Gilbert Summers
Location: Tunnels (Cairo, Egypt: October 6th, 1924) ->
?Skills: N/A
Curiosity on their situation still burned within Gilbert, even though their situation was painfully dire. Seeing Peter begin to dissolve was unexpected. Shocking even. He was vanishing in the same manner of their surroundings, though on a slightly different timetable. Maybe this was part of what Siduri was explaining earlier, in the way that she really ever
explained anything. Peter's presence was temporary. Maybe this was the inevitability of his existence, to fade out again. It might be a mercy as compared to the last way that he died. Check that, the last
two ways that he died. That must be rough. In his own history, Gilbert only remembered dying once. But did he really? So many questions. Here was one: Being as the Emendators were unique in the timelines, were they immune to this phenomenon? Or was their presence more directly involved with it?
His fascination with new experiences was usually centered around Humanity, its changing faces and capacity for both amazing acts of cruelty and decency. Their spirit of innovation. Their capacity to survive. It was extremely admirable to the ancient Emendator, as was their ability to give the whole of their short, precious lives to a single concept, even if it was given all at once. But more to the point, this new experience and the observations that he took from it, if happening everywhere and at every time, meant the abrupt and dramatic abbreviation of that which he appreciated most of all in creation. Or even more to the point,
he couldn't sit back and do nothing about it. Once upon a time, before Gilbert was a mentor to fledgling Paradoxes, before he was a history professor, he was a warrior. The eternal soldier, first and last warrior-king of his people. He looked down to the old Winchester rifle in his hands and slowly placed it into the case on his back as the others said their goodbyes to Peter and James. Gilbert locked eyes with Peter as he faded to nothingness, giving him an expression that only one soldier would recognize in another. It expressed that he wasn't done yet. Mission is not over. This continues, the circumstances be damned. To James, who was never technically a soldier but who had lived in the company of them, surviving where so many of them had failed only to die from sheer, dumb luck, he gave what encouragement he could.
"You are a good and decent man, James. I cannot claim to know what is happening to you. Perhaps your disappearance means you are the one being spared whatever affects the rest of us. I promise, I will do what I can from my vantage to repair this." He glanced down at the knife at James's side,
"I made that myself. I was going to keep it as my personal tool, but it looks better with you. Good luck, James Mandingo Grady. Our paths will cross again." Gilbert stepped toward the portal, bracing for whatever was on the other side of it. He adjusted the fedora on his head, took a breath and stepped forward. The last thing Gilbert said as he stepped through the portal was a nonchalant,
"I still owe you for that slap."
James Grady
Location: Tunnels (Cairo, Egypt: October 6th, 1924) -
? Skills: N/A
Well, today was not ending like he figured it was going to. Hindsight was a total bitch sometimes. Not like he had much of a choice in the matter. I mean, a full-grown apocalypse taking the form of time and space swirling together like someone crammed the entire, big ball of wibbly wobbly, timey wimey
stuff into a Cuisinart and kept hitting Frappe every now and again, while they sat tenuously on a big chunk of carrot or something that hadn't quite been sucked down into the blades as of yet (though with the knowledge that it was going down like a drunken prom date really goddamn soon) was most assuredly not something that he could of predicted, nor done anything about if he could have. Yeah, like he was going to use all of his
Major Piggy Power to deflect the obliteration of the popular concept of reality. James was an optimist most of the time. Not a moron.
Still, the pretty pale lady gave him a kiss. As silly and as minuscule an event as that seemed in the grand scheme of things, that little gesture meant a great deal to him. It was actually comforting in the face of his possible, very likely erasure from existence. If nothing else, it sure as hell was a good feeling to go out on. Then she apologized to him. For what? For leaving him there? No, it'd be stupid not to. The last thing he wanted was for Andromeda to stick around out of some sense of camaraderie or loyalty or friendship, or whatever it was that motivated her to show him the first piece of tactile kindness that anyone had in a long, long while, and get caught up in what was happening. He'd shove her through the portal first.
"Naw girl, don't you be sorry 'bout nothin'. You get on outta here 'fore it gets worse on e'body." He smiled sadly as more of him became vanished from perception.
"Thank you, Miss Andy." His voice was distant but heartfelt.
To Sophia, he gave a firm nod and responded,
"Whatever's goin' down ain't just about me. Y'all need to work on that first. Might even help me out if you do. Bye now, Miss Sophia. You get a move on." So it came to pass that the last of their group was either taken by the same force that was fracturing their world, or had gone through the portal that The Watch had opened. He regarded the portal, and remembered the words of encouragement from Gilbert, who had introduced a new idea into the mix - What if the ones who were being left in this crumbing world were the victims, and those disappearing were being spared? Or was Gilbert just saying this to give him hope in his last moments? James pondered this, looking at the glowy, uncertain portal.
Then it came to him - If he sat here and did
nothing, he was going to disappear. If he did
something and failed, then he was going to disappear. Still, if he tried
something, there was a chance, however tiny, that something good would happen. Stupid as it was, probably with a worse chance of hitting a state lottery three times in a row, it was still better odds than meekly accepting it. James was a lot of things. Meek was not one of them.
"Aw, HELL naw," he exclaimed, crouching to spring into action even as more of him was blown away by an unseen force. Maybe if he got away from the environment he was dissipating into, he could avoid this. Maybe he could help out his friends. He might even survive. That was it. James took a sprint at the portal with a roaring, blackneck battle-cry of,
"Here I come, muthafuckas!" It was truly an epic sight of Samuel L. Jackson-ian proportions.
The last of him evaporated into the ether of the universe when he was mere inches from the portal. It remained unknown whether or it would have saved him, obliterated him, or done nothing at all. Not even his signature cowboy's stetson remained to show that he was ever there at all.
