The Quantum Reach

The Quantum Reach stood out of place among a chaotic stretch of nothing, like a sprawling citadel, a monumental city among the inky blackness of the void below, to the side, and under it.

It stood as a haven. A haven from which people who had lost everything had something. A place where someone, who still had so much to give, could give freely.

A place of second chances.

A place of new beginnings.

A place where heroes could be born.

A place where people could be redeemed.

Where the darkness could be fought back against.

Where other worlds could fight for another chance.

A line figure stood facing out towards the city from the inside of his massive, sprawling office. Nine more figures stood behind him, affixed to their chairs, respectfully quiet.

The man slowly unwound his arms from behind his back and took another step forward. He looked on to the major terminal before him. A seemingly unimpressive building of cold, lifeless black, but would soon open endless possibilities.

The man looked over his shoulder for a moment as he looked at the other nine people in the room. Slowly, silently, they all nodded, however slowly it was for the others to join.

A smile crossed the mans face and he lifted a hand.

“And here...we...go.”

Snap.

...

Mason Itakari should have been dead but he wasn’t. By whatever cruel stretch of the world around him, he wasn’t dead. He was intact and his parts were all here, his belt, his bottles-

But not his world.

Not his HOME.

No he was somewhere else entirely. His head ringing, he looked where he was. A black, shiny room with dim lights. Further inspection told him those dim lights were the glowing blue and yellow portals shrinking behind him.

Or rather, them.

He was not alone in this room. Surrounded by people of various stages of waking or still, as the final portal closed they were cast in a pitch darkness...

Which then began to glow into a warm blue light as blue lines began to etch into the walls, granting more and more vision until the room was glowing blue.

And all was silent.

Mason was alive but he should be dead. So that meant...

“...is this hell?” He asked to the masses around him.

Vale Khoros realized something was wrong even before he opened his eyes. For one, the surface pressing against his cheek was not rough-hewn stone of the dungeon he and the ragtag bunch of maniacs he called a Party had been exploring. Second, the various forms lying around him in various stages of wakefulness couldn't be mistaken for his party even at a casual glance. He didn't even think he knew what sort of species a couple of them were. and most damning of all, the room they were all in looked wrong, too smooth to be brick and lit not with torches or a hearth, but with strange circles that gave off dim light. Some sort of magic crystal perhaps?

At the very least, Vale could feel that he had his gear on him, or at the very least his weapons. And even if he didn't he always had a soulknife ready. So when he saw a nearby figure sit up, the Tiefling sat down with his back against a wall and regarded them with a wary look. "I don't have the foggiest who the fuck ya all are, but I'm betting none of ya have a better clue about where we are or what happened than I do." He drawled, paying attention to gauge their reactions.

Artoria Pendragon

Artoria opened her eyes and saw only darkness.

What...? She blinked, and her vision cleared. Wherever she was...it was not the Throne of Heroes. It was instead some strange dark room, filled with people in various stages of awakening. Artoria carefully got to her feet. Is this a summon of some sort?

She looked down at herself, noticing her sword was still there. Could this be some kind of Holy Grail War? She doubted it, since she'd destroyed the Grail at the ending of the previous war, but...

Then, someone else in the room asked if it was Hell, to which Artoria shook her head. "If I die, I'm simply sent back to the Throne of Heroes. It's far more likely that I—and all of you, by extension—have been summoned."

She looked over at the group. "Saber-class Servant. You may call me Saber." It would likely be best to avoid giving out her True Name immediately, even if it wasn't a Holy Grail War.

Portal Room

Not all of the people in the room were discombobulated. One of them, a youth covered in grey fur, somewhere halfway between man and wolf, landed on his feet out of the portal, and looked around with awe. He was small, easily the shortest person in the room. Nonetheless, he radiated confidence.

"Wow," Wolfgang said, noting the various different kinds of people in the room. His tail wagged excitedly. "Are you all here to be superheroes too? This'll be awesome!"

