilliance he has only seen before when outside a planetary atmosphere.

    Cas slowly becomes aware that his link to Pol is not the only thing flowing along a skein of power between Titans Tower and the realm of the Dreaming. There is a natural porosity in the wall between Dreaming and the mortal realm, a constant flow between the two. But this is something else, and a link like this between reality and dream does not bode well. Something alien, yet faintly Vorpal-flavored, entwines the node of dream energy.

    To Caitlin, arriving in the main room, nothing might seem out of place until her last few steps down the spiral staircases, which echo not with the metallic sound she is so used to from years at the tower, but the different yet still quite familiar sound of stone steps, reminiscent of Themyscira instead.

    Suddenly there is the sensation of falling; not falling down, nor yet up, left, right, forwards or back, but rather falling in some new direction. When each of the Titans has had time to recover, things are different, yet strangely familiar. The vast screen dominating the south wall is more oval now, filled with a faint milky luminance. The kitchen area has gone, the room now great bare stone floors. The huge curved sofa is transformed into a similarly curved arc made up of a dozen stone seats, side by side, the central two with higher backs, faintly throne-like. The great north window is gone, now a great opening on a huge starscape and a mountainous landscape of vertiginous angles that is hard to make sense of. Some of the mountains appear to be /above/ the sky, as if the view looks out on the stars through the mouth of an impossibly large cave. The room is illuminated by globes of light that float high above, yet the ceiling is lost to darkness even further up.

    And yet... not quite. As the eyes move about this space, some trick of vision occasionally seems to show things as they should be. The hexagonal gridwork of the familiar ceiling of Titan's Tower main room seems to hang above just too faint to make out. From the corner of the eye, the arc of thrones once more becomes the familiar sofa. The kitchen island flickers into view from time to time.

    It is as if two realities exist side by side, one overlaid across the other, yet both oddly reflections of the other. Kian's rhy'thar tells him one thing only -- that the laws of physics are being very thoroughly broken.

Terry O'Neil has posed:
"I don't know, Vic! There's chaos everywhere, and it smells of-"

He clings to Kian to prevent himself from falling. But in which direction? That is the question.

The cat pants, his heart clearly racing from whatever it is he is sensing. Feeling like he has one foot in one world and one in another, he desperately reaches a hand in front of him and tries, out of sheer panic, to summon a Rabbit Hole.

No sooner has the spark of magic begun that he cuts it off. "No, no... no telling what it would do here-" memories of what happened at the dreadnought coming back to haunt him.

"What /is/ this place?" he asks, his panic abating for a moment, looking at this other reality superimposed on their original with sommething akin to wonder.

"It feels like I'm standing in the middle of a Rabbit Hole and seeing two sides. It makes me... queasy." he complains.

Kian has posed:
    Kian actually looks a bit nauseous -- reality isn't supposed to feel like this.  "I don't know," he says, clinging to Terry in return.  "It's not doing me any good either."
    Out of more desperation than anything else, he reaches out and tries to enforce some reality on local physics.  He doesn't know if he can... but he's going to try.

Pol Hevonen has posed:
"Cas, swap OK?" Pol says, but when they try to exchange places they just manage to superimpose into both. It takes a moment to adjust to the sensation. Haven't done this badly since they were a child. They give a glare to Vorpal, as a gift.

"You are wrapped around my redoubt with your glittery purple-flavored energy, Mssr. the Cat. Please to stop doing that."

Of course it's like a cat-on-the-blanket moment when you want to pull up the covers and the cat has stolen ALL of them and looks at you like YOU are the bad guy for wanting them back.

Madison Evans has posed:
    "Oooookaaaaaaay," Madison says slowly as she turns full circle, tilting her head this way and that to watch the kitchen blink in and out of existance, and the couch slowly shift in and out, like one of those strange holographic notebooks that change image depending on the angle you look at it from. "That's...weird. Alright. Umm - if I'm not home by bedtime tomorrow my mom's gonna be real pissed at me. I'm not supposed to stay out late on school nights."
    Still. That gives them a good 20 hours to figure this out.
    "...where are we? Exactly?" the teen asks. She doesn't seem as quesy as the others - more... curious. Puzzled. I mean, of course she's fine, right? Where could be safer than the Titan Tower?

Gar Logan has posed:
"Wait! What's going on? No! The kitchen is..wait, there it..no, it's.." Gar is regaining his bearings after that weird-as-hell chaos feeling registers, the details of the room getting weird and changing but seeming correct again depending on how one looks at it, or perhaps doesn't look at it, and it's not even the weirdest thing they've experienced recently.

Moving away from where the gaming setup was, or is, he stares at the couch and its shift to the stone seats, a couple in the middle taller than the rest. "Well, then." He approaches one to have a seat, intentionally picking one that's more throne-like, gesturing toward Vorpal as he croons, "I, I will be King! And you, you will be Queen! Though nothing will drive them away! We can be Heroes, just for one day! We can be us, just for one day!"

There's no expecting what you're going to get out of him, sometimes. Maybe this is a coping mechanism.

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
"We're safe," Caitlin assures the others in a patient and calm voice. "And I think we're still in the Tower," she adds for the benefit of Madison and the others. "This might just be a Rae thing. It's not the first time we've had a reality stabilization problem." She looks to the disappearing/reappearing kitchen, and her eye twitches slightly as her cherished cooking equipment phases in and out of reality.

"Vic, try to patch into the emrgency band and let everyone know there is a spatial anomaly at the tower," she tells the cyborg. "Everyone else, just... try to remain calm, and we'll figure this out," she adds in a reassuring tone of voice. "The best thing we can do is -not panic-."

Victor Stone has posed:
    "I don't think this is Terry's fault," Vic says slowly. "The Wonderland stuff so far, it's been targeted /at/ him, not /by/ him. And that means I doubt it's a Rae thing, either, Cait." He's turning in a slow circle, making note of where things overlap with a frown.

    He stops, finally, and peers out at the stars beyond the mountains. "Wherever we are... overlapping on, it's not another reality. It's... I can identify a couple of star clusters? See, there, that's the Andromeda galaxy, although the stars around it aren't the Andromeda constellation at all. There's Bode's galaxy... and the Cigar... I'd say given the shift between the three we can't be more than a few thousand light years from Earth."

    He looks over at Caitlin. "The connection with the Tower systems is /really/ unstable right now. I'm trying to send a message but I can't promise it'll get through. Like I said, I don't think this is a reality overlap."

Emiko Queen has posed:
Emiko tries to remain perfectly still, letting the changes flow around without doing anything to disturb them. Once things have settled, she's looking, staring really, at the couch. What used to be the couch and maybe still is the couch?

