Welcome to Gaia! ::

The large acrylic sign was sunbleached and tilted back on unstable posts, half rotted and settled in weak soil. It showed an overhead picture of a 3D rendered business district. There were several logos and business endorsements lining the bottom of the sign. It read MAY 2009 COMING SOON: Northpoint but someone had spraypainted over a few letters so only No Point remained–a more fitting name considering the state of things.

Once, Northpoint had immense potential, but what worked on paper did not work in reality, and a string of poor decisions, regulatory changes, and failed funding led to the unfortunate abandonment of what was once predicted (quite ambitiously) the next downtown.

And now, Northpoint rotted.

Several blocks of would-be apartments, business, and restaurants were long since abandoned, all in various stages of construction. The lights of Destiny City were visible in three of four directions, but Northpoint itself was dark despite the streetlamps and wiring, in place but unmaintained. Or, maybe never even turned on.

There was no electricity out here. The city didn’t maintain Northpoint. Nobody did.

There were roads, sure, but good luck getting a car out here. Debris littered what once passed for entrance points, and old gates had broken down, permanently blocking entry unless you were willing to climb over barricades and around road blocks.

Anyone outside of Northpoint would see it for what it was–just another dead part of the city.

Once past the surprisingly well-maintained, albeit outdated, security, it didn’t take long for the clean lines and symmetry of the city to break down.

The transition was subtle at first, with poorly laid asphalt, potholes that never got filled, weeds clustering at the edges of sidewalks, and roads that ended in dirt, or nowhere. Then the changes became more dramatic. Curbs crumbled into dirt. Storm drains were clogged with layers of decomposing leaves. Old trash, untouched and rotted, seemed to have aged into permanent fixtures. Sometimes, plastic bags or small trash carried with the breeze, but nothing here seemed new.

Street signs hung crooked on rusted poles, or had fallen to the ground. Some were crumpled, or had been scratched and punctured.

Trees that were once part of neatly planned medians had burst free from their constraints, roots lifting entire slabs of sidewalk into jagged, uneven steps. A wasted effort; the trees were grey and dead. The ivy was alive, undeterred by winter’s chill and still clawing its way up most vertical surfaces in dense swaths. choking old construction fencing and curling through shattered windows as if it meant to suffocate each structure so fully, so completely, that it reclaimed it entirely. In some places, exposed to the elements and to nature itself, entire floors were warped under the strain of plant growth.

Wild grasses, pale and dry, reached hip-high in empty lots. Somewhere beneath the tangled brush were benches, buried picnic tables, and discarded construction materials. The wind carried the smell of old metal, mildew, and something darker–an acrid, rubbery stench that made the back of the throat prickle.

Anything of value had been stripped away long ago, probably. Now there were just buildings with broken windows and caved flooring, collapsed scaffolding. Even the most intact structures were industrial eyesores.

And they weren’t even in the heart of it.

There were no birds here. No insects. No animals. No people.

Just them.

The rendezvous point was 10PM sharp. It was the warmest night they’d had in weeks, and might have been the only chance they had to get out to investigate without freezing. What was originally only going to be a small group had doubled, tripled in size, as soon as word got out. It wasn’t exactly a secret–they wanted to investigate.

After all, there were quite a few rumors about No Point floating around online. Why not investigate this strange dead space of Destiny City, forgotten by time–or, perhaps, abandoned by it.

There were an array of forums, most not mainstream, which chronicled some of the more obscure rumors. It wasn’t really easy to find much about Northpoint unless you were looking for it–and who would even bother?

Well–Cassidy did, and maybe that was, in part, why the expected group was now in double digits. He wasn’t the only person who was aware of the oddities of Destiny City, but he sure was loud about it. He’d compiled the most interesting rumors and tempted Riker with them, on one of their frequent sleepovers. Planting the seed was easy. No Point was interesting.

And maybe, dangerous.

Anyone who knew Cassidy was often subject to his intense fixations, but this time he’d been careful about his newest fixation. He didn’t post it online like usual, or chatter about it to anyone within earshot at school. He spread this information carefully, but loudly.

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Transformers blow there all the time. Look, there’s even a few videos. But you know, they cut the power here ages ago. Like the ‘10s. Does it look like a firework to you? That’s what the police said about it. But I don’t think it is. Even if the phone quality’s garbage, you can clearly see it just explodes, there’s no firework trail.

