revivalproject | Quake (volume i)

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Quake (volume i)

WHO: Come one, come all!
WHERE: Temba, southeast corner, very close to the mine entrance...
WHAT: Well, that's the question you're here to answer. Something very strange has happened to the...earth?
WHEN: Beginning of September
WARNINGS: None? I don't think. This might make you anxious if you're really sensitive to natural disasters.
NOTES: This is intended to be a mingle, though if you want to seek Tony out, you know where to find him. There is a solvable mystery at hand, so if you want to roll an investigation check with me to see what your character might pick up on that I didn't think to include, you can send me a message.

The first tremor had been subtle enough that Tony thought it might have been the wind, glancing up from where he was curled over the workbench at the sigh of a shower of dust knocked loose from the stones above him. It drifted down through the workshop gently, otherwise undisturbed, no breeze cutting through the forge from the door to the window in the early morning stillness. The incongruity didn't capture his attention, and he bent back down as the sun crept up over the horizon and the incident was easily forgotten in the passing day.

It was dark again by the time the second tremor came. It still wasn't strong, this time making Tony pause his work with the distinct sense of thunder rumbling at a distance, the threat of a storm a few miles out. This time, he held his breath and listened, then stepped outside the door to try to spot the clouds, quench bucket weighing him down at one side so he could tell himself that was all he had come out here for, and he wasn't being paranoid. The sky was clear, an easy, evening breeze making the tall grass sway, and the stars winked back at him over the treeline and between the hulking shadows of the empty city. Tony dumped the bucket, splattering the road before the forge with ash-grey water and went slinking back inside with an irritable frown.

The third rattled a pair of tweezers off of his bench. The tools hanging above the surface shivered in place, and the armor swinging from the catwalk brushed against its disparate parts to ring softly like windchimes. It was early morning again, shockingly still and quiet as the nocturnal creatures that sang in the woods behind the forge retired, and before the songbirds woke, and after the rumble had swept through the forge and the tweezers came to rest, there was only Tony's voice: "What...?"

Some distance away, far enough where Tony's voice didn't reach and he couldn't hear it as the roots of a sturdy tree cracked and the whole trunk went crashing to the side, barely caught in the limbs of the serene plants around it, the forest floor began to sink. Slowly, inexorably, it drew in first the stones and the dead leaves littering the ground; flowers and small bushes, and a beetle's nest, all just going down into the earth, swallowed between soft grains, smoothly and silently. Branches above shattered and broke as the sturdy tree was drawn downwards, shaking pines and sticks free to swiftly disappear, until the trees couldn't hold up the trunk any further, and it slipped away like it hadn't been standing in that very spot for decades. The remaining woods stood around the site in a ragged circle, watchful and unmoving.

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Steve was interested in at least checking out the mines, nevermind what concerns people might have about his lungs there. He wouldn't be there for long and, after all, there had been literal kids in there and Billy had given him an inhaler. He'd be fine, he was sure. Up until that third tremor shook the ground beneath his feet, right before he'd gotten to the entrance.

Pausing there, Steve heard what sounded like metal and maybe a voice over at the side. Deciding that was maybe smarter (getting cover was always wise in an earthquake), Steve walked into the forge and peered around to see if this was a safe location. The metal and all around didn't give him much confidence.

"Hello?" He called into the place. "Is anyone here? Are you alright?"

The voice was reassuringly familiar enough that Tony didn't immediately respond, nodding to himself where no one else could see as an answer to the question that didn't need to be asked, and flapping a hand to dismiss it so Tony could complete his important hunt. He was waist deep under the workbench, baskets and buckets drawn out all around him like a precarious fort as he searched on his hands and knees for those tweezers, and in the meantime came up with a few nails, a pin that jabbed into the heel of his hand, a whole coating of glitter, and a polished bronze shower tap.

It was only after his nose had stopped being wrinkled in irritation for this distraction that he suddenly jerked upward in realization, knocking his head hard enough on the bench above to make the whole thing rattle, then slouching back on his heels with his dusty, glittery hand held to the bump he was sure he just raised under his hair. It was this grimace of pain that Tony had to unknot as he looked up over the teetering mountain of his supplies to confirm that of course he was crazy, this Steve was long gone, and he just had his wires crossed expecting one of the few voices that intruded on his workshop in his life. It was really late, or--early, whatever.

