Shadow Eternity HQ: Giorno's office Kiba didn't have any questions whatsoever and as he was about to leave, two others came in, both young women. One is pink-haired wielding a gauntlet weapon of sorts, and the other having green hair. The pink-haired one was barking something about a retreat order. Kiba really couldn't care less, but then his co-worker drew his blade and pointed it at the pink-haired girl's neck. Now things were getting interesting. However, Kiba did nothing. This sort of place doesn't lend itself well to all-out brawls, though he can settle for watching others fight for amusement. Then it got even more interesting, with the green-haired one pointing a spear at his co-worker's neck in response. The one giving out the mission reacted as well by projecting some sort of ghostly humanoid construct. Kiba's co-worker settled down after a few moments, and said his piece. Kiba then says in an amused tone, "I can't believe I happened to be the calm one here." He then turns and leaves the office, heading for his quarters to get his battle gear. The mission is supposed to keep casualties to a minimum, which usually isn't the kind of assignments he's given, though it's still better than nothing. He also couldn't shake the feeling that it might be more interesting than it first sounded.

"A peasant with a house... he'd have straw or scrap wood, I'd imagine." Guts said, trying to remember any slums he'd seen. "And resurrection? Resurrection is impossible, plain and simple. If it were, I imagine I'd have heard a rumor by this point." "And trolls..." Guts said, remembering the time he'd had to fight a large bunch. They were nasty beats. "They're these big, hairy guys with oversized noses that smell like garbage, feces, and smegma. Use simple weapons, like cudgels and spears. They attack in packs, and kidnap and rape women to breed. I can't remember what they eat. Mostly meat, I guess." Guts shrugged. At least they were fun to cut loose with.

Bernd, surprisingly enough, was not horribly shaken by what he heard of Guts' world's trolls. His stay in that creepy old rural town deep in the Black Forest certainly contributed to Bernd's jaded nature, and his tour of duty in Shadow Eternity had contributed even moreso. He simply nodded, and mentally calculated some general coordinates. "Alright, so I'm thinking that's... Timeline laterality Mid-Norman, fantasy literality Lovecraft, and grimdark depth... oh Christ, that's gotta be close to Forty-Kay. Alright, champ. Once Silverback over there is done with those security guards, we should be able to get you back home to whatever pile of crap and sticks you call a home. Of course, we're still looking for help. Think about it: good pay, shore leave is the best you can find across the multiverse, and you can get paid to sit on your ass all day if you befriend one of Ofdensen's boys! I can say it'd be a lot better than dealing with the Rape Je-" Bernd cleared his throat. He had to remember that, even in a world that most likely never had more than one culture or religion, political correctness was important. "Ahem, I mean... the trolls. Anyway, yeah... you'd have a lot more fun and a lot more money if you helped us out, even just for this mission!"

Cliff, for his part, decided that trying to avoid doing what was technically his job, after being told to do it by a group of armed men who clearly knew what they were doing, was probably not a good call. He had to think about it for a bit, including ways he could avoid walking into the death trap facility, but eventually decided that screaming about diarrhea and running off wasn't going to work this time. While he pondered this, the team made their way in and began clearing rooms, so Cliff decided to play uh...rear guard. Yeah. That was definitely what hanging around the back while everyone else went into the unexplored rooms was called. Trying to make it look like he also knew what he was doing, he produced his gun, which still looked way too decorated and old to actually be used as a weapon, and stood with his back to a corner so that nothing could get in or out without him catching it. Unless it was invisible. Or faster than him. Then they had problems. Speaking of problems, he poked his head out into the parking lot. "Hey, I'm not going in here if bathrobes doesn't".