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Listen to this recording, they say you can hear this all the time. Well, not all the time. But often enough that it’s not abnormal. Some ‘park ranger’ says that’s a fox, but it doesn’t sound like any of the recordings I’ve listened to. Creepy, right?

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Do you know, if you look up the records of Northpoint, you can’t find anything? It’s like all the information is scrubbed online. There’s a few old blog posts, but everything’s a dead link. Even the County Clerk’s got nothing. The most you can find is that Harkwell Investing pulled out, and some guy named Dorphin was a lawyer. But he’s dead. With a shitty obituary, too. Anyway.

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The place smells like burning rubber. Like the tire pit, I guess. But there’s no smoke. And it’s constant, not like a one off thing.

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Oh, check this out. Why bother installing new security for a place with nothing to hide? I guess if you wanted to keep people safe and make sure a building doesn’t fall on them, but I seriously doubt anyone wants to hang out around there for too long. Weird though, right? If you’ve got the money for check points and cameras, why not just demolish the place? That’s the safest way to keep people from getting hurt.

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Too bad there’s not a picture. I guess there’s a bunch of wild dogs in the area? This article says there’s a six-legged dog, too. A big one. I wish they had a video. I want to see how it runs.

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Do you think this report is legit? I was listening to this podcaster–he’s weird, you wouldn’t like him–and he said he went out there and got really weird energy readings. Like, not radioactive, but something’s definitely off. Like the magnetic field is all messed up? He said he couldn’t get good readings because his electronics kept dying or were reading really weird. He couldn’t broadcast from out there. I don’t know if I trust him, but there is a cell tower out there so you’d think you’d get good service, right?

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Oh, here’s a good picture. Does that look like sewage to you? I’ve never seen raw sewage lol but what else is going to come out of the sewer? I read somebody saying that it’s toxic residue from one of the old factories that got into the water drainage system or something. Someone said they had to close the whole area down because it was too toxic to clean and they didn’t want to get sued for environmental hazards. But look at the way it’s bubbling out of the manhole? That’s so gross. It looks like tar but I guess it’d have to be pretty hot to bubble like that. Do you think rain washes that downstream? I wouldn’t want to live next door.

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Oh, speaking of. There’s more of that gunk on the buildings, too. Do you think this is photoshopped? The picture’s from eight years ago. It looks like someone just threw a bunch of oil on the wall. But that sounds like a lot of money wasted. Just get some spray paint and graffiti it like a normal person lol

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You know they say people get sick around here, right? I knew a girl who lived two blocks away from where No Point starts. Her dad owned a bodega. They got so sick he had to close shop and move. Everybody got sick over there. She said it was always worse when it was windy, when you could smell the rubber rot? She said everyone had this gross, sticky cough. The doctors couldn’t find anything wrong with any of them, but she said it cleared up over the summer when she went to stay with her grandparents. Then as soon as she came back, it started all over again. They moved out of Destiny City or I’d call her up for more information. She didn’t accept my friend request, either. I’ll keep you posted though.

And so, after a great effort, it finally paid out.

Someone was finally investigating it.

Thanks to Riker, who had painstakingly humored Cassidy’s incredibly unsubtle hints, they were able to coordinate a time and place to meet up and investigate. Riker had intended to go himself, of course, and was deterred only by Elliot’s far more practical approach–take backup.

It was a big place, after all.

Strange rumors didn’t always mean nothing in Destiny City, and it was always better to go into anything weird with friends who could have your back–and they had a lot of friends.

It didn’t take long to recruit a small army eager to look into things.

Maybe there wasn’t any value to the rumors.

But, maybe there was.

“This is kinda like how we’d picture all of Destiny City would be like,” Halle mused as they made their way to the collection of knight signatures. “Back when mom told us we’d be moving. Just with some drug dealers on the corner and police sirens all over.” To be fair, the inclusion here would have made Northpoint less creepy. And weird, of course. The whole point of all this was that Northpoint was weird. Enough to get noticed.

Nothing huge, as far as Halle knew. His own interest had begun with just overhearing a vague, I’ve been hearing weird things about that place, you know like, The Other Downtown. What followed was basically a ghost story, but it was enough to have him check that section of his transponder map of the city. He nearly always did when he heard of odd happenings, cryptids, and hostile wildlife in the city. Youma signatures weren’t exactly strong, so Halle had found the best way to pick them out was with data. It wasn’t a perfect system, but it got him results more often than not.

