Welcome to Gaia! ::

"I'm fine," Jacen growled as he pushed some of the fallen rocks away. "Nothing more than a little dust on me." In a rather unsettling manner, Jacen coughed harshly and spit up what looked to be mud. "Scratch that," Jacen said, "I need a ********' toothbrush...."

Again spitting on the ground, Jacen took a few steps away from the group and surveyed the landscape. Barren nothingness encapsulated the nearby view with only craggy edifices pockmarking the skyline. He was heard exhaling sharply as he watched everything in view. He didn't know what it was about this place; was it the general look of the land or was the general feelings of chaos that stood stagnant in the air? Which ever it was, Jacen felt like he could actually live here comfortably. Then, he didn't know what hit him, but he felt an awful feeling in his gut, one of heartwrenching agony. It must have affected him pretty deeply, because with a few minutes of feeling wrong, Kim came over and took his hand into his.

"Hey, what's wrong?," she asked quietly, not wanting to arouse the suspicions of the others nearby.

".....What?," Jacen said just snapping out of his self-imposed stupor, "Oh. It's nothing. I'm fine."

Kim wasn't much shorter than Jacen, but even though she still had to look up to meet her eyes to his. "Jacen," she again said quietly, "I've known you for how long now? And you think I can't or won't pick up on when something's wrong?"

Jacen sighed out of resignment. "Yea. You're right," he said, "Seems you're always right on the money when it comes to these things." With a gentle squeeze of her hand and a small smile, Jacen assured Kim that he'd inform her about it all later, but for now there were things to be done.

And so, with Kim still by his side, Jacen again congregated with the group of 'alien' mutants. Everyone else seemed to still be brushing themselves off from the falling pebbles and dust, so naturally Jacen decided to level some questions at the one who was here previous.

"Hey Phenix," Jacen called over to his teammate, "Since I'm assuming Illyana's castle or wherever the hell she lives at isn't anywhere near here, how far is it and what, if any, troubles should we be expecting along the way?"

"I can get us there in no time," Illyana said while going in between coughing fits, "And when I get there, I"m going to be kicking some serious a**."

The little blonde girl had a real fire in her. Despite her age, Phenix knew better to attempt to go against Illyana. Something about her was really... scary. But of course, Phenix wasn't the type to go quietly into the night.

"Can I please say, just this once, I told you so," Phenix let out one more cough herself and stood up from the ground. She then, of course, wrapped her arms around Piotr's solid metal waist and didn't plan on letting go anytime soon.

"You could, but I wouldn't appreciate it," Illyana dug her sword blade into the ground, "I realize that you were right... I realized it as I was preventing tons of rocks from killing the both of us... and I realized it as I waited for a day before somebody came to rescue us."

"Way to be appreciative... its not like we had many options on getting back here," Phenix's cheeks started to get as flush as her temper.

"Girls, not now," Piotr looked at the road ahead, "What's done is done. Let's get back to the castle before we have real problems."

"Oh there will be problems, but for four ghouls who call themselves Advisors of the Throne..." Illyana created a blinding white disc around her sword and teleported them all into her home, the castle of Limbo.

"Make yourselves at home." She said and sat on her throne in a huff.

"Stupid people staring." John looked around and noticed all of the people looking at Matt. "Hey man, if you wanna get rid of em all, say the word. I've got my lighter on me, and you know I'm always up for alittle fun." He said to him. He then looked up at the waiter. "We need a table for four."

Pietro zipped in, managing to grab Pyro's lighter out of his pocket in the process. "Make that a table for five, we've got business to discuss," said Pietro, dipping the lighter in a nearby glass of water.

"So what up minions?" he asked with a grin.

IC: "Well," Jacen commented absently, "That was a rather anti-climatic trip." The others gave him a rather nasty look to which he just slyly grinned. "What? I was expecting more."

The sights in this castle were intriguing to say the least. The general layout caught Jacen's attention from the moment he was inside the structure and his natural inquisitiveness beckoned him to venture further to see what he could find. And it was not only that, but that feeling he had in his stomach came back almost immediately, but this time it was worse. Without a word to anyone, not even their most gracious of hosts, Jacen split off from the group and went wandering.

He must have been off by himself for what felt like well over twenty minutes. He couldn't explain what he felt or why he did. He just felt an overall wretchedness by being in the plane of Limbo. Slightly, Jacen shook his head and gazed again out at the barren landscape. Then, out of habit or not, Jacen reached into his pocket and produced a cigarette. Nothing like the feeling of razors tearing your throat up to replace the feeling of a knife in your guts, or so he thought. No sooner had he taken a second drag when he heard Kim's voice coming from only a few feet away.

