The Search for the Newcomers, December 2012 Edition.

[stringmods]

Who: Open to Everyone, but only Newly Accepted Characters can start threads.
Where: All around the city! They appear where you want them to appear.
Summary: Newcomers arrive and by now the Government is more ready and sends everyone out to go people hunting.
Warnings: ARRIVALS. Also assume the first thread is the ones who tell you about the city, and the other tags for the character can be talking with others in the city and learning more about it.

[FOR THOSE IN THE CITY:]
They were getting much better at this, it was for certain.

Last month's initial testing of the HORUS system had worked really well. The device which allowed everyone to spot abnormalities; and now even more refined, they could hone in on newcomers at a much faster pace. The leftover energy from the travel (commonly called Magatama Residue) gave them a few minutes to find them before it would flicker out.

Combined with the fact they could appear in most parts of the city, it made finding the newcomers was both easy yet frustratingly difficult.

As the blips appear on your own radar function, it was also nice enough to calculate for you the best transport and destination routes to take to get there. Speed was of the essence, after all.

[FOR THOSE WHO JUST ARRIVED:]
You're not in your homeworld anymore. That much is evident. So how do you feel? Happy? Sad? Troubled? A little of all three? No matter what, the memories of a butterfly man named Philemon are fading like a dream; you'll remember the details, but perhaps not everything he has said.

There is one word that stays with you, however.

Persona.

So...here to save the city, huh? First you'll need to find out more information. And who knows, maybe a familiar face or two...

[OOC: As stated above, only new characters can start a thread, but feel free to jump in any of them. characters arrive with their clothing and whatever items they had on them the moment they were taken; the remaining items will be later found in their apartments.]

Comments

[von_schweetz]

Back home, there is no such thing as a speed limit. In fact, speed is a wonderful thing, and a necessity to win races! Right now, speed is Vanellope's only saving grace.

The police are hot on her tail in their cruisers as a strange looking go kart zooms through the Virgo district, leaving exhaust that smells like somebody just baked cookies. It hooks a sharp left, and then another just before the cops mimic the turn, effectively pulling her out of their sight.

Too bad she picked an alley with a dead end.

"Whoooooooa!" CRASH! Vanellope slams on the brakes, but runs into a stack of garbage cans, boxes, and trash, which fall on top of her and her car. Effectively camouflaged, the cops drive right by. But now she has to dig her racer out from under the mess.

"Yech, this smells worse than the sewers in that mutant reptile game..."

A minor setback. She doesn't seem at all worried or concerned that she's been displaced.

[gforceinmyfaaaace]

Never a dull moment in the Virgo district, eh? Seems like every time he's stepping out of work, something odd is happening. Weird; you'd think that'd happen more in Scorpio, but then this is the shopping district, a place where more people have a reason to be. He watches the car race with a great deal of fascination. It's not everyday you see a car chase, let alone one involving a confectionery go-kart operated by a little girl. The resulting crash, however, sends Pit flying (figuratively) to the alley.

"Are you okay?"

[von_schweetz]

The small girl that emerges from the heap of garbage looks a little disheveled, but okay. She pulls a piece of newspaper off of her arm and dusts herself off.

"Huh? Yeah, I'm fine, happens all the time." She hops down from the back of her kart and looks over her visitor. "Hey, wait a second."

[gforceinmyfaaaace]

"What is it?" He's still very much in Hero Must Protect mode, so it's said with a bit more urgency than necessary.

[von_schweetz]

Vanellope holds her hands to her chin and narrows her eyes, seemingly examining the angel standing before her in a serious way.

"I know you!" She finally exclaims. "Your from that Brawl game, aren't you? We were there just last week! And man, Mario sure wiped the floor with you..."

[gforceinmyfaaaace]

Pit stares, disbelieving, for a moment. When that moment passes, the only change that's made is the expanse of his wings.

"You...know about Brawl?"

[all_wound_up]

Well, that certainly didn't sound good! Like the conscientious and concerned citizen she is, Nano's decided to go have a look and see what the cause of all that noise was just now. Peeking her head slowly into the alleyway, she takes a tentative step in.

"Hello...? What was that noise just now?"

[von_schweetz]

Nano will find a little girl tugging furiously on a bag of trash. When she manages to get it to budge, she and the bag fall backwards and land on the ground. This is a normal reaction, but when her backside hits the ground, her presence goes on the fritz, like the image on a television set when the cable cuts out. It lasts only a second, and Vanellope looks up at the stranger.

"An emergency stop!"

[all_wound_up]

"You aren't hurt, are you?"

Nano blinks a little at the glitch effect, rubbing her eyes for a moment before looking back at the girl.

[von_schweetz]

"Ha, I'm good, I'm good. Is this one of those games where you play the hardened criminal and have cops on your tail every five minutes?"

[all_wound_up]

Hm... a game...? No, I'm afraid not.

[complexdisorder]

Rose is window shopping a bit as she still tries to get her bearings, and the kart zooming past her just makes her cock her head slightly and laugh delicately behind one hand. This entire city is just too much for her right now, and that was the icing on the cake, as bad of a pun as that is.

