Alexandra & Giosue
"History Repeats Itself"
It's not the future you are afraid of.
It's the fear of the past repeating itself that haunts you.
- T.W.W.
Location: The Oak Tree (Ville au Camp) ⇢ Planet of Theseus
Skills: The Watch Act I: Time Portals, The Watch Act II: Rewind, Dexterity, Will
This morning began as all the others for the past couple hundred or so loops had, with Gio waiting underneath the oak tree, his face as impassive as ever. This time he had no fanciful outfits or gear. He wasn't doing any little thing to keep himself preoccupied. No coin flipping, foot tapping or humming. He simply stood there, waiting for Alexandra to show up. He hadn't seen her at all in quite some time, and from the sound of it, Nancy had done quite a number on her. He was curious to see how she'd conduct herself, and pitied her a smidgen. But no more than that.
Alexandra trudged her way to the oak tree, wringing her hands in a nervous fashion. She had dark bags under her eyes as she hadn't gotten much sleep over the last month, to say the least. Psychosis didn't give one much leeway when it came to getting a proper night's sleep, and even with the effects of Nancy's torturous ability having since worn off, she was left riddled with regular nightmares, among other things. She had no chipper words as she approached Gio, instead she eyed him warily.
"Good morning, Ms. Andonova." Gio spoke with the same vivacious tone of voice as he did normally. He stepped aside, revealing a time portal that he had been hiding behind him.
"Would you like to go ahead and get started on it immediately, or would you prefer more niceties first?" He knew that she wasn't necessarily in a state that he could really interact with like a person. It was there in her eyes and her body language. So he'd leave it to her, to a degree.
Alexandra simply blinked at Gio's greeting. When he stepped aside to reveal a time portal, her body visibly tensed. She took a step backwards, her gaze apprehensively flitting between the Emendator and the portal. The last time she had stepped through a time portal she had walked into some sort of hellish mental asylum. Who was she kidding, maybe it
was hell?! After all, she was never made aware of when or where she had been. Needless to say, the whole experience was extremely traumatic for her, rivaling even that of the untimely death of her parents by Yagababa a lifetime ago. She rubbed her arms as she took in a shaky breath, trying to calm her nerves. She finally pried her gaze away from the portal to meet Gio's gaze.
"Are you going to lock me up too?" she asked, her voice almost a whisper.
"Lock you up? No." Gio replied impassively. Nancy really did a number on her, calling her an entirely different person wasn't the correct description for the girl's current state. She was more like a cornered prey animal. Wild eyed, surrounded by the threat of death, looking for any way out. He recalled her mentioning off-hand what had gone down at some point during the month, but he forgot exactly what she had done. He'd have to ask her again later. But for the time being, he'd handle the girl with some degree of care. It would do no good if she were too frightened to ever go on any kind of mission. He was supposed to train her, not have her break down before she even started anything dangerous.
Alexandra let out a shaky exhale and relaxed a bit. It gave her some relief to hear him say out loud that he wasn't going to lock her up. Granted, he could still be conning her, such had been done to her before. She eyed him skeptically. Before recent events, she had believed that no matter how hard the lesson they threw at you, the Emendators were ultimately looking out for your wellbeing. However, given what Nancy had done to her, her trust in them, or really anyone or anything at the moment, wavered. It seemed to her that Nancy's "lesson" had done more harm than good.
"Okay," she stated, straightening her posture in an attempt to emulate the confidence she didn't feel.
"Let's get this--I mean I'm ready." "If you're ready, then the portal's right there. You simply need to step through it." Gio didn't move a centimeter from where he stood. He stayed there and watched Alexandra. She would have to be the one to initiate the mission, not him. If she couldn't face her fears enough to simply walk ahead, there would be nothing for him to do today. Any remaining training would have to revolve around getting her into the damn bus, and that would all be dreadfully dull. Not to mention an inefficient use of all his time.
"Right," she replied, nodding her head and looking back at the portal.
I got this. I got this, she tried to reassure herself as she took a deep, hopefully calming, breath. She raised her chin and then forced herself to walk towards it.
"Here goes nothing," she murmured, hesitating a bit before stepping through the portal. All one could really do now was to just hope for the best.
When Alexandra stepped through the portal she was engulfed in black. It was different from the darkness before dawn she had just previously inhabited. The sky was a sheet of coal colored clouds, the ground was charred even darker. The only light was an ambient orange glow that came from cracks in the surface small and large that traversed the land like the web of a spider deranged. This light alone allowed her to barely make out the silhouettes of buildings rendered in a style surprisingly similar to that of Camp Au Ville's.
