Up Against The Echo In The Mirror

[monochromatically]

Who; Anyone!
What; Mirrorverse swap Logs
Where; Around Aterat ( will be replied to with account signalinterference) and the Mirrorverse (will be replied to with Mono’s regular account monochromatically )
When; Early October for a full week
Warnings; A very tall man for the Aterat side, probably warnings for stalking if he decides your character is a problem and violence if a fight breaks out. Might be some fighting on the Mirrorverse side as well if Mono and whoever he meets run into something bad.
NOTE; For info please see his journal at this link HERE.



Mono in the Mirror World Log - OTA

Mono hadn’t meant to slip through the mirror. In fact, he made it a habit to avoid mirrors in general for his own awkward feelings towards his reflection, even before the weird portal mirrors had appeared in Aterat. When the portal mirrors had appeared and Mono had randomly caught sight of his reflection once or twice, an anxious feeling always welled up inside him. He still saw himself, everyone did, it was just that Mono’s other self did not look like Mono as he did now... Instead it was the too tall, imposing, looming figure he had feared for a long time... Still did, if only in a slightly different way.

So Mono had avoided crossing in front of the mirror portals or getting close to them as much as possible. It was fairly easy. It wasn’t like the televisions in his world. Those beckoned to him and demanded his attention in order to open the door and let that version of himself free.

It worked out well enough until suddenly it didn’t. His powers had been acting up a little more in the last month for reasons he didn’t know or understand... without even trying to do anything with his ability, reaching for a mug of cocoa had caused it to fly off the end table and across the floor. With a yelp, the boy had hurried to clean up… only to trip and tumble through the mirror.

Leaving Mono's ever present moth friend to flutter about frantically, trying to figure out where her dear little friend had gone...

... Now he was stuck wandering a gloomy, unfamiliar city. If Mono were honest, the energy of the place and way things looked reminded him a little too much of his world in the worst ways. It hadn’t taken long for the boy to fall back on old instincts. Moving cautiously, keeping close to cover and making as little noise as possible when he explored to try to find a way out.

Mono was hesitant to approach anyone, choosing to sneak about from building to building above. Using various (sometimes risky) methods to move across larger gaps. Sometimes… Sometimes there’s a wistful feeling that distracts him, thinking of times when he had someone there to help make things a little easier. He tries to dash those thoughts immediately though, because it’s hard to not think about how poorly that ended for him last time… No, it was better to work alone in these kinds of places.

Doesn’t stop the boy from being curious, though, as he spots a familiar figure that he didn’t expect to see here. He isn’t innocent or naïve enough to approach immediately, though. He needs to make sure they are who they look like. Not whatever strange version exists in this world… And if it is an alternate version of someone, he at least needs to know they aren’t dangerous.

(ooc: Mono will probably be the first to approach your character, so feel free to write your character exploring the mirror verse in whatever way you like. If you want something different, I’m game for that! If you want your character to notice him first, that’s cool too, but his reactions will vary if addressed or approached directly. This goes for Aterat people he knows or the mirror versions of them! :D)




Thin Man Wandering Aterat - Option A - OTA

It’s too… something. Colourful? Noisy? … Alive? He hadn’t cared for the other place he was on the other side of the mirror. Nothing for him to do, no way to reach viewers in the usual manner, but he’d still carved out a little portion of the city to loom about in without bothering much with the others that had arrived there given teamwork was a joke that he'd been the punchline of so long ago... He respected the other powerful arrivals boundaries and (mostly) didn't bother with anyone more than strictly necessary. In that way, it wasn’t entirely unlike his world, where the monsters each ruled over their particular location. The Pale City was his, The Maw was The Lady’s (though from what he could spy from the few televisions there… that may have changed) and so on and so forth.

Still… Clearly no one on the other side of the mirror or in this more lively world had ever been touched by that which everyone, even he himself, was meant to be led by. Hard to tell if it was disappointment or jealousy that he felt as he considered that, but he decided on disgust in the end.

Oh, there was one or two things he did find he favourable about all this, though. The Tell-Phone for one. A fascinating device, so different from the useless hunks of plastic that sat around in his world. These were small, portable… And capable of broadcasting video across some kind of network by anyone who happened to have one. Everyone was easy to reach out to. Accessible anytime, anywhere! How much easier, how much faster, would spreading the signal be for him and the Eye if they had something like this to work with instead of just the television?

For another... he was getting a rather interesting chance to stretch his legs for a lot longer than the usual cycles allowed at this point, and you didn’t look a gift horse in the mouth. If the eye ever did extend its reach to this place, well, he was here and he would answer to it again if needed… And it always needed him.

