Icarus (Sci-fi/Time-travel|IC|Open)

[Sarderia]

Johannes de Spielman

---

He chuckled a little hearing Jean-Luc's answer. "I was Captain as well, although of a ship in the sea, not in the vast expanse of space." He took a bite of the chicken. "The taste reminded me of my childhood home. I suppose you are Chinese, sir?" he asked Jay. "There are a lot of Cantonese peranakan in the city of Batavia, and this dish reminded me of their cuisine."

Turning to the others, he continued. "I was born on the year of our Lord 1630, to a Dutch merchant and Javanese noble. I have served the Company and the Dutch Republic for most of my life. As a privateer for the Rotterdam Admiralty I participated in both wars of English aggression. My old galleon, which I commanded, survived the battle at Chatham Dockyard, but the battle left me dying."

It all sounds ridiculous to him, the concept of airships, reptillian aliens, and colonies on the moon Enceladus. But waking up from death in a flying ship outside of the Earth was already ridiculous enough to him that he'd learned to receive the words of others - especially those who hailed from ages ahead of his - without question. "I do not know of a Moon named Enceladus, but I know that Jupiter had four moons; and Saturn one. As well... it is pleasant to meet you."

"I am from the great city of Rome. I died in the reign of Emperor Vespasian—Maybe 70, 75 years after the leader of your weird death cult was born."

His tempers flared when he head the word "death cult". "Death cult? Mocking the Lord... mind your words, woman. The only death cult known to me is the worship of savage, uncivilized idols, like those of the Molukkers in the Indies. I heard Ancient Romans revered idols as well, even selling their youth to their temples to be made slaves of their idol priests."

[Nagakawa]

Kang Jae-hyun

Content to try and put the spectacle he’d witnessed in the armoury out of sight and out of mind, at least for the time being, Jay took a pair of disposable chopsticks (the MREs stashed in the kitchen had come with a wide array of different culinary instruments) and wolfed down several mouthfuls of oyakodon, followed by a bite of steamed eggplant.

Shit, the eggplant’s a bit undercooked. I hope nobody notices...

He quietly observed the people who had gathered round the table, and who had talked about their lifespans. It all felt so hard to believe, meeting people from centuries into the past and people from centuries into the future, all at the same dining table.

It was going to take a while to get used to it, but if this was to be his life, Jay concluded, then he’d just have to accept it and try to build some relationships.

“My name is Jay, by the way”, he introduced himself again. “It’s nice to meet you all. I, uh, I hope you enjoy the food!”

...

“Paul, hm...” Jay smiled awkwardly. “It’s nice to meet you. Um...”

He was afraid to broach the subject of the first world war, being unsure of how exactly to speak to someone who had lived through it. Even though it was Paul who had broached the subject, and quite willingly too, Jay was afraid to accidentally say something that might offend him.

Thankfully, Jean had taken over before the pauses got any more awkward. Picking up his bowl, Jay took a few more mouthfuls, before then putting it back down and turning to the lady. The Roman.

...

“I’m, uh, Korean, actually”, Jay corrected Johannes sheepishly, finding it difficult to make eye contact with him. Even more so than the others, this guy, whoever he had been prior to waking up here, had an intimidating, almost stately aura. It would probably take a while to get used to being around him.

...

“Well, I-I guess if it makes you feel any better, I’m not a Christian”, said Jay to Cornelia, chuckling uncomfortably. From her tone, it sounded like she wasn’t particularly fond of them, for one reason or another. Nor did she seem entirely comfortable in her chair- Jay knew little about Roman culture, but inferred that Cornelia perhaps wasn’t used to sitting in such modern (or futuristic) styles of furniture.

Hardly her fault, either way.

“Pleasure to meet you, by the way, Cornelia”, he added. Finishing the last remnants of his serving oyakodon, Jay set the empty bowl aside and leaned forward with his chin resting in his hand, covering his mouth and yawning heartily.

Lunch had turned out well- better than he’d expected, in fact. Still, it was a good thing Jean had offered to assist in the kitchen. He didn’t know how much more mass cooking he could handle, not to mention that it wasn’t at all unlikely that Hannah, or whoever it was who was in charge here, would give him and the rest other tasks to do.

I wonder if there’s a gym around here, Jay wondered to himself, wiping the yawn tears from his eyes. I could use a bit of activity. But maybe later...

These folks at the table seemed like good people. Probably just as stunned as he was, turning up here without the foggiest clue why or how, but nice people nonetheless. It would be better to talk to them for a bit. Build some connections.

“If you’re wondering... I was born in the year 1982”, he added, only to be cut off as Johannes, apparently taking great offence at Cornelia’s comment about the origins of Christianity, flared up at the Roman lady.

“Woah woah woah, lets... calm down a bit, shall we?” He was intimidated by both Cornelia and Johannes, but it would probably be uglier if they’d started fighting. If there was one thing Jay knew from history, it was that people loved fighting over religion. “No need to get upset, I’m sure it was just... well, a misunderstanding!”