"Welcome to the planet of Theseus, Ms. Andonova." Gio's voice cut through from behind.
"We don't have much time, so walk with me." She could feel his presence walk past her and continue forward, the light framing his silhouette press onward.
Alexandra let out a small gasp when she stepped through the portal to reveal something--
unearthly. In this instance, it wasn't really fear that gave her pause. No, she felt a twinge of something that came more naturally to her: wonder. She tentatively yet nonetheless curiously took everything in, shaking her head lightly in astonishment. This place was like nothing she had ever seen, and as such, a part of her wondered if she was having another psychotic trip. Or maybe she had never actually left that state of mind? She bit her lip as she turned to face Gio, or rather his silhouette and the sound of his voice.
Another planet? she thought to herself skeptically, brows furrowing a bit. Nevertheless, she obligatorily nodded her head and followed in behind him.
"Theseus wouldn't even constitute a footnote on the history of The Verse, that's what they call the universe in a few centuries' time, it was a world discovered on the Outer Rim that appeared to have some promise as a mining world." As Gio spoke, Alex's eyes grew accustomed to the dim light and formerly imperceptible details sprang to the forefront. All the buildings that surrounded them were completely abandoned, and none of them were quite level. Even the squattest of structures were sitting on crooked ground. Some of them had been swallowed halfway or more by the earth.
Alexandra glanced in Gio's direction ever so often as he spoke, before she would continue her cautiously curious surveillance of the area as they trekked onward. As her eyes adjusted to darkness, she quickly realized that the planet, or at least this part of it, appeared to be abandoned. It gave off an eerily calm vibe that kept her a bit on edge.
As they continued, they began to walk along side an especially long ravine. And at one point, she stepped forward and felt the ground give way underneath it, and then her other foot. Her body registered the sensation of falling before it could occur to her conscious thought that that was the case. However, whether by luck or instinct, not 2 seconds after beginning her descent, her hand managed to catch a handhold down in the ravine. An ill-advised look down would reveal to Alex that below was an immeasurable drop into the red light and up above was the dark sky above, the top maybe 20 to 30 meters ahead.
Everything seemed to move in slow motion for Alexandra. The ground giving way. Her heart instictively leaping into her throat a moment before she even realized that she was in fact falling. A strangled scream left her lips as soon her mind registered what was happening. As she began to rapidly plummet, potentially to her death, she managed to grab a hold of the side of the ravine. She took a glance downwards and quickly regretted that as she saw the sheer drop.
"Get me up, get me up, get me up!" she cried out to Gio as she began to panic. She mentally scrambled to try to remember what Evelina had taught her about staying cool under pressure, but every conscious thought seemed just out of her reach as she was on the edge of a panic attack. Perhaps it wasn't the fear of falling to her death that brought out such a visceral reaction in her as much as it was the feeling of helplessness that had become all too familiar as of late.
At first it appeared that Alex's screams for help had gone completely unheard and that she'd remain alone in the ravine, after mere seconds that in her panicked state felt like minutes, she managed to see way up at the top Gio. She couldn't make out his face or anything specific about what he was doing, but he was there.
"Gio?!" she called out in a shrill voice when she didn't get an immediate reply. Her heart thudded in her chest before finally sinking as a thought occurred to her. Had he ditched her?!
No no no no, it's happening again! she thought, letting out a small sob. The edges of her vision started to blur as unsavory memories of the last tortuous month creeped forward in her mind, threatening to overwhelm her. She let out a strangled sob, as her breaths came in and out sharply.
I have to keep myself together, she thought, or rather pleaded, with herself.
"Well this is quite the pickle," he called out down below.
"I had an entirely different mission in mind for you, Ms. Andonova, but evidently you had other things in mind. Well it's too late for me to, never mind. If you want to make it out of here, you're going to have to climb. And you're going to have to be efficient about it. If you panic too much or take too long, either your strength, or the planet will give out. Understand?" Her gaze shot back up when she heard Gio's voice. She let out a small breath.
Vell, at least I von't die alone nov, she thought to herself. She then took in a shaky breath at his words and nodded her head. She scanned the face of the rock that she was desperately clinging to, looking for any hand and/or footholds. She stretched her arm up, tentatively reaching for a part of the rock that jutted out slightly above her. She grimaced slightly at how loose the rock felt as she precariously hoisted herself up. She reached for a foothold, only to let out a yelp as her foot slipped. She franticly searched for another spot for her foot before she eventually found one. She then continued to repeat the slow, grueling process up the cliff face.