I felt like I had absolutely no breath after five minutes. I collapsed, taking in deep gulps of cool breath, laying on the grass. "PSI... Healing..." I choke out, and I feel my lungs swell with oxygen. I get back up, and look back at Boney, seeing him run with me and occasionally stop and bark loudly. "No! Boney, shh! Please!" I say, picking him up and continuing to run. After I felt like I was safe, I looked back to see that the man who came out of the spacecraft had gotten some vehicle, and chased after me the whole way. I see him get out, and I get in a fighting stance, and Boney gets ready to bite. "I do not wish to fight!" they say. "Boy, I need to ask you to come with me. You've seen things that no one else should ever know," he says. I stare at him with discomfort, and he shows me some type of badge. I hesitate to go with him, but I eventually walk, taking Boney with just in case he tried to attack me. He takes me back to the spacecraft, and asks me a few questions. "So, what do you think you just saw?" he asks, and I stay silent to the stranger. "... Well?" he asks, and I say "An invasion," and he continues to interrogate me. He leaves for a second, and talks to someone, and comes back. "Since you're the first to see in this universe, and since we don't want you to 'spill the beans' about what's happened, we need to take you back to Yggdrasil. Otherwise you're a possible threat if someone who knows what's going on gets a hold of our technology. If that happens, quite a lot of people are in danger," he says. We get going back to this 'Yggdrasil' place, and I looked around. The people who practically just kidnapped me from my own universe, I guess, lead me into some room. "Fill this paper out. When you're done, ring this bell. If you decline, just fill out the single box and ring the bell," he says, handing me some paper. Boney jumped out, biting him, and I grab him back mid-jump, and they talk about the dog being a possible problem. I look down at this form or whatever. Do you want to be an Agent of the Unified Multiversal Moderation Agency? [√]Yes [ ]No Do you swear to keep this agency a secret to your home universe? [√]Yes [ ]No What is your age? 15 Yrs Do you have any special abilities? [√]Yes [ ]No If so, what are they? Psychic Abilities Do you work alone, or with a partner? [ ]Alone [√]With a partner Do you have any health problems or diseases? []Yes [√]No Are you fit to disable or if necessary kill any hostiles? [√]Yes []No After about 3 more pages of those sort of questions, I rang the bell, and they came back and took my forms. They gave me a phone-type device and then I was let out, and led to some sort of bay or hub to where I needed to go to get back to my universe, but... no matter where I looked, I couldn't see any place where I could get back to my own universe. How long did approval take for those forms? What did it mean by hostiles and attackers? Who would be my partner? ... I guess I would need to wait and find out once I was contacted via this special phone-like device they gave me.

Hampus the Red snapped out of his stress-induced stupor, and dumbly nodded at Clifford. Stumbling to his feet, Hampus headed back to the warehouse. With each step, he regained some consciousness and, with it, some of his personality. He knew deep inside that failure to obey orders would result in some punishment, but his wizardly instincts told him that this did not matter. By the time he and Clifford had entered the facility, Hampus was back to his old safe. Striding down the stairway, Hampus brusquely stepped into the main hallway and looked at the small assortment of idle soldiers there. Turning to David Leatherhoff, he snapped, "You, there! What are you doing?" David Leatherhoff, recognizing a VIP by their complete inability to dress sensibly, remained courteous yet authoritative. "Current status is waiting for further developments, sir. SOP is to wait for each soldier to clear their rooms before regrouping and continuing. Considering current intel, I would suggest rendezvousing with Private Mcdonalds. He should be through the door just over there." David pointed to a door that had been rather clumsily busted open in the furthest rightmost corner of the room. Hampus headed through the doorway just as Arby's Mcdonalds busted down the Chief of Security's door and ran through. Inside was nothing but an array of monitors, a nice mahogany desk, and a pleather office chair. Arby's, immensely disappointed by the lack of guns, porn, and beer in the room, headed back to the main hallway in disgust, leaving Hampus and Clifford to their own devices.

"I don't care about money. Use your magic or whatever it is, wizard." Guts said, wrapping his cloak around himself. This place was cold. His feet hurt. He wondered what Griffith was doing. Probably God Hand stuff. He took a deep breath. He hoped that the boat would at least be done sailing.

Bernd sighed. Well, that was that for his recruitment commission. "Alright, buddy. Well, we might have enough juice to port you out of here before the mission's end. C'mon, follow me to Pod 1." Striding purposefully, Bernd moved to a seed-shaped drop pod, and cracked the hatch open. Inside was a hefty harness with a massive back-slung generator and a pair of hideously oversized gilded skull-shaped pauldrons. Bernd slung the harness over Guts' shoulders, and locked the pauldrons in place. Bernd then pressed a series of small buttons on a display situated on the harness's chestpiece. A scrolling wall of textual coordinates and calculations filled the chestpiece's display, as the generator rumbled ominously. "Alright, this thing is your ticket out of here. I've already pinpointed what is probably your world, so don't fucking touch that thing from now on, okay? When you get back home, I'm gonna need you to throw this thing in the sea, because it's going to cause a hell of a lot of problems for you otherwise. When you're ready to go, just stick your fingers in both your shoulder-skulls' noseholes. Okay?"

"What, like this?" Guts asked, experimentally tapping on the chest piece. The harness whirred, and with a flash of electricity, his entire form was ripped apart on a molecular level and whisked away in a torrent of energy and despair.