[Talchyon]

Outside the armory
Nawa Tatsuaki Ukita

The scream hadn't been a rush of invaders trying to dishonor all of them. It had been a clumsy woman, or a suicidal one. One who had cut herself in the eye. Tatsuaki was annoyed that his skills were not needed, but at least he was seeing more of this exquisite dream of wealth beyond the imagination. Since he was not needed right now, he went to find some garments as he had seen others donning attire. Such strange attire too, but they were gaijin, and it was a dream after all. He entered a hallway and left before a door closed automatically.

Passing by a circular, concave image, Tatsuaki paused as many had before. The sight of a black expanse pinpointed with shades of white, centering around a blue, white, grey and green orb filled the 12th century gainyo with appreciation. But not understanding what he was seeing, Tatsuaki merely appreciated the talent and skill that this artist had done. Whatever the colored orb was supposed to represent didn't matter in the slightest. The purpose of art was to depict truth and beauty. Nodding in respect at the ability of this unknown artist, Tatsuaki moved on, not noticing that the grey streaks across the orb were moving.

Finding an empty room down the hallway he had seen others who wore garments had come from, Tatsuaki entered the room and was confused. Whatever purpose this room served was beyond him. A storage chamber for wealth to be acquired, perhaps, was his first thought. Hearing a strange voice announcing something, he shrugged it off. There was time for conversation later for whoever was speaking. Whoever the speaker was, had probably been in the hallway behind him, and once they saw him ignoring the query, they would move on. A sliver of suspicion entered his mind unawares, pointing out that the voice hadn't come from the empty hallway, but through the walls...

There was a great amount of garments in the room's smaller room connected to it. Tatsuaki looked in disgust at several of the garments that were offered. Few gave the flexibility needed to fight. Few could hide extra weapons within them. Plus, they were just arcane and bizarre. He picked up one garment that had a colorful display on it of blue light surrounding a band of what looked like highway bandits with a single word that made no sense to him: "Metallica." Eyebrows raised, the gainyo placed the strange garment to the side and kept digging, until he found something that was more than suitable. A full length kimono, black that indicated wealth and power, was towards the bottom of the pile. Smiling subtly, Tatsuaki shed his expensive prison rags he had been dressed in, with the door fully open so anyone walking by would catch a sight of a shameless naked man getting dressed. Holding up the kimono in his nudity as if unconcerned whatever anyone might see, the gainyo admired the skill of the weaving, the feel of the silk and material, and the feel of the texture. It was a prize garment indeed, fitting for an emperor even.

Well, there was no shame in dreaming that one was an emperor. Nor was there shame in dreaming that you dressed like one. Sliding the kimono over his exposed flesh, the Japanese gainyo did some practice sets and training exercises. He was pleased. This garment would do very nicely.

[Ameriganastan]

Kang Jae-hyun

Content to try and put the spectacle he’d witnessed in the armoury out of sight and out of mind, at least for the time being, Jay took a pair of disposable chopsticks (the MREs stashed in the kitchen had come with a wide array of different culinary instruments) and wolfed down several mouthfuls of oyakodon, followed by a bite of steamed eggplant.

Shit, the eggplant’s a bit undercooked. I hope nobody notices...

He quietly observed the people who had gathered round the table, and who had talked about their lifespans. It all felt so hard to believe, meeting people from centuries into the past and people from centuries into the future, all at the same dining table.

It was going to take a while to get used to it, but if this was to be his life, Jay concluded, then he’d just have to accept it and try to build some relationships.

“My name is Jay, by the way”, he introduced himself again. “It’s nice to meet you all. I, uh, I hope you enjoy the food!”

...

“Paul, hm...” Jay smiled awkwardly. “It’s nice to meet you. Um...”

He was afraid to broach the subject of the first world war, being unsure of how exactly to speak to someone who had lived through it. Even though it was Paul who had broached the subject, and quite willingly too, Jay was afraid to accidentally say something that might offend him.

Thankfully, Jean had taken over before the pauses got any more awkward. Picking up his bowl, Jay took a few more mouthfuls, before then putting it back down and turning to the lady. The Roman.

...

“I’m, uh, Korean, actually”, Jay corrected Johannes sheepishly, finding it difficult to make eye contact with him. Even more so than the others, this guy, whoever he had been prior to waking up here, had an intimidating, almost stately aura. It would probably take a while to get used to being around him.

...

“Well, I-I guess if it makes you feel any better, I’m not a Christian”, said Jay to Cornelia, chuckling uncomfortably. From her tone, it sounded like she wasn’t particularly fond of them, for one reason or another. Nor did she seem entirely comfortable in her chair- Jay knew little about Roman culture, but inferred that Cornelia perhaps wasn’t used to sitting in such modern (or futuristic) styles of furniture.

Hardly her fault, either way.

“Pleasure to meet you, by the way, Cornelia”, he added. Finishing the last remnants of his serving oyakodon, Jay set the empty bowl aside and leaned forward with his chin resting in his hand, covering his mouth and yawning heartily.

Lunch had turned out well- better than he’d expected, in fact. Still, it was a good thing Jean had offered to assist in the kitchen. He didn’t know how much more mass cooking he could handle, not to mention that it wasn’t at all unlikely that Hannah, or whoever it was who was in charge here, would give him and the rest other tasks to do.

