shatterverse | (no subject)

HA HE FOUND YOU.

...That is, um. Hi.

Hey, look, it's Steve, waving one-handed at Nathan as he approaches. For bonus points, he's coming back to the farm via jetpack after a visit to one of those ruined military bases Val found (he was in need of more wiring, which he's carrying in a salvaged plastic bag. To the untrained eye it's just a bunch of curling copper and aluminium, but to Steve it is worth its weight in gold).

"Hey, Nathan!"

Nathan slowed to keep speed with the jetpack, and waved, "Hi Steve. How's it going?"

"Brilliant."

Well, there was the whole Sylar thing, but the sign indicated that Nathan had already heard about that. Also, since then, there has been Building Of Jets.

"How about with you?"

"Just keeping an eye out for new arrivals, and getting supplies for the farm. Already picked up some seeds and farming tools. Why I wanted to get a team together to help coordinate supply runs."

Well, that was an easy opening.

"That's partly why I was looking for you, actually. I don't have wings or unpropelled flight or anything, but I do have a jetpack. And nearly a jet."

Steve says 'jet' in the same way new fathers say 'baby'.

"Good," he nodded approvingly.

"Need as many fliers as we can get. And a jet huh? What kind?" He might not need a plane anymore to get around, but he was a former pilot after all.

Uh-oh. Nathan, you just invited Steve to talk about his jet. Brace yourself.

"Well, it's based pretty heavily off a FA-22 Raptor, 'cause I was lucky enough to find the shell of one in one of the bases -- there are bases around, used to be military installations before the Apocalypse monsters got to them -- the engine was mainly intact, as well, but the missiles had decomposed beyond reliable use so now it has sort of what you might find in a MiG-35 Fulcrum-F, but improved on, obviously, and then the on-board computer is entirely a custom job, it's full of bugs at the moment but that's not going to last long, especially not with Gabriel helping, the things just take one look at him and fall down." Much like Steve, though for different reasons. "And then there was a Sukhoi Su-27 in this one base about a million miles away that was mostly disassembled, by which I mean smashed, but I managed to salvage a lot of the fuselage..."

And on. And on.

The narration apologises on his behalf.

Nathan actually followed along, nodding approvingly and making the occasional question or remark.

He then added, "I saw some bases myself. Saw a B-2 and a F-18 that looked pretty intact too. At least the shell and maybe the engine, have to take a closer look to make sure. And I think I saw a warehouse that might have some parts in it that could be scavenged."

...Nathan, the narration truly hopes that you were in the market for a new best friend, because you just made yourself one.

(Even if he does look momentarily worried at the ease with which Nathan follows, because hello, unpleasant flashbacks (http://community.livejournal.com/shatterverse/52850.html?thread=4083314#t4083314).)

Stephen glees.

...in a highly manly fashion, of course.

"Couldn't show me where they are, eh?"

Nathan grinned, "Sure, feel like taking a trip to Texas? That's the closer base I came across."

"Hell yes I do."

Baggage? What baggage? He can carry it to Texas and back, easy! THERE ARE JETS WAITING!

"Just follow me then," Nathan grinned, and turned southward to head off. Going about as fast as the jet can follow.

The jetpack does fly at an appreciable speed, even if any small effort by Nathan would leave it standing. It just seemed a good idea to build in limiters so that the sheer air pressure and velocity would not leave Steve a smear on the sky.

Anyway. Now that the narration is done defending his baby.

Steve follows with Enthusiasm!

Limiters are a very good thing. There's possible theories on how Nathan could survive going sonic without becoming a smear himself in the sky, but nothing's been confirmed.

In the meantime, the flight to the military base in Texas would take a while. But the scenery was great to watch in the meantime.

Whatever it is, Steve wants one.

And if the scenery gets boring, then he brought a topic of conversation. "Oh-- I've got some news on the reality-punching front. Nothing terribly exciting, eh, but baby steps."

Well, after so many miles of prairie, it gets old.

Nathan glanced over at him with interest, "Yeah, what do you got?"

"I've been trying to get at it too directly," explains Steve. "I have to duck around the problem. So I'm collecting data to predict when a transfer -- any transfer -- is going to happen, and then I'm going to get Gabriel close to it so he can tell me what the mechanism is behind it. And then we'll reverse-engineer it from there."

"Whatever works, and the sooner you can figure something out for all of us, the better. Keep at it," Nathan nodded encouragingly, and glanced downward.

"We're getting closer. It's just a few miles past that reservoir bed." He pointed it out as they flew past.

"Brilliant," is Steve's opinion.

"...you couldn't help out with the data collection, eh? Have you seen any other transfers happen while you've been flying around the continent?"

"Not yet, but been keeping an eye as much I can."

There's a sleek bipedal dragon in the air, all glossy black scales and too-thin limbs, looking like something out of someone's nightmare.

Except for the part where she's carrying a very large, very dead pig in one claw.

And the part where the first thing she does after spotting Nathan is turn away. Yes, Lucy just ate, but she doesn't like to take chances.

She's headed for the farm. Looks like she'll get there in about five minutes, give or take.

Nathan's reaction to that can be summed in one phrase. Three words.

WHAT

THE

FUCK???????????????