But for now...? For now, he was going to wander around. To see this other city that his smaller (naïve, stubborn, annoying…) self had been running around in for however long he’d been here.


Thin Man Wandering Aterat - Option B - OTA

So you made the mistake of going out too late at night, ignored the prickling sense of dread that crept up on you and now you’re being stalked through the streets of Aterat by a very imposing person… Are they a person? Perhaps an ‘entity’ was the better word for it. He certainly doesn’t move like a normal human. More like something out of a scary story, all tall and menacing and definitely threatening. It looked to be dressed like a detective from those old black and white films, but his skin was pale and his eyes sunken… Is he alive or is he the living dead? Whose to say? All you know is that you should probably focus on getting away rather than trying to strike up a conversation.

Unfortunately, every time you think you’ve lost him, there he is again. Sometimes he’s humming a low, ominous tune. His voice is raspy and harsh from a lack of use, and his gaze conveys a level of disgust with either the sight of you or the fact that you’re insisting on this pointless game of cat and mouse that you clearly can’t win.

What do you do? Do you try to escape into a building and hope he’s too tall to fit inside? Keep hoping that you lose him? Or do you stand your ground and see what happens? Up to you, hopefully at least one of these options is the right one.

(ooc: On the flip side, you could also go with your character intervening to be a big ol hero if the other way doesn't work for you)

Comments

[soulsword]

"No. Such a simple but serious answer! So to the point!" She picked up on the annoyance and did what Illyana did best: decided that annoying someone was the best way to handle the situation. One day she'd probably figure out that didn't have to always be her solution to things, but today wasn't that day. Today was the day she stuck with the idea that if she had the opportunity to annoy someone, particularly someone that seemed just a bit sinister, then she'd take it.

"Not a great conversationalist, are you?" That seemed to be an understatement. Though she got the impression that it was more that he didn't want to be a conversationist. He wanted her to drop the questions. So she'd just ask more. "Are you sure? Welcomes can be pretty great."

[signalinterference]

No, the man wasn’t a great conversationalist. To be fair to him, though, who would he have been talking to regularly before arriving in the place on the other side of the mirror or here? His irritation grew a little more evident, not in his expression so much as the slightly heavier atmosphere around them. “If you don't like that, maybe you should go find someone who is.” He continued, looking for a crack in her expression.

“Do I seem unsure.” No, he is not unsure. He is quite sure of his opinion. Though, admittedly, few would openly welcome him to their space willingly. “Maybe you should find someone who needs one.”

[soulsword]

"Someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed." She replied with a tsk tsk click of her tongue. The atmosphere shift felt strange, there was no denying that, but somehow that just made Illyana want to press the entire thing all the more. "We don't get enough people for me to just go find someone else." She gave him a little shrug to accompany the statement, one that she thought might have looked mildly innocent.

"Hmm, no. I guess you seem pretty sure. Almost like you already know about this place. Just curious, how do you feel about mirrors?" You know, just your average regular type of question to ask, right ?

[signalinterference]

“Then practice in front of a mirror till someone does.” If the man had a sense of humor, he might find the suggestion funny, if only because he knew how that might annoy the other version of Illyana that waited on the other side. He doesn’t have a sense of humor though, so his tone is bland and lacks much emotion despite the rather oppressive energy that permeates the air around him and he makes a point of looming over the woman.

This only intensifies as she digs a bit at him about knowing this place. “Which I do, so your help is not needed.” Unless she wanted to help him test out how well his abilities worked in this world, but he didn’t need her to be willing so much as prove to be a hinderance in finding a starting point. “I am busy. Goodbye.” He started, half daring her to stall him as he turned to move away.

[soulsword]

"A mirror hm? You know, I'm not too fond of the mirrors here, sometimes there's ugly things inside of it." It was said with some sort of tone in it that indicated she meant more than she was saying. There was also something in her expression that indicated she was pushing him, perhaps even goading him.

She moved quickly to stand in front of him, keeping him from going off. Something about him made her very certain she didn't want to let this go quite yet. Not just because she was having a bit of fun, but because she was becoming more and more certain that she did know of him at least. Mono had mentioned the thin man and she was certain she'd seen him in the mirror realm once or twice. This had to be that man.

"Busy with what?"

[signalinterference]

“Sometimes. And sometimes it’s the truth reflected, the way something should be.” He responded with a pointed tilt of his head, voice still low and raspy but carrying a particular weight directed at her. The man wondered how she’d take that, if it would get under her skin.