I wonder if there’s a gym around here, Jay wondered to himself, wiping the yawn tears from his eyes. I could use a bit of activity. But maybe later...

These folks at the table seemed like good people. Probably just as stunned as he was, turning up here without the foggiest clue why or how, but nice people nonetheless. It would be better to talk to them for a bit. Build some connections.

“If you’re wondering... I was born in the year 1979”, he added, only to be cut off as Johannes, apparently taking great offence at Cornelia’s comment about the origins of Christianity, flared up at the Roman lady.

“Woah woah woah, lets... calm down a bit, shall we?” He was intimidated by both Cornelia and Johannes, but it would probably be uglier if they’d started fighting. If there was one thing Jay knew from history, it was that people loved fighting over religion. “No need to get upset, I’m sure it was just... well, a misunderstanding!”

"You there, Chinaman."

Clarence wandered into the dining room, still scratching his head over this odd situation.

"This is the biggest boat I've ever seen. I got lost trying to get here. Though I did find a change of duds on the way here. Pretty fancy, huh? Never imagined I'd wear a suit like this. Anyway, you."

He flopped down in an empty seat, gesturing at Kang.

"You said you were born in 1982? That's a good 150 years after I was born. So you're gonna answer me a few questions, future man."

In addition to being illiterate, Clarence wasn't much good at math either. But it probably wasn't best to tell him that.

"You're only the second Oriental I've ever met. Wasn't much call for your type down where I was from. Your kind aren't good field workers like the darkies were. I tell you, we owned this one coon. Fella could work from dawn until dusk. Course he tried making a break for it one night. Pappy let me hobble him myself when we caught him. Mama said I was too young, but I was already 7. That's plenty old enough. Anyway..."

That less than charming story of his past over, he got to the questions.

"So, did General Lee and the boys ever make a second go? You know, a second war? Did we ever strike down that damn emancipation garbage Lincoln was spouting? Oh, Lincoln. Whatever happened to that bastard?"

[Dyelli Beybi]

Hannah Brown

Lord William

William looked at his patient and then back at Hannah. "I am not sure if I will need help or not, I'm a bit out of date. Perhaps you should get the others situated having lunch and then join us back in the infirmary?" He stops and looks down at his upper body that is quite bare. "Perhaps also you can grab an undershirt for me? I was changing when the incident occurred." He smiles at Hannah and Jean but his eyes show concern.

...

William turns back to the woman and points to the indicated room, "And you need to go to the infirmary not just get to lie down and let that eye keep bleeding out. I am apparently your doctor, der Arzt, and I need to properly bandage and treat that eye."

Noting that she didn't seem interesting in complying he stoped right infant of her. "I need to treat that eye to prevent infection, Blutgift..."

William didn't show it but wished his brother was here. The woman had been part of some incident, campaign or something where others had died and she felt...well she felt it was not right to be whole, as though being alive while they were dead were wrong. Alex would know what to say, if anyone understood the nature of those who had faced mass death of compatriots it was Alex. All William could do was try to patch her up and rely on their conversations.

"Or is your intention to kill yourself slowly as penance to those who died while you were apparently revived?"

Hannah left, returning a few moments later as Lord William was finishing his speech to the German with a russet-brown coloured Henley shirt which she tossed to William, "Not sure what you like, but that looked about your size and should be comfortable, though no need to get dressed on my account she added with that slightly amused smile she seemed to wear most of the time.

"I'll go and check on the others," she confirmed, before adding her piece to the darned German, "But you need to get that wound looked at. You've been given another chance at life. If you are quite intent on squandering it I'll show you what an 'airlock' is but otherwise you will stay here and let the Doctor make sure you don't end up dying of the infection that you will have almost certainly have introduced to your face with your little act of home surgery."

She went to leave, but stopped in the doorway, turning back to address Sir William again, "I was just thinking... Alexander Fleming might have been after you. Ask the Comp... err the ship for a recommended dose of 'prophylactic antiobiotics'... pills she can take to keep any infection at bay."

---

The Mess Hall

Hannah arrived in the lunch hall to what smelled like a particularly appetising meal... but also to a whole lot of chatter. Arguments about religion, Jean talking about an averted future and some questions from the Confederate which were bound to get people's hackles up. She decided to step in first.

"You there, Chinaman."

Clarence wandered into the dining room, still scratching his head over this odd situation. He flopped down in an empty seat, gesturing at him.

"You said you were born in 1979? That's a good 150 years after I was born. So you're gonna answer me a few questions, future man."

In addition to being illiterate, Clarence wasn't much good at math either. But considering he had a sword at his side, it probably wasn't best to tell him that.

"You're only the second Oriental I've ever met. Wasn't much call for your type down where I was from. Your kind aren't good field workers like the darkies were. I tell you, we owned this one coon. Fella could work from dawn until dusk. Course he tried making a break for it one night. Pappy let me hobble him myself when we caught him. Mama said I was too young, but I was already 7. That's plenty old enough. Anyway..."

That less than charming story of his past over, he got to the questions.