Bernd, not paying much attention, continued. "Oh, and keep in mind that, thanks to the depth of grimdarkness we're dealing with, you'll technically be sent through The Warp. Now, that thing has a Gellar Field, but if you aren't careful, you'll have something nasty clinging onto you." Bernd turned around, and saw Guts disappearing in a flash of light. After a brief moment of introspection on the ethicality of giving medieval rubes advanced technology, he shrugged and exited the pod. Well, he thought, I bet Silverback's doing better with his charges. I should go check up on them.

Guts sped through the dimension at the speed of thought, trying to push away the sight of ridiculously large beasts lurking through the distance. Even Schierke's magics hadn't done this, yet. Then again, she was about ten, so she was probably an amateur wizard. Guts looked down at the panel, thinking he could make these pauldrons fly faster. Experimentally, he tapped a button. Sparks and electricity flew from his body as a giant eye blinked open. Even from this distance, it was many times as wide as his body was long. With a moan like a thousand cries of agony, a maw of jagged fangs engulfed Guts, swallowing him. ---------------------------- Guts was falling, surrounded on all sides by a wall of muscle. A pit was closing in; Guts knew he has to slow his descent. Pulling out his sword, he thrust the blade into the side of the beast's esophagus, rapidly slowing him until he was near the bottom; as it dragged along, a torrent of greasy blackish red liquid spilled out in gallons, splattering everywhere. Pushing the wall, his bladed left the sheet of muscle, and he dropped onto the top of a long, yellow machine. It appeared to be hollow, and was carried by odd looking wheels. Guts dropped down and looked inside the carriage; its occupants had left some time ago, leaving behind only a few dull red stains. As he looked around, he saw this area was like a huge pit, crowded with boats and crafts, ones that appeared to be from different eras. All were rotted, as if they'd been there for some time. Guts resisted the urge to gag as a wet, pungent stench filled his nostrils. "Oh, thank the Emperor! A human! Listen, you gotta help me!" a voice cried out. Looking behind him, a man in skull-decorated armor approached, bleeding as he stumbled from the wreckage of some leviathan craft. "Listen, you gotta... gotta...." he moaned, stumbling and tripping into a green puddle. He began screaming in pain and flailing around, his skin turning red as chunks of flesh turned to paste and fell from his body. His face was only a skull with one eye partially melted as he reached a single, dissolving hand towards the black swordsman, then fell to the ground, as the man became silent. Forever. Guts knelt by the body, examining it as it dissolved. "Stomach, huh." he said, standing back up. Guts walked between crafts, and began to explore this new territory.

-Lucas- After seeing there was no specific pod that led me back to the Nowhere Islands, I walked around this place, and saw the word 'RESTAURANT' spelled out above a door. I wasn't feeling particularly hungry, but a quick snack wouldn't hurt. I walked inside of the room, and went to the counter, getting a chair and standing atop it since I was too short to actually see over the counter. I looked at the menu, and I took out some money I had, and decided I wanted... hm... a chocolate bar, and an omelet. I was about to order everything, but whoever was running it was hiding behind the counter. After they got back up, I ordered what I wanted, and I pulled the chair back, and sat down at the table that I took the chair from, and waited for my meal to be done. I looked at the other people in the room, and they looked like they were just attacked, and then I see some people taking carcasses away. I look around, and ask the first person I saw what happened, and they said "Someone attacked the restaurant, and a few people died," and I look at some bodies. "Wow," I say. I get my meal and then begin eating. After I finish snacking, I walked back out to the escape pod bay, and I asked someone who looked like they knew something about the pods. "If you're trying to get home, you should probably board a vessel rather than using one of these. These are for emergency, not for getting home," they say. "Well, where can I find a vessel, and how do I know where they go?" I ask, and he escorts me to the vessels. "Just ask the captain on where they're planning to go," he says, and I looked around. I looked at the captain of the vessel, and I was about to ask him where it went, but I instead left, back to the restaurant district from feeling shy. I sat at the table, thinking of what to do, since I didn't know how to get back to the Nowhere Islands.

