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Madison stumbled through the portal, then wobbled a few feet away and sat down, abruptly. Kouki's tablet was cradled in her hands; she leaned over, breathing in the smoke that still emanated from the stone, breathing him in. "Come on back," she crooned, imagining little serpents in the smoke, coiling in and out and up and back to their proper place. "Come on, you'll be fine."

She sat back, serene as if the tablet in her hand were merely incense, and not the smoking maybe-corpse of her life partner.

Lex just let himself be moved to the makeshift pow wow, and into the group hug. His mind was a little empty, and only picked up on half the things Solia was saying. Cookies, blankets, backrubs...yeah, he could deal with that.

Later.

"Solia...now would be a good time to not say anything and just...be a presence."

Leon felt like his name sake, frozen, unmoving and cold as the life hunters, his superiors pushed him into the examination room. everything felt like a blank white wave of nothingness as he barely registered pokes and prods and exams after exams.

He didn't even pay attention when they told him to turn his head and cough. or felt anything when the glove was snapped.

He was dead to the world in those minutes. Nid was too quiet, the noisy weapon, was just giving him the silent treatment. The life trainee clutched the tablet, fingers gone white with the intense grasp on the slab.

Minutes felt like seconds and all too soon, the hunter found himself shambling out of the room, a dull pain in his arm and a tiny needlepoint wound that was already in the midst of healing. It even had a smilyface bandaid on it. It said cheer up on it.

He didn't feel very cheery. He still had to find Cass.

Maybe he would bring her one of those bandaids for her heart. Nid was so polite, not asking about dinner yet.

Minerva arrived on site expecting blood. She had not gone with the others, and didn't know how much there would be...but for some reason, she expected it nonetheless.

She half expected the weight of sorrow to be as heavy as it was.

And she somewhat expected there to be silence.

But on site, where familiar and unfamiliar faces meshed in rest, she did not quite expect to feel the pain so strongly as it permeated the area; and the lack of saturated, crimson clothes. She stood on the outskirts of the activity watching for a short while, hands fidgeting against one another until boldly stepping forward and offering her aid wherever it was needed.

She did not notice the dead, yet. And several of her comrades went unseen in the mix of all things...There was so much going on, and there were so many questions buzzing about in her head. Deryk was the first to capture her full attention while gently brushing past those who had also come to help. His face was sullen, like that of so many others, and in his hands she noticed a tablet. One that was clutched tenderly and protectively...and suddenly there was another, and another, until all the trainee could see were stone pieces in the hands of those who had come through from 'the other side'. Minnie hesitated to say anything at all at first...A part of her wondered if he would remember her.

But she was curious. And she was sad for him and for all the others.

Placing a hand against his shoulder, the woman spoke softly, "Deryk...what...?" Before falling silent at his side. From the way her hazel eyes fell in horror to the tablet, it might be observed that Minnie was beginning to understand a portion of his sorrow.

Only a small portion, perhaps. But in any case she chose not to finish the inquiry, and instead began a new one. "Are you alright?" Not that it was any better than the last...

Ryan stepped through the portal and immediately stepped aside, sliding down against the first solid, inanimate object he could find. He didn't look, or breath a word to anyone. No words of apologies for attacking them, for breaking orders, for their loss, nothing. He merely sat with his head against his knees, one arm slung uselessly against his chest, while the other gripped the stone tablet so tightly his knuckles were white.

They had failed miserably and not just the so called 'mission.' They failed to protect their friends. The reality of that made the moon trainee feel ill again, causing him to squeeze his eyes shut. He couldn't even bare to look at the bodies of the hunters that had been brought back.

Hunters would have found Wilson blank-faced as he absentmindedly let himself be pulled to wherever, but the tight grip on the tablet in his grasp never relented. He barely registered the presence of voices—if they weren’t Gramps’ then he didn’t particularly care at the moment—before he winced at the slight pinch from a shot. He finally seemed to snap out of his daze as he stared down at his arm, now slapped with a tiny bandaid. Wilson poked at it curiously before he found an empty spot by the wall and stared at the bustle around him.

There were familiar faces scattered about, but he couldn’t bring himself to hobble to his feet and drag himself over to them. He kept the smoking tablet protectively placed in his lap. Sometimes he would trace the edges of it and other times he would reach up for his neck, only to stop once he realized the goggles were no longer there. Gramps was not there.

He blinked back warm tears threatening to streak down his face. Then he wiped them away before anyone could see them fall. Don’t cry. There was plenty of that already. Everything will be okay. You’ll be okay. Wilson stood up and searched out another presence, another person to keep him company and maybe to distract him.

Amidst the crowd he found a small British blonde. Lips pressed into a thin line, he quietly made his way over--lightly nudged Ryan's shoulder, gestured for him to follow if he wanted--and plopped down next to Gale. Wilson cast a sorrowful glance to Bix while he mouthed an apology. He reached out to tentatively wipe away one of Gale’s tears before he stared at the ceiling too. Wilson couldn’t bring himself to tell Gale to stop crying when he himself had to wipe another oncoming tear from the corner of his eye. Maybe it was better to just say nothing.

Deryk wanted to shut everything out, he was almost able to do just that. People were sobbing around him. Lamenting. When he felt a hand on his shoulder, his body went rigid. Slowly, he looked up, seeing Minvera there. Right. She wasn't there. She wouldn't know what had just transpired.

"N-no... Tooley.. she..."

His gaze just fell down towards the smoking tablet he was clutching. Shaking a bit, he stared back up at the other hunter with wide eyes.

"And Cael.. Ceres... Bix.... they.. they're.."

The death trainee's brain was sort of shorting out here as he was trying to get out what he wanted to say. He felt completely overwhelmed and he still couldn't even really believe what had happened. The Insanity... it was far more dangerous than anything else that they had fought.

[ENTER]

Rep held onto Harrison tightly as they returned to the island, clinging to him even as he scanned the room.

"He's not here." he stated coldly, carefully, the words devoid of the emotions betrayed in the white knuckle grip he had on the tablet in his arms. His breathing was riddled with held back sobs and there was something wide in his gaze, like an animal going into shock. "He will be."

He said nothing else. Just held onto both of them.