"So, did General Lee and the boys ever make a second go? You know, a second war? Did we ever strike down that damn emancipation garbage Lincoln was spouting? Oh, Lincoln. Whatever happened to that bastard?"

"Let me answer those... Lincoln was assassinated and a huge greek style memorial was built to him. Lee never made another go of it. As for 'that emancipation garbage'..." she continued, with a slightly amused smile, "You might recall from your own time that the world was rapidly doing away with the practice of slavery? Well you were, ultimately, on the losing side of history.. At least history as it currently exists."

She squeezed in next to Cornelia, giving the roman woman a bright smile, before adding her final remark, "Might be easier if you try to pretend everyone on the ship is a white gentleman with a bolo tie and a ten gallon hat. That way you don't get filleted by our Gentleman from the Imperial Japanese Army." Two people with strong feelings of racial superiority seeing the other as an inferior. She could see that escalating quickly, "I really don't like cleaning blood up. It get's everywhere and it stains."

That, she hoped was enough to keep a lid on things for now... everyone here was a product of a very different world and doubtless would find a lot of reason to take umbrage at what the others had to say. It reminded her a lot of trying to keep order at the Hub, but ten times worse because people like Colonel Sanders had no idea just how badly people were going to take what he had to say. Hopefully he was bright enough to learn to moderate himself, given time, "Jay, sorry I didn't make it up to help before, things are... a bit manic at the moment. This smells wonderful, thank you!"

Didn't you used to lie down when you ate food?" she asked Cornelia, switching subject, "And I think I heard you say Vespasian was the Emperor? You know they still call Rome the 'Eternal City'. In the time I grew up in it was no longer the centre of a great empire, but Rome still stood, larger than it had ever been. The outskirts of the city went nearly as far as Ostia though we had machines which could get you from Ostia to the centre of the city in... half an hour? If the roads were clear. I visited once... there were thousands of years of history built on top of each other. There was actually a little independent city inside the main city. It must have been quite incredible when it was in it's first golden age."

She swiped up one of the bowls of oyakodon and a set of chopsticks (realising as she did that she would probably be one of the few people who knew how to use them). Heck, the knife and fork would probably be a surprise to some people! "Also," she said, raising her voice to carry to the whole table, "I heard some talk about lizards invading before. Set that from your minds. That event will never happen in the reality we now live in," she supposed now was as good a time as any to say a little bit about what she knew, "We aren't the only time travellers. As I understand from what the Ship told me before it had it's memory wiped, when someone meddles with time it creates a history that exists in parallel to the other. That version remains maleable for a while, like a hot piece of metal at a blacksmith's forge. We are currently in a maleable timeline. A man, who I will not name, created this timeline deliberately. What he plans to do with it are unknown. Perhaps the people who built this ship knew? They all died by his hand before I woke up, so we can't ask them and apparently the ship can't visit the same point in space and time twice so we can't go back and ask them in the past either. Either way, I promise you that whatever he is up to will not be anything good. I intend to track him down, wherever and whenever he is and then shoot him. Repeatedly. To make sure he's dead."

It sounded like this was personal to Hannah though she didn't go into details, "Like I said when you first woke up, once we've figured out how all of this works, we might be able to let you off somewhere to make a new life of it. If you don't want to do anything dangerous but just want to come along for the ride and explore the past and future, that is also fine by me. However, I feel I have been entrusted with a duty to safeguard our existence. It is a huge responsibility; I'm not even remotely qualified for it, but I'm on this ship, so the duty falls to me. If any of you feel the same, I'd welcome you to join me. If you all think I'm still insane, well I guess I can't blame you; your company is welcome either way."

[Voxija]

Cornelia Quinta

Cornelia was about to argue with Johannes—how could any religion that worshipped a man who had been punished like a criminal and then rose like a walking corpse from the dead not be a death cult, but, fortunately, was distracted by something else. Unfortunately, that something else was a Confederate soldier with racist views.

Chinaman? The cook's name was Jay, and even if the soldier knew he was "Corean", wherever that was, you still shouldn't refer to somebody from where they were from. The Confederate man certainly had slavery. In the future, shouldn't technological advancement have destroyed the need for human slavery? And although Cornelia didn't know the soldier's racial slurs, she knew that if you overworked a slave, of course he'd run away. And a seven-year-old, a little child, whipping slaves? Oh dear. Cornelia didn't understand the rest of what the Confederate said, but she knew she didn't like him.

Cornelia focused on her food for a while. She had been eating with her hands until she realized that the wooden sticks near her plate were eating utensils. Cornelia had probably got the hang of them by now. Hannah walked in and sat next to Cornelia. They would certainly become friends, Cornelia thought. Cornelia wanted them to become friends. Maybe Cornelia would become Hannah Brown's first mate and confidante.

Hannah Brown

Didn't you used to lie down when you ate food?" she asked Cornelia, switching subject, "And I think I heard you say Vespasian was the Emperor? You know they still call Rome the 'Eternal City'. In the time I grew up in it was no longer the centre of a great empire, but Rome still stood, larger than it had ever been. The outskirts of the city went nearly as far as Ostia though we had machines which could get you from Ostia to the centre of the city in... half an hour? If the roads were clear. I visited once... there were thousands of years of history built on top of each other. There was actually a little independent city inside the main city. It must have been quite incredible when it was in it's first golden age."