"Steve...?" The grimace was gone, but Tony was otherwise frozen with a hand to his head, absolutely crazy or sleep deprived. Both. "You're short." He did try very hard to figure out why his brain would produce this quirk at this time. Steve was...far away? And his unconscious mind conspired to reflect that as a trick of perspective.

Steve didn't recognize the voice saying his name. Not unusual, here. There seemed to be more than a few people who knew him from who he grew to be. The comment about him being short just clinched that as what was going on. He smiled a little and walked closer to the strange man. He looked...slightly familiar. Just a little around his face. At the very least he reminded Steve of someone even if he couldn't put his finger on who.

"I don't think that's the most polite greeting," he said finally with a short chuckle. "I take it you're from my future, too, then. But yes. I'm Steve. And yeah, I guess I am short, too, thanks."

At first, Tony recoiled, backing away quickly from this approach of a clearly degenerative sign of his mental health like he could outrun it, only to get as far as falling back onto his ass instead and sending a tower of baskets behind him toppling to the floor. Tony winced, hand still to his head as the sound of the shower of bolts and molds made it throb, but just watched as the notions went rolling away into the dark corners of the forge with a mild pout of irritation. He was definitely awake, then. And this short Steve was not any less tangible.

"You know, listen, I'm working on the polite thing. My mom always did say I got jumpy in the middle of the night when a stranger let himself into my house, you should always try to offer a guest a drink, why are you screaming--never got the hang of it. Which is weird, because usually I'm a very fast learner, and I've been known to enjoy a stranger or two at night." Tony was rambling a bit then, talking quickly and hoping to distract while he eyed Steve with curious suspicion, trying to figure him out now under the premise that was was real. He'd clearly had the chance to come to terms with the strange relationship they all had with time here. "Why didn't you tell me you were here?" Tony knew was unreasonably irritable, and an unfair demand for someone who didn't appear to recognize him, but still. Steve should have.

It was only thanks to Sarah Rogers' amazing parenting that Steve does little more than blink as this stranger babbles at him about...drinks? Strangers? Most of it didn't make sense but Steve didn't think it would do anything productive to point that out. The man was clearly going through something, seeing him like this. Not even Bucky seemed to have such a strong reaction. Or maybe it wasn't strong--just strange.

"I...uh..." He looked understandably confused at the question. "I... I don't actually know who you are, sir? I'm sorry. I know it must be very strange for you, but anyone who knows me from when I'm...bigger... That's my future. I don't know any of you, yet. But I'm glad to meet you?"

While Tony was very rapidly gathering that not only was this Steve real, he was exactly who Tony thought he was if he knew something of his future to come, and also he was not Tony's friend, that didn't make it any less dismal to hear Steve say it out loud. Rendered still again in the middle of the mess he had made, Tony's shoulders drooped with the pitch of his heart into the floor, and he watched Steve with wide, searching eyes like maybe there was a chance he just knew anyway like Tony had known him well before they had ever met, until he gathered the resources to scoop himself up to make it to his feet. He nodded then, flicking a hand through the air to wave away all of that weighty expectation like Tony hadn't just filled the room with it, and insisted, "Of course, no--Hey, pleasure. Tony." He had to navigate out around the still standing boxes to offer a hand to shake, and in that moment he thought maybe he just wouldn't give Steve his full name and they wouldn't have that shadow lurking between them for once, but not only was that a very unfair advantage, it didn't actually help Tony much. He could still see his dad out of the corner of his eye. "Stark," he finished sharply, shoulders tense for a brief inhale, but quickly easing for a disarming smile.

Stark.

Steve could see it, then. He could see the resemblance around the eyes. In how his face looked. Even a little in his voice. Steve was still shaking Tony's hand as the realization washed over him and his brain started to spin with all it signified. Tony Stark. Tony Stark who knew him when he was on the serum which meant it was in Steve's future. Far in the future, likely. He could figure out what that meant very quickly from there.

"Howard. You...you're Howard's...son?" He could be a nephew or a cousin or any number of other relations but Steve could see the lab scattered around them. The tech. He felt in his bones that the first assumption he jumped to was correct.

This was Howard's son.

Tony only had a moment to bite his tongue, smile dropping and forcing him to tuck his chin to his chest to recover it in a way that he tried to play off as a nod, Howard, yeah, straight to the man himself, because as awkward as that was for Tony, he was very immediately aware that the Howard this Steve knew wouldn't be much older than Tony was now. He had already basically been through this with Steve. It wasn't a painless process.