Except this time there was a whole lotta not. Not anything at all. Transponders went out in the city all the time, to be sure, and the system itself was limited by the amount of hands and paws willing to place and replace them around this city. But it looked like there weren’t any in Northpoint. Like maybe there had never been any there. Which honestly, he found a lot more alarming than any stories he’d heard so far. And, maybe he was a little offended by it too. Maybe he was taking the total lack of energy data as a middle finger to himself, specifically.

If whatever was around here turned out to be just some weird youma, well…

Lisse’s bloody run in with one recently was a pretty good reminder that he shouldn’t be underestimating weird youma, Knight or no. Thankfully, it turned out that he wasn’t the only one interested in the place as something more than whispered yeah right rumors and city lore.

As they reached the gathering, he offered a wave and a comfortable, “Hey.” Most of the faces were familiar. From Urania and Fang, most recently on Tempesti. Some probably from school, too, but something about that felt a little rude to guess too closely. Like asking what color of underwear they were wearing.

Yvoire stood next to Reims, close in a way that might be shy, or protective, or uncertain, or all three at once. Their hands brushed together as Yvoire shifted his weight from one foot to the other, but nothing about his posture or expression gave any indication whether it was intentional or not.

Since much of their day had been spent on Ganymede performing the manual labor often involved in caring for their Wonders, Yvoire had already removed his heavy cape and large hat. Probably for the best, too, given the state of this place. He swallowed against the prickle in the back of his throat and forced a slow, even breath, settling a heart which threatened to start racing.

Maybe they should have left this to more seasoned Knights and Senshi. Yvoire bit his cheek before he could say so out loud. He didn’t want to seem like a coward. He wasn’t afraid. Nervous, sure, but nothing stood out as particularly dangerous. Certainly not when he compared it to the events of early last year. This place was just… weird. And gross. But there were a decent number of them gathering, and most of them were Knights. They could do this on their own.

“This place is a dump,” Cynthus said as she and Stirling arrived together. “I bet there’s people cooking meth around here. You think that’s what that smell is?”

She sniffed the air like she could distinguish between various scents enough to determine the answer on her own.

She could not.

“Oooorrrrr I don’t know, maybe that’s hard to do without electricity. I wouldn’t know. I’ve never cooked meth before. Hello, fellow weirdos,” she greeted the others, coming to a stop with the end of her crook planted on the ground and her free hand propped on her hip. “You should pull that stick out of your a**, Reims. Chances are there’s not anything bad here either. People lie for attention on the internet all the time. Even in Destiny City.”

Rose arrived on her own. It was basketball season, which meant she still had cheer practice most days of the week. Her pace was quick—not scared; not even particularly nervous, but still conscious of the fact that she was a Page with limited abilities compared to her stronger friends. She wore her usual friendly smile and waved to those who’d already gathered, eyeing the additional Lysithea knights with a welcoming light in her expression.

“Is this everyone?” Rose asked, looking around for additional stragglers. She noticed the approach of Ephesus and Amarynthos and waved a greeting to them, too. “I hadn’t heard of this place until Reims mentioned it. I asked my mom if she remembers anything about it from back when it was still in development but she had no idea what I was talking about.”

Stirling’s brows furrowed slightly and she gave Cynthus a confused look. “Have you smelled meth cooking before?” Sure she clarified that she hadn’t cooked it before which…yeah that was a good thing but.

Did it even have a smell?

Honestly? Not the time to worry about it. There were a lot of them gathered, most she knew at least vaguely on sight, a few that she hadn’t seen before but, safety in numbers and all of that.

Unless there was someone here who wanted to pick them off one by one, they couldn’t teleport. But. No, not the time. She summoned her blunted rapier and nodded at Cynthus and everyone else. “I”m ready when you all are.”

Truthfully, she was hoping for the whole trip to have been a waste. Better there actually be nothing wrong than there to be an unwelcome surprise.

Yvoire looked warily toward Lyon, not because Lyon himself was inherently suspicious but because 1) he was new, 2) he wore Ganymede’s symbol, and 3) Reims acknowledged him with more than the nod he gave the twins.

Reims must know him.

Reims hadn’t mentioned him to Yvoire.

Yvoire was immediately on his guard for no better reason than petty jealousy. He eyed Reims with a disgruntled frown. Displeasure knit his brows, but he didn’t say anything. Now wasn’t the time.