She swiped up one of the bowls of oyakodon and a set of chopsticks (realising as she did that she would probably be one of the few people who knew how to use them). Heck, the knife and fork would probably be a surprise to some people! "Also," she said, raising her voice to carry to the whole table, "I heard some talk about lizards invading before. Set that from your minds. That event will never happen in the reality we now live in," she supposed now was as good a time as any to say a little bit about what she knew, "We aren't the only time travellers. As I understand from what the Ship told me before it had it's memory wiped, when someone meddles with time it creates a history that exists in parallel to the other. That version remains maleable for a while, like a hot piece of metal at a blacksmith's forge. We are currently in a maleable timeline. A man, who I will not name, created this timeline deliberately. What he plans to do with it are unknown. Perhaps the people who built this ship knew? They all died by his hand before I woke up, so we can't ask them and apparently the ship can't visit the same point in space and time twice so we can't go back and ask them in the past either. Either way, I promise you that whatever he is up to will not be anything good. I intend to track him down, wherever and whenever he is and then shoot him. Repeatedly. To make sure he's dead."

It sounded like this was personal to Hannah though she didn't go into details, "Like I said when you first woke up, once we've figured out how all of this works, we might be able to let you off somewhere to make a new life of it. If you don't want to do anything dangerous but just want to come along for the ride and explore the past and future, that is also fine by me. However, I feel I have been entrusted with a duty to safeguard our existence. It is a huge responsibility; I'm not even remotely qualified for it, but I'm on this ship, so the duty falls to me. If any of you feel the same, I'd welcome you to join me. If you all think I'm still insane, well I guess I can't blame you; your company is welcome either way."

"Yes," Cornelia replied. "I'm not very comfortable in this chair either, and I don't know how the chair I'm sitting in will treat my stomach." When Hannah talked about how Rome was still the Eternal City, Cornelia found herself grinning like a fool. For some reason, Cornelia had gotten visions of a city made of nothing but ruins. Now upon learning that Rome, if not as important, was bigger and had more people than even in her imperial days, Cornelia felt safer and more secure, somehow. "It was incredible," murmured Cornelia. "Too incredible to describe."

Hannah began her exposition. So many questions came to Cornelia, and so did many answers. How could a ship talk or have memory? A timeline seemed like a string of events all joined together: past, present, and future. Someone was creating new ones? An evil man? And there seemed to be rules for traveling in time, which was strange, but all rules existed for a reason.

Cornelia was presented with several options. First was to go back and life a new life somewhen else. Although Cornelia had always wanted to see Ancient Egypt, she wanted to see every other time period as well, and make a friend of Hannah besides. Another choice presented itself. To go along and help Hannah fight the evil man who probably made this new timeline for some sinister end. It was a fight for a noble cause, but it was a great responsibility, and a great danger. Cornelia did not like danger. She couldn't decide whether to just come along for the ride or accept the danger. Cornelia didn't know.

[Lessoni]

"Maybe 70, 75 years after the leader of your weird death cult was born." Cornelia still had trouble thinking of her time as history, and so she stated the facts like she would to a foreigner inquiring where she was from. And as for Christianity, well, Cornelia didn't care about offending anyone about the topic.

Paul Goodwin

At first, Paul was going to speak up against the lady. Calling it a 'death cult', that had incensed him, not to anger but to defensiveness, and it had incensed him enough that he put aside asking the frenchie what he'd meant by 'both' world wars. After all, the Roman lady was pagan, and Paul thought he knew well what pagans got up to, but just before he'd started up his counterargument, the good southern boy spoke up.

Paul had been inching so very, very closer to showing Johnny Rebel his hand to hand training with every word the man spoke. He rose to his feet when the man took to calling president Lincoln a bastard, but Hannah spoke up before he could do much more. Paul sat down, but he wasn't gonna let that slide as easily as Hannah probably hoped he would. The man was due a nice, hard conversation.

It sounded like this was personal to Hannah though she didn't go into details, "Like I said when you first woke up, once we've figured out how all of this works, we might be able to let you off somewhere to make a new life of it. If you don't want to do anything dangerous but just want to come along for the ride and explore the past and future, that is also fine by me. However, I feel I have been entrusted with a duty to safeguard our existence. It is a huge responsibility; I'm not even remotely qualified for it, but I'm on this ship, so the duty falls to me. If any of you feel the same, I'd welcome you to join me. If you all think I'm still insane, well I guess I can't blame you; your company is welcome either way."

But his anger was pushed aside for the moment. After all, it was hard to be angry when you were told something like this, something like "safeguarding existence". Paul had never shirked responsibility, and though he was far from certain he was qualified, he was on the ship just the same as Hannah. The duty that had fallen on her fell on him just the same, and he supposed onto everyone else who woke up in those little grey boxes. Paul thought back for a moment on the woman who'd taken her eye out, or the man still sat at the table with him, the traitor, and hoped very sincerely more of the crew were closer to his own caliber. Otherwise existence might find itself in trouble.