She relaxes her eyes, lets it all go on an outwards breath and just glances around without -looking-, just letting her eyes fall where they will. Catching the glimpses of the 'real' world underneath the Wonderland world. "It's like a 3-D poster..."

She looks to Caitlin, refocusing, "I tried to send a text to Bart to let him know something was happening, but I don't know if it got through before things went weird." She lifts a shrug and looks back to Vic, "But it's not exactly just a teleport either. Something is trying to... what, overwrite the room? Like we were pulled but couldn't quite get there and now its trying to smoosh the two places together and... fuck, this is going to make my head hurt. Things are different, even if they aren't really..." Then to Terry, "Are there any throne rooms like this in Wonderland? All stone and the like?" To Kian, "What about where you live? Is there anything familiar about any of this?"

Donna Troy has posed:
    Footsteps echo from on high, the sound of someone approaching down one of the great stone staircases that now take the place of the spiral stairs. Were this the tower, someone would be coming from the women's dorm corridor.

    Kian's attempt to stabilize physics is a move of desperation he probably wouldn't attempt if he was thinking straight. His Rhy'thar seems to be unable to get a grip at all here though, and it feels oddly personal. It feels not so much a failure as a /rebuff/, not hostile, but very firm.

    As with Victor's attempts to get through to the Tower systems, Emiko finds sending a message to Bart problematic. Her phone keeps flickering between no bars and full signal, with no apparent rhyme or reason; eventually she gets the message away and her phone seems to think the message has gone out, but that perhaps isn't something that can be relied on.

    Donna comes into view as she descends the staircase. For some reason she is wearing her space pirate cloak, the weird black and star-filled fabric familiar to most there from times she has showed it off, her memento of the time she, Vorpal, Cyborg and Caitlin spent in another universe.

    No - it's the same fabric, but this is not a cloak. It's an elaborately draped /peplos/ dress of the kind she might wear when she's playing up her Themysciran side. Wierdly, the glow of pin-point stars that covers her dress seems to have spread, and the same pinpoints of light dance in her dark hair too.

    She comes to a halt at the bottom of the staircase, looking with an expression of faint curiosity at the people assembled there, showing no surprise at the odd changes that have taken place to the room. After a few moments consideration she walks calmly over to the arc of thrones where Gar is clowning around, and Kian remains perched on the back. She frowns slightly at them, and raises an arm and gestures; Kian and Gar find themselves being gently lifted into the air and deposited on the ground.

    Donna takes a seat, sitting two from the rightmost of the central thrones. She looks again at the Titans (and Madison) gathered there. "Why have you come here?" she asks. Her voice is soft, but it echoes around the room with an unnatural clarity. It's also different; there's no trace of the American that has long colored her Themysciran accent. She sounds far more like she had when Caitlin first met her. "Whatever you want -- it's too late. Far too late. You should go."

Terry O'Neil has posed:
Vorpal's eyes grow wide again, looking at Donna. Donna can't move things with her mind. Certainly she can't levitate people off thrones.

"Donna! What /are/ you talking about?" The Cheshire's voice is still crackling with chaos. He shoots Caitlin an alarmed look, and then looks back to his friend. "Too late for what? I don't understand, has something happened to the Regalia?"

The strange echo finally drops off his voice. "There are no throne rooms like this in Wonderland, Emiko- Pol, I'm not /doing/ this---"

He stops, glancing at Donna, who seems to be very comfortable on that throne.

Which makes no sense.

As the Wonderlandean, he therefore thinks it is his job to understand the nonsense. "You know this place, Troia? Where are we?"

Pol Hevonen has posed:
"Wait," Cas and Pol say in close synch, looking to Space Pirate Queen Troia. "Who are you?"

There isn't a Caterpillar constellation, but Draco might be willing to do the job on the side. It lights up on his body for a moment, amber lights rather than purple.

After a moment of spacetimewarp, he/they look at Kian, who normally makes more sense than the rest. It couldn't be Madison's doing, even though she was carelessly evoking the Elder Gods.

"Any idea what's happening then, anyone?"

Madison Evans has posed:
    "Wait. Wait wait wait wait. WAIT. ... are we in outerspace? Or like - some alien planet? Is that what you're saying?" Madison asks eagerly - running off to peer closer at the stars, as if that could help her understand.
    It doesn't. She's grown up in big cities - she never learned the night skies, really.
    Her attention shifts, as she whirls to watch Donna - moving people with her mind, and sitting casually on the stone bench. "Alright. So. Like. ... we're //all// completely baffled, right? It's not just me. Is this what adventures are always like?"

Kian has posed:
    "This isn't my world!" Kian replies, somewhat desperately, "my world makes sense!"
    Without really thinking about what he's doing, he pushes back against the unreality -- combined with being plucked from the back of the throne and deposited on the ground, however, that's more than he can handle.  The feedback is a bit too much for the bird: local reality and his perception of what it should be are incompatible, and he really shouldn't have pushed back.  So his feet touch the ground... followed by the rest of him, with a soft thump.

Gar Logan has posed:
"Aw, maaan.." Gar is floated out of one of the two main thrones, and while he's at least set down gently - along with Kian - he doesn't look that pleased about it, arms crossing. "Okay, enough with the cosplay, Donna. Why don't you explain what's going on here instead of telling us we should go? Why are you acting like you've been here or something?" Things are not quite as they should be.

He's also staring at Vorpal, especially when his voice goes back to more of a normal-sounding thing, and his mouth opens and shuts briefly at Kian's response to this, just passing out. "I'm thinking he shouldn't have min-maxed and left constitution out."

Things being what they are, he moves to place himself nearer to the rest: Vic, Cait, Emiko, and so on.

Victor Stone has posed:
    Vic frowns deeply at Donna as she comes through and takes a seat. It's the way she casually gestures and moves Kian and Gar around that makes him say, "I don't think this is Donna, guys. Not... not /our/ Donna." He's thinking along the same lines as Cas and Pol, evidently. Who /is/ she?

    He adjusts his stance a little, subtly putting himself between Space Pirate Queen Troia and the others--mostly Kian and Madison, fainted and new to this business respectively. He folds his arms across his chest. "Are you an imposter, or is something /really/ weird going on here?"

Terry O'Neil has posed:
"... wait, you're implying there's /two/ Donnas?" Vorpal says, reacting quickly to Vic, "... god nobody tell Raven or she'll be absolutely insufferable."

Emiko Queen has posed:
Emi glances to Terry, "I didn't think this was you, you were too surprised. But the magic was familiar to you, which suggests Wonderland is involved. You didn't start the last round either, Eris did. So clearly, someone is... hm.." She falls silent when DOnna appears looking... like not-Donna. At least, not the Donna she has met. This is weird Shakespeare-in-the-Park Donna.