Guts entered a large building partially submerged in mucous and meat. Prying open the airlocks, he stepped inside a ruined corridor, covered in blood and human remains. Looking carefully, a few still seemed to be wearing color coded outfits. Guts could only imagine what carnage took place in these desecrated halls. Judging from how the building was sealed off, these men did this to themselves, he realized. A small black stick gave off a bright beam of light. Guts grabbed it, and walked further into the depths. Graffiti covered the walls, speaking of things that were gibberish to Guts. One name stood out to him as it seemed to be praised like a deity. The words were smudged, but Guts could at least make out H**k**t*er. The hairs on his neck stood on end. Guts had seen some terrible things, but this place just gave off an air of depravity and insanity. The atmosphere here was saturated with a robust feeling of dread. Guts backed out of the building quickly, discarding the light-stick as he ventured back out into the humid, sticky atmosphere of the creature's belly. ------------------ After another short while of walking, Guts came upon a few more piles of bones. Whatever this stomach acid was, it seemed to only digest meat. The corpses were varied; differing highly in clothing and items. Some were large and clad in emerald colored armor, one wore a sweater and pleated skirt, with pink pigtails. Yet another set of bones crumbled out of a red shirt and sandals. Guts walked past them, and into a crumbling 50s burger joint. Leaning over the counter to make sure nothing was hiding, he took a seat on one of the red-cushioned stools, heaving a sigh. There were papers on these counters, depicting bread and meats mixed together. Guts' stomach growled. Even in a place as rancid as this, he couldn't neglect eating if he wanted to keep moving. For now, that would be his next goal.

Jericus "Ing" Ignace Client World 576143290-B Thinking over what the young girl had said and the condition of the city above them. He came to conclusion that the coffin must have a stasis field of sorts to keep the girl alive inside the coffins for a long time. But that raised more questions who would go to to such lengths to dig it out? Those questions would have to answered later but for now trying to find a way off this planet is the priority. "It would better if we get out of here in case we get ambushed so we aren't trapped in a pit." The guardsman said in agreement to kiss-shot before making his way over to the lift. "By the way what is your name?" he asked the girl in the coffin.

Samus Aran - UMMA Hunter-Class Starship Samus Aran's starship comes to a sudden slow place as her ship comes right out from hyper-speed. It didn't take too long for her to get from the space station to the location where the UMMA Vessel Tanngrisnir is currently. She checks around the area, looking for any sign of hostile activity. Yet nothing hostile or unidentified signals come up. "Hmmm..." Samus wonders to herself as she rubs her chin, "Looks like they managed to drive them off." Soon another being comes into the cockpit. This one was a large mechanical being, just several feet higher then Samus and barely able to get his body in the doorway. This is Swerve, a previous Autobot member, now currently Samus' partner and technician. "Awwwww man!" Swerve whines with a sigh as he crawls his way slowly towards the front, "They didn't wait for us. I wanted to help kick some enemy butt!" "Better then having the whole ship being overrun by enemy forces." the bounty hunter replied with the same tone, "Contacting the Tanngrisnir now." After pressing a few buttons she then contacts the UMMA Vessel. "Come in Tanngrisnir. This is Samus Aran, UMMA Bounty Hunter. Requesting to dock."

Hampus looked around the room, staring at the monitors and desks. When he saw how the monitors showed live feeds to various rooms, he smiled and turned to Clifford Nobles. "You, there! It seems this room is a scrying chamber. Search these cupboards," Hampus said, motioning to the fine wooden desks, "and I will try to glean some information from these portals." Hampus stared at the monitors, trying to make sense of them. Several showed people wearing SE uniforms, obviously the entry team. Others showed zombies and BOW's milling about amidst scenes of carnage. Only a few actually seemed to show live scientists and security guards, and most of them seemed to be cowering. However, one monitor showed something interesting. The room looked hideously barren, being a concrete peninsula surrounded by a pitch-black void. What possible purpose it could show was unknown, but there were two rather interesting figures in it. One of them was a straight-laced man wearing a labcoat and a goatee. He looked rather nervous. The other was a bank of consoles attached to a colossal monitor. On the monitor was a solid red triangle with the letters RED QUEEN emblazoned in black in the middle of it. Hampus, often considered a genius for his time, was able to read the letters. He smiled, and shouted at Clifford. "Oi! I found the Red Queen! Look here!" he said, pointing fervently at the monitor showing Richard Simmons and the Red Queen.