Then he turned to Mason, cocking his head at the odd question. The others echoed similar sentiments, and his ear twitched. "Do... do none of you know what this place is? It's the Reach. You know, place outside of time and space and stuff, full of heroes who fight great evil? Didn't they tell you about it before you came?"

Edited by kagescorpionakki on Aug 23rd 2020 at 3:39:28 PM

Matt Streiss

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!"

Matt had not been quite able to help himself when the world he'd been standing on disintegrated under his feet and sent him plummeting into the void. The twisted world Ephas had made had come undone almost as easily as pulling a thread out and unraveling the whole thing in short order. And that criminal degenerate Shane had been responsible for the whole thing happening, for everything that happened prior—-

Matt had thought he was dead, for sure, that he was going to wake up and have to account for being such a miserable son of a bitch to—-to whichever fuck-up of a god was responsible for the world. At least I didn't go into the void pleading and surrendering to it. I'm not French, after all.

But this was a different kind of darkness. A sort of roomy darkness, like he was physically somewhere else. It seemed like some sort of deep, dark room. Huh, so someone for whatever reason intervened on his behalf. He didn't get why someone might want him, but that was their lamebrained choice. He could barely see anything—-aww fuck, right, Mana Augments...

Matt tried to augment his vision to get a better look around himself, eyes seeming to shine a bit more as he got his vision back. Then he saw someone standing there looking like a noble statue of grace and beauty. She carried herself like a warrior queen—-

Matt got himself back up in short order, trying to find out where he was as he went. He grinned a little bit at Saber, "Well, wherever I am, I guess it can't be hell, that's for sure."

The last thing HK remembered before everything went to black was fighting at the side of great and powerful master in the Temple of Sacrifice in Yavin IV, as Republic and Sith forces sieged Revan's followers. He fought side by side loyally until the end, but two powerful Jedis, a elite special forces soldier of the republic and a famous smuggler focused their attention on him, and overwhelmed him as one of the jedi cutted his arms off before swiftly decapitating him. The droid thought it was the end of it...but moments later his photoreceptors reactivated, and he found himself on a room with a few meatbags for some reason.

The droid looked around, before he got up from the ground. He seemed like he was in pefect condition, no damage to his chassis or body parts...it was like the damage he took never happened. Did his master repaired him?

The droid slowly got up as it examined the area, before a few of the meatbags spoke.

"Statement: I am not sure myself where we are, meatbags. My last memories my memory core has was that I was fighting side by side by my master before finding myself here."

Then, some furry meatbag asked them if they were heroes and why they didn't know why they were here.

"Angry Answer: No, I don't believe I was asked about joining whatever this...Reach is. My master Revan needs my presence far more than whatever game this is."

Edited by Darkomega245 on Aug 23rd 2020 at 12:48:29 PM

Portal Room

Katya had arrived asleep; laying flat on her back and completely still as if dead. However, after a few moments she drew in a sudden desperate gasp and began coughing as she shot upright into life, covering her mouth with one hand before rubbing the side of her head and opening her eyes.

One could've sworn they flickered into a vibrant green from a darkened state, but it was so rapid that it might've been misconstrued as a simple trick of the light. She stilled and stared at the others scattered around the room, moving slowly and carefully as she shuffled a couple of inches away from them—taking in their conversations quietly as she swallowed in suppressed fear. The bizarre nature of the room, the manner of her arrival (which felt fuzzy and incomprehensible to think about), and the inhuman appearances of some of the people around her was enough to make her heart beat just that little bit faster.

(...-tick-...)

(...-tock-...)

“Where... am I...?” she asked slowly after she found her voice; speaking in an accented tone that sounded Russian the more she spoke aloud. “What... h-how did I...?”

The rhetorical question of whether this was Hell was stolen from her, and her throat closed up in response to it. She fell mute, intimidated by everything and feeling a rising dread creeping up from the pit of her stomach. Almost subconsciously, she began to hum gently to herself—a simple wordless melody, but one that seemed to distract and soothe her somewhat.