"That's it," Gio encouraged from the top of the cliff,
"keep an even head. Just take this one step at a time. Get too focused on the totality of your mission and you're likely to miss an important detail, or become overwhelmed by it all. When broken down into manageable pieces, you can overcome the odds." He paced from side to side, keeping an eagle eye on Alex. She was far too high up to catch anymore than that. She had managed to scale up roughly a meter so far, and luckily enough she still had plenty of 'gas' left in the tank.
"Easier said than done," Alexandra squeaked out, glancing up at him before focusing back on her task. She let out another shaky breath before biting her lip as she focused on finding the next handhold. It seemed to take a fair amount of trial and error, testing to see if it would hold her weight and praying that she didn't miscalculate it as she hoisted herself up. On the upside, she was only minorly freaking out now.
"So since we're not going anything, would you like to hear the rest of this planet's history?" Gio asked. As nerve wracking as it was to see Alex so close to the edge of death, it seemed to actually be doing her good. And yet, he thought, perhaps taking her mind off of the direness of the situation was allowing her mental faculties to function better. But if she needed to focus, he wasn't going to be the one to come back to camp with a dead Paradox if he could help it.
Down below, the light began to grow brighter, which on the positive end allowed Alexandra to see the wall better, but she also noticed a marked increase in the temperature. Perhaps 3 degrees Celsius or so. Going was slow, but she was at least a fifth of the way up by now.
"Oh, I'm just on the cusp of dying here, so sure, let's have a little chat," she retorted sarcastically. She then paled slightly at her outburst. The last she checked her mouth was what had gotten her locked up in the first place, at least that's what Nancy had said.
"I meant that with kindness!" she shrieked. Her hands shook a bit as she fumbled for the next handhold and foothold. She was making progress, albeit very slowly. Her brows furrowed slightly though as her surroundings seemed to be getting oddly brighter. And hotter for that matter. She took a quick glance downward.
Holy crap! she thought, eyes bugging out slightly before she attempted to climb faster.
"So Theseus," Gio began in response to Alexandra, completely skipping over the sarcasm and her shirking from it.
"despite being quite rich soon found itself being disregarded. The place is rather inhospitable. Naturally you can't grow any food, and there's not any water. You'd have to import it. And the settlers couldn't terraform it; change the planet's surface to make it livable with what you might consider to be an advanced form of landscaping technologies, or use more industrial means of extracting its resources. At least not without considerable risk of losing all their expensive equipment in doing so." Perhaps she was getting the hang of it, or maybe she just found a place more suitable for climbing, but Alex was having much better luck scaling the sheer cliff. The light was very incrementally growing brighter now, and the temperature slowly raising, but she wouldn't notice any difference unless she was specifically looking out for it. Now she had managed to reach about the halfway mark, and she had gotten close enough to the top to actually be able to start to see details on Gio other than his silhouette.
Alexandra just sort of nodded her head in reply, despite the fact that nothing of what the Emendator had just said had really stuck in her head. His words just sort of went in one ear and out the other. What could she say, she was a little preoccupied at the moment. You know, on not dying. Fortunately, the climb up was becoming increasingly easier.
Thank God. As she glanced upwards to get an idea of how much further she had left to climb, she could finally make out Gio more clearly. She let out a small sigh of relief.
Almost there. You got this, she reassured herself as she pressed onwards. The mental pep-talk was possibly what was keeping her sane at the moment. Or maybe it was a sign that she had already gone off the deep end? Who knows.
"The problem being primarily that Theseus is a highly unstable planet. It's slowly collapsing, and too much stress would be liable to sink an entire mining site into the earth." Alex suddenly felt the place she'd been resting her right foot give way despite feeling solid not a few seconds ago. And along with it came a large chunk of the wall tumbling down into the red glow below.
"Like that. And they happened to find it at a point rather late into its life cycle. In fact right now, we're within roughly an hour of its final death so to speak. We're due for something akin to a planet wide series of volcanic eruptions followed by the thing imploding on itself, turning into something of an oversized asteroid." This time around Gio's words registered with her, and her eyes widened in horror at what he was implying. She let out a strangled sound, but that was quickly cut off by the scream that left her parted lips as one of her footholds gave way followed by a large portion
of the freaking wall! "Not helping!!" she shrieked as Gio explained what was happening in more detail. She tried to pick up the pace, but her shaking limbs coupled with the cliff face slowly falling apart were making things a tad difficult for her.