Yep.

Dragon.

Now that she's got company, she speeds up, hoping to get to the ground and out of this shape before she does something she regrets.

A minute-- two-- she dives and lands neatly just outside the kitchen door, hefting the pig in improbably thin arms and folding her wings to her back.

Opening the door as the other self is interesting, but manageable. She heads inside to store the pig in the freezer.

He's not sure whether to follow or fly off. Was it a threat?

He carefully flew down to watch.

The pig goes in the freezer, with some difficulty (claws aren't made for opening doors).

As for Lucy, she headtilts at Nathan, then downshifts to human shape and waits for him to say something enlightening.

"............What the hell?"

Uh, sorry? His brain's trying to make sense of dragon now human.

Edited 2008-04-12 21:25 (UTC)

Lucy raises her eyebrows.

"Other self," she explains patiently.

"...You're really a dragon? Or this a part time thing?"

"Part time dragon, part time human."

Shrug.

"...uh huh. Born like that?" Well, he didn't think people back home could have that kind of ability, but not so sure these days.

Nod.

"Is that your ability then? Your uh power? Like mine's flying?"

Sarcasmface.

No duh.

"I was just wondering if it's anything like ours. The ones from my world. We know they're genetic, but not much more than that."

Lucy sniffs, wrinkles her nose, and shakes her head.

"Different," she declares unequivocally.

He just nodded.
"Never mind then."

Shrug.

Right....

"I should go, got more supplies to pick up for here."

He then headed out to take to the air again.

Should Nathan fly as far as the late great Blackpool, he might notice the word SOS spelled out in large, worried letters on the beach. Torn clothes, scraps of metal, bits of driftwood and indeed all the debris of a city destroyed by sea monsters have been pressed into service to form them.

Should he then slow down for long enough to be spotted, a haggard man in a red dressing gown will certainly run out of a makeshift shelter, waving his arms and shouting.

A plane would have been ideal. A space-ship would have passed muster. A flying man might be unexpected, but there's no way that Arthur is turning up his nose at a chance of rescue.

He took a break to see how NY was in this world before pushing himself to head across the ocean.

So there was a tired flying man who noticed the SOS and came in for a landing. Staggering steps as he landed, panting a little.

"I say!" shouts Arthur. "I say! Excuse me!"

Even when spatially displaced, marooned and afraid for his sanity, it might be mentioned that his English accent could cut glass.

As Nathan lands: "I don't suppose you could tell me what on Earth is going on? Or at least its nearest equivalent? If this is the reconstructed planet I can't say I think much for the scenery. You people seem to have misplaced all the humans, you see." Come on, Nathan was flying. Of course he's an alien. "And the huge dramatic bite-marks out of the piers strike me as needlessly histrionic."

When scared, Arthur's reactions could be boiled down to (a) gibbering or (b) businesslike formality. He appears to be opting for the second.

"I am human, and nearest we can figure is that this world suffered a major attack. Wiped out most of the world's population, and now a lot of us are getting pulled in at random points across the globe. And those bite marks are from whatever the hell killed the people here."

He then flopped down on the ground.

"Give me a moment. It's going to be a long flight back to the farm or to Metropolis. Those are the safer areas right now."

"...you mean this isn't actually an Earth?" asks Arthur, who has spent the last few days being terribly afraid about the whole 'dead people' thing, and has now reached something of a plateau. (It's possible that they are having this conversation at cross-purposes. 'World' to him means 'planet', you see: his canon hasn't yet introduced him to the practice of alternative realities.)

...oh, and now Nathan's whole exhausted thing is finally registering with him.

"You'd better come inside and sit down. I hope you don't mind salvage chairs. Or a salvage roof. Or salvage tea. I've just put a salvage kettle on."

'Salvage tea' will soon transpire to mean 'water', but you can't blame a man for trying.

"It is an Earth, just a different Earth for most of us. And that's fine, just need to sit for a moment. Not used to trans-Atlantic flights with this ability yet."

Nathan waved his hand, and slowly stood up again to follow Arthur.

He added, "I'm Nathan. Nathan Petrelli."

Arthur allows himself a few seconds in which to digest this information, and finds that it gives him the expositional equivalent of a stomach ache. That and the unpleasant feeling of coming home from work to find one's beloved house vandalised.

"And here I thought my life couldn't get any more incomprehensible," he complains.

"Yeah? Well, get used to it. My home was getting stranger by the day before I came here, and this place is even weirder."

Arthur has the decency to look contrite.

"I'm sorry, but it's been rather a trying few days. I probably shouldn't try to be socially competent on just shy of two hours' sleep."

The overriding feature of his house is that it is small. The other feature is that it is not a house, unless you're using a terribly liberal definition of the word. It is, in fact, a testing of the principle that if you lean large bits of wood and corrugated iron against each other just so, they will only fall down every few hours instead of straight away. Arthur gave up sleeping in ruined basements when a ceiling tried to fall on him.

"My name's Arthur Dent."

(Oh, and 'salvage kettle' means 'taller-than-average cup'.)

"Nice to meet you. Sure, we'd probably have to make a stop, but I can try to fly you to the farm where a lot of us have been staying. Or there's Metropolis too if you'd rather a city."