“...perhaps we'll meet God... he might be holding birthday party...” she said idly in a vague attempt at humour, but paled soon afterwards and shrunk into herself upon overhearing the rather intimidating-seeming robot. Maybe this wasn't a heavenly visit after all.

Setsuna

Setsuna had been alone. Alone in the dark depths of a small, barren cave, deep in the heart of the wilderness. It's dank caverns illuminated only by a small fire fueled by a couple small rocks and dried twigs.

She sat in the cave's far corner. Away from the fire. Away from everything. It wasn't like she needed the warmth. Even dressed only in a fur waistcloth and bandages, it wasn't like she got cold easily.

But that wasn't why she was huddled all alone in the dark, was it?

She still remembered. Remembered everything that happened. Like it was yesterday.

Because it was yesterday.

How her father had struck her. Berated her for not being what he wanted her to be. Like he always did. How she finally struck him back. How she felt about it. How she felt so incredibly proud. And so utterly terrified.

How she ran away in terror. Rushing past all the other oni as she made her way out of the village. How her mother tried to stop her, only to blurt out the truth in desperation. And how they both knew it didn't matter in the end.

How she raced away from the village, only to run into a bunch of hunters looking for someone to kill. How she had fought back, intent only on using as much force as necessary instead of giving them whatever they had coming.

And how it all went horribly wrong.

She could still remember how it felt. The blood on her lips. The sheer thrill and exhilaration at having possessed so much raw power, however briefly. How slaughtering those PATHETIC stupid hunters felt so... good.

And how she hated herself for it.

It wasn't the first time she had killed anyone. Far from it. But doing it so brutally, so callously? It felt SO GODDAMN RIGHT wrong somehow.

And yet, she was sure that most other oni wouldn't feel the same way.

Was that what she wanted to be? Someone who would do something like that and... enjoy it?

HELL YES!!!''

Hell no.

Fuck. She couldn't keep sitting there forever. She needed to hit something. Or eat something.

Maybe hit and eat something.

She was rather hungry.

Opening her eyes, she sat up, picked up her club, and... noticed she wasn't where she thought she was.

The fire was gone. The cave was gone. Instead, she was in some dark, strange room, with only a bunch of dim lights to make things out.

And a bunch of fuckers she had never met before. Her first instinct was to slam down her club and get everyone to back the hell off. She didn't know who those people were. Some of them didn't even look human or yokai. All she knew was that she wasn't going to let these people hurt... hurt... hurt...

And then she saw the pupper.

Okay. It wasn't your normal pupper. It was standing on two legs for one thing. But...

...it was so damn cute!

For the moment, all reason and rage and everything else had left her. She leapt over to Wolfgang, squeeing like a schoolgirl as she squeezed him tight before petting his head in glee.. "WHO'S A GOOD PUPPER?! WHO'S A GOOD PUPPER?! YOU ARE, YES YOU ARE, YES YOU ARE!"

She barely noticed anything or anyone else around her. Not that it mattered.

Puppers trumped all.

Portal Room

It seemed like the Reach had just taken a bunch of people without asking. That wasn't very nice. On the other hand, the one guy asked if he was in hell, and the robot said he'd been fighting, so maybe the Reach had saved these people? Little Wolf was sure they had some reason for it.

Before he could ponder that reason further, his ears twitched at a strangely familiar-sounding voice. Not familiar in pitch, but familiar in accent. He turned towards the woman with the obvious Russian accent, and smiled. "Don't worry, you're not dead. This is just another world. Kinda." Then his ears twitched again. "...also, why are you ticking? Do you have a pacemaker, or- OOF."

His thoughts were interrupted again, but this time by an enormous, horned woman scooping him up like a child. Anyone else might have been upset at that. Little Wolf couldn't help but grin, his tail gently thudding against Setsuna's leg as he hugged her back, licking her face in excitement and laughing. "I'm a good puppy!" He said happily. "My name's Wolfgang, but everyone calls me Little Wolf. It's nice to meet new friends."

