Welcome to Gaia! ::

Hanna had been out of the pod for less than half an hour when her first order rolled in.



It made sense, she knew, but Hanna had sort of hoped she would have the opportunity to check out her room for a second. Instead, she hopped into the shower, changed clothes, and was already jogging to the meeting details the letter had indicated.

That... had been an hour ago.

Currently, Hanna was caked with a disgusting amount of sweat, her calves felt like jello, and she was beginning to believe that her ability to run had somehow dissipated along with the missing years of her life. Her ego was further dented by the very small, very fast, seemingly young Hunter who she was prompted to ask for assistance.

"Peyton," Hanna panted, stopping her jog and resting both hands on her knees. "I kind of feel like I am going to die. Normal?"

At the mention of "vomit," Hanna felt her stomach gurgle. Oh god, NO. She refused to embarrass herself by puking in front of this tiny speed demon. And to think there was a time that Hanna had thought one of her best skills was her speed and agility. That had been before the repodding. Not that she had really had any time to fully process. Even if she was annoyed, there was a part of Hanna, the part that craved being a Hunter, that felt at peace here sweating her a** off. At least she knew she was doing something other than slowly grow her hair in a pod.

Speaking of long hair... it was annoying. Hanna had managed to tie it up into a knot on the top of her head, but as a lifelong proponent of short-to-medium length, she was finding herself deeply annoyed the the sheer mass of auburn strands. That, and her gripping sense of failure.

How could she become a world class superhero against evil if she couldn't keep up with a girl who was bite-sized?

Hanna stood back up and instead draped her arms over her head. She knew that this was better for avoiding cramps and keeping her airway open. But a little break was just what she needed, even if it meant talking about the podding situation.

"It's insane how many more people are here," she said, still breathing hard. "When I first woke up, it was just us -- just our one tiny group. We barely filled one hallway of rooms."

Even in the brief time she had spent taking a shower, Hanna had been stunned to see so many Hunters, especially so many unfamiliar Hunters. Other than Bix, she had not recognized a single face from her class, so to speak. It was a little scary. Were they still around, or had something happened to them like it had apparently happened to her? The thought gave her chills. After this conditioning, food, and a room check, her next order of business would need to be tracking down her old friends.

"Truth be told, I'm still a little shaky on the details. I don't even remember getting sick or anything. I know I went on a mission and came back fine and then..." She waved a hand vaguely. "Nothing. That can't be normal."

Being normal is overrated... Adelphe whispered at the edge of her consciousness. Hanna could have left her in the music box in her room, but she hadn't had the time. And so her weapon had come with her... at least as the bone earrings she wore constantly. She was pleased when the siren left it at that. Even though she had only be back for a couple hours, Hanna did not forget how annoying the Lady could be about butting into a conversation.

Leaning one leg forward, Hanna bent in a lunge, stretching out her aching muscles. "Somebody must know I'm awake, or else they probably wouldn't have sent me to you," she said, smiling. Peyton had been really decent to Hanna in all this mess. She didn't make her feel like an alien, just got straight to the running and all. It had been a relief. Now, she didn't mind talking.

"I haven't had the chance to figure out what I've missed. Bix said the fog is gone. That fact alone has blown my mind. But then he mentioned something about Titans on the island, Merlin and Excalibur, more Horsemen. You would happen to be able to fill in those details, would you?"

Hanna's voice sounded a little more than eager to hear an answer.

Switching legs, Hanna bent low to the ground as Peyton began to fill in some of the gaps. She was a sponge, soaking up every drop of knowledge there was to offer. Before she had been repodded, Hanna intended to distinguish herself as a scholar of Hunters, a veritable encyclopedia of knowledge. She felt that was the safest way to prove herself. And now that seemed impossible. How could she possibly catch up after such a hiatus? She went from being one of the first on the island to being, well, forgotten. Useless.

The idea of being unimportant was disgusting to Hanna.

