EVERYONE HATES TIME TRAVEL PART ONE

[capitalm]

Who: Anybody stepping out of the TIME HOLE into present-day LA, anybody who wants to witness this going down – or to intervene
Where: Downtown LA
When: August 2nd (now!)
What: A bunch of time travellers arrive in the present to try to fix their dystopian future. See here for more details!
Warnings: time travel. everyone hates time travel.

It's late at night when the portal opens, an undulating patch of wrongness hanging in the warm summer air just a few inches above the street, bordered by shimmering multicoloured light.

A car swerves to avoid it. There's a scream or two, and people start to clear the area, eager to put some distance between themselves and the potential scene of some kind of Incident – others stay put, cell phone cameras at the ready.

If anything, though, when people start to step out of the portal, the onlookers calm down a little – this is, at least, not going to be another dinosaur incident. Cameras flash anyway. Another person screams, presumably because they're just on a roll with screaming at this point.

More than one person has called the Alpha Force hotline by now – but they might well not be the first heroes to arrive on the scene...


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Everyone is cordially encouraged to make multiple threads here for either time-travellers, present-day people, or both. Feel free to NPC passersby etc. as well!
Remember that villains from the future who are following the good guys through are probably going to come through at a slight delay.

Comments

OPEN, BUT SPECIFICALLY KARKAT

[nitrodamus]

He doesn't hide himself, after arriving. He gave up on hiding a long time ago.

Sollux tours the city out in the open, in a blaze of red and blue as he flies. It's oddly nostalgic, now. He used to think of it as something as foreign and weird, but now he's lived on Earth almost as long as he loved on Alternia. He doesn't necessarily think of this as memories of a better time, though. Just memories of when he was more naive.

He honestly doesn't know what he's going to do yet. He figures that this iteration of himself is probably going to stop existing, for better or for worse, so there's really nothing to worry about anymore. Just maybe an impact before the timeline resets.

He figures his present self will be with the Decepticons, but his path towards that is slow. Part of him hopes that CONDOR will show up, if he lingers around obviously enough. It fell apart years ago from his perspective, and he'd enjoy one more chance to put them in their place.

So he lingers obnoxiously in the city, ignoring the citizens that react with alarm. Trying to accommodate others was the worst mistake he ever made.

[10thingsihateaboutme]

Citizens reacting with alarm is something that, as technically a superhero, Karkat's supposed to react to, especially with all this time travel shit going on. He's kind of apprehensive about the idea of getting himself caught up in any of that – he feels like having to deal with any future Karkats is probably best avoided – but he figures he should at least check it out so he can call for backup or something, if he has to.

What he isn't expecting is that flare of familiar red and blue light.

He assumes it's just regular Sollux at first, and he's about to run forward to tell him to chill the fuck out before something happens when he realises that while it's definitely Sollux, it's not the one he's anticipating.

He hangs back, apprehensive and alarmed.

[nitrodamus]

It's hard to miss Karkat, among all these humans. Sollux turns to look at him slowly, and after a wary pause, initially reacts with only a faint scoff.

"Typical," he says in English, with much better pronunciation than present Sollux ever could have managed. The age he has on his present self is obvious - he has all the markings of an adult troll, including the more threatening sub-vocalizations. He wheels on Karkat fully, and there is an anger there that just doesn't exist with normal Sollux - a type of barely suppressed hostility.

This Sollux has been obviously marred with further cybernetic additions - lights that are dimmed by his own psionic aura.

"It's been a while," he says in Alternian now, regarding the younger troll.

[10thingsihateaboutme]

"Holy shit," says Karkat, staring up at him, round-eyed. He backs up a little, not quite conscious of doing so. "You're – shit. You're from the future."

[nitrodamus]

Sollux just snorts. It's an unfriendly sound.

"What gave me away?" he drawls.

[10thingsihateaboutme]

"Wow, I don't know, maybe the fact that you're a million feet tall and you're acting like even more of a jackass than usual –" He breaks off, his indignant expression softening a little – but warily. He isn't so startled by how different this Sollux looks that he hasn't noticed how angry he seems.

"What happened to you?"

[nitrodamus]

There's sharp edge to his reaction, which speaks for itself. His eyes narrow into fiery slits.

"Nothing that couldn't have been prevented. Not that you'd care." He looks away, up past the rooftops, scowling. "But that's why I'm here."

