i am the oncoming storm

[autokinetic]

There are three Bells in Milliways.

They want a fourth. A fifth. A sixth. A seventh.

And then Downside is going down.

Comments

[pythbox]

Okay, says Sue, I'll give it a shot.

He looks around.

...Where's the door?

[she_sells_seashells]

Where is the door? That's weird. Well - can you 'port there? Do you remember the place well enough?

[pythbox]

He tries it.



...Well, I found 'em all right...

[dark_light]

"Ack!"

No nudity taboo, maybe, but that doesn't extend as far as you might think. (It does mean Amariah doesn't bother to square on her silks, just pulls herself out from under Kas.

"What are you doing here? How'd you get here?"

[dark_light]

Amariah teleports herself and her teammate.

They find a Bell, first. (And drop a conjured device that connects wirelessly to a half-ansible in Shell Bell's apartment.)

They wish her out.

She folds into the link and bemusedly summarizes herself. She appears to be much like Stella or Golden, except that where Stella survived being hit by Tyler's van and Golden evaded it altogether, she was killed on impact. If there was magic in her world, she doesn't know about it.

It is not long before she names herself "Template". She is summarily minted and stacked up with standard powers, as that's only one evil, but they don't spare her other coins as they move on.

Here is a Sherlock of some sort.

[bitofafiction]

He is confused and wary!

[autokinetic]

"Hi. Our template is friends with your template. If you let Sue link you up that'll let us explain everything way faster," says Aegis.

[bitofafiction]

"Fine."

[jovahs_heiress]

So. This is Upside, is it.

[ending_of]

Unlike Downside, it has plants. And real, alive-looking landscape in between the sparsely distributed residential streets.

[luminous_regnant]

They'd like to see the equivalent of Downside's guides. Golden goes invisible before they teleport again; she's probably opaque enough that no one can read her life story. Angela's life story's pretty innocuous.

[ending_of]

Downside and Upside share many of the same guides; the catacombs let out into the same room no matter which vertical direction you're headed from there.

Currently, there are a man and a woman sitting behind the desk, chatting quietly.

[self_composed]

Now, where is this "Eights" they've heard so much about?

[lookingforwardtoit]

She is at Chainsaw's house!

Specifically, she is in Chainsaw's kitchen, making Chainsaw pancakes.

[nowait_letme]

Mm nom nom.

[self_composed]

"Anna! Sandy!" says Stella. "Well, I wasn't expecting that, but I should've."

[ending_of]

All at once, seven different people with the same face are collected from their various locations into a single room.

It's a large, round room, about the size of the lobby at the base of the tower. The entire outer wall is one large window, showing that the room is in fact at the top of the tower, with Upside spread out far below one half and Downside far, far below the other.

There is an eighth person in the room, sitting in a comfortable chair looking inward from the edge of the room, with Upside to her left and Downside to her right.

[autokinetic]

...Jane?

[mind_game]

Jane tries.

Jane can't. They won't tuck away.

Just to check, she picks up Nathan and puts him a millimeter to the left and then puts him back, just for a fraction of an instant that he'll notice but his human companions won't. He works normally.

I can't unstick you.

[cross_and_bow]

Now where's that Sherlock alt who helped Shell Bell?

[finaldiscussion]

Not in a state to be teleported to.

[cross_and_bow]

Hmmm. That probably means naked. But in context, it might or might not also mean being tortured.

Brainphone time. [Strat?]

[self_composed]

Be vewy vewy quiet. Stella's hunting Whistles.

[gunpowdergelatine]

There is currently one alt of the Joker in this afterlife.

He is in a stone box in a dark room in someone's basement, and he is crying.

[self_composed]

Well, Stella can open the box and let him out. "What happened to you?" she asks softly, though she fears she already knows.