"Took an oath to defend America and everyone who lives in it. I suppose America falls in the category of 'existence', and if that's so I'd be bereft of duty not protecting it. I ain't gonna pretend I understand a whole lotta the things being said to me, but I understand duty well enough. Guess this ship'll be home for me, for a while.

[Arengin Union]

The Nile

"Sire, the ship continues to sink!" the terrified yells of a fellow Templar rang through Sir Isaac's ears as he had just finished slicing off the head of an Arab mongrel. His blade stained with the blood of the impure Sir Isaac turned to face the knight with a calm expression, all the while arrows whizzed past his head landing upon the Frank ship which had seen its sails turned into nothing but ash while fire had began to consume the front mast of the ship. Bodies of both men of Christ and subhuman non-believers laid onto the ship's floor as Sir Isaac moved forward with nothing short of a hastened dash as more men from the wretched Ayyubid dynasty continued to scale up the ship's sides in droves.

"These animals continue to chafe me and the Lord's truly..." Sir Isaac scoffed in annoyance as he held his blade with force and with no hesitation he raised it ready to strike upon the foes of Christ. As he pierced right through the headdress of one foe Sir Isaac immediately moved to strike at another, and another, and another, it was a disgustingly bloody dance of swings and slashes upon the Egyptian warriors.

As Sir Isaac continued to fight on alongside his fellow Templar's until for a brief moment they were able to look upon the surrounding river way, Sir Isaac with a stern and hopeless expression at what he witnessed. Vessels of the crusade sunk, entire legions were consumed by the fires of the Muslim degenerates, the back way had been cut off by what seemed like hundreds of ships and the very own vessel of Lois IX saw endless hordes of Ayyubid warriors crawling upwards like vermin to a rotten corpse. The last image he saw was dozens of men of Christ landing upon shore and immediately surrendering their arms to the barbarians without any kind of hesitation, their fortitude broken by the vitriol of Satan as they had allowed his forces to win. Rage surrounded the knight as he gripped his sword with a strength that rivaled that of a thousand men and he was consumed by this rage as he mercilessly and without cease hacked at the incoming mob of sinners. He would not let the defeatist cowardice of the faithless drive him to surrendering his weapon and much less himself to the damned, he had fought for so long, had seen many places, had served the Church and the Lord truthfully for him to die here.

While Sir Isaac and his fellow Templars fought on without any semblance of fear or intentions to stand down it was now that the Ayyubid ships turned their attentions to them as now a sea of endless arrows began to land upon the Templars, their ship already halfway sunken into the Nile.

"Sire, sire we m-" the words of the Templar was cut as an arrow landed directly into his throat, Sir Isaac was barely able to react as he along others used their shields and any kind of cover to protect themselves from the incoming volley.

"Fooking cowards!" Sir Isaac spoke with a gruff and hateful voice as arrows continued to fall, the bodies of many Templars laid onto the ground, covered by dozens of arrows.

Soon the volley of arrows seized as now Sir Isaac and only a few Knights remained standing, Sir Isaac stood proudly from his cover as he threw out his shield and and his one handed blade and unveiled his greatsword from within the sheath strapped to his back. The silhouette of him and the other Templars stood out from the firey ship.

"Face us like men, or are you not brave enough!" Sir Isaac yelled with all his might.

The entire scene had been observed by none other than Al-Muazzam Turanshah, the leader of this very attack and soon to be Vanquisher of the Crusades. The battle was already over, that much he knew but these arrogant Templars, warrior of a foreign land in a place they did not belong were daring and defiant. He had nor the time nor the care to send more men to die senseless as he knew that the capture of the Frankish ruler was more than enough to make his endless mark in history while these men who continued to fight for a senseless cause would be erased from all records.

"استخدم النار" were the sole words that came from the fair skinned Turk, his words were meet by bows and nods from his subordinates as the command was quickly moved to action, dozens of ships began to surround the shipwreck of the Templars as Sir Isaac and the last remaining Templars readied their weapons for the incoming horde, a righteous last stand awaited them as Sir Isaac was not ready to die and felt more than capable to fight on as he always had, make his way to the Sultan and take his head back to Europe as a trophy, little did he and the Templars know what truly awaited them as within seconds it was clear that no horde was to come but instead the endless flames that came right from the Arab ships and began to consume the entire wreck.

The Templars began to rush in all directions as they wished to avoid the incoming flames, but for that very moment Sir Isaac knew this was finally over as he set himself out from his defense pose and now into a defeated and tired kneel with his sword still in his hand and the bodies of his brothers surrounding him.

"Di tibi male faciant, et Guillelmus. Expensibilis ubique monetae Innocentiae tegerentur. You traitor..." And with those words, the Templar was taken in by the flames of the Greek fire and everywhere went dark.