In her haste to get to the top, Alex struggled a bit to much and accidentally ended up throwing down most of the section of wall she was holding onto at that point. She was left with one hand holding onto a small lump of black stone while the rest of her limbs dangled freely.
"Even head, Alex. Remember what Evelina taught you about remaining cool under stress. You're under a considerable time crunch right now, but it'll only catch up to you if you let it. Calm down. Even breaths. Try to work smoothly more than quickly. Efficient work yields greater results than rushed work." As dire a situation as she was in, at the moment, hope was in sight. She was less than ten meters from the top of the cliff, and good thing too. She was really starting to feel the strain of climbing in her muscles, especially those of her hands.
Another scream was ripped from Alexandra's lungs as much of the cliff wall fell apart, leaving her clinging to a measly little rock by one hand. She breathed in and out sharply as she franticly fumbled for another handhold and scrambled to find traction against the slick rock. She nodded her head curtly in reply to Gio, taking in several shaky inhales and exhales to try to calm herself once she had managed to find purchase. At this point, her muscles were screaming in protest, and her hands felt terribly sore and raw, but glancing upwards, she could see the top of the cliff wasn't too much farther. She could see the light at the end of the tunnel so to speak.
"Alright, now focus on your goal. Above all other things it should be what you're aiming at. If you keep your goal in mind and aim at it with your entire being, you'll have the greatest possible chances of achieving it. But make sure you're aiming for the right thin. And once you've set your target never stray from it without proper reason for doing so. Take your mission as seriously as you are now." Alex was able to use her other arm to get another handhold and resume her slow ascent even without the use of her legs for the next few pulls. She was so close, only a few more meters and she'd be back on flat ground.
Alexandra took Gio's words to heart, focusing all her strength and wit on the goal she had set, to reach the top of the cliff. She surprised even herself as she willed up enough strength to climb higher with just her hands alone until she could find an adequate foothold.
I've got this. I've got this, she reassured herself.
By the end, Alexandra was barely able to pull herself up, forcing her limbs to move through willpower. It had taken more than an hour, but she was finally able to put her hand on the surface of the ground. And then the unthinkable occurred. Right as she did so, the entirety of the cliff side shattered, sending the Russian down towards the raging heat of magma far below.
And everything stopped. Alex stopped falling. The planet stopped turning. The system's Sun stopped burning. The Verse stopped expanding. And from this moment of complete stillness, everything began to reverse. It was a minor reverse, a few seconds really, but it was enough. Alexandra was back on the cliff, completely unaware that she had just fallen off. She reached up once again, but this time found her hand taken by Giosue, pocket watch open in his other hand. With a grunt and a pull, he got the Russian onto a safe patch of land before shutting the clock he had on hand.
"Thanks," she murmured as Gio pulled her up to safety. She took a true of sigh of relief when her feet were on solid ground. Well, for the time being. Rhe planet was still rapidly dying, so she couldn't exactly relish in the moment for too long. But hey, she was no longer hanging precariously over a dark, fiery abyss, so it's still a cause for celebration.
Voo! she thought halfheartedly to herself, before wearily looking over at the Emendator.
"Thank you for--not ditching me. C-can we please go home now?" she asked a bit quietly.
"Well even if I wanted to still go through with my original plan, we don't have nearly enough time." Not to mention she was in no shape to go through it anyways. He was surprised she could even stand right now. There was no use sticking around a dying husk of a planet anyways. Gio opened up a time portal and stepped aside to let Alex go through.
Alexandra was glad they wouldn't be sticking around as she was absolutely exhausted, physically and mentally. She simply nodded her head in response. When he opened up the portal for her, she stepped through it without hesitation this time around. The moment she was on the other side, she promptly collapsed into the grass, letting out a tired groan.
"Be sure to rest up. In the morning we're still going to continue training as planned," Gio said as he stepped around Alex's body and walked off back to the Main House. All in all, an unexpected occurrence, but hopefully she learned something useful other than fear. But for now, he was going to grab a book to read.
Alexandra rolled over onto her back to stare up at the early morning sky through the branches of the oak tree. She raised up an arm and gave Gio a thumbs up as her reply. She let her arm fall back down to her side once she heard the Emendator walk off. She laid there for she didn't know how long, the cool breeze threatening to lull her to sleep. If she was exhausted before training, she was most certainly exhausted now. She eventually pried herself off the ground and trudged back to the Main House with every intention to catch some more shuteye.
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