♪♪Two Doors Down♫

Funniest s**t I've received in ages. (bottom of the first page)

Yep, that's funny	20.9%	[ 65 ]
Whoa, serious?	10.9%	[ 34 ]
Some people are so stupid	21.9%	[ 68 ]
Poll whore option	46.3%	[ 144 ]
Total Votes:			[ 311 ]

[Mademoiselle Alvinette]

"That, and I'm also not much of a fighter!" Natalie said with another snicker. "So I'd make the world's worst Bat-Dame! I mean, my little buddy here could probably do a good bit for me, but it works best when it takes over, and that's not always so fun..." Namely, it had loved making her sleepwalk, and sleep-fight, when it had first gotten attached to her...

"I've got a bit of a nostalgic streak too," she commented. "Sometimes that's okay, but then there's times when it gets me really depressed and it's hard to shake."

As they reached the cabin, and Romin's nostalgia grew, Natalie suddenly felt like she needed to give the poor fella a hug, but she had no idea how he would respond to that. Instead she just put a gentle hand on her friend's shoulder. "You okay?" she asked softly.

[Nicho Raynar]

"It's not like I'm making fun of you!" Nicho retorted toward Romin. "If you preferred that though, I can always accommodate!"

With a laugh, he turned back to Natalie. "Well, I'm sure between the three of us we could teach you some fighting techniques. I've studied every martial form there is, but I also forget most of them on a daily basis... but the EDC has a really good CQC training program too!"

"Anywhosle, Nostalgia! It's fun once in a while, but yeah, you've gotta be careful not to let it turn into depression..."

Nicho took a step back as they came upon the cabin. Nicho scratched at his chin as Romin was confused about the cabin. "I thought you had gone and built that cabin," he said. "Mabe that's just another one of those dangold false memories."
____________________________

"It's alright, I'm not going anywhere," he said, settling in for the night here with Kamiki.

[Romin J.]

Romin was silent for a moment, his dark hues searching the cabin's exterior and trying to comprehend.
"Oh uh..." he seemed to realize after a few silent seconds that Natalie had asked him something, and placed her hand upon his shoulder. He looked back at her and then nodded. "Yeah... I'm alright," he said, giving her hand a reassuring squeeze before moving ahead. "Thank you."

He cleared his throat and went to push on the door, finding it difficult. "This is just all very strange," he added, giving the door a shove, succeeding in opening it this time.

"What are the odds? This cabin... I've never seen it before in my life but... it's so damn familiar," he added, leading them inside, shining the light around the dusty interior. It was clear nobody had been here in some time, by the look of things. There were several rooms to search, which Romin pointed out.

"It might take some time to find whatever it was we were sent here to find," He said in a low voice. "It might also be a trap, so stay alert."


ooc: EDIT I'm going crosseyed, should call it here for tonight!

[Mademoiselle Alvinette]

"Goodness knows I need all the help I can get when it comes to learnin' how to fight!" Natalie said, shaking her head. "I mean, I can shoot, I can throw knives, and I know S.I.N.G. from Miss Congeniality, but other than that..." She blew a raspberry. "Bupkus! One fella tried to magically implant all his fighting knowledge in my brain, but all that did was give me a heckuva migraine whenever I tried to access it. Sooooo that's still floatin' somewhere up there, I guess, but I can't use the knowledge if even rememberin' any of it incapacitates me..."

It was indeed strange that Romin felt the cabin was so familiar even though he couldn't recall ever having been there before. Nicho suggested false memories, but Natalie was wondering if something else was afoot. "Maybe you did build it...or at least, a version of you, from a different timeline or somethin'. I mean, consider what we went through when we came here. Some kinda wormhole or whatnot that you don't see on an ordinary night, on a regular road." As Elmer Fudd might say, there was somethin' awfuwwy scwewy goin' on awoun' hewe...

((Yeah, same here! I've been struggling with inner ear difficulties and had to stay home from work today because I didn't trust myself to drive. XP Good night! ^_^ ))

[Nicho Raynar]

ooc: Well I hope you feel better! Safe call staying home.

"Well we can certainly try something," Nicho said.
He trailed off when they uncovered the cabin, and Romin saying that it might be a trap.