Falling silent, she glances to Vic, Terry, Kian, then slides over towards Maddie and murmurs, "This is definitely weird and strange. The Wonderland stuff usually has a rhyme and reason, even if that reason is completely mad. This is just plan odd."

Donna Troy has posed:
    Standing by the window - or rather the opening, as there's no glass separating this room from the void of space, despite the fact that the room remains warm and the atmosphere breathable -- Madison starts to make sense of the peculiar landscape visible beyond. She can see what look at first like mountain stretching high above and below, as if this building were constructed inside a concave section in the side of a mountain, but as her perceptions start to make sense of the scale of what she is seeing, she comes to realise that what she is looking out on is the landscape of a shattered moon. Strange limbs of stone stretch out dozens of miles into the sky, the solidified remains of splashes of magma from the moon's once molten core. The inner surface of this shattered moon is carved into and built on with structures of pale stone -vast buildings faintly resembling Greek temples; huge domes of glass covering entire miniature landscapes of trees, grass, and water; slender towers in slivery metal with elegantly curved walkways joining them together.

    Donna sits, looking from face to face, her expression growing increasingly puzzled as people speak up. "Who's Donna?" she asks, sounding as baffled as anyone else. She frowns, then shakes her head as if trying to rid it of a troublesome thought. She looks away as if hoping everyone will just vanish if she ignores them, but when Terry addresses her by her original name rather than the one she adopted when she came to America, she turns back to focus on him. "You all seem very confused. If you know who I am, you know where this is. Where else would I be but New Kronos?"

    She frowns. "If this is some attempt at a joke, it is in poor taste. Yet... I sense you /are/ all confused. Perhaps you too are victims of this joke."

    Her head swivels and she turns to Emiko. "Eris, you said? She is still alive? I thought her dead. Yes, that would make sense - it is the kind of foolishness Eris would try. You did not mean to come here, then? You should go. There's nothing for you here anyway. Nothing for anyone. Besides..." she gestures in Kian's direction. "Your Akiar friend has fainted. You should tend to him. No matter, I will send you all to where you came here from."

    Donna waves her hand. For a moment everything flickers, and for all the limits of his training Sag can tell that a magic of unusual potency is washing over them. The tower seems to reassert itself in everyone's vision, the great stone room fading and the familiar sights of the commons reappearing -- but only momentarily, before the great stone room that so oddly echoes the tower's main room comes back into focus.

    Troia's frown grows. "You're still here," she says. "That makes no sense."

Terry O'Neil has posed:
"New... Kronos?" Terry starts to ask a question, but before he can, Donna tries to cast Banish on them. Fortunately, she seems to have botched her roll. Or... not.

"We can't go anywhere because we never went anywhere. Here and there are now entwined,
playing games within my mind.
In this peaceful solitude
All the outside world subdued-
"

Vorpal stops, realizing that words not of his own were coming out of him, sung by a sultry mezzo, but before he can identify the music, it drifts away. Or it fades into the other world. Or this one.

"Wait. If you don't know who we are, then how do you know Kian is an Akiar? Pol is right- what is going on here? What is New Kronos?" He peers up at Madison, who is by the window, "Maddie, what does it look like out there?"

Emiko's words bring him back to the subject, "You're right. You're both right," he says, to Emiko and to Donna, "This is probably yet another Eris trick because we outsmarted her. Donna- Troia, you are our friend. Snap out of it- Eris has you under some sort of spell and put you in this bad Game of Thrones setting..."

He pauses and glances around, "Okay, it's a pretty /swanky/ setting, I'm not going to lie... but she's clearly trying to mess with you by making you believe you're some other person."

He would rather believe that theory than the Paralell Donna theory Vic was musing on. Because it's easier to solve. And the inplications don't make him feel a knot in his stomach. "Gar, hon... see to Kian," he says, quietly. He's not moving from where he is.

Pol Hevonen has posed:
Seriously something wrong. Pol and Cas are suddenly Sagittarius, without actually invoking the magic, and their armor is still there. This is unnatural. More unnatural that is; becoming a centaur is hardly normal physics.

"Who is Troia? Is this an alternate timeline? What is New Kronos? What has any of this got to do with Wonderland?" Sag asks too many questions, shifting his suddenly-warhorse shaped self back two steps so as to NOT be moving closer to the unnerving version of Donna Troy.

He tries to push on the magic that's messing with him; not the "home sweet home" pulse from Troia, but the chaos in purple that is coming from somewhere else and leaving its greasy fingerprints over the pristine crystalline clarity of his home away from home Outside Otherside.

Madison Evans has posed:
    "THIS. IS. AMAZING!" Madison says eagerly as she stares out the window - whipping out her cellphone to capture image after image, zooming in on glass-domed gardens, and getting images of volcanic explosions frozen in space. "It's a planet that's gone all explodey only with old stone buildings and gardens and stuff! People still live here? This place is still alive? What made it explode? How did people //survive// that? I have sooooo many questions. Can we go to one of the gardens? Please please please?"
    The girl is literally bouncing up onto her toes as she beams at Not-Donna, and then turns back to capture a few more images on her phone.
    "...does something like this happen everytime someone sleeps over at the Tower? I've been //missing out//."

Gar Logan has posed:
Gar Logan begins to grow quiet, something that comes up at times when he's really thinking, really trying to make sense of it all. In this case, how you make sense of the senseless, that's the hard part.

"Yeah. Kian." He heads over to see to the Akiar, lifting him up to get him across a shoulder in order to move him more to one side of the room, at which point he looks back over a shoulder toward Donna, or Troia, or whoever she is. There's Sag, Madison too.

When he clears his throat, he asks, "What, exactly, is New Kronos? And yeah, I'd kind of like to know why whatever you just did there didn't change anything."

Victor Stone has posed:
    "Troia is Donna Troy's real name," Vic says softly. "'Donna Troy' is the name she adopted when she was claiming she was from 'Illium' instead of Themyscira, because none of us /knew/ Themyscira /existed/." A pause. "But Eris... isn't /dead/. Right, Terry?" He looks around at Vorpal, frowning.

    "Okay so my first thought was alternate universe. Except that this doesn't... /seem/ like an alternate universe, but maybe it's a magic thing, not a science thing? Maybe that's why there aren't any quantum fluctuations, and Kian couldn't assert reality." He looks back at Troia and says, "Okay, you know us--but you don't think we should be here. Do you know /all/ of us?"

    He looks over at Pol... Sag? "You said, uhh... 'You wrapped around my redoubt with your glittery purple-flavored energy,' right? What did you mean by that?"