Cynthus rolled her eyes when Reims snarked at her. She turned to whisper at Stirling, but because Cynthus wasn’t always the best at lowering the volume, everyone else probably still heard her loud and clear: “He’s such an a*****e.”

She didn’t sound especially angry about this fact. Maybe slightly annoyed, but she was also used to Reims being a jerk by this point. It was one of those inevitable things like the sun rising in the east or Dad geeking out over Star Trek. Day in and day out she went to school, did her homework, went on patrol, and dealt with Reims being a total douche. (Only there were plenty of stupid boys worse than Reims out there. At least he was sort of dependable.)

“Okay, so groups. How many? Effie and Mary will obviously be together. Don’t make out when you’re supposed to be investigating. Lisse and Halle, do you guys do the always-together twin thing or are we gonna switch things up? Rose and New Blond should stick with at least one Knight.” She’d watched Reims’ little wave to Lyon with a smirk. Reims was so predictable. “We could always do the three girls together and you guys figure the rest out for yourselves.”

“As long as we all stay in range to still sense one another, we should be alright,” Rose said, maybe with more confidence than was warranted for someone of her power level. But she felt plenty secure around so many Knights, even those she didn’t know so well. She at least knew names and faces even if they didn’t know every detail about one another or who they were beneath the magic. The only one she hadn’t seen before today was Lyon, but Reims had mentioned him to her already. (It did not seem as if the same could be said for Yvoire. Rose suppressed a wince. Reims really knew how to make things worse for himself.)

Lisse was happy to see that Reims didn’t look too annoyed that he was here, or that he had brought Halle, and he wasn’t getting grumpy at the both of them for snacks (or the lack of, since Lisse honestly didn’t think before the investigation was the proper time…that would come after. When they were sure that nothing was actually wrong. Celebration snacks.)

And there went Halle again, spewing information that was pertinent and useful, and there he was. Just. Standing there with no purpose. “If we’re splitting up, Dering can shield too, Halle, why don’t you go with someone else and I can go with Dering?”

The last thing he wanted was his brother breathing down his neck over these things. And between himself and Dering, he felt quite confident. A shield and attack magic. Both useful. Both great.

Plus the fact that he knew Dering, and knew that he wouldn’t be reprimanded or told to ‘take all of this seriously’ or whatever.

He was taking it seriously. He was here, wasn’t he? That was enough. He was ready to go, ready to keep his friends safe. That had to be enough.

For all the warmth that Reims exuded, Yvoire had none of it. Lyon was good enough at reading people to suspect that that look had enough to do with him that he should probably not slip over to Reims and try to convince them to head out as a little Ganymede triad. He rolled the lollipop in his mouth thoughtfully.

Dering startled when Lisse said his name, not because he was opposed to any of it but just because he hadn’t been expecting it. He stood a little straighter, fingers still curled around the lute, and glanced at Reims and Yvoire. When there were no immediate objections, he drifted to Lisse with a quick smile.

Something didn’t feel right. It wasn’t Lisse, not by any stretch, but Dering’s skin felt tight, stretched over bones he’d never fit into. He shivered, for the third time in as many minutes, and looked over his shoulder.

Behind him, there was only an expansive darkness, stretching so far that he couldn't even force his eyes to clearly differentiate one block from the next.

He squinted into the darkness, as if that might trick his eyes into unearthing something otherwise hidden to him.

Nothing moved. There were no dark silhouettes hiding in the shadows of the building–none that he could see–and yet he still felt...something. Dering was torn between trusting his gut and knowing he was paranoid; if he felt like someone was watching him, there were only two options: it was in his mind, or it was real.

Neither were good options. He drew in another slow, deep breath, and stood with his back straight and shoulders squared. He still inched closer to Lisse.

Lyon watched this, too. Watched all of them, really, but there was no magic cheat sheet to figure out who was hiding behind the magical mask. Not that he needed to know. But he wanted to.

Amarynthos’ lips twitched like he was trying not to smile too much. He looked at Cynthus with an expression that said ‘We’ll see’ but Amarynthos was a very good, very respectful young man, who would probably not decide to have a makeout session around these parts. It wasn’t very romantic, anyway. But, just to make sure he wasn’t tempted by alone time with Ephesus, he already had a plan settling in mind.