"Well," he added, once Natalie had chimed in about their portal. "That was me that brought us here, but you do make a good point. This could be an alternate universe Romin. Gaia is a nexus where all realities kind of just... smoosh together," Nicho said, squeezing his hands and locking the fingers in emphasis of his point. "So it's highly likely there's another Romin running around."

[Romin J.]

"Miss who? Elmer what?" Romin shook his head. His future blindness of the past was likely amusing.

He paused and looked back at Natalie, considering her observation. "Another me?"
Nicho seemed to confirm it was possible.
Romin shook his head. "I'm... let's search for more evidence before we jump to any conclusions."

Romin couldn't fathom another version of him... living here on Gaia for who knows how many years. As they passed through what looked to be a kitchen, they entered what was apparently a bedroom. The place was in poor shape, but as they looked, Romin found something that looked to him like an old gunbelt, which he inspected, hanging off of the head board of the handmade wooden bed frame.

Meanwhile, Natalie found what appeared to be a leatherbound journal. Compelled to flip through it, some entries might catch her eye, scrawled in bad handwriting.

If I tell any of my 'ghost' stories, be prepared to piss yourselves. All of you.
_
But technically they're only a year old. You kids with your rapidly aging bodies. Never could keep up with you. In reality, even though you're an adult you're still very young but... what the hell do I know? Time means nothing anymore. It's like TAFFY!
_
Why the hell am I cursed to put up with these... for lack of a better word, life altering inconveniences? You'd think that we would be used to this sort of thing happening by now wouldn't we?
_
I need to find her.
_
How fortuitous! I've just returned! I just saw Seph at the TDD! I've been gone for a year. Trapped in some kind of temporal prison! I'm so sorry Arya there was nothing I could do, I didn't even know how long I was gone!


The entries continued, each seemed more like gibberish than the last. But was there something more to these maddening scribbles?

[Chef Zeke LeDeltrie]

Kamiki had shifted into her humanoid form as she slept curled up close to Nicho. She held onto him with her weak grip. Outside of her fox form, it was clear she wasn't doing so well. She was skin and bones, even her hair was a mess. Her breath was slow and soft as she slept.

[Mademoiselle Alvinette]

Poor Romin was completely out of the loop with the pop-culture references! Natalie got the sudden urge to show him cartoons and movies to catch him up, but as it was, there was just no time for that. They had to explore the cabin and figure out exactly who its inhabitant had been.

She chuckled as Nicho admitted that he was the one who had brought him here. "Somethin' tells me you can do a lot more than that!" she said. "You're full of surprises! Heh..." She snickered. "And I shudder to think what it'd be like if there was another me runnin' around! The poor thing's luck would probably be just as bad as mine!"

They passed into a bedroom, or what used to be one anyhow. And while Romin found an old gunbelt, Natalie spotted an old journal and started looking through it. Ghosts, rapid-aging, "life-altering inconveniences?" A missing person? Temporal prisons? What in blue blazes could all this mean? It sounded like a job for Natalie's agency to investigate, that was for sure. She showed the book to Nicho and Romin. "Do you guys recognize the handwriting in this book? Maybe you can help me make sense of it all. It...kinda reads like a cosmic-horror novel, and it makes me worry a little about the person who kept the diary..."

[Nicho Raynar]

"Well," Nicho said. "I probably can, but sometimes I don't remember, since I have to sequester a lot of my memories away. However, relevant events can usually trigger them." Nicho explained.

"Heh, well," he continued, moving on to her further comment about multiples of her running around. "It's entirely possible. I've actually encountered other mes before, while I was intentionally traversing the multiverse. There are near infinite numbers of all of us in some form out there. It's just very unusual that they interact. Why, Romin's universe has it's own version of me, as an Admiral!" Nicho said, chuckling. "He sounds kind of boring though, and is far too well mannered. Also he's older than Romin, which is double weird! But then again, now I am too, so maybe it isn't!" Nicho laughed.

Nicho blinked, then his eye twitched as he fell silent while Natalie was reading from the journal. There was a temporal distortion between here and his other self.