---

An exalted breath came upon as Sir Isaac Charles from House Charlet of England and Respected Knight of the Templar Order opened his eyes and looked upon his surroundings with crazed eyes and a dazed filled headache. He remembered it all, the pain from his wounds, the foolishness of his Grand Master, the betrayal of the Pope, the defeat at the Nile and his siring burning flesh overtaken by the fires of barbarians. And yet he lived once more, at least he thought he was unless he was either in the Paradise of Eden to meet the Mighty One or he was in hell. Whichever he was in he had little time to contemplate as what seemed like a large windowed door opened right before him before he was able to smash it open, the scene in front of him was a strange and alien one, a series of tubes adorned the mostly grey room and what seemed like fog surrounded the ground and his own coffin as he stepped out of it.

As his mind cleared out Sir Isaac first felt the piercing cold around him, the hulking Templar took a few steps forward before he noticed his attire. A strange grey colored garment with no indication of his own status as an honorable warrior of Christ. His weapons were gone, and he saw nothing nor no one familiar to him all throuugh the room. What he did saw was other coffin like gaps along the wall, opened and located in various places through the strange room. Sir Isaac did not waste time as he began to investigate where he was, if this was Hell then it was no like anything the scriptures had ever described and he knew for a fact it was not Paradise. Yet again, he remembered the very scriptures he had come to learn through his life.

“What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him,” he murmured as he took steps further into the room. He was unsure what he should do, if he should do anything at all, within his mind he continued to pray but outside he had his body crunched and ready for anything as he stared around the metallic room, it was all too strange as he took steps forward and what he had confused for a mere wall at first turned out to be a large opening which led to what seemed to be a hallway, thought Sir Isaac was not certain. It was then that the Knight peaked out his head and looked around in what seemed to be exactly that, a hallway which led in two directions. Whatever this place was it Sir Isaac figured it was perhaps a castle, a fortress within the Mediterranean most likely, at least he hoped for that, though it was also likely that he had been taken captive by the Ayyubid and was inside one of their prisons.

"Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path..." Sir Isaac spoke to himself once more as he took a deep breath, his hands in a praying mode against his face as he then took steps outside of the room, he was careful in his steps as he did not wish to draw any attention. He was still not certain if this was a place of friends or foes but he wished to learn that himself first before anybody knew he was walking about. He moved carefully and slowly along the walls and kept silent despite his bulky and large physique. The corridor was long and led to what seemed to be various doors leading into strange rooms which Sir Isaac only glimpsed inside of to know if they had people in them. The Knight continued to move silently, passing by several open rooms and a large metal door which he didn't bother fiddling with as he continued on towards a set of stairs.

As he moved on Sir Isaac could dimly hear voices from afar, they were unclear and he was unsure what language they spoke but he continued to be cautious as he now approached a large rotunda-like room where the voices became louder and louder. Whatever it was, whatever this place was and whomever was speaking he was still unsure and it was clear that he was not alone but what was yet to be clear was who these people where and he continued to stay hidden alongside the door, listening to whatever they spoke off. Oddly enough, some of their dialect was strange, he knew it was and yet he could understand it all but that was the least of things he was concerned with.

[Nagakawa]

Kang Jae-hyun

"Woah, there, first of all, I'm not Chinese, and secondly-"

The appearance of the Confederate soldier caught Jay off guard. This was the first time he'd been confronted so openly, let alone been called a "Chinaman", and for a moment there, a chill had run down the back of his neck all the way down to his tailbone. He put on a poker face, but underneath it, he was terrified, and he'd hoped that in the few seconds between the Confederate's confronting him and Hannah's intervention, that Clarence hadn't noticed.

Even as Hannah stepped in to lower the temperature in the room a bit, Jay could feel the joints in his fingers twitching, his hands itching to grab hold of something. It had been almost seven years since he'd done any judo. Who even knew how much he'd retained?

He wasn't confident that he could still execute a clean entry, let alone fight anyone. It had been almost seven years since he'd stopped training at all. Put out of action by an acromioclavicular injury. The injury was gone now, but so was the muscle memory.

Damn it! I hope it never gets to that.

Hannah Brown

"Let me answer those... Lincoln was assassinated and a huge Greek style memorial was built to him. Lee never made another go of it. As for 'that emancipation garbage'..." she continued, with a slightly amused smile, "You might recall from your own time that the world was rapidly doing away with the practice of slavery? Well you were, ultimately, on the losing side of history.. At least history as it currently exists."

She squeezed in next to Cornelia, giving the roman woman a bright smile, before adding her final remark, "Might be easier if you try to pretend everyone on the ship is a white gentleman with a bolo tie and a ten gallon hat. That way you don't get filleted by our Gentleman from the Imperial Japanese Army." Two people with strong feelings of racial superiority seeing the other as an inferior. She could see that escalating quickly, "I really don't like cleaning blood up. It get's everywhere and it stains."

That, she hoped was enough to keep a lid on things for now... everyone here was a product of a very different world and doubtless would find a lot of reason to take umbrage at what the others had to say. It reminded her a lot of trying to keep order at the Hub, but ten times worse because people like Colonel Sanders had no idea just how badly people were going to take what he had to say. Hopefully he was bright enough to learn to moderate himself, given time, "Jay, sorry I didn't make it up to help before, things are... a bit manic at the moment. This smells wonderful, thank you!"