Setsuna

Setsuna giggled as Wolfgang licked her face, only stopping as soon as she heard words coming from out of his big slobbering mouth. "OH FUCK!" She dropped him to the ground, sheepishly scratching her head in embarrassment. "Uh, sorry. Didn't think you could, you know, talk. My bad."

She kneeled down to meet him face to face. Most of the time it took her a while to warm up to someone. To feel like they wouldn't stab her in the back as soon as she wasn't looking. But with Wolfgang, it was different. Maybe it was because he was still an adorable pupper, but—

Okay, no, that was totally it.

What could she say? She always had a thing for puppers. Even talking ones. "Uh, thanks. Name's Setsuna. But, um... I don't think I've had any friends before."

She took a better look around. She still wasn't sure who most of these people were, or where the hell she was. But she wasn't about to start busting things apart anymore. Somehow, she felt... at peace.

Maybe it was the pupper?

Nah.

Nancy Weaver, Portal Room

Damn it, she was going to be late!

This would not stand!

With a piece of toast in her mouth, Nancy ran, going full hog, down the streets of the Reach until she reached the portal terminal. When she arrived, she took a moment to recover her breath and lean against the wall before making her entrance, having Seamstress open the door for her.

For the briefest of moments, her Stand cast a shadow over the walls, of a ghostly humanoid figure in a ballgown with its hand on the doorknob, before vanishing completely, taking all traces of its existence with it. It loomed over Nancy protectively, and though a blindfold covered its eyes, it seemed to look down upon all present quite menacingly despite Nancy's nonthreatening, bumbling demeanor.

"Oh, Wolfgang-san, you got here before me," she noted. "Hello, er, mina-san—I mean, everyone. My name is Nancy Weaver. I'm like...one of you, I suppose..." Nancy then proceeded to fidget for a moment. "...so you can come to me if you need help. I mean it."

"Ah...ma'am?" she said to the rather large oni woman with Wolfgang, not quite sure how to approach her but willing to make some sort of overture anyways. "Are you from Japan, like me? I'm trying to get together a culture club of sorts. Well, I'm not sure I have the right to, since I'm part foreigner, but I'd like to try anyways...um, would you like to join it?"

Anything to make them all feel welcome.

Edited by JumpingFruit on Aug 23rd 2020 at 1:58:30 AM

Mason

Mason took a quick rolecall of the room very quickly. A humanoid puppy, a strange ticking girl, a oddly dressed yet radiant woman by the name of Saber, a robot, a blue demonic humanoid and a large, muscular red skinned demon woman scooping up the puppy.

It took everything in his power to not use his Fullbottles to transform and fight them off but based on the fact that...Wolfgang? Liked her at the very least.

Right. Saber. Wolfgang. Setsuna.

"Mason." He said as he slowly rose to his feet and looked to the collective cavulcade of...strangeness around him.

"Mason Itakari. It's a...pleasure? To meet you all?"

Setsuna

Setsuna whirled around. She nearly brought up her club, but being near Wolfgang kept her from lashing out at Nancy like a psychopath.

"Um, thanks. But I'm still not sure where the hell I am. One minute I was sitting on my ass in a cave, the next I'm here. And I still don't know where 'here' is."

That said, now that Setsuna had a good look at her, she had... questions. "And are you sure you're Japanese? Like, maybe you're from a different part of the country or somethin', but most people don't wear anything like what you've got. Don't you have, I don't know, a kimono or something?"

Nancy Weaver, Portal Room

Are you sure you're Japanese?

Am I sure I'm Japanese?

"I...I should be Japanese. My mother is Japanese. I was born in Japan. So yes, I'm pretty sure I should be considered Japanese..." Nancy murmured, looking down and shuffling her feet. "And kimonos are kinda, um, old-timey. People have mostly moved on from that, but people still use the same language and stuff, so..." She trailed off, gesturing helplessly.