"You really ought to quit that disgusting habit," she chided him as he tossed it out the open-air corridor's side. She gave him a small grin before embracing him and looking outside at the wastes of Limbo.

"I should, but," Jacen stopped himself, "Yea. You're right. I should." He cleared his throat quietly and let his arm fall around Kim's shoulders. "Anyways, how did you know I was here?"

"Illyana pointed me to the direction you went in," she said without missing a beat, "Besides, what you said earlier bothered me a bit. Would you mind telling me what's the matter?"

Jacen took a breath and looked down into Kim's eyes. "Have you ever had a feeling like you were somewhere you weren't supposed to be?" Kim nodded. "I've been getting that feeling ever since Piotr and Illyana were unburied. And that's not all, hon. I have a feeling......I just feel it in my gut that something is going to go horribly, horribly wrong..." Jacen was cut off by Kim leaning up a bit and giving him a gentle kiss.

"How many times have we been whisked away somewhere strange? How many times have we faced insurmountable odds?," asked Kim, still looking up into his eyes. "Everytime. And yes, some of us get hurt, but we all survive. Please, don't worry about this." This time, she gave him a kiss for reassurance.

And even though she did try at least, Jacen didn't feel right still. Even though he didn't, he wasn't wanting to press the matter and upset Kim. "You're right again," Jacen said, "Why don't you go meet up with everyone and I'll be there in few minutes, alright?" Before she left, Kim gave him a gentle squeeze and walked briskly down the corridor.

The moment she was out of sight, Jacen heard someone's voice, but it wasn't normal. It was from someone older, and the voice patterns were almost ethereal. "You are not from here," it said.

"Um....no, I'm not?," Jacen said out of bewilderment.

"What are you doing here!?!," a second voice asked sharply, wanting an answer right at that moment. "ANSWER ME!"

"If you must know," retorted Jacen, "I don't know. All I know is that we came here to help rescue a friend. And apparently, there's some subterfuge involved and it seems that my friends and I are here to help with that as well."

"To aid against the deciet is to fight a fruitless battle," a hauntingly cold third voice said before pausing slightly. "All who oppose us shall die."

"Yea, sure whatever," he non-chalantly replied before digging out another cigarette and started to walk down the hall. He didn't get but two steps away from where he stood before he felt a severe burning sensation in the right side of his back and felt warm viscous fluid soak his shirt. He stumbled for a minute, dropping the cigarette and turning around slowly to see someone dressed rather regally holding a bloodied knife in his hand. His vision blurred for a moment, and he couldn't see the other's faces, just the light reflect off of their blades.

At that moment, time stood still. It was all too fast for even Jacen to digest. The instant he turned around and saw the first assailant, he felt two more stabs into his stomach and one into his chest. Repeatedly, almost neverending, he felt stab after stab into his chest and abdomen. And as soon as it stopped, it had ended with Jacen lying face down with a look of horror on his face, in an ever increasing pool of his own blood.

The last thing he heard before he felt a euphoric feeling overtake his body was, "And you shall be but the first to fall by our hands."

OOC: That's right. Jacen's dead. Now you all can have a big celebration cause I'm leaving.

Gen blinked at the sudden change of atmosphere. "Aw bloody hell..." she muttered. "Well then I guess we have a table for four, and four people... gimme that."

With that she snatched the lighter out of Pietro's hand. "Okay then, I'll give this back to him later... It's a damn nice Zippo lighter and you don't smoke so you don't need it. So let's have a nice meal shall we? Please?"

OOC: Sorry guys, I have no interent at home for the moment so I'll try to write about Limbo soon.

John finally reached the gas station and bought him another lighter. "Not as goo as my other lighter, but it'll do for now." John said to himself as he walked back outside. He started walkin, not really paying attention to where he was going, mostly because he was lost in thought. John what are you gonna do with these people. This group is suppose to be "the brotherhood" but look at us. Then again "brothers" don't always get along... But if I wanna keep that house up I might wanna figure out how to "get along" with Pietro. I think I'll just stay in my room all day unless I need to kill some time... or somebody for that matter. Oh who the hell am I kiddin'. I think I'll just let Noko handle it all. Hopefully it won't make her sick in the head... aww damit. I forgot that she told me she was probably becoming sick....I better go back and get the girl. Man I'm probably a good mile away from it. John looked around to see where he was and found himself right outside the resturraunt. "Or I could be right next to it," he said to himself. He walked in and found Noko and the other eating. He grabbed a chair from an empty table and sat next to Noko who was at the end of the table. "Sorry about that" he said to her, "but I need to cool off"