Emiko Queen has posed:
Emiko fornw at the new input, working it over in her mind, putting things together and trying to make connections... "Kronos was the father of Zeus... I think. A titan, he tried to eat his children after a prophesy foretold one of his children would rise up to overcome him and take over... so his wife sent Zeus away as soon as he was born and then wrapped a stone in swaddling to let Kronos swallow it... then Zeus did indeed rise up and overtake his father, casting him down into... Tartarus? Some sectin of Tartarus? My Greek mythology is rusty. So.. if this is New Kronos..." She looks back to Donna. "What happened to Themyscira? The Amazons? The rest of the pantheon?"

She looks to Vic, "I don't think this is a -where- issue so much as a -when- issue. Or maybe both. But this seems like... a future. And not a great one from the looks of things. This is... the moon? But... then where's the earth?"

Pinching the bridge of her nose, she rubs at the point between her eyes with her thumb, "Chaos. Or rather, chaos magic. Like Terry's but not Terry's. I can't tell if it tried to send us somewhere or tried to bring something to us, but it looks like something went wrong and now we're... trapped? In this betweenish time and place..." Sighing, she mutters, "I need an Allen. I'm still new to the timey-wimey stuff..."

Donna Troy has posed:
    Troia tilts her head curiously at Sag. "The only thing that this has to do with Wonderland is that your companion there comes from that curious place," she tells him, gesturing in Terry's direction. "You are not in Wonderland, if that's what you thought. Strange, I would have thought someone such as yourself would be able to sense the kind of place you now stand." She nods her head in Emiko's direction. "This one seems to know a little. The Titans were freed from Tartarus long ago, to be reunited with the Titanides. They left Earth and its people to the new rulers of Olympus, accepting exile as part of the Great Treaty between the Titans and their Olympian children, to save reality from another war of Gods. Such things are not good for anyone." She frowns, and looks away. "I am the reason that peace was broken," she says sadly.

    After a few moments, her attention goes to Terry then, and she shakes her head slightly. "You don't understand," she says. "Eris might well attempt this to play a prank on me, but she would not dare challenge me directly, nor has she remotely the power to enspell me while I am here, in this place of power."

    "I would like to know the same, green one." Troia gives Gar a faint smile. "I sent you back to where you came from. I don't understand why you are still here." Her smile falls into a slight frown. "Something... something is wrong with reality. I will have to investigate this. Perhaps the Olympians have not given up after all. This is confusing, as are you." Her eyes turn to Victor. "I don't know any of you," she says, shaking her head. "Who's Donna Troy? You mentioned her before."

    Troia raises her hand and Madison finds herself gripped by a gentle force that lifts her up, moving her away from the great opening, and places her back down on the ground a few feet away from it. Whoever this alternate Donna is, apparently she's concerned about Madison falling. "Please be careful," she tells Maddie. "Nobody survived. Nobody lived here when it was shattered. My people found this place and turned it into what it is now long ago, when they needed to find a new home. Nobody lives here any more but me. I am the last Titan."

Pol Hevonen has posed:
Sag looks down toward Vic. That was a specific and personal question, but hey, he's a Titan, and all that Sag has seen or heard says that keeping secrets is especially toxic to the Titans.

"I have an astral domain, because I am two souls sharing a body thanks to the power of Gemini. I turned it into a fortress because otherwise dream monsters like to attack it. And since this weirdness started, it's been wrapped up in purple Wonderland magic," Sag says. "which has got a unique sort of flavor."

The recounting of Kronos and Rhea's battle to keep her children from being destroyed gets a nod, and Sag doesn't correct it, but, yeah, Kronos DID in fact devour all his children but one, and it was a sort of god-level ipecac from Gaia, Kronos' mother, that got them back. Or that was what the revisionist Greeks and even more revisionist Romans said. There was nothing about a Titaness named Troia in there though.

"Chaos magic from Wonderland, unless someone else has managed to match the signature. And I'm thinking this is more of a mythic realm than an alternate timeline, considering our good hostess' comment."

Terry O'Neil has posed:
"No! That is /bullshit!/" the feline says, suddenly lunging forward. But it isn't a hostile act, it's his hands reaching out to grab Troia by the wrist, but with a touch that is like glass. It's likely she won't even let him lay a hand on her. "This is bullshit and more trickery by Eris! You are Troia- You are Donna Troi, daughter of Queen Hippolyta and sister to Princess Diana! You are not the /last/ Titan, you were one of the first!"

He's clearly very disturbed by what he has heard, "You're our comrade and our friend, our /family/- think about it! /Think/ for gods' sake- Raven loves you. You're like the sister I never had whom I constantly disappoint by being a screw-up! Caitlin stabbed you!" he pauses, realizing how that sounds like. "... but, like, with a lot of love. Don't you recognize Gar? he was, like, a fetus when he joined! Snap out of it! Vic! Vic!" he turns to the other Titan "Help me out here, make her see reason!" he says, reaching out to the other Titan with a tightness in his throat.

Somebody tell Gal Gadot to pack up her trailer because Vorpal is currently vying for Cleopatra, because he's wearing the jewels and sailing up denial.

Madison Evans has posed:
    "Well, but - all you guys are Titans, too- HEY!" Madison squeaks out a protest as she's moved away from the window. "I was enjoying the view! It's gorgeous down there! Gosh. Do you take care of those gardens by yourself? That must be a lot of work. What happened to everyone else? Unless that's rude. That's probably rude. Sorry, I didn't mean to be rude." Madison talks fast when she's excited - her words tumbling out on top of one another without (clearly) any time to think about them.
    And that's about when Terry starts to lose it - and Madison's eyes go wide with concern. "Hey... hey, it's gonna be okay, Terry. We'll figure this out, and Donna'll be alright. You guys are the Titans. You can handle anything! Right?" She turns around - looking at the others as she asks again, "Right?"

Gar Logan has posed:
"Apparently not," is all Gar says at first to this version of Troia that comes off so odd to him, to everyone who knows her, in response to being sent back where they came from. Then he adds, "None of that ever happened. Okay, the Tartarus stuff did, but we helped stop whatever war was about to happen and nobody went anywhere. Nobody was exiled. Whatever you're talking about, that's not our reality." If it makes sense to others..well, it doesn't to him.

Vorpal's lunge has him coming back over from Kian's location, to grab at the feline's tail since it's the closest thing to him at the moment, whether or not Vorpal reaches Donna/Troia/Whoever. "Dude!" First, he swats at one of his ears, likely for the fetus comment, though it isn't with malice or much force. Then he says, "I don't think this is our Donna. If it is, someone's done a real number on her. But we've seen different versions of us before. Whatever this place is, maybe it's real for her. Whatever happened..."