He tuned back in somewhere around Temporal Prison. He glanced over at the journal and tapped at his chin. "Hmmm," he murmured. "I don't recognize it... wait... Romin, take a look."
________________

Nicho sat up in the TDD. Morning had come. He blinked, feeling an odd sensation. There was a temporal difference between the him out in the cabin, and the one inside the Two Doors Down. Ignoring the odd implications of it, he scooped Kamiki up and brought her to the kitchens. "There should still be some magically generated food around here, I wager?" Nicho murmured.

[Romin J.]

"I don't blame you for shuddering," Romin said. He picked up the gunbelt and was about to search it's contents when Nicho called him over.
"What's this?" he asked, overhearing something about it being a journal. "Handwriting?" he took a look in the book, at the entries Natalie had pointed out.

His breath caught in his throat.
"No..."

She didn't believe me at first, despite what I told her. There was another one. I feel crazy just writing this, but there was another one, another ME running around. It must have something to do with the artifact…

Romin skipped ahead to the last entry suddenly. "What happened to this... person?" he muttered.

Whoever finds this, and I hope it is someone who knows me, find my daughter. She may be able to help find the artifact. If you’re me, (and I sincerely hope you are) I apologize for the way she likely will react to you. I was not a good father, but I tried. The artifact continues to displace me in time and space, but I cannot be rid of it until I am sure that it is somewhere SAFE! If it were to fall into the wrong hands... it would mean the death of everything, not just in this universe, but in all of time and space, across the multiverse! I am leaving this journal here so that at least SOMETHING of myself stays in one place long enough for it to be found by someone. Sephie, if you’re reading this, I’m so sorry. I love you, and I always will.

23. 19. 5997.

Romin snapped the book shut suddenly and let it fall to the floor, eyes wide with terror. "That all looked like... my handwriting," he whispered.

[Mademoiselle Alvinette]

"It's a big universe, and I've met a coupla folks who claim to have seen the multiverse, so I imagine there are multiple versions of all of us runnin' around!" Natalie mused. "Though I sure feel sorry for mine...they're probably all doom magnets just like me! Heh..."

Meanwhile, being a curious person (and heck, it was also part of her job description!), Natalie was quietly reading over Romin's shoulder as he flipped to the last entry. Evidently the journal was familiar to Romin...and whoever wrote it had a daughter, and an artifact that displaced him in time and space. Even the date looked so utterly alien...

And sure enough, Romin said that the handwriting looked like his own. Natalie didn't know whether this revelation was an answer or just brought more questions, but she gently laid a hand on her friend's shoulder. She would let him do the talking.

((I think I can do one more post and then I need some rest.))

[Nicho Raynar]

ooc: Very fair

"Oh, there are! Sometimes it's easier not to think about," Nicho said. "But I've got no sanity left to lose! So I don't worry too much about it!"

The book his the ground and Nicho jumped at the sudden noise and spike of emotion in the room.

"Woah!" Nicho knelt and picked up the book, holding it out to Romin. "You okay there buddy? Why don't you take a seat on the bed there," he said, pointing behind Romin. He too had been reading over Romin's other shoulder, and was understanding exactly why Romin had the reaction that he did.

"That certainly didn't look like an Earth or Gaia timestamp. And it was the only dated entry I saw. The rest were blank. It's gotta be code."

[Romin J.]

"I had a daughter," Romin said. "But that was over twenty years ago and... she didn't..." Romin shook his head. This was all very clearly hard on him. He took the book from Nicho with trembling fingers and then took a seat on the bed, taking steadying breaths.

Licking his lips, he inspected the cover of the book, afraid of what he might see inside of it before he flipped back to the last entry.
"Five Nine Nine Seven... That was the first Spec Ops Platoon number I joined," Romin said. "And there's no 19th or 23rd month, so yeah, this has to be code," he said, regaining his analytical mind. "There's something here. And it's related to this artifact."

Romin blinked, eyes growing wide again. "The artifact... it's probably what is responsible for the... what do you call it, Miss Pierce? Wibbly Wobbly bullshit?"

[Mademoiselle Alvinette]

((Sorry to make you wait, but I am completely kaput. Gotta get to bed so I can feel better and give a good reply tomorrow. Good night! emotion_bigheart ))

[Chef Zeke LeDeltrie]

"I not find any... mostly find the few mice that sneak in some time... a few spiders...." Kamiki's voice was still very faint sounding. She was glad he had carried her, her legs were rather wobbly still.