#greycommand

THE TOWERING BUILDINGS OF ENCOY were almost familiar to him , but not quite. He was used to the yesterday's tomorrow that Walter Robotics promised , but this ? This seemed a little overkill. Even for the Robot. It took him . . well. He didn't want to admit how long it took him to even get to the city in the first place. None of their transportation could really accommodate his size ( or weight ) , not that he blamed them. And even though some of the denizens he passed on his way down the street were made of metal , just like him , he had this strange feeling of being out of place. But that was just the circumstances talking. Anyone would feel out of place in his shoes - being brought to a weird city out of nowhere.

Rook comes tumbling out of the Eluvian with blight and blood on her boots and winds up sitting on a couch filling out paperwork.

Which. Fine. That's fine. Her weapons are gone, her magic stifled, suffocated, and no amount of begging bargaining and threatening will make the man in the cape cough up a satisfactory answer before she's booted out onto the street, Ghilan'nain's voice still ringing in her ears and lungs heaving. Her team. The dagger— the Wardens.

She's debating the merits of scaling the... temple? Building thing she came out of ( all signs indicate that she's the last person who should be signing up for a heist, but there's a first time for everything and you know what they say about desperate times ) when there's a tug at her awareness, that sharp scent she'd recognize anywhere. Her head snaps sideways and there she is, bulky and blue and silver, and Rook honestly wouldn't be half as grateful if the Maker himself were down here waltzing around. She's never seen this Warden a day in her life, but it couldn't possibly matter any less. It's a fresh jolt of energy, enough to spur her legs into action. She all but sprints across the street and only just avoids crashing into the woman as she steps out of the same building Rook had emerged from what feels like mere minutes ago.

HARMONY HAS LEARNED VERY QUICKLY that there is no shortage of entertainment in Yesteryear. And she has made it a point to try everything it has to offer - including the rodeo. Which is something she was convinced wasn’t real. Tucker continuously saying ‘this ain't my first rodeo’ wasn’t enough to change her opinion , either. The only problem with the rodeo? Horses were one of the main events. The worst animal in the world , and for some reason there’s a whole . . thing surrounding them. Just this once , however , she was willing to face her fears. She enters the horse-riding area , walking up to one of the horses with its handler.

BUT THIS IS NO ORDINARY HORSE. The animal , if you can even call it that , that she’s standing face to face with looks like it crawled straight out of hell just to drag her back down with it. Time feels like it stops for an eternity , and she freezes in pure , unadulterated horror. When it seems that things can’t get any worse ── she screams. A blood curdling , horror movie , i-just-got-stabbed-and-i’m-dying scream.

Obi-Wan feels as though he is walking blind. He has not felt this cut off from the Force since... well, he has never felt this cut off from the Force.

It is terrible and everything is wrong.

He catches a taxi to a city that looks both very much similar to and yet nothing like Coruscant. He steps into a nigh-empty apartment, neatly furnished but with barren shelves. The carpet is covered in a thin dusting of glitter. Their housing sports two bedrooms, both nigh-identical, and a circular chamber in the middle of the building that Obi-Wan cannot begin to guess the purpose of.

There are a million things he should be doing. There is a nine year old boy a galaxy away who needs him, duties he cannot afford to shirk; he needs a strategy, needs to get off-world, but he is navigating without a map and every last one of his instincts have failed him. How can he possibly hope to plan his next step when—

Ah. There it is. Obi-Wan is not so far removed from his Apprenticeship that the wisdom that was drilled into his impressionable mind for well over a decade has fled from his memory. His Master would have been thrilled: there is no future to plan for, is there? There is only the moment. It's the only thing Obi-Wan can control.

It's a bitter pill to swallow. Injustice and helplessness to stop it. Circumstances beyond your control. It's the exact sort of thing he was trained to release, but before, the Force was always there to catch the emotions Obi-Wan surrendered. He, frankly, doesn't know where they'll wind up now, but that doesn't stop him from kneeling on the shimmering carpet (he'll be brushing glitter off his robe for days, he fears) and resting his palms on his knees. He closes his eyes.

It doesn't feel right. It doesn't feel good. Honestly, he's not even sure it helps. He has never been more displeased to meditate. Whatever he's looking for, acceptance or otherwise, remains tauntingly out of reach. It's, frankly, a relief when he hears the door to the apartment open; Obi-Wan cracks one eye open to peer at the visitor (which is likely either an intruder or the being he will be sharing quarters with, if such a being exists - the place looks so remarkably un-lived in that he isn't certain).

ACHIEVEMENT GET !

It’s almost food! — Eat your first Repeated™ meal.

Breaking down the Magician's door proves to be fruitless. Earnest inquiries, bargaining, and threatening alike all go without answer. No ship will go out further than the coastline, no messages will get through to anyone other than the citizens of wherever-the-hell he's landed. Within a day he's wrung dry of options and stuck pacing like an animal in a too-small enclosure with no weapons, no car, and - most crucially - no Noctis.

Gladio can't remember the last time he's had to go without the Royal Pain In The Ass, but if Noctis is anywhere here, he's sure proving to be tough as shit to track down (and believe him, it's not for lack of trying on Gladio's part). Ignis and Prompto are equally elusive, which leads him to believe that they've been thoroughly separated; or at least he has. He prefers that option. Prefers to think they're all still able to look out for each other, back home.

In any case, being without them - without a would-be King to protect - is no reason to let his guard down. Just the opposite: Gladio fully intends to get out of here one way or another, and that means cracking some skulls or busting some walls down then he'd better be prepared to do just that. Besides, he'll never hear the end of it if he lets himself go.

He's always considered himself something of a city boy, love of the great outdoors notwithstanding, but ENCOY is something else entirely. Amidst all the tech and the shiny high-rises, though, the real stand-out of the place is the Arena. He spends a good chunk of the morning taking on the place's artificial enemies (and, man, if that ain't somethin'), which is all well and good, but in a matter of hours he's itching for somebody a little more real to spar with - somebody to call out your mistakes, to adapt to your techniques. He's starting to realize he took it for granted just how far Noct has come in the last few years - he's damn fun to duel with. But he's in no position to be picky, so he books one of the sparring rooms and spends a while swinging around one of the supplied swords until somebody else turns up.

ALL THE SPINE WANTED TO DO WAS create a yestertunes account. Why that had a Captcha and the Forums didn’t he’ll never know. Luckily enough , the woman who happened to be his neighbor wasn’t completely terrified of him after their first meeting. Or , at least , she was comfortable enough to lend a hand. That’s really all he could hope for. And the trade offer of helping her with her phone is pretty good , all things considered.

HE WAITS FOR HER TO ARRIVE , though it takes longer than he would have expected. She just lived a few floors down , right ? He had half the mind to send her a post to ask if something had happened when he finally hears a knock on the door. He pushes himself up from the couch and walks over to the entrance.

ACHIEVEMENT GET !

Yestermonth — First month in yesteryear!