His brows scrunch together, and he turns his attention to Space Pirate Troia. "Whatever's real here, something else that's real is that once you're a Titan, you're always a Titan. That's for life, that's just the way it is, and you should know that better than anybody. There's something we need to help you fix, or someone we need to help you beat. Right? That's what we do. That's what the Titans always do. We look out for each other. We make things right. So what do we have to do to make this right?"

He gestures toward the others, to Vic, to Vorpal, to Emiko, to those who have come here with them. He gestures for them to back him up on this.

Victor Stone has posed:
    "Or an alternate timeline with a mythic realm," Vic says slowly. Everything Troia said, as it became clear she had no idea who they were, just made his face fall. Now he's frowning at Troia with a pained expression. "I'm sorry, Terry. I... I don't think this is /our/ Troia. Something's really, /really/ wrong. 'Cause either this is a Troia from an alternate timeline where she never met us, or it's some kind of... I dunno, Astral-dream realm-Looking Glass Troia."

    He sighs. "I mean, makes sense, right? We got done with Wonderland, now we're through the Looking Glass. I mean, without Troia... without Troia there's no Titans back on Earth, I'd think. Or... or they're /really/ different."

    He steps forward a little and bows, slightly, to Troia. "We're the Titans," he says, gesturing around at the others. "In /our/ past, you grew up back on Earth, one of the Amazons of Themyscira. You left to see the rest of the world and met Caitlin there, and then met me and some others, and... look, we can tell you the whole story later. Point is, we formed a sort of heroic family, and /our/ Troia is an integral part of that family. It looks like our realities are clashing together, probably because of this Chaos magic. We can't seem to communicate with our home, even though you can kinda see it, if you turn your head the right way. Like through a mirror. We've been having some problems with Wonderland--you know about that?--and we /thought/ we'd solved them, but... obviously not."

    He grins at Madison. "Like Gar said--we make things right. We always do." He looks back to Terry. "You said, earlier, that we needed the Regalia. Do you think that might help, I dunno... stabilize this mess?"

Emiko Queen has posed:
Emiko nods as Vic start to say the things going through her own head. Yes! Someone else is grokking on, and she doesn't have to stumble through time shifts and paradoxes and alternate realties until her poor brain breaks from trying to call up facts picked up here and there. She lets out a slow breath and looks at least somewhat relieved.

She looks to Madison with a smile, "This Troia, this Donna... she doesn't mena Titans like the superhero group. She means she's the last of the Titans, the precursors to the Greek Gods. In this worl,d I don't even know if any of us ever existed. Or if the world ever made it past a certain point." Looking back to Troia, she offers, "I think your magic is working just fine, it's the... it's the where that's broken? Our home seems to be overlapping yours. Or, well, the reverse. Like your reality is overlapping ours. So it can't send us anywhere because 'here' is still home.

There's a faint frown before she glances to Vic, "Are we sure that's a good idea? If chaos magic is what caused this is -more- chaos really the answer?" Emi looks to Terry, "Not that I mind the Wonderlands fun, but.. if this is what happened when we went through the Looking Glass... isn't it possible the Regalia will just.. make it worse?"

Donna Troy has posed:
    Troia does not try to stop Terry attempting his grab, but she's incorporeal when his hand tries to circle her wrist, his fingers clutching at nothingness. She stares at him, blinking at his outburst, but does not respond to his words. As the rest pipe up with their own objections and entreaties she seems to shrink back in her chair, shying away from the raw emotion, eyes closing as she tries to block it all out.

    "STOP!" Troia raises her hand, freezing the words in everyone's throats. The room falls silent. She opens her eyes slowly, looking from one to other. "Please... stop. I need to... I need to think." She lowers her hands, and everyone finds themselves free once more of the power silencing them. She straightens in her seat, looking from face to face, then turns to look at the great milky luminance that has replaced the Main Room's giant screen. She gestures towards it and it lights up with a flickering display of images and words in a language none there recognize, all moving far to fast to make any sense of, casting a ghostly light over the room. After a few moments she drops her hand and the images on the screen vanish. Troia slumps back in her seat. She sits in silent thought for a few moments before looking up at Gar.

    "It's true," she says to him. "It's not your reality. You do not belong here. As far as I can tell, you don't even exist here right now. That must be why I could not send you back to where you came from. You aren't really here."

    She considers Vic's words, then shakes her head. "That makes no sense though. You're not Titans. Even from a different reality, I would know if you were Titans. You're not. It is as unlikely as a Titan being raised by the Olympian's Amazon soldiers. And yet... you truly believe it. This does not have the flavor of a trick of Eris. It is too..."

    She falls silent, and shuts her eyes. When she opens them again a few moments, they glow with pale light. "Oneiros' walls are breached," she says, in a voice that sounds like warm summer moonlight. "By long-troubling dream. By crown. By scepter. By a lie told to stop a war. Two truths tangled into one. A tangle that shall remain unpicked until unhappiness is embraced."

    Troia lets out a long sigh, and the glow fades from her eyes. After a while she looks up at Emiko. "You are... a group that calls yourself the Titans. That names itself after my family. You... mistook me for one of your own? That is an unlikely coincidence. There is more to this than I can understand right now. "

    She pinches the bridge of her nose, her brows creasing. It's a gesture that's familiar to anyone who's known Donna in a stressful and confusing situation. "Please... explain this Wonderland situation you are talking about."

Terry O'Neil has posed:
Vorpal stares at Troia for several seconds, even as he is dragged back by his tail by Gar.

"Wonderland is in danger," he says, his voice almost monotone after that outburst, and after what Troia said. "We foiled Eris' plot to bring King Ixion into the world by bypassing the Doomgate and she swore revenge on me. She brought two out of Wonderland with the Red King's regalia and they gave it to a criminal, who damaged the barrier between realities by inflicting Wonderland into the world. We defeated her, and we were trying to figure out what to do with the Regalia and how to get to Wonderland... and /this shit/ happened! I didn't even get to take my cousin out for her birtha-!" he finally says, throwing his hands up in an outburst.

And then he stops dead still.

Record scratch. Rewind. Stop frame.

Computer, Enhance.

Vorpal's own magic acts now, projecting a scene from memory- Tartarus. The Key Bearer herself, Hekate, snapping her fingers and changing Troia's outfit from a saffron robe that matches hers, into the garb of a Themysciran palace garb. The Key bearer's next words hang in the air.

"Go do your duty then, little cousin. And the rest of you -- of you Titans --make your choice. One door or the other. Go now."