[10thingsihateaboutme]

Karkat bristles. "What the fuck do you mean, not that I'd care? Why the hell wouldn't I care -??"

[nitrodamus]

"I mean that you weren't fucking there any of the times it would have mattered!" Sollux snarls in brutal Alternian, moving forward aggressively. "Think about it - where the hell am I now?"

[10thingsihateaboutme]

Karkat takes a step back, opens and closes his mouth.

"With – your robot guys, I guess - I mean, right?"

[nitrodamus]

"Well, it's a good enough answer for you, isn't it?" Sollux snaps, like that response has proven his point. "Fuck, I just finished talking to you on the other side, and it's like you haven't changed at all."

[10thingsihateaboutme]

"I – what?" His ears flatten against his head; he looks confused, upset, and mountingly concerned. "Wait, is shit going down with you right now??" His eyes are wide.

[nitrodamus]

"It will soon," he says, voice turning distant for a long moment, though he no longer flinches. "It was a long time ago." He looks back at him. "Did you know that you tried to stop me from coming back, even fucking knowing that?"

[10thingsihateaboutme]

Karkat stares at him, a look of incomprehension on his face – he shakes his head, although it's hard to tell whether that's an answer or just in confusion.

"What's – what's going to happen?" he asks. "I mean, I – can I stop it?"

[nitrodamus]

"I don't know," Sollux says, his voice taking less of an edge as his answer is more sincere. "I've never actually done this before."

But he sure as hell is going to tear things down until he's satisfied.

[10thingsihateaboutme]

Karkat opens his mouth, and then closes it – he shakes his head, helpless. "But – dude, if you're mad at me then there has to be something I could have done, right–? Please, man, just tell me!"

[nitrodamus]

That may be a bold assumption. But then again, as far as Sollux can see, there must have been.

Karkat's plea makes him pause, with a sincere sort of curiosity. He's spent a very long time convincing himself that people from this time period had no interest in helping him, but for a moment, he wonders.

"He's going to try to take on TRIDENT sometime soon. It doesn't work out."

[10thingsihateaboutme]

His face falls, and his eyes bug out a little in that way they do sometimes when he is faced with someone he cares about doing something appallingly stupid.

"On his own??"

[metabee]

After getting a quick summary of events from Jon, Metabee had gone straight on patrol to help keep an eye out for any future villains or even people trying to take advantage of the chaos to do some crime. So far he hadn't run into anything, but the night was still young.

He'd originally dismissed the flickering red and blue light emanating from down one of the side streets as a police car, but with the increased shouting coming from that direction he decided it would probably be worth checking out. Rounding the corner, it was easy to see what the disturbance was, and it was pretty recognizable.

"Sollux?! What're you doing here? Haven't seen you in ages, dude." He asked, running over to where the alternian was hovering.

[nitrodamus]

Sollux's eyes snap over to Metabee, and it's immediately clear that there is something different. Even biological differences, aside, he's sporting considerably more hardware than ever before.

"More than you think," he growls.

[metabee]

"Oooohhhhh boy. You're Future Sollux." He slid to a stop a safe distance away. He was perfectly aware of what present Sollux was capable of, and judging by the light show going on right now he wasn't too keen to wind up on the bad side of this one.

Longclaw had given him a really quick summary of things, but Metabee wasn't sure what to make of his claim that Sollux being some sort of terrorist. Afterall, last time he'd seen the guy he'd been too skittish to leave the building most of the time, let alone lead a group of anarchists.

"So, uh. What're ya doing here?"

[nitrodamus]

"Well, I figure that the future timeline I'm from is going to disappear when these 'Alpha Force' chumps do their thing, anyway, so I may as well have some fun first." He smirks, with plenty of fang. "And there are some things I need to take care of, now that I have the chance."

[metabee]

"Right." Well that wasn't ominous at all. Man he forgot how creepy Sollux could be.

"and, uh, what are those things. Exactly?"

[nitrodamus]

It's a definite skill, and something that's he's refined with age.

"There are some people who need to die, and I'm going to make sure they do."

[metabee]

"Woah, dude, you know that's not how we do things around here." That was really extreme, and as much as he didn't want to fight Sollux that was definitely not something he could let slide. He wasn't usually the one to try and talk people down, but he liked Sollux, it was worth a shot anyway.

"Look, man, why don't you chill out for a bit and we can discuss this. Just you and your buddy Metabee."