X tirelessly tapped at a holographic keyboard inside the UMMA's HQ, Yggdrasil, more specifically the massive computer laboratory. Ever since the last of Sigma's attacks, the Jacob project incident, X had found much more time on his hands than he was used to. With his spare time he had managed to establish a city called Neo Arcadia, Abel city rebuilt and renamed, who's purpose was to be a safe haven for Human's and Reploids alike. The city soon became self sufficient, and established it's own council consisting of an equal numbers of reploid and human. With his life goal seemingly completed X decided to leave the protection of the world to his allies Zero and the Maverick Hunters, and establish himself in the UMMA a larger more important organization with the hope of establishing peace everywhere. Still in the computer lab in Yggdrasil X was currently trying to work with the mechanics on site to setup the proper equipment for his long term maintenance, on the side however he would pull up various report windows from Zero about Neo Arcadia, or recent reports about the Tanngrisnir; one of the UMMA's ships that had recently seen some action. X was tempted to transfer himself there to help, but with the situation over he felt no need. Sending off a couple more orders for parts X began to close out the windows and lean back into his chair, this time he decided to go through some of the more recent reports again.

Cliff did as he was told, not because he actually wanted to obey Hampus but because he'd found gold coins in a guard's back pocket. Well, golden coins. He now realized he had no way of knowing whether they were actually gold at all. Could just be a bunch of shiny, worthless souvenirs that guy Strudwick wanted to bring home to the family or whatever. But he really, really hoped they were gold. He was pretty sure they were. And if some lowly guard had (potentially) gold coins, then he might find some more good loot lying around, up for grabs. He began rifling through the desks' drawers, tossing aside a few half-used boxes of ammunition for assorted low-caliber firearms. Nope. No loot. All he had to show for his ransacking was a file several pages long titled "Emergency Procedure: overriding Red Queen and assuming direct control". It was strangely simple and easy to understand. No "encripshon" or whatever. It was only long because someone had decided to write the instructions down in huge bold letters he suspected the shortsighted would be able to see no problem. Apparently, all they had to do was descend through the "Looking Glass", access 3 "security terminals" to retrieve the parts of the "Pawn Key", then take that to the "Promotion Chamber" to turn it into the Queen Key, then use that in the Queen Core to access a manual override. Huh. Well that sounded easy. "Hey. Hey guys! I found something good, come read this thing!" he screamed, waving the papers about.

Though neither Hampus nor Arby's had the know-how to understand such eldritch things as "Pawns" or "override", Arby's fortunately left his headset on at all times. Though it normally filled the platoon's ears with uncomfortably-moist breathing, this time it just barely picked up what Clifford was screaming. "Didn't catch that, Arby's," Jack Morgan spoke, "please repeat." "I didn't said nuthin'!" Arby's Mcdonalds tactfully replied, "fuckin cowboy dickhead's yelling!" Jack Morgan sighed. Dealing with Arby's was always a chore, but he blundered into the mission objectives often enough to investigate whenever he said something. "Private Pious, please investigate what Private Mcdonalds has found." Pious, himself no stranger to dealing with the terminally addled, nodded. "On it, sir. This had better not be a dead cat like last time, Idiocrat." Pious traced Arby's steps back to the Chief of Security's office, and noticed Clifford Nobles waving a stack of papers around. Deciding that he would be a better conversation partner, Pious approached Clifford Nobles. "Pardon me, sir. Do you have any new intel? My comrade has reported in that you were particularly excited by something."

Subaru Nakajima, Yggdrasil medical centre

Subaru rubbed the back of her head. "Eheh, I wish we were unbeatable." She said, chuckling. "As with any tool, success depends on the skill of the user. Luckily, my Master is very skilled." "Of course you'd say that, Mach Caliber." Subaru laughed sheepishly, patting the pendent lightly before turning back to Aura. "Oh, it's alright, I get that too! The UMMA worlds are a lot more diverse than I was expecting! Most of the TSAB's planets used to be Belkan colonies, so it's been cool to see something different!"

"Sounds like your world has a lot of... worlds, itself," Aura chuckled, "Well, unbeatable or not, I'm glad you're here to help us! And don't be afraid to visit, even just for a papercut!" With a few taps of the keys, Subaru's information was hidden from view. She could peruse that at her leisure. Right now, it was time for... trust building between the two. "So! Mach Calibur, was it? You're sentient?" she asked the pendant, raising three fingers, can you see how many fingers I'm holding up?" All she had to do was poke with innocent questions, and rarely did Aura come away with nothing. In her experience, people were all too willing to bare their soul for an innocent little healer with a cute face. The sheer amount of gullible idiots in the universe was staggering, but much appreciated.

With a bow, Eternal went on his way out. ---- Eternal stood outside Giorno's office as song as he noticed that the mobster was busy with other people. Eternal stood with his back on the wall, waiting for an opportunity to enter and express his desires to help on the mission.