"Hey, uh--good news," he was very prepared to lead this time, hand out to halt any spiralling before he got this one out of the way, "Bucky's here, so, you know, you're in this together." If he could have said that to the Captain America coming out of the ice, he was pretty sure by now that the transition would have been shockingly smooth and they would have both settled in comfortably to the future, no mournful wandering of alleys at night calling out Bucky's name. "Two of them, even, an absolute embarrassment of choices." Tony cleared his throat then, realizing that Steve must have known this pretty well, if someone was already telling him what was in store in his future. "Better news," he pushed on before Steve thought he had to tell him that, "my old man was the beta test, I'm the full release, you won't believe the upgrades, bleeding edge stuff. Go ahead, ask me anything, my math is impeccable."

Steve can't help but smile at the jokes. He hadn't known Howard well or for long so there isn't much he can do to compare the two of them. As it is, Tony seems alright. Even if he's just dropped a piece of information Steve hadn't known about and which sets a rock into his stomach.

"There's two Bucky? I met one on the train to that other town but I haven't seen another one." He frowned, wondering why that was the case. He'd been walking around a bit but hadn't even seen someone who vaguely looked like his old friend. Had they just been missing each other all this time?

Steve shook himself out of the thoughts, realizing it was rude to focus on someone else in the middle of meeting Tony. The idea of two Bucky's being here would be something to deal with later.

"Either way... I am glad to meet the...um. Upgrade, you called it?" He smirked at the wording. "You remind me of him, a little. I can see the resemblance." It's mostly a compliment when he said that.

Alright, that was something of a misfire. Who had been telling Steve the fantastical details of his future, but not what to expect planetside? Tony's surprise at this revelation was obvious in the raise of his eyebrows, but he still managed to quickly chatter, "Yeah, two, I told you my math was good, I can even count. Very high level future stuff. You should get a better tour guide, let me show you around."

Usually when Steve insulted him, it was far more pointed or came with a right hook, so Tony grimaced and sucked a deep breath through his teeth, trying that same nod again to come up with a smile. "He taught me well," he agreed. "He, uh, talked about you a lot. You made a big impression. When we finally met--meet--It's ten years back for me now--" Tony took another breath, brow furrowed, realizing that talking about this like this Steve and the one back on Earth were the same person was not functional. "I've been here for a while, and haven't figured out how to make this kind of thing not weird. D'you want a drink? I've got some tea here, which is a nightmare, but you're out here wandering around at the crack of dawn..."

"Tea would be nice, thank you."

Steve walked closer trying to avoid anything that was fallen over or looked particularly dangerous. Which. Actually, that reminded him...

"Were you alright after the earthquake? That was what I originally came in to check about. I haven't been here for long so I'm not sure if that was a new occurrence or something you're all used to around here, but it definitely shook me up." New York didn't have many earthquakes to speak of so it was definitely not something he was used to.

"I think I remember reading that there are aftershocks that occur... At least on Earth."

Tony was already flapping his hands to dismiss the question, interrupting, "Of course, always," as he searched through the mess he had just made for a bowl that very much did not look like it was meant for preparing food, which he took away to fill with water anyway. When he came padding back, it was with a thoughtful pout and he reported, "It was definitely new, but, come to think of it, it might have been an aftershock itself..."

He locked his bowl of water in what looked like a long pair of tongs to shove directly into the fire, where it immediately started to steam and Tony abandoned it to fight for its life as he planted his hands on his hips and considered Steve again. "I think there might have been another one, earlier tonight. I thought it might have been thunder at the time. Is that what you're doing down here?"

"I heard some sounds down here. I thought I would check up. Make sure no one was in any trouble."

Which of course he would be useless to help with even if he won't ever admit that. A hundred pounds soaking wet, he would sooner be crushed by a falling box than able to pull one off of someone. But still, he was going to try, damn it. Luckily that didn't seem to be necessary.

"I sure hope that's the last of it. You have a lot of..." He isn't quite sure what to call the stuff in here. "...Things that could probably get broken."

The tea production continued to be entirely inefficient, clearly a rare event as Tony spun around thoughtfully before he seemed to remember where he actually kept the stuff and had to go sauntering across the room again. "Of course you did," he called back as he went, with a private smile to himself. Far be it from Steve to sit idly by.

