Welcome to Gaia! ::

"I feel like I got run over..." Oh man did her everything hurt.... Shapes and blobs became actual people, and Gwen blinked up at them slowly trying not to jump in surprise when the boy bound over. Well that was one hell of a hello... She was glad she wasn't dead. She rather liked being alive. "Uh... Hi. Where am I again?" The brunette asked as she wagged a finger between them. "...And who are you guys?"

Peyton was making great work of introductions for now, so Milo simply let her talk. Arms crossed, grinning like he thought he was cool and nodding so often to affirm what the shorter Sun was saying. Especially at the badass part, it was completely true (even if he had been eaten several times now) and returned the fist bump, even the spreading out his hand after contact part.

"Dudette, think of it like Power Rangers," Milo finally spoke up, adding his own two cents in to the newly awoken girl (and avoiding any weird looks that might be shot his way). "They found you totally have the right stuff to be here and now you can fight for justice and fight monsters." Okay, maybe he was repeating a bit of what Peyton had said, but sometimes adding in a reference helped. And most everyone had at least watched the first season of Power Rangers, right?

"And you get a totally awesome weapon to help do that too. Just need to go down into the cove." He gestured with his thumb in the general direction.

Peyton grinned as the new girl laughed, and fell quiet so Milo could answer her questions on which colors they both were. That was his scene more than it was her's, so she'd take the moment or two to look over the screen that was still blinking at them, reading the girl's name. She seemed to be settling well for the moment. Accepting things as they came, recovering well from being in the pod.

As weapons came up, and the cove, Peyton slid back into the conversation. "When you head down there you will find your partner, or they will find you. It's different for everyone. Rest assured, you will know when you've found them. I know it all seems terribly vague, but every weapon, every bond, is different." She took a step back, towards the stairs that led down to the room with the tablets. "Some weapons are large, larger than you, some are small." At this she'd hold both hands out into loose fists, summoning Warrick. Twin bladed knuckledusters with spikes. Vicious, nasty little things. "Some are strange, unconventional, others are more traditional." She nodded to Milo, indicating he could share as well if he wanted.

She'd keep her weapon summoned long enough to Gwen to get a good look at, then let them disappear, returning as the twin bands around either thumb. "They will be with you always from now on. In your head, protecting you, making you strong. And when they aren't summoned they will be something small and innocuous. A piece of jewelry, a key chain, something small." She gave a small, helpless shrug, fingers smoothing along the thumb rings, spinning them. "I wish I could be more specific, but I can't. You'll know why soon enough."

When they reached the stairs she stopped, sinking hands into her pockets. "I know it seems overwhelming, maybe a little scary, but nothing down there will hurt you." She couldn't promise that about the rest of Deus, but that at least she could promise.

"Sounds like a 'Learn as you go' type thing.. I can handle that easy!" One had to have a positive attitude when trying new things right? "Original green was always my favorite." She said, giving him a lopsided grin as she took his hand and climbed out of the pod.

Gwen blinked as Peyton summoned her weapon, tilting her head this way and that to get a better look. "So the entire process is different for everyone, and the weapons are different... So does that mean if two people had the 'same' weapon they'd look 'different'?" She then turned her attention to Milo as he summoned and gave his weapon a twirl, and Gwen found she couldn't resist the urge to give him a small clap at his little show. "Very nice."

"Gwen." The brunette said a little sheepishly, rubbing at the back of her neck. "Sorry, my name is Gwen.. And.. I guess I'll see you guys after this??" Now or never right? Time to do this.

It was hard to say how Hanna Nowicki finally surfaced at last.

After over two years of being yet another comatose body in a pod, something in her mind did more than just beep a steady stream confirming she was not, in fact, dead. The beep quickened, swelled. A hiss broke the air, something slid free. There was a sudden sensation: air, not the compressed clammy kind that had previously surrounded her in a bubble.

Hanna's eyes were still closed. Her limbs felt awkward, heavy. It was as if her body were a machine chugging to life, different parts turning on before others. Her arms twitched, mouth gaping open, knees bending upward. Stiff fingers pressed outward, felt the walls of the pod that encased her. It was an eerie feeling -- eerie, because she had felt it before. Yes... so long ago, or was it?

