Welcome to Gaia! ::

Hand on hip, she considered the deaths that had made up the shape of her life. Her mom, all sudden, before she could even give her a name. Nobody was prepared for that sudden empty space that once was Leanne Jhones. nor the infant daughter she left behind.

And then there was Aunt Prudie. Family Matriarch, reluctant caretaker, feared moralizer. The strong one. Wasting down and into a rotted shell of flesh. Her ever sharp words turned to ragged coughs and ever present spittle. In the end, all that was left of her was a stained bed and a smell.

"It's a pretty nice way to go," the girl finally said with a little nod. "In his sleep, and long enough to give his family a chance to say goodbye, and without giving him a chance to open his mouth and ruin it." She gave a little cluck of the tongue, "Nicer than he deserves, and folks'll remember him more kindly for it. Dishonorable discharge will turn into brave young veteran. All that sorta stuff."

She was already walking back toward the man, his wheezy cries for help getting clearer.

"Do I just stick my hand in there or is it like, I gotta say some sorta prayer or phrase in my heart. Like, how magic is this magic?"

So it wasn't Harvey Pooter hours, then? "Huh," she gave a little huff, and gave the guy a nudge with one of her nice new pointy shoes. "I think saying something cool might make it less cool, you know?"

Leaning down, the girl batted the man's hands away from his chest and said down to him, talking to Val's brother for the first, and last, time either of their lives. "Stay still," she said, "...or it'll get a lot worse before it gets better."

The man gave a bleary moan, and asked, "I was attacked. I need...ooohhhh..." He started keening, barely able to hold himself back from bringing up his hands again. Not hesitating any longer, the girl reached down and almost jumped out of her skin to see her hand just slide right into him, like reaching right into a cookie jar.

The man really didn't like it.

There was something inside, but she had to focus in on her fingertips because it was just so...not-quite. Just as the man seemed tensed to the point of thrashing about again, her fingertips gently plucked something up and out of him. The body slumped down, motionless even if still alive.

She held it up, this small and strange barely anything that claimed a person's everything, to the general and asked, "Is this..is something wrong, sir?"

Was he searching the area for someone else?

She put the the gently shining crystal away into...a space that was hers. One that would perpetually be waiting at her fingertips. it wasn't infinite, but in a way, this was just as good a perk as any of the other extras he'd mentioned. And he took out a fancy looking pen, probably from his own little space?

Opening the pen into a sci-fi looking tablet was another thoughtless, natural feeling motion. It was enough to kill whatever complaints she might have had over not getting a magical pet right out the gate.

"The Negaverse Training Guide..." she spoke the words slowly as she read the most immediate icon. "The Negaverse, huh? Someone up top isn't very good with names."

Forget it, she was in this thing, and who knows, maybe she could turn this Negaverse into the MEGAverse!

Closing the tablet back into a pen and slipping it into her space, she gave Chalcanthite a long look and then gave the man a sudden, crushing hug. "Thank you, sir!" And once again, her voice was thick with Feelings, which, gross. But it was what it was! "I'm gonna be the best ******** decision you ever make!"

Looking at the space where the person who just changed her entire life had disappeared from, America rocked back on her heels with an intelligent, "Well dang."