The Cheshire cat stares, just as the image dissolves into nothingness.

"... Oh my fucking god..." he says, with a thread of voice.

Madison Evans has posed:
    "Okay, first off, my mom would have some very firm things to say about the language around here," Madison remarks.
    Oh God. Caitlin's not the only one?
    "But more importantly- what? I don't understand what was so upsetting about the choosing doors thing?" she asks with puzzlement, looking to the other Titans to see if they can explain. "Also: isn't embracing unhappiness a //bad// thing? Does... does something really bad have to happen for us to get home again?" she asks.
    The manic glee seems to have drained off of her now, finally being replaced with a quiet sort of worry.

Gar Logan has posed:
Gar Logan rubs the side of his face, one part of this becoming a little clearer. "Yeah..no. We're not /those/ Titans. That was..uh." He gestures, palms up, amid the ongoing weirdness of all this, then it's Vorpal he stares at next.

"Wait. Are you saying she went through the other door, and..and what? I'm not sure I like where this is going."

Victor Stone has posed:
    Vic turns in a slow circle again, every cybernetic sense turned up to 11, including the newer scanners that detect magic--which he and Nadia /are/ going to figure out, someday--and frowning more and more the more he sees. "/Really/ advanced technology, hiding behind these walls. Except I can still see the Tower systems, sometimes. We're still in the Tower. Except we're not. Troia's there, except she's not. And the Tower... I can get through and it... it... it says Donna /doesn't exist/."

    He frowns. "Two truths tangled into one. Something happened in Tartarus, that breached the gates of the realm of dreams..."

    There's pieces of a puzzle starting to fall into place, and Vic doesn't like the picture that's starting to emerge.

    "Everyone stay here," he says. "I'm gonna..." He turns, suddenly, as if he's about to try to walk out of the room.

Pol Hevonen has posed:
Sag blurs into a pair of twins but is still speaking in synch, somewhat.

"You have to embrace(seize) //life// or you reject it(and tend to die), Madison. The thing is, life includes unhappiness(misery) and pain sometimes. That's why the Buddhist middle path was created -- as a deliberate attempt to avoid pain, by avoiding the joy as well. It's also what one George Lucas never really understood when he was patchwork pastiching zen swordsmanship and the middle path and the Tao into a space opera religion."

Ruh roh, that's not an //intentional// assault on Madison's Jedi context, but it may incite a nerd-fight.

With their return to an overlapped humanity without the centaur nature interfering by amplifying the Orion factor, Pol and Cas begin pushing a bit more at the purple-glitter-web so that it doesn't cover the various windows of their astral redoubt like distorting curtains. Not that they make as much sense as they'd like of what they see. The Dreamscape has an UNDER CONSTRUCTION sign and a Police Line Do Not Cross tape stretched across the area. The physical world is red and blue ... well, more like purple and green line-art actually, and depending on which color of glasses you wear, you see the Titans Tower or the Kronos Realm. But they both still seem to be there at the same timespace.

Emiko Queen has posed:
Since nobody else has, Emiko tackles the question of Wonderland for Donna/Troia.

"Wonderland is an alternate dimension whose origins are a bit muddled. It's believed to have been dreamed into existence by a particular figure from its own mythos, and is a dimension ruled entirely by chaos. Everything that might or should make sense doesn't. It is a mad, mad, mad, mad world. Like if you mixed Eris with Dionysus and then let that creature create a world. But that realm has power, enough that is can occasionally bleed over and affect -our- when and where. And in this instance, it seems to be using you, as the focal point for the madness. You may not know of us or our when and where, but there's someone from our time and place that looks exactly like you. Her name is Troia, or Donna Troy. In our when and where, however, she's not a Titan in the sense that you are. She's an Amazon, and maaaaaybe a Greek God? I'm fuzzy on that part. Our group is -called- the Titans, but we are not the Titans you would be familiar with."

She pauses at Terry's vision, then lets out a breath, "And apparently either our Donna or you, or maybe both, are... turning away from something that needs to be faced and embraced? Unhappiness can mean so many things... I hate trying to unravel that stuff."

Donna Troy has posed:
    Troia leans forwards curiously, studying Vorpal's projection intently. "Hekate," she says. "You believe her to be involved in this?" She tilts her head to the side. "Curious. She refused to take sides in the second Titanomachy. I am told she came her to witness my birth, to accompany Hermes on his mission to persuade my aunts and uncles that I should be killed. "

    She lets out a long sigh, and slumps back. "He was right. My birth brought nothing but pain. Olympus lies in ruins and none on New Kronos survived but me. Yet she spoke up for me. Lacheisis' words were true, but not what anyone thought." She sits, lost in silence for a while.

    "There is nothing mad about me," Troia tells Emiko with a faint smile. "And your world sounds considerably madder than mine. The only Amazons who are truly divine are Zeus' two children, Athena's champion and her little sister. But I know /what/ Wonderland is. I visited there, once. Sometimes I explore the astral realms. There's not much else for me to do here, these days."

    "The Red King's regalia... that must be the crown and scepter of the prophecy I just spoke then. Dangerous items indeed. There is no question of what to do with them -- you must return them at once. Such items should never be taken from the astral realms, and Wonderland too will suffer from their absence. Can you not just return there as you wish? You are a Wonderlander, after all. I sense you have that power. Are you not aware of that?"

    Her thoughts on the subject are driven away though when she becomes aware of Madison's worry, and she turns to the young woman with an expression of sympathy, smiling at her with a smile she hopes will be more reassuring that Sag's Buddhist critique of the ways of the Jedi -- though the idea she is expressing is similar.. "Please don't be afraid," she tells her. "The words of the prophecy don't apply to you. You're already home, remember? This is where you came from. You're just not seeing that, because two realities have collided. It's just a matter of concentration. You may find it easiest to close your eyes and visualize in your mind the space around you being what you expect it to be. When you see it firmly, open your eyes again and you'll be there."

Gar Logan has posed:
Gar Logan has grown silent, letting the others who can explain some of this better do the talking. He remains near Vorpal first and foremost, but is also keeping tabs on Victor as he gets an idea about something to test. He rubs at his nose, trying to make sense of where this all could be heading. "So all we have to do is just picture ourselves back where we belong? Is that it?"

Terry O'Neil has posed:
Terry shakes his head at Gar, "Gar, Hekate called her /little cousin/ in Tartarus. Donna waved it off saying that it was a familial way of addressing the Amazons." He hisses and clenches his fists. "Hekate was a /Titan/. She sided with Olympus, but she was a /Titan/. Right in front of our faces, she told us who Troia was. And I was /too stupid/ to understand, and now it's too late!"