When he came back with the dusty tin, Tony gave another wave to dismiss, "I've got it entirely under control." The earthquake hadn't even done the most damage; that was Tony knocking over his own crates. "Can't break anything that I can't fix." With the bowl retrieved from the fire and deposited directly onto the workbench, glowing and steaming with heat, he dumped an arbitrary amount of the dried herbs into the water, looking satisfied with himself. "There's not a lot of us down here, in this part of the city. Across the way, in that factory, there's that little gal--Moonshade, with the big dog. And further on, Catra's got a bed set up. If you're worried about trouble, keeping an eye on people, most of them are closer to the centre of town."

The snapping noises should have been the first indicator of things not going the way they normally did around the city.

It was an old city overrun by nature, after all. Although it brought back a heightened level of awareness, Echo figured things were still in the process of settling. If not, it could be any of the existing fauna messing with the scenery. Or, in the manner of a worst-case scenario, another threat barely surfacing.

Maybe it was all three.

That was left up to debate until he saw one of the better trees following through with its crash, easily toppling the others in its wake.

Too easily, in fact. Old, sturdy trees suddenly angling at varying degrees? Now that didn't look right.

Abandoning his previously-set course, The ARC Trooper got closer, eyes widening once he saw that things were still moving and slipping beneath what should be solid ground. Freeing up one hand, he pulled the comm device from his pouch, calling it in like any good soldier would. "If anyone's been wondering, we have some activity going on out here. Several trees have fallen over, and now they're...sinking...into the ground?"

Of course he sounded perplexed. This never happened before. Regret soon took hold of the reins when he realized he stepped past the perimeter, the silt and sand gradually swallowing up his boots in a similar manner. "What the-- " He tried backing up, but it was taking a lot of effort to pull one leg out. ...this isn't good."

Drake happened to have been looking at his communicator already when Echo alerted the network, (He otherwise had started keeping sounds and notifications largely off after realizing that most people were using it to announce parties and post classifieds, although after all that mine nonsense, he might turn notifs back on just for certain channels or people. Whichever he figured out first.) and listened intently to the update up until the word 'sinking,' at which point he stabbed frantically at the video button and started yelling because that's what he does.

"Echo! Get away from there, it's a sinkhole!"

"...isn't good."

"WHERE ARE YOU?"

Asking for directions may not have been the best or most reliable way to find someone in a hurry, but without two extra tablets or preferably at least three seismographs, it seemed like the only available way.

The warning -- well-intended, frantic -- came a little too late.

"In the southeast sector-- "

Unlike Drake's obvious panic, Echo remained close to calm as he could between grunts, tugging his other leg back while he had some purchase. That internal level of panic did rise a bit, however, after taking a second to think about the implications of the question asked.

That was when he glanced back at the device. "--Don't tell me you're thinking about coming down here!"

Too late. Without pausing to answer, curse, or grab his tablet or blaster, Drake was off like a shot. On the way, arms pumping and chest pounding, he sent out another video network post, accidentally holding the communicator like a radio in his haste.

*********

[The feed begins without any introduction or preamble, and Drake isn't in his lab or office. It's hard to tell where he is because the view is shaking and swinging when it isn't a close up of his very focused and urgent face. But at least it's clear that he's running. His voice comes in gasps and fits, because everyone knows it's hard to run and have a chat at the same time, at least if you're more if a thinker than a fighter.]

Mayday mayday, man down, man -gasp- down, man down, southeast -huff- sector, sinkhole activity, assistance needed now! -wheeze, gulp, cough- BRING ROPE.

*********

He had arrived before too long, skidding to a halt when he saw the downed trees and Echo getting pulled in, not wanting to create another victim for someone else to worry about.

"Mate!"

That was all he got out before he had to double get, hands on his knees, to catch his breath.

"I - you - (no, that was too early, he needed two more breaths...) - how fast is it sinking?"

Aeon hadn't been far behind, and the first snapping sounds of foliage had put her on edge, giving her memories of the wild world beyond the walls of Bregnica. Lauri-Ell had assured her none of the plants meant them harm, but that had been on the other side of Temba, and she had no idea if all the species were the same or different. She was looking around for the source of the disturbance while Echo made his call, and turned just a moment too late.

"Echo!"

