Welcome to Gaia! ::

Like everything else involved with Deus there is little preamble and a push in the mostly right direction followed by massive abandonment.

Abbi fully expected to be found in the pod room three hours after her shift had ended, bleeding out and crying only to be scolded for her insubordination and lack of experience when it was clearly evident this was her first shift as Pod Room Overseer. Deus was the kind of place that shoved a total newbie into Level 20 territory and expected them to not die.
She was maybe an optimistic Level 7.

But so it was that Abbi warily paced the hallways created by the lines of pods, a clipboard clutched in shaking hands. The tech that she had relieved a few hours ago had been terse and clipped in their explanation of what she ought to do should someone wake up.
"Just give them the same spiel you got, he says. It'll be fine, he says. BAH!" The girl stopped between a row of pods to shake the clipboard held between both hands, her only way of showing her frustration without being loud.
Even if she rationally knew it wouldn't affect anything, she wanted to be quiet. She knows she hadn't heard anyone talking when she slept, she has no problem recalling the few seconds she realized she was conscious before her door open, but Abbi still worries that being too loud while wake someone prematurely.
Then again, she worries all the power will go out in the room and that she will have to chose who lives and dies (even if she knows that it works on emergency power so as to keep its occupants from dying, something that is a fact because it was what kept her alive when she was sleeping and awoke to darkness). She worries that Deus will be attacked and she will have to protect the Pod Room all on her own. She worries she will trip and bust her head open on one of the legs that hold up the chambers, that she will die because she worried too much. She worries that all her worrying will give her ulcers.

Maybe it is because of all these worries that when Abbi resumes her stroll of the pods and only manages two steps before one of the chamber doors two pods down pops open like a piece of forgotten toast out of the toaster, that she jumps a solid foot into the air and screams.

OK, so maybe screaming was not the smartest thing Abbi had ever done.
A muffled echo of a scream, though a few octaves deeper, drifts from the pod and as soon as she hears it, the teen snaps her mouth shut. In an effort to shut herself up even more, the clipboard is smacked against her mouth, though she immediately regrets that decision and drops it in favor of pressing her hands to her now aching chin.
Today was the worst.

But some sort of instinct takes over (Abbi wants to call it maternal, but really its the realistic portion of her that is screaming 'DO SOMETHING' but that might also just be Viveca too) and finally she sort of flail-runs toward the pod right as something crashed out of it.
The flailing doesn't stop as the girl skips back, her hands waving back and forth as though that will just make it all stop. The something that crashed out is actually a guy (????) who looks like he's totally content to be lying on the floor (??!???!???!!1!!??).
Not one to deny someone their enjoyment when it hurt nobody, or really even judge, Abbi took another step back.

And then she remembered what the tech had said.
"W-WELCOME TO DEUS!!!!"
{ Sayin' this is a disaster is really puttin' it lightly }
"I cannot handle all this sass right now, OK?!" Eyes widened, her posture stiffened in realization of the situation and with an odd little noise Abbi whirled around and clamored for the clipboard on the floor. It required her to go to her knees to retrieve, then shift around, but since she was down here, and he was down here, Abbi just stayed put. On her knees with the clipboard pressed against her chest like it was a shield, the teen surveyed the man prostrated on the floor and tried to be not totally useless.

"Um! Um! UM! Are you OK? I know first aid! I can um... Uh... ARE YOU OK?!" Yelling was definitely helping, she was super sure of that.

"Hi." The word is breathed out in a sigh because gosh she's glad he isn't dead and a lopsided smile affixes itself to her face. "Welcome to Deus! Um... We should probably stand!"
As though that will help things enormously, Abbi pops to her feet, the motion nearly a single movement of bent knees and then bam! Bouncing on her heels.
"I think your name is supposed t'a be on this list... Um... Hold on..." Pages are flipped haphazardly, the girl not at all sure what she's supposed to be looking for in the least bit. When she realizes she's confused, her gaze bounces to the man, doesn't recognize him in the least bit, and instead shifts to his pod. There should be a number or something on there, right? So if she found that she could find his name!

And, surprisingly, she does.
"Dawson Grace?" Wow, what a name! Abbi wishes, in that sort of lofty place reserved for silly things like cool names and awesome hair colors, that her name was half as neat. But a hand still sticks out toward him, for she categorizes this as another meeting instead of the important wake up that it is. "Its super nice to meet you! You're probably feeling like... A little wobbly? Totes normal. You've been asleep for a bit!"
The magical clipboard in question was squished to her chest now that its purpose is served, kept safe and pressed against her heart.
"You might remember um... Being recruited? Well, congrats! You passed the like... I guess its some sort of weird test or whateves? Doesn't matter, still won! So hooray!" So maybe she was breathing a little heavier because her heart was still pounding in her chest because !!!NEW PERSON!!! and in the fear she was doing something wrong, but Abbi was going to try to keep herself under control.

The limp handshake, the way his arms fell immediately to his sides like dead weight, the head bobbing and general look of confusion all meant one thing: He was definitely in shock.
Maybe they weren't the classic symptoms of shock that Abbi had read about, but she also knew that book was old and she could reason out that these were symptoms of shock too! And as the recent Battle Nurse of Deus, Abbi had a duty to help him!
Only... She wasn't really sure how to help...