He glances at Donna, and shakes his head, "I don't have that power from here! I'm not a true Wonderlander, my father was. I'm a half-breed. Diminished. I have no real power, nothing without-"

Clearly disturbed by the news from Vic that the computer is insisting Donna never existed, he holds out a hand. "Vic. The Regalia. You and Gar- bring it to me. I need to set this right! This is all wrong!"

Madison Evans has posed:
    "What - there's no place like home? But I don't see any munchkins here. Not even members of the lollipop guild," Madison counters, looking between Troia, and Pol. "Look - just because pain exsits doesn't mean I need to //embrace// it. There's a difference between accepting and embracing," she insists in a firm voice, placing her hands on her hips.
    She's also fairly sure that the idea of Jedi was just insulted, but she's going to let that slide as there are more important things to deal with at the moment.

Victor Stone has posed:
    Vic stops in his tracks and looks back to Terry. "I think we need to talk to Rae, too. 'Unhappiness must be embraced.' She didn't come back through the portal with the rest of you, right?" And she's been acting weird lately. /Happy/. All the time. Just... not like herself. "I mean, even if this isn't related to that at all... maybe she can help, if the Regalia doesn't fix this."

    He sighs, and then says to Gar, "C'mon, let's go unlock the safe. I know Donna meant well, sealing it away, but... if it's causing this much trouble..."

    He stops one more time to look back to Terry. "But on Donna's behalf--you'd better behave while you're using it, Mister!" He waggles a finger at the Cheshire, in full 'grammama' mode. "Find something that'll keep you balanced out! Like Kian or Dawn or someone!" And then he's off to see if he can head down the Tower to the safe where the Red King's Regalia is being kept.

Gar Logan has posed:
"Okay. Yeah. I got it. I got this. Also, I got Kian." Gar's feeling like they're on the right path to something now. Focus on where they should be. This Donna, this Troia, she can't do it for them. The Titans most familiar with the tower should have the easiest way of doing this, and before making the attempt, Gar scoops Kian back up and says, "Be back soon."

Then, he follows the way Victor did, departing from the New Kronos realm. Upon doing so, he looks around, finds Victor, and says, "So, uh, this is weirder than normal. Let me just drop Kian off in his room, and we'll go get the safe. But what if we can't get back there?"

He returns soon enough, reporting, "Things are more normal around the dorms, so that's a good thing. After you."

Pol Hevonen has posed:
Pol shrugs, echoed by Cas.

"No place like home. Right. Cas, you can stay in the redoubt for now, I want to see if I can do this."

"Sure. I want to look at the surroundings anyway."

And then there's just the one twin, who smiles thinly at Troia and goes to look SAFELY out the window.

Victor Stone has posed:
    Vic nods to Gar and then hurries off with him down through the tower, through an oddly twisting corridor where, for a while, they seem to be walking on the /ceiling/. But they retrieve the crown and scepter easily enough and make it back to the main room.

    "So we /can/ leave," he reports on coming back. "Some stuff's weird, though, twisting corridors and I think I saw some doorways flickering." He's carrying the Regalia in its magic protective cylinder, and holds it out as they arrive.

Emiko Queen has posed:
Emiko watches the others come and go, but curiosity has her looking back to Troia, "Can I ask... what year was it when the war between the Gods and the Titans happened? This last war, I mean. Did you know earth at all, as we know it? Or has the world always been like this?" She motions out the window towards the.. everything.

Gar Logan has posed:
"That..reminded me of a video game I've played," Gar says in follow-up to Vic's comment about the twisting hallway, once they've reappeared with the safe of protection. "But here it is. So..I just want everyone to know I did update my Last Will and Testament not too long ago, but if this wipes us all out I guess that won't matter too much." Only thing now is to see what happens, and he shares a quick glance with each one gathered.

Madison Evans has posed:
    Madison just //looks// at Gar at that comment and remarks dryly, "You have a deeply reassuring way of looking at things. You know that?"
    Wow. Who knew Madison even has a sarcasm function? But apparently there's a first time for everything.

Donna Troy has posed:
    As soon as Victor returns, the cylinder is plucked from his hands and drifts over towards Troia, who studies it intently. "Good," she says in an approving voice. "This is well warded. You have been wise."

    The cylinder starts to disassemble into component chucks of metal, ceramic and thermoplastic, which just float out from it like a slow-motion explosion. The crown and scepter hang in the air, suspended by nothing, as the pieces of the cylinder float around it.

    Apparently Troia doesn't think the wisdom of warding the items applies to her, and it probably comes as a surprise to Terry that he doesn't feel the heady influence of the artifacts freed from Raven's warding. It probably comes as more of a surprise and a shock to him when Troia gestures, and both items seem to smear out, expanding into clouds of dust that retain the same shape but are three times the size. The two cloud-formed object rotate slowly in the air.

    Troia studies them with close attention, and holds out her hand. From somewhere high in the ceiling, a round, metallic orb drops down into her palm, and she moves it slowly through the gaseous forms of the crown and scepter, before studying the pattern of lights that has formed on its surface.

    It will be apparent to Vic that the object Troia is using is a technological item. He can detect localized manipulation of gravity causing its floating, and there is a machine intelligence of some kind in it, and the energy density of whatever powers the device is beyond anything he has any experience of except for Kryptonian crystal technology and Green Lantern rings. This may validate Vic's beliefs that magic can be subjected to scientific analysis!

    "It started twenty-seven years ago," Troia tells Emiko as she continues studying the crown and scepter. "And I suppose it never really ended, though it has become a stalemate. The power of Olympus is broken, and I have no desire to fight the few of Zeus' children who have survived. They may wish to kill me, I don't know. But I do not leave New Kronos, and there's little anyone can do to harm me here. I am the last of the Titans, and this is my demesne. I have never visited Earth."

    She looks up, releasing the metal orb back up into the ceiling, and the crown, scepter, and secure container reassemble themselves with a snap. She studies Vorpal for a moment or two, then stands up, walks towards him, and tears a hole in the air in front of him. Beyond the hole he sees -- a home he has never known. A forest of giant mushrooms, the forest floor covered in flowers of brilliant and unnatural hues. A pathway leads through the forest close to the opening, and in the distance a sign reads 'This way: 1 mile. That way: 2 miles'.

    Troia walks around the ragged hole in reality, peering at it closely, testing the edges with her finger.

    "Interesting," she says. She turns to Vorpal, head tilted curiously -- another so familiar gesture of Donna's. "What's this darkness as the interface?" she asks. "Do you sense it? Something prowls your land. You would be ill-advised to open such a gate after all. You wouldn't want that darkness stepping through to Earth."