After waking up with no memory, trapped in a landscape where she was relentlessly pursued by monsters and died, Hanna had regained her identity and consciousness in a pod just like this, just... a long time ago.

What am I doing back inside a pod? It was the first conscious thought she had.

Hanna arched her back, hands gripping the sides of the pod dumbly. She pulled herself upward, swinging two legs over the side. There were no shoes on her feet, but she was wearing something familiar: her coat. Her special coat. I'm a Hunter... Yes, she was. She had forsaken a life of normalcy for one of danger and awareness. She could remember that. She could remember being Eta IV, but it felt far away, like she was watching someone else's memories ripple past her eyes on photo negatives.

With eyes still closed, she felt for the pattern that she knew was there: the twin sickles of the Death Hunters.

A flash of nausea hit her squarely in the temple. Hanna cradled her head in her hands and moaned. The sound was so shocking in the silence of the room that her eyes flashed open -- and then immediately slammed shut from the brightness. "What... the.... hell?" she murmured. Her voice sounded gluey, like she was talking underwater.

Hanna tensed when foreign hands steadied her. "Whoa," she echoed, blinking her eyes in slow motion. The room was still out of focus, but the images began sharpening. She could make out the rounded surface of the pods on either side of her. Some were darkened, others held faces blurry to her straining eyes. It was strange; she felt even weirder waking up in the pod room now than she had the first time it happened.

Wait, why was she back in a pod again? Had she passed out during a weird training exercise and been forgotten? Hanna got the sinking feeling she should be able to remember the answer to this question, and yet, her mind was strangely blank.

She certainly had no idea it had been over two years since she was conscious.

Time had passed differently for Hanna. She felt like just yesterday she had woken up from the trials on the island to see who else had woken up beside her. Her work had only just begun. She had a handful of missions under her belt, had dug heavily into the coursework side of things, had just started getting into the swing of things. She hadn't even had the chance to operate a golem. So what had happened?

Her senses were quickly catching up. Hanna lifted golden eyes up to the face of the person who was helping her remain balanced. Her head cocked inquisitively toward the side. A flash of red hair tumbled over her shoulder. What? She had been rocking an angle-cut bob last time she checked. Her hair was a curtain past her shoulderblades. "This is some Inception s**t," she muttered to herself. "Pods within pods within pods..."

At last, Hanna focused on the man in front of her -- red eyes, pale skin. Wait... she knew this guy. It didn't hurt her ability to remember that there was only one albino person she had known in her entire life. "...Bix?" she said. "Who's coat are you wearing?" The Bix she remembered had seemed... different. Smaller-ish? Different hair? And definitely not a coat more inline with their instructors than her own.

It was his coat.

His coat.

What?

None of this was computing with Hanna. She had poured over her trainee manual in typical Hermione Granger-fashion when she first received it. She knew that it took years to reach top ranks. Years. A coldness crept into her stomach. One hand slipped away from Bix and she tugged at her weirdly long hair that had appeared overnight. Or was it overyears?

"I am trying very hard not to freak out," she said in a calm, measured tone. "But just how long was I repodded for? The last thing I remember was... actually, I can't quite remember. It's all really fuzzy. I remember going on my second mission and surviving it. But... how long?"

Her brain was fighting against the reality of her situation... and LOSING.

Disciplinary action? Oh god. Hanna bristled at the thought of it. Surely, she would remember if she had gotten in trouble so badly that she ended up podded. So then... it must have been a health issue. It was strange that Hanna could not remember. Before, when she had first awoken, it took her a few weeks to piece it all back together, but Hanna's memory felt like a continuous line of dry erase maker, except someone had smudged out the very end. Everything was there in her mind... everything except why she was in this damn pod.

It was only after this that her brain registered what Bix had said: it had been almost three years. A helpless mew squeaked out of Hanna's lips before she could stop it. "Three... years...?" Her voice tipped with emotion, but she clamped down on her tongue. NO CRYING.

"This feels like a loaded question, but, um... what did I miss?"

It was safer to talk about that than how she was feeling at losing 3 years of life to a pod.