If she was going to insist on pestering him, he thought as she quickly moved to stand in front of him, he might as well respond in kind. It might make her leave him alone or might give him an excuse to act. Whichever it was, it would still be interesting, he supposed.

The man had a feeling she was starting to put the pieces together if the way she was looking at him and her insistence on getting in his way were anything to go by. The boy must have said something. How foolish… It meant he had made the same mistakes all over again, trusting people. Perhaps, he mused, his younger self had been away from the tower for too long, or the eye hadn’t gotten through to him yet. “My own business.” He responded, “As in none of yours.”

[soulsword]

"Should is a strong word and the truth is always subjective. What makes your truth the right truth?" Nothing he did made her flinch, she met it with a steeled determination; the kind of determination that came from someone who had experienced such looks often enough to take them as challenges. Though she did slip up ever so slightly in her tone, with just a hint of uneasiness slipping into the word truth.

A tiny part of her was almost embarrassed that it'd taken her so long to put all the pieces together. Though she was trying very hard to make certain that it didn't show on her face. "We're all here together, stuck in this place, so everyone's business is everyone's right?" She was positive he wasn't going to take it that way, but she was going to try regardless. "It can't be that big of a secret."

[signalinterference]

Though his range for feeling emotions tended towards the negative, the slight note of uneasiness that had slipped into Illyana’s tone when she questioned him left him with something vaguely like satisfaction. So he could instill that in this woman, determined to be a thorn in his side as she was. Good, he thinks. Maybe he can get rid of her yet? “Does the idea that my truth may be right bother you enough to ask?” The dark pits that were his eyes narrowed a fraction, perhaps pushing a little.

She seemed to be digging her heels in, though, on the subject of letting him go about his business. The man supposed, if she really was starting to figure it out, that would only be natural… “You really want to know?” He finally started, resigned and perhaps getting a little bored with the back and forth. The pretending now seemed rather… pointless. “Very well…” And as though a switch flipped, he straightened the slouch of his back to stretch to his full height and the air grew heavy and thick, like molasses. If Illyana did not choose to teleport or move away, she would be caught up in it as everything slowed to a crawl. “I wanted to test the waters of this disgusting world; it needs correcting. I can start with you if you insist.”

[soulsword]

"No, of course not. There's no truth there." She narrowed her eyes at that look of his that looked far too much like satisfaction for her to be happy. The last thing she wanted to do was allow him to get the best of her and yet he almost had. She'd insist it was an almost even if it...wasn't quite.

Digging her heels in seemed to be the epitome of what Illyana was attempting to do here. At least it was until his change happened. The air felt heavy and oh so very thick and wrong. "Correcting? That's a weird way of putting things." She straightened up herself, going right back into digging her heels in. This time though it was digging her heels into whatever it was that was happening with him. "You can try starting with me."

[signalinterference]

Oh, a vague feeling like smugness tugs at him to see her expression.

The feeling is fleeting, though, as the woman dug in deeper into the subject of not leaving him to his own devices. “Weird to those who do not know, but accurate all the same.” He responded in a blunt, resigned tone. Very well, he thought to himself. He would stretch his legs, so to speak, and see how things reacted to him in this world. “If you insist.” He ended, and the heaviness intensified to the point that Illyana would find herself caught in the field if she didn’t teleport.

Time around the man slowed to a crawl, as a hand raised and anything not fixed in place started to rattle violently. Refuse bins, plant pots, anything of that nature, and who knew what his target was?

(ooc: You’re choice if she gets stuck in the slowed-down-zone or not)

[soulsword]

His field of heaviness came on suddenly (at least it seemed sudden to her) and she found herself both curious and irritated by something so unexpected happening. Evidently he hadn't just been all menacing talk. Very slowly her teleport portal began to form around her as the zone of slow came out.

"What is this...?" she muttered, also slowly, as she noticed the things that had begun to shake around her as well. Well, damn, that wasn't good. The portal came up around her and she disappeared.

[signalinterference]

“What you asked for.” came the flat response from the man as Illyana as she found herself caught up in the weird field that seemed to spread out around the man. It seemed that she had not expected him to put his money where his mouth was, so to speak. He had, though, and now he wondered if she would regret digging her heels in so stubbornly.

As the portal came up and she disappeared, a rubbish bin from the street flew up and smashed against the wall near where she’d once been standing. “Hm… Gone.” He mumbled with a note of finality. His attack had missed, but if she was going to flee, then he could get back what he’d been about to do. He cast a glance around, though, not about to let his guard down immediately. Just because he couldn’t see her didn’t mean she was done with her stubborn meddling, he supposed.