"But...I think that heritage should be remembered and respected, even if we consider it old-fashioned. You don't have to constantly practice old customs, just remember them for posterity. That's...just what culture clubs are for," Nancy continued hesitantly. "And there's not many Japanese people around here. It would be nice to be able to talk with people with my native language."

"That's what I...that's what I think, ma'am," she finished, looking back up into Setsuna's eyes at last. "What do you think?"

Edited by JumpingFruit on Aug 23rd 2020 at 2:25:10 AM

Vale cocked his head quizzically as he took in the chaos happening in front of him. Japan? Saber? None of those terms made sense to him. At least the strangers seemed to be non-hostile for now, so he relaxed slightly and joined in.

“Well if you’re all givin’ names out, I guess it wouldn’t hurt to respond in kind” the rogue said as he sat up and shuffled closer to the rest. “Call me Vale, Vale Khoros. No idea what kinda region this Japan is, but it sounds like an interesting place.”

Setsuna

...man. She had put this kid on the spot, hadn't she?

"Uh, sorry. Didn't mean to make you nervous or anything. And I wouldn't mind hanging out. But I still wanna know where the fuck I am."

She rolled her shoulders as she turned to Vale. He was... different. Like, not different from her. Maybe a bit. But compared to most of the others, he was the only one that could remotely pass as a fellow oni.

"Uh, nice to meet you, Vale. You an oni too? I mean, you kinda look like one. But I don't wanna make assumptions or anything.

She remembered the last time she made assumptions.

Last time she let someone stick a sword up her ass.

Edited by kkhohoho on Aug 23rd 2020 at 4:35:11 AM

Portal Room

"It's ok." Wolfgang said, still smiling even as she dropped him. "I like hugs."

When Setsuna mentioned never having friends before, his smile drooped a bit. But then it came back wider, and he gently grabbed Setsuna's hand. "Well, you gotta start somewhere. So I'll be your friend, okay?"

His head turned at the newcomer. He recognized her, from when his grandmother's coven had first made contact with this place. Little Wolf waved with his free hand. "Hiya Nancy!"

He looked back and forth a moment between the two, then nodded at Vale's introduction before turning back to Setsuna. "This place is called the Reach. It's a place outside of any world. We're all from different worlds, and we were brought here to fight a big bad evil thing, though I don't know that much about it."

"Indignation: Well, It appears this Reach may require my service to deal with this...threat, whatever it is. I do hope it's temporary, as my master requires my presence."

Some of the meatbags here seemed to introduce themselves, and he was not sure exactly what planet was Japan, as he had never heard of it before. Well, he assumed this Japan was not from his galaxy, if what the furry meatbag was saying is true.

"Introduction: As you meatbags are introducing themselves, and it seems we will be together for a while, I believe I should as well. I am HK-47, a Hunter-Killer series assassin droid. One of the best assassin droids in my galaxy in the service of my powerful master, Revan."

Artoria

Well...quite a lot had happened in a short time. There was some sort of demon, a bipedal wolf, and something made of metal now. Artoria looked around at the strange group. None of them looked like Servants...

The bipedal wolf explained that they were all brought to "the Reach" to fight some manner of villain. Artoria nodded at this. "So I was right. We were summoned here." She looked at Wolfgang. "I suppose whoever runs the Reach is my Master for this war?"

Of course, there was always the possibility that the World itself had summoned here, but since where they were was supposedly "outside of any world", she highly doubted that.

Jerusha

Opening her eyes, the artificial angel Jerusha looked at her surroundings, not recognizing them as where she had gone to sleep the previous night. That was...concerning. As was the revelation that she was not the only one pulled. This was 'Reach', where she was evidently expected to fight.

"..."

Her hand moved to her sword. She wanted to go back. She didn't want to be here.