“Okay,” Amarynthos said brightly, as things fell into place. Ephesus’ almost-laughter drew a fresh smile to his face and he swung their hands together playfully. “Halle, come with me and Effie? We never get to talk. We could really use shielding magic, just in case something pops up. Lyon, you stick with us, too. Effie’s got healing magic, and also, a tiger. My magic’ll give you a panic attack, probably. But I’ve got a good arm, so,” he mock swung his staff. It was too pretty to look like it could do much damage, but Amarynthos was in good spirits regardless. “Oh, and a bear.”

Lyon tilted his head to Amarynthos, to Ephesus, and wondered where they were hiding them. He didn’t ask.

“So, an hour?” Amarynthos checked, glancing between the three other groups. “I bet we can cover a lot of ground in that time. We’ll shoot a message if we find anything worth checking out together. Don’t be stingy if you find something cool, all right? Otherwise, I’ll see the rest of you then. Good luck! And don’t get into too much trouble.”

Cynthus was pretty sure they could all handle a sketchy, dead part of town. Most of them had faced worse. Here on Earth, and on other worlds. Mary, Effie, Reims, Dering, and Evie had all been fighting that Hollow thing when the world might have ended, so this should be a piece of cake for them, right? She didn’t have the chance to ask if the others had been there, too, but Halle, Lisse, and Stirling were all Knights. They had to have seen some s**t beyond what Cynthus had. You didn’t become a full fledged Knight without the experience to back it up. The only ones to worry about were Rose and Lyon.

So Cynthus was confident-ish. This place was creepy and gross, but that was probably all there was to it. Maybe they’d find a lost youma or something. Did youma get lost? Either way, they’d dust it and be done. The city should be responsible for the rest of it. Surely some rich developer would come along at some point and try to revitalize it.

“Alright, let’s go this way,” Cynthus decided. She looped arms with Stirling and started in the opposite direction of Reims and Yvoire. “Watch your step. Rose, stay close.”

Rose lingered to watch as everyone began to break away. A pensive frown momentarily took the place of her typical smile.

She didn’t have a problem going with Stirling and Cynthus, even if Cynthus could be troublesome. It would be a good opportunity to get to know Stirling a little bit. Plus, Rose trusted both of them to be able to handle themselves and keep her safe at the same time if necessary. (She would do her best to make sure it wasn’t necessary.) That wasn’t the part that troubled her.

Some of the others were nervous, even if she wasn’t. Reims hadn’t thought this was a good idea to begin with. (For the rest of them, anyway. She knew Reims would have checked it out on his own regardless.) Dering seemed a little tense, a little jumpy. Maybe that was normal for him, but even if it was Rose was sure there had to be some reason for it. Ephesus, too, even if he rallied with Amarynthos’ cheer and encouragement. Being a little apprehensive didn’t have to mean they had bad instincts. Sometimes those with the tendency to be uneasy or skittish had better instincts. Rose knew there were some in this group who could be reckless, who might ignore signs, or see them but push forward anyway.

But they were all here. They all, to an extent, trusted one another, even if some of them didn’t know each other well. They had all faced things people without magic could hardly imagine. As long as they stuck together, they should be fine. They knew what they were doing even if they didn’t know exactly what they should expect.

A small smile twitched back onto Rose’s face as she offered the others a quick, departing wave.

“Thank you,” she told Stirling, walking a step or two behind. “I love yours, too. Especially your hat!”

Their voices faded out of range as they left, quiet but chatty, friendly but watchful, pastel colors disappearing into the night.

Yvoire suspected he seemed unsociable and unfriendly. Under different circumstances he might try to rectify that. He didn’t always have a resting b***h face, but when his mood plummeted for any reason it tended to show on his face whether he liked it or not.

Neither he nor Reims said anything about going together. They seemed to come to a mutual agreement anyway. Or Reims made the decision and Yvoire went along with it. Yvoire didn’t see any reason to argue. He wanted to ask Reims about Lyon anyway. He couldn’t do that around the others. They might judge him, or tease him. He might come off in a way he didn’t intend, especially around those he didn’t know as well, who didn’t know him as well. He was just reckless enough that if Reims hadn’t made the choice to split off as a pair, Yvoire might have stomped off on his own to cool his head before he started making too many assumptions and getting mad for no reason.

He wasn’t mad. He was confused. And suspicious. And nervous. Yvoire didn’t like surprises. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been surprised by something good. Maybe he was rattled. This place was creepy enough to have anyone overreacting.

Yvoire turned to follow after Reims, clutching his parasol (closed and snapped shut so it wouldn’t open until he wanted it to) with both hands so their hands wouldn’t brush against each other again as they walked side by side.