She fitted the grapple to her gun, looking frantically about for a tree that might still hold their weight. By the time Drake arrived, she had already tried two trees, and both had been thoroughly deceiving.

"I can get him out if I find a good place to anchor my grapple, but ... nothing's stable enough! Can you help?"

Kriff. There was no way to talk Drake out of it. He could hear his device going off again, the network filling with the man's call for help.

Not that Echo was going to be able to get out of it on his own, anyway. He was busy trying to repeat the first two steps, quickly discovering that one foot was sinking in faster than the other. "Oh, come on..."

* * *

With Aeon arriving first, Echo looked up. "Aeon! I'm okay. I'll be okay." The reassurance was for her, still keeping calm as he watched her look for a better place to use her grapple gun. "Stay where you are," came a warning just as soon as Drake literally rushed into the territory. "Don't go past the other trees, stay right there!"

Enough time had past to find the clone's left leg missing up to his knee in what used to be solid ground. His right, mostly at his ankle, was following suit albeit at a different rate since he was working on bringing it back up.

It made for an awkward stance and no real way to even it out, but man was he trying.

"I can't really tell. One spot's shifting faster than the other-- " The filter on his helmet warped the sound that interrupted the brief update; now he was up to his left thigh and right calf, leaning over and automatically bracing himself from falling completely forward.

Drake's head snapped up at the sound of another voice - oh thank heavens! - before looking back to Echo who was sinking at an alarming rate and then back to the woman asking for help.

He held his hands out with his eyes squinched, patting at the air as if the distractions were little fires he was putting out. "Alright, alright, alright, just - just -"

Everything seemed to slow down as possibilities and solutions flooded his mind and got crossed off the list in a fraction of a second:

✗ Telling Echo to relax and distribute his weight evenly wouldn't help because this wasn't quicksand. This was dry earth which would swallow up anything denser than itself.

✗ Dry earth? Was this really a landslide? He didn't think landslides had an epicentre, and they usually pushed things in their path outward.

✗ It was a sinkhole, then, and the best way to survive a sinkhole was to curl in to a ball, but he didn't see an actual hole that Echo might be found at the bottom of once it was all done.

What did he have? Two people, a rope and a hook, and two carabiners in his pocket, but nothing reliably stab-

Wait a moment. Just as soon as he thought they'd have to pull him out hand-over-hand, Drake spotted

✓ a tree with a few roots exposed that was far enough away that it would be a few minutes at least before it was engulfed.

"There! That one! Listen carefully. If we use the tree for an anchor, I can snap on a couple of carabiners, one goes out to him, one goes on another part of the tree, the line goes through them both, three times the mechanical advantage, is the rope long enough for that? Nevermind." Without asking, Drake strung one carabiner to the base of the grappling hook.

"Shoot that out to him, tell him to attach the round bit to himself without taking it off the line, and throw the grappling hook back to you. Once that's done, hook it onto the tree there."

If there was any question about which tree, it was answered when he hooked his other carabiner to a good, ropey looking root with the hope that Aeon's line was long enough to go through it with enough left over for them to pull on. Even if it wasn't, though, twice the advantage was still twice the advantage.

It's an...itch for a lack of a better word, in the Force that keeps the young Jedi glancing towards his communicator from practically the moment he wakes up that morning. The sort of uneasy bad feeling that you usually have to live with and wait, until something becomes more clear. Ezra knows that if he were to inform the network at large every time he had one of those, he'd quickly be the proverbial boy who cried wolf.

He just continues on his morning rounds of chores. Thus, as it happens, he's already walking east towards the glownie paddock when Dr. Riley's call for help comes through. Then he takes off at a full sprint, throwing himself open to whatever else his senses can glean from the Force.

There - yes. Some surprise, urgency, and a little fear. That must be the right direction.

Moments later, he's close enough to spot Echo, the growing sinkhole, and Dr. Riley and Aeon.

"I-I can lift him," Ezra calls, a second or so to take in the state of things. If Dr. Riley's pulley system can dislodge Echo first, so much the better. Better than burning energy by roughly yanking with a Force pull that might actually do harm if Echo is firmly stuck.

Edited 2021-09-12 17:40 (UTC)

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Quake (volume i)

They need to meet, Tony

But I don't know if my heart can take it ಥ_ಥ

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Furthest from Tony, OTA

Video response

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LMK if this isn't ok!

It's totes fine!

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