The In-Between Darkness

[Queen Bright]

And with that, Hikaru snapped. "I've told you once before, the mind is a persons sanctuary. To invade it is breaking their damn privacy. It should be more than obvious I don't want to speak to you. So force it all you want. Say whatever the hell you want! I'll just proceed to ignore you." She sent through telepathic connection, quickly closing it off right after.

[K2]

C2323 had long ago stopped listening to the two, dismissing anything either said as lies. He had found himself to a balcony. As it turned out, they were in a two-story house. C2323 was looking at something in the distance.

"Uh.. Guys?"

It was a massive, white hole in the sky.

"Ah," Matt spoke up, "I see that they've found unperception."

"Unperception?" C2323 asked.

"It's the nexus your friend Koty created. Or what he will create, anyway."

"Koty?" C2323 asked.

"Um... Nobody, nobody."

"Just what's going on here?"

Matt and Anisa both stepped out of the hot tub now, glaring at the other three. "I think its time that we showed you all something."

And then, the five of them were whisked away once more. They were going on a journey to the past... To The North -- the place known as Heaven by many -- and what it had once been. There they landed, the five of them, years and years before. They were in a peaceful village... A quiet village.

[Queen Bright]

"Wait! What about Koty?!" Hikaru demanded before they had been teleported.  When they had arrived, she said nothing.

[K2]

Her question had not been answered. As soon as they arrived in the peaceful village, a man who seemed to bear a striking resemblance to Koty (and Eli as well) walked by. No, this was not their merged form. It was someone else. Someone similar... Older.

"Merry ol' day to ye all," he said, bearing an 'Irish' accent. "But I sense that ye are not from around these parts."

"We're just passing through," Matt said... His voice was entrancing. "You do not see us. None of your kind do."

And after those words were mentioned, the man just walked on by as if nothing had happened. Matt and Anisa followed the man, and C2323 did as well.

[Queen Bright]

Hikaru followed as well, but not quietly. The whole time she grumbled and made snide remarks about the scenery off to the side. First they had wound up in a place where the man in charge couldn't seem to even keep one name. Told they'd be stranded for two-thousand damn years. Then ? As if that wasn't enough, her worst enemy and most annoying person she knew by now, had to show up out of fucking nowhere as well! Now, she still didn't have enough answers to know what the hell was going on, and they were in some white land that looked like they'd just been thrown into a snowglobe, and yet again, no one bothered to explain things. Hikaru was NOT a happy sage at this point.

[K2]

"So... uh... What do you think's gonna hap-"

"We're here," Anisa announced. They'd followed the man who looked like Koty and Eli to a place where several people seemed to be showing up. Some sort of town hall meeting... In a church. C2323 took a seat in a pew, as did Anisa and Matt.. And a man came and sat on C2323 like he was a ghost, going right through him.

[Queen Bright]

Once Hikaru saw C2323 get sat on, she opted to not sit down, and instead jumped atop one of the random pedestrians shoulders, hovering there with magic. Church? Just where the hell were they?

[Gaserlake]

Gaserlake stayed standing.

[K2]

The meeting eventually began.

"Order, order," a man at the alter spoke loudly, "I call this meeting to session. Dakome, please come to the stand."

"Yes, sir."

The man who looked like Koty rose and walked towards the alter.

[Gaserlake]

Seeing that everyone has sat down, Gaserlake didn't have to worry about people sitting in him. He then sat down and opened up the book on Hikaru's device. He made sure Hikaru didn't see the book. He was a very fast reader, so he read through the book fast with ease. At the same time, he listened to what was happening.

[K2]

"Okay," Dakome began, "Let's get this meeting underway. The place we call North has been-"

Suddenly, it stopped. It all stopped. The people, the movement... They were all frozen in place, solid still, the five viewers the only exception. But neither Anisa or Matt had caused this. They were just as confused as C2323 was, who was looking around the church room trying to figure out what had happened. What HAD happened?

And then, some sort of darkness appeared in a corner of the room. A dark energy of some kind? It was... It was a portal. And from this portal, it fell. It was a child of about five years old. Black hair, and pure black eyes. It looked straight at C2323, then at Hikaru, and it spoke. Its voice was not the voice of a child... It was a dark voice of pure corruption which made the walls of the church shake.

"You awoke me. Now, you must pay the price."

The child crouched into a ball and an aura of darkness began to surround him. Anisa and Matt jumped up, realizing what was happening. Anisa started to run towards the boy, but Matt yelled out, "NO!"

It was too late. As soon as Anisa was near the boy, the portal behind him absorbed her whole. Matt looked at the others and yelled out, "LET'S GO! I'LL EXPLAIN EVERYTHING, BUT WE HAVE TO GET OUT OF HERE!"

He prepared a portal of his own, pure white -- just like the snow outside -- which led back to the hot-tub, but before anyone could enter it, a wave of pure darkness began to spread out from the boy. All Matt could manage was, "GRAB A HOLD OF SOMETHING! ANYTHING! AND HOLD ON TIGHT!"

And C2323 did just that, grabbing ahold of the pew he was sitting on and grasping it for dear life.

[Queen Bright]

Hikaru immediately jumped up and grabbed hold of one of the rafters of the ceiling in the church, lifting herself up onto the wooden beam and hugging herself to it.

[Gaserlake]

Gaserlake closed the book, and jumped up, and grabbed hold of the rafter, and hugged it tight.

[K2]

Matt grabbed onto something as well -- and just in time, too. The darkness grabbed ahold of C2323, Matt, Hikaru, and Gaserlake. It tried to pull them towards the little boy. It tried really hard... And C2323 gave in. His hand slipped from the pew... And he found himself being absorbed into the very essence of the boy... But he fought back, grabbing ahold of something -- another pew. He was halfway between the darkness that enveloped the boy and the church. He saw for a moment what existed inside the darkness.

...It was Era Valley. If C2323 allowed himself to be absorbed by the boy, he'd be back at Era Valley. He called out to the others, "Let go!"

And he let himself be absorbed.

http://shatteredplanes.com/index.php?topic=2421.new#new

[Queen Bright]

"ARE YOU INSANE?!" Hikaru called out to C2323 before he was absorbed. Nevertheless, she followed suite and released her hold on the rafter, letting herself be pulled into the portal of darkness as well. All the while thinking in the back of her mind, that she had a really bad feeling about this.

[Gaserlake]

Gaserlake saw what Hikaru and C2 did, so he let go of the rafter, yet held on tightly to the book, and let himself fall to be absorbed in to the portal of darkness.

[K2]

Matt, on the other hand, didn't dare let go of his post. Lucky for him, the boy disappeared and everything went back to normal...

Of course, it wasn't lucky for anyone who happened to be in the Era Valley then and there.