It was eerie for Hanna to think of the island without fog. It had been one of her earliest memories of this place: a constant, creeping cloudiness. It was definitely more concerning that a layer of protection had disappeared too. "Wow," she said, processing the information. "I missed months of MREs. I guess there are some perks to losing three years of your life." A bitterness tinged her words, though she meant to make a joke.

"What are insanity titans?" she asked.

If there was a chance of monster attacks, then Hanna would definitely be keeping Adelphe with her at all times.

I'm very valuable, the Lady chimed in smugly.

The tension in Hanna's calves eased a bit as she stretched and pulled. Time away or not, she still remembered conditioning. It was one thing to get her body back in shape, but in truth, she was ready to do some weapons practice. Hanna and the Lady had been really trying to figure out how they meshed together before she disappeared. There was no time to waste getting back into her groove, especially if there were things like insanity titans running around.

"Wow," Hanna said, shaking her head. A part of her wanted to whip out a journal and start scribbling notes. Did they even still journal? That seemed worth asking. "Are we still required to journal everything? That was a thing when I first woke up -- record EVERYTHING."

She tried to imagine how body parts of giant godzilla monsters could repair portals. In fact, it was the nerd in her heart that was desperately upset not to understand the inner workings of it. Alas. Her next step should definitely be tracking down another Death Hunter for some more division-specific information.

Standing up, the redhead shook out her feelings with a sigh. "Okay. So. I've missed a lot. What about other stuff, silly stuff?" She groaned at herself. "I know I sound like an idiot. I feel like I just want some personal drama story, something that isn't as alarming as insanity titans, merlin, all of it." A smile peeked on her lips. "One tiny drama story? Help a sister out? That kind of thing?"

It was stupid. Oh well. Hanna had missed some important years of being a teenager. So sue her.

No more journaling everyday details? Strange. Maybe Deus had just figured out how to streamline things more now and didn't need the ramblings of individual hunters to do it. The volume of new recruits would be enough to make that difficult to manage. Out of habit, Hanna had jumped right back into it, but now... she could probably stop. A pang of something like sadness echoed in her.

Okay, she had to get over this sadness over missing out on changes. She was in a freaking coma. Let it go. Let it go.

It was much more entertaining to hear the second half of Peyton's response. "Strange," Hanna echoed, about the dreamscape. "Or I guess not that strange, not with everything that goes on here. During my trials before waking up, a group of us thought we were characters from Harry Potter. And we were very dedicated to that delusion." She fixed Peyton with a look. "Very dedicated." A smile crossed her features.

Hanna curled one arm over her body to roll her shoulder. "Though that was just in our heads. Actually transforming must be a hell of a lot different. I wonder how each person's cat breed was decided," she mused. Would she be a tabby? Tuxedo? Siamese? Maine coon? The possibilities were endless.

A long lock of hair tumbled loose from her haphazard bun. "The thing I'd like to transform most now is my damn hair. I went into the pod with a spiky bob. I came out as Ariel," she said, squinting one eye as she tried to push her hair back into place.

A grin cracked Hanna's features. "It was pretty ******** cool," she added, laughing. "Especially since most of us involved in it ended up waking up out of the pods. Like being trapped in a Harry Potter delusion was some magic trial that we all passed without knowing it." At the time, it had comforted Hanna to believe she was Hermione. It made her utter lack of identity so much more bearable, not to mention the fact that it instantly bonded her to a group of others. When stuck in a situation with so little control, it was nice to feel like she was in control of something -- even if that something was a total lie.

"Granted, it probably should have killed us. We were fighting giant monsters in space suits screaming out, 'AVADA KEDAVRA!' and s**t." Her smile grew wider. "Yeah, it was awesome." SURE, it had gotten her killed in the trials in a way, but whatever. She had woken up when a lot of others hadn't; that was the prize.

The cat breeds sounded equally cool. Hanna tried to imagine herself as a cat -- would she be orange or brown? Her own hair color was auburn, a sort of mix. Maybe she would be calico? The possibilities were endless.