Edited by Bored_Man on Aug 23rd 2020 at 4:47:39 AM

Setsuna

Setsuna blushed a bit as Wolfgang grabbed her hand. Not that he could see it. Not with her skin this red. But it was the first someone had ever grabbed her hand.

Besides her Dad.

She didn't want to think about her Dad. Just the mere thought of him was enough to make her blood boil. Her muscles started to bulge, her teeth began to clench...

...and it all went away as Wolfgang kept squeezing her hand tight.

"Uh, thanks." And he had the decency to tell her why they were all here in the first place. It was mindboggling to say the least. But it explained a lot. Why Nancy wasn't wearing traditional Japanese clothes, why there were all these people from all sorts of different places, everything.

And maybe, just maybe, this was what she needed.

An escape.

From everything.

Though now she wanted to know why it chose them of all people in the first place.

"Like, that's great and all. It's kinda amazing. In a fucked up sort of way. But why us? Like, maybe some of us were in on this from the get-go. But why the rest of us? This magic space thing or whatever plucked us all out from wherever the hell we were for... what? To beat the shit out of some monster or something?"

'Monster.'

That was funny coming from her.

Might as well just have everyone gang up on her while they were at it.

Portal Room

“...I am Karina... Ts-Tsvetkova...” Katya blinked, forgetting momentarily that she was in the room too and fidgeting uncomfortably as the others began conversing. Some of them were suitably confused, but others seemed... strangely accepting. One (a... wolf?) seemed like he'd outright wanted to come here. Wherever ‘here’ even was.

They'd mentioned it, but Katya was still too stunned to listen properly. She cocked her head confusedly at the mention of the ticking, before shrinking back slightly as the wolf was caught up in an affectionate hug by some sort if... demon... ogre... girl–

Katya was confused.

“...Call me Katya, though, please...” she eventually finished her introduction in an unsettled tone, still keeping an eye on everyone as she slowly stood up and brushed herself down. “I was... just taking a walk... in Nizhnevartovsk. This place is... outside of where again...?”

(...-tick, tock, tick, tock-...)

Portal Room - Kha

"Ohhhhh...my head..."

A pained moan came from a human-like figure, betrayed only by the leonine tail coming out from behind him and slowly stirring into the air, as he slowly came to, placing one hand on the top of his hair, as if making sure it was still there.

GET UP!

Kha quickly stiffened, leaping to his feet in a crouched stance, growling and eyeing the surroundings. As hands flew out to the side, claws shot out from the holes on his bulky gloves.

Where am I? Bandits? These don't look like students. MOVE. SEIZE ADVANTAGE.

Red eyes darted between the people gathered, eventually settling on Mason. Quick as the reverberating roar that preceded it Kha pounced, the sounds of loud gunshots coming from the boots he wore, as he shot through the air and rammed into the unwitting soul and tackling him to the ground. One hand on Mason's chest to keep him down, the other pulled back to show off the vicious claws if he tried anything funny, Kha glared at Mason.

"Where am I? Who are you all?"

A low growl constantly hummed in his throat as he bared his teeth, the tail at his backside betraying his anxiety with its constant flicking.

Vale’s eyes briefly widened with surprise before settling back into bemusement. “Me, an Oni? “ he chuckled, “I guess the horns an’ skin colour could help me pass off as one, but I’ve not seen an Oni with a tail like mine before.” Vale waved his whiplike tail in front of Setsuna for emphasis “I’m a Tiefling, Miss. Though I gotta say you’re far better sight for the eyes compared ta any Oni I’ve seen before.”

The easy atmosphere was broken when Mason was tackled by some shifter child, prompting Vale to react. In a flash, he was behind the lion-kin with a dagger hovering right above his throat. “I want ya to think real hard ‘bout What ya plan to do to him, hairball.” He hissed, steel in his tone. “Or the next few moments are gonna be your last.”

Jerusha

An animal-like human had gone on the offensive. Turning to it, and having drawn her sword, she studied him warily, in case he tried to go after her next.