She leans around the corner where the kart ducked into the alleyway, calling out a greeting, "Nice work. I believe you have effectively evaded them. Though, next time, I would recommend a GPS."

[von_schweetz]

"GPS, huh? What's that?" Vanellope climbs out of her garbage-laden vehicle and plucks some clutter from her sleeves.

Orange hood, bright colors. She screams video game heroine. "Oh, right. You guys must be new to the arcade. I'm Vanellope von Schweetz, from Sugar Rush Speedway. Just checkin' out my new competition, y'know..."

[complexdisorder]

Wow, Vanellope certainly is... loquacious.

"Global Positioni-- the arcade? You mean the shopping district? Yes, I am new to the city, in fact," Rose is not quite sure what to think of the small candy bedecked girl, but she definitely is amused by her attitude. Rose laughs softly behind one hand as she circles the garbage covered race car. "Have you been here long?"

[von_schweetz]

"Noooot quite. This must be the first day this game got hooked up." Vanellope decides to talk while she works; the trash won't move itself. "Nope! Just dropping by, doing a little game jumping after hours."

[complexdisorder]

"The first--... I am sorry. I am new here as well, and I am not quite certain as to your meaning. What is "game jumping" precisely?" Rose picks up one of the heavier bags, tossing it towards the dumpsters. Game jumping--it sounded too much like what they were doing on the meteor, but much more, well, fun. And she wasn't quite sure what to think about that.

"You played SBURB as well?"

[hetried]

And guess who was a poor, unfortunate sap to have been half-watching the police chase, and happened to be standing in front of the alley way when Vanellope zoomed by and ended up taking Daichi with her into the crash by sheer force of momentum?

If you guessed Daichi, then you get an A+ for the semester. Because here he was, accompanying her under the garbage cans, and he's pretty sure his scarf was now stuck under one of the car's wheels.

"What the-- What the hell just happened?!"

Excuse us for a minute he has to go into shock.

[von_schweetz]

Daichi and crashing vehicles. They go together like...okay, maybe they shouldn't go together, but they do.

Vanellope tilts her head curiously as she discovers that her car had picked up a second passenger, walking up to him after crawling out of the trash herself. "Hey, what're you trying to do? That's not how you hitchhike!" She jumps down onto the ground. "Are you trying to be roadkill?"

[hetried]

It's truly a match made in Heaven. Probably one made by Polaris' kind of Heaven.

"Wha-- no! It's not like I was trying to get caught in your wreck!"

He'll feel bad for being exasperated with a little kid after he wasn't covered in trash. For the moment, he's trying to pull his scarf out from wherever it was stuck (he...couldn't really tell and wasn't sure he wanted to know), and thankfully Daichi recovered it with little to not actual tearing. Phew. "What are you even doing driving around like that?!"

[von_schweetz]

"Good. I thought maybe you were trying to tarnish an impressionable young mind like my own! Trying to kill yourself...in front of a child..." She pretends to act distraught for all of five seconds.

His scarf may have crumbs on it. Fortunately the icing has long set.

"Checkin' out the place." She sees no problem with that.

[hetried]

He stared at the crumbs with a bit of...curiosity and confusion, before brushing them off like the harmless crumbs they were. What the hell?

"Wha-- kill myself?!" He exclaimed, turning back to the girl. Daichi was many things on the scale of Pessimism, but suicidal was not one of them.

Though despite her acting, it was obvious she wasn't that distraught over it, which really just made Daichi feel really exasperated. "You know, I don't think you can actually see anything when you're going at Mach Five."

[maybe_a_king]

Why was a child using a go-kart that went that fast?

why was a child crashing her go-kart in an alley? Arturia doesn't even think about the police cruisers that zip by the opening of the alley, just parks her moped at the opening and gets off, running toward the girl now.... digging? Yes, she was digging her gokart out of the garbage.

"Are you all right, Miss?" Arturia asked anyway, coming up beside the girl.

[von_schweetz]

Because this kid is a professional racer, if you can believe it! But this accident doesn't make her look very smooth. She should have glitched through it...but the would've-should've part is over.

She turns back and eyes Arturia, continuing to sling trash bags off of the cart.

"Who, me? I'm peachy! But this stuff reeks."

Sorry for the late tag. Holidays made everything get away from me.

[maybe_a_king]

Hey, every professional racer needs an epic crash or two.

"Of course it 'reeks'. It's the garbage," she says as she pulls off her backpack and helps the girl dig. Arturia knows she'd be digging through the trash as well if it was for her moped. It seemed only right to help this girl dig for her kart.

"Is driving one of these normal in your world?" she ventures. What? The girl looks ten years old. She has to be sure!

That they do O_O I apologize as well!

[von_schweetz]

Vanellope is grateful for the help, though she doesn't say so. She probably should, but trust is a fragile thing.

"Yup! Just about everybody has a sweet ride like this baby. Except for the candy people, they just like to watch."