Terry O'Neil has posed:
Whether or not he can see that darkness, it seems it sees him. Or maybe he just feels it looking at him. And something inside him stirs. "... not my land," Terry mutters, barely under his breath.

No more riddles.
No more jests.
No more curses you can't undo, left by fathers you never knew.
No more quests.
"It's. Not. /my/ land. I've never been there." He says, louder this time, his jaw set hard, fists clenched. "It was /his/. It's because of /him/ this is happening." And it had fallen to him now, "/Fuck/ him."
No More

"I can't- If this was targeted at me, I'm leaving until you get Raven and decide what to do. If something else comes at me then at least other people won't be in the splash zone."

He wheels around on his heels and makes for the way Gar and Vic came in, not trusting anything the Rabbit Hole might do in this strange place. There's only one thought on his mind: Get away. Get away so that when it comes for you again, it's won't be anywhere near here.



How do you ignore
All the witches, all the curses,
All the wolves, all the lies, the false hopes, the good-bye's,
The reverses,
All the wondering what even worse is still in store!
"Get Raven!" he says urgently, beelining for the door.

Madison Evans has posed:
    Madison goes from staring in fascination at the way the regalia is studied, to peering through a hole into another reality, to just- giving Terry a shocked, and baffled looked. "What- wait! Whoa! Running away from all your friends when- when things are getting serious like //this// - that can't be a good idea!" Madison suddenly exclaims, running a few steps after Terry, then stopping to look towards the Titans - Terry's friends.
    "This is a bad idea - right? He shouldn't leave! This isn't how you SOLVE things!"

Gar Logan has posed:
Gar Logan watches all of this, not fully comprehending what's happening with the orb and the items and whatever magic is involved. It's never been his forte. Not even remotely.

"Just trying to keep it light," he says to Madison, though there's a bit of an edge to his voice that carries the mark of uncertainty to it.

However, it's Vorpal's sudden retreat that leaves him frowning more than before. Of the things he might have expected to happen next, that must have been low on the list. "Dude, it.." He shuts his mouth, lest he say something that won't help matters right now.

"I'm going after him. This is gonna have to wait. It's not the right time. Raven should have some ideas. I hope." He clears his throat and adds, "Anyone who needs help getting back, take my hand. But after we're back, I'm gonna talk to him."

Victor Stone has posed:
    "Terry!" Vic hesitates. Clenches his hands into fists by his side. "Terry... your family will always be waiting for you." Words Terry said the first time they met, when he did his best to talk Vic into returning to the Tower. Which worked.

    He draws in a slow breath and lets it out again, shaking his head. "Alright," he says. "We can leave the Main Room. That means people can leave the Tower, if they want. I'm staying here, for now, to... to make sure someone's here who's kinda sorta nominally able to be in charge just in case." He looks terribly, terribly shaken, but his tone is firm. "Troia, looks like we're stuck together for a while. Sorry about that."

    He looks around. "Everyone else... we're gonna have to give this some time. Figure it out. So let's... let's all just... let's take a breath and step away, come at it fresh in the morning. Okay?"

Emiko Queen has posed:
Emiko watches after Terry as he runs off, looking like she wants to say something, but ends up biting it back and glancing around at the others. Her jaw works a little as she stares down at the floor, lips pursed up and trying to figure something out. In the end, she glances to Vic and offers, "When you need to.. ah, sleep, or... I'm sorry, I don't want to sound insensitive... when you need a break. Let me know, I can spell you in here. Just in case something happens, so there's someone here?" She glances back towards where Terry ran off and lets out a breath... "Embrace the unhappiness... two truths.. two tales... I -hate- prophecies."

Donna Troy has posed:
    Troia watches Terry leave with a faintly bemused expression. She watches Gar follow after him, the expression of bemusement softening a little. When Madison calls out after him, she raises a hand to stop her. "He's scared," she says. "There are..." she frowns. "Odd feelings in that one. He feels responsibility for things that are not his responsibility, and he feels frustration and resentment at freedoms of thought that have been taken away from him. Also he fears for you. All of you. The thing I mentioned, the Darkness, it's very much /part/ of Wonderland. He is worried that if he does something wrong, he might allow it to hurt you, as if it would be his /fault/."

    She shrugs her shoulders lightly. This alt-Troia's body language is as familiar as her appearance is. Or would be, if her hair didn't look like Terry had glittered her with glow in the dark glitter. "There's no danger of that happening here. Nothing leaves or enters this rupture that I do not allow to. I will allow you all its use to return the crown and scepter, if you wish. I will not allow the Wonderland Darkness to come the other way."

    She gestures at the crown and scepter floating in the air in its container, and sends it drifting back towards Vic. "You are just..." she waves her hand vaguely. "Displaced, slightly. Nothing is holding you here, you are not stuck, do not worry." She hasn't perhaps quite understood the thrust of his comment. Emiko gets a wry smile. "Prophecies have been my life," Troia tells her. "My mother Phoebe passed the gift of the Oracle of Gaia on to me as well as to her two grandchildren by my sister. Apollo at Delphi and Artemis at Themyscira. I speak them, but that doesn't mean I know what they mean, either. I recommend you never listen to them. The prophecy spoken on the third day of my birth has brought nothing but pain."

    With a soft sigh, Troia turns and makes her way towards the stairs opposite the one Terry and Gar have left by, the stairs that /ought/ to lead back to the Women's dorm, but presumably won't for her. She seems to be intending to leave the rent in reality that leads to Wonderland sitting there. "I need to think about this," she mutters to herself. "It makes no sense."

    A few steps up from the bottom, she turns to look back at those still there, eyes flicking between Vic, Maddie and Emi. "Who's Raven?" she asks.

Emiko Queen has posed:
Emiko looks back to Donna, then offers a wry smile at the advice about prophecies, "It's been my experience that not listening to them doesn't stop them from happening. Prophecies are strange like that. You can try to ignore it, but in the end, they tend to drag you kicking and screaming right back in." She lifts a shrug, "This one isn't mine, but I don't like seeing friends hurting."

She gives a soft chuckle at the comments to Vic, turning a quick smile towards him before shifting to stare through the rent in air that displays Wonderland. Her head cants as she studies it. Troia's question has Emiko looking up, trying to see if anyone else is going to field that loaded question. No? Okay! Round two...

DING

"Raven is a young woman of great ability and magic that our Donna Troy is in a relationship with. Presumably, an intimate relationship. I haven't pried, nor have I had the pleasure of meeting her just yet. But by all accounts she's a woman with her own... family issues." Emiko smiles towards Donna, "I expect there's hope that either she will be able to assist with whatever is going on here with the mingled realities... or that she will be able to... get our Donna back."