When Peyton offered to cut her hair, Hanna was more than a little interested. She had done it for herself in the past, but it just guaranteed that the back of her hair looked terrible. Another person could certainly do a better job. "Please be my Edward Scissorhands," she said. "I trust you -- it was really a hack and slash job anyway, and I have a picture in my room, and it would save me from attempting to do this on my own." She was babbling. It happened. She babbled.

Ten minutes later, and Hanna was sitting on a pilfered stool in the communal bathroom on the 1st floor in front of a mirror. She had swung by her still-filthy room to swipe the family photo of Hanna, her mom, dad, and two younger twin sisters. It felt a little strange to reveal that she even had this with her, like bearing a tiny piece of her heart to Peyton, but she said nothing of it as she passed the photo off to Stylist Creedy.

"Basically, the front has two long pieces that go below my chin, and the back is, like, spikey and shorter. Maybe... to the mid-neck area, or a few inches above the shoulders? An Asian mullet." Her hands were gesticulating as she spoke. "That's probably not politically correct. Sorry -- whatever you do will be better than this is, I promise. I was not made to handle long hair."

As the towel slipped over her shoulders, Hanna straightened up. She was convinced that shedding these extra inches might shed more than just hair. Maybe she could slip free of the layers of confusion too, like slipping out of a coat. "Thanks again for doing this," Hanna murmured as the first snips began. When the ponytail was cut free, the change in weight was immediate. Her head felt light, almost like a balloon compared to before.

Pale hands took the banded ponytail from Peyton. Hanna cradled it in her lap, feeling across all the hairs. "My mother told me once that you should always take a second to look at the hair you cut from your head and say goodbye to it because it contains memories." She dragged down the length of it and tapped the ends at the bottom. "Like, these bits at the end are from when I was still in Maryland probably, before I signed up for this and the trials and all that. But then this," she traced up the middle, "is probably from being in the pod the first time and I guess getting out of it too." Her hands continued up, but she didn't name the fact that the rest of it was from her lost years -- 2.5 years back in the freezer. Damn.

"It's super corny," Hanna said with a sigh. She tossed the bundle of hair onto the counter next to the sink. "But my mom is... well, she is corny. Insanely corny. Always was. I think being legitimately AHH MOTHERLAND Polish gave her a lot of idioms and old wives tales. Maybe she thought it was her job to spread them to me," she explained.

"What about your family?"

She sounds like a wonderful woman.

A smile fluttered to life on Hanna's lips and then eased away. Things with her mother had never been simple. She had been born an octagon in a family of squares. Her thirst for adventure of the dangerous variety had unsettled her traditional mother. She could still remember the look on her mother's face that day she waltzed into the house with The Crow-inspired eye tattoos. "Hanna, how could you ruin your face?" her mother had said, eyes ugly with her disgust. Was that the reaction she had wanted? Hanna wasn't sure. But she liked to make permanent choices more regularly than was healthy, probably because they were the kind that she could never second guess.

Sort of like abandoning her life for Deus, without even knowing what it was.

When Peyton shared her own stories, Hanna found her mind sharpening into razor focus. "I'm sorry," she said quickly -- a standard response for people's loss, regardless of the passage of time. The more experienced Hunter moved on, and Hanna had enough social grace to follow her lead and let the matter go.

"Back home, I did a lot of random stuff -- ran tech for local theater, went to the beach, had a blog, all that. But here?" Hanna laughed. "My options are limited. Mostly I read the few books I brought with me. Go see the shore." She paused and furrowed her brow. "s**t, that sounds pathetic. I mean, honestly, when I first woke up, we were worked so hard that we mostly just hung around together in down time. I journaled. When the mist was up, we'd run around like idiots aggressively playing tag or praying for alcohol. Now that I am back I guess I probably should find a new hobby in New Deus."

Since this had become the tide of things, she found Peyton's eyes in the mirror. "This is looking good, hero," she said, giving a thumbs up.

Conversation continued as more strands of hair fell. By the time it was done, Hanna actually started to feel like... well, herself. When she crawled into bed that night, she was scared to sleep and realize it had all been a dream.