"Oh! I know! You should sit down!" Abbi clapped her hands together, or she tried to but smacked her hand against the clipboard instead. There weren't really a lot of places to sit in the Pod Room, except...
"Here, hold this. I got some 'splainin' to do but you look a little woozy, so just... Hold this." The clipboard was pushed into Dawson's hands and with her hands free, Abbi flashed him two thumbs up and then bolted off down the row. The sound of her footsteps petered off into the distance, but were overtaken a few moments later by the noise of plastic rocking around. Anyone familiar with modern conveniences would know it was the sound of a rolly chair, of which Abbi appeared with at the end of the row she had just vacated. She pushed the wheeled chair with all the enthusiasm of a child who'd just discovered what it did, actually running toward Dawson with it.

"Here! Here! Sit down and we'll chat about... Stuff and things!" She decreed cheerily when both chair and girl screeched to a halt before the man.

While still at the end of the row, Abbi let out a squeaky apology when she saw Dawson had taken a seat on the floor, clearly confused by her vague language, but her worry amended to a smile when he got back up and accepted the seat offered to him. Feeling rather proud of herself for being smart enough to get him the wheely chair, the teen accepted the clipboard back to her possession with a smile and a grateful nod.
This guy was kind of unnerving her, despite his friendly appearance, with just how quiet he was being, something the girl felt she had to overcompensate for. And given she was pretty talkative on her own, the was a recipe for disaster.
"So this is Deus... Honestly, this is like, the worst intro ever cause I mean who the heckie wants to wake up in some creepy pod room? But there ya go, that's Deus' version of a welcome." Abbi glanced back at the man, found encouragement in his smile and then launched into a very long explanation of what had happened when she was woken up. She told him all about Stormy and Nevada, though her voice kind of tripped over the name and the memory, doubled in enthusiasm to tell about Stormy's song and apologized for not signing to him too. There was no simple standing for the girl as she talked, her hands moving through the air and her feet tapping out an unconscious rhythm for her speech.

Oh wait...
"We should... Probably be heading out of here but um... You're probably woozy so-- OH YEAH!" The light bulb moment was entirely visible with Abbi and she laughed to be so smart. With a clatter of heels against the floor she rushed behind Dawson, shoved the clipboard under one armipit and grabbed hold of the back of the chair.
The first push she gave did nothing, unsurprising since he was a pretty big guy and she was a very small girl. But Abbi was not one to give up and dug her heels into the ground, thankful the wheels were her friend. Finally she got the chair rolling, pushing him in a zig-zag formation down the hallway.
"So uh ok so... Do you know anything about Deus? Or remember anything?" There was so much to tell!

Had Dawson even looked half hopeful at the prospect of singing, Abbi would have obliged him with any number of tunes not because she thought herself good enough for the job, but simply because she was getting worried about this guy. He wasn't talking at all and most everyone tried to get a word in once she'd begun chattering their ears off. But Mr. Grace was all silence and all smiles. It was... Decidedly different.
The first turn toward the exit of the pod room is a toughie, Abbi moving faster in hopes their combined momentum will make the maneuver easier. When it doesn't, when she realizes that she is only careening him faster toward the wall, the Moon does the only thing she knows: Block him from the collision.
In theory this was a great idea, in execution it was mostly just Abbi swiveling the chair away from the wall the same time she hopped onto the plastic cover of the wheels before it clunked against the bricks. Sure, the air was knocked out of her and yeah, she'd taken a hit to her shield, but that's what the shields were for!

"Rule Number One of Deus--" The teen wheezed out, pushing her heels against the wall to glide Dawson forward in the right direction. "You're stronger, and tougher, than ya think." Which was something she was still learning, so might as well hand it along to a newbie.
About to launch into another lesson, Abbi glanced down to see the man grinning up at her and found her worries ease a little. Well, at least he was ok even if he wasn't talking.
"You can talk yanno. Most of us don't pull rank around here, most of us, and I'd say you got a pretty easy wake up. Some folks aren't so lucky." Who would want to be woken up by a grumpy green giant or a snark hood rat?

Never one to burst into tears unless pushed to her furthest reaches of emotional holding, Abbi was content to smile and push Dawson along. At least, until he finally did speak.
The chair didn't screech to a halt but it did slow down to a stop as the girl stared at him, wide eyed with awe.
"Ohmigosh you're so cute nO ITS TOTALLY FINE!" Enthused to hear him speak (what a cute accent! And so polite! D'AWWWW) she began to push him once more, though a little more excitedly this time.

"OK SO LIKE. Alright let me think... Uh Deus is the facility we train and live at. We're sworn to help protect Humans from the Big Bad Spooks that live in Halloween land place thing whatever, which yes they're real. Anything creepy you've seen in your life but someone said was just your imagination is wrong like a wrong thing. They're real." Maybe she should have written herself a script for this. "But now that you're part of Deus, they're gonna teach ya how to fight! Ready to learn how to fight?"
Another corner was looming, but Abbi was pretty sure she had it handled. This time, instead of hoping momentum would carry them, she swiveled him around in the right direction prematurely and pushed from that side so they glided, if a bit awkwardly, down a new hall.