Didn't you used to lie down when you ate food?" she asked Cornelia, switching subject, "And I think I heard you say Vespasian was the Emperor? You know they still call Rome the 'Eternal City'. In the time I grew up in it was no longer the centre of a great empire, but Rome still stood, larger than it had ever been. The outskirts of the city went nearly as far as Ostia though we had machines which could get you from Ostia to the centre of the city in... half an hour? If the roads were clear. I visited once... there were thousands of years of history built on top of each other. There was actually a little independent city inside the main city. It must have been quite incredible when it was in it's first golden age."

She swiped up one of the bowls of oyakodon and a set of chopsticks (realising as she did that she would probably be one of the few people who knew how to use them). Heck, the knife and fork would probably be a surprise to some people! "Also," she said, raising her voice to carry to the whole table, "I heard some talk about lizards invading before. Set that from your minds. That event will never happen in the reality we now live in," she supposed now was as good a time as any to say a little bit about what she knew, "We aren't the only time travellers. As I understand from what the Ship told me before it had it's memory wiped, when someone meddles with time it creates a history that exists in parallel to the other. That version remains maleable for a while, like a hot piece of metal at a blacksmith's forge. We are currently in a maleable timeline. A man, who I will not name, created this timeline deliberately. What he plans to do with it are unknown. Perhaps the people who built this ship knew? They all died by his hand before I woke up, so we can't ask them and apparently the ship can't visit the same point in space and time twice so we can't go back and ask them in the past either. Either way, I promise you that whatever he is up to will not be anything good. I intend to track him down, wherever and whenever he is and then shoot him. Repeatedly. To make sure he's dead."

It sounded like this was personal to Hannah though she didn't go into details, "Like I said when you first woke up, once we've figured out how all of this works, we might be able to let you off somewhere to make a new life of it. If you don't want to do anything dangerous but just want to come along for the ride and explore the past and future, that is also fine by me. However, I feel I have been entrusted with a duty to safeguard our existence. It is a huge responsibility; I'm not even remotely qualified for it, but I'm on this ship, so the duty falls to me. If any of you feel the same, I'd welcome you to join me. If you all think I'm still insane, well I guess I can't blame you; your company is welcome either way."

Jay understood close to nothing of what Hannah had explained about the timelines and parallel histories and malleable time. He understood that there was something that needed to be done, at least by Hannah's assessment. Something, it seemed, that was of great importance.

He wanted very badly to go back to the way things were. The ship could probably drop him off at any point in time in history that he wanted. He could go anywhere. Yet somehow, it didn't seem like the right thing to do- not so much because Jay felt any strong obligation to do anything, but more because... it wouldn't quite be the same as what he envisioned. It wouldn't be what he wanted.

And so, there was the other solution.

"Lizards invading?" The soft-spoken Jay tried to raise his voice so he could be heard by Hannah over the chatter in the dining room. "Well... that sounds scary, b-but, uh, I'll come along and, y'know, see what happens, I guess. I think it's only fair that I, well, help you out a bit."

Then, leaning towards Clarence the Confederate soldier, whose reality had probably been shattered by now following Hannah's revelation on the outcome of the Civil War, Jay added in a hushed voice something rather uncharacteristically, suggestively evil.

"Why don't you take a seat and have some food? You must be hungry."

[Ameriganastan]

"Let me answer those... Lincoln was assassinated and a huge greek style memorial was built to him. Lee never made another go of it. As for 'that emancipation garbage'..." she continued, with a slightly amused smile, "You might recall from your own time that the world was rapidly doing away with the practice of slavery? Well you were, ultimately, on the losing side of history.. At least history as it currently exists."

"HAHAHAHA! They really got him? Oh, that is spectacular. Not exactly thrilled about all that other stuff. I mean a monument to that negro loving devil? But I'll take it knowing he get what he had coming in the end. Oh, I wish I'd have survived the war to hear it happen. I damn near did, too."

He kicked his feet up on the table.

"Yup, they got me less than 24 hours before I'd have gone back home. War was over, but some Yankee bastard launched a surprise attack on us. Near some armpit at the border called Brownsville. One more fight and I'd be back home in my own time, working on the ranch with Pappy and my brothers. Was gonna meet my little nieces and nephews too. Got two older sisters who spit out a couple kids each while I was away."

For a minute, he seemed almost human. Until...

Paul Goodwin

At first, Paul was going to speak up against the lady. Calling it a 'death cult', that had incensed him, not to anger but to defensiveness, and it had incensed him enough that he put aside asking the frenchie what he'd meant by 'both' world wars. After all, the Roman lady was pagan, and Paul thought he knew well what pagans got up to, but just before he'd started up his counterargument, the good southern boy spoke up.

Paul had been inching so very, very closer to showing Johnny Rebel his hand to hand training with every word the man spoke. He rose to his feet when the man took to calling president Lincoln a bastard, but Hannah spoke up before he could do much more. Paul sat down, but he wasn't gonna let that slide as easily as Hannah probably hoped he would. The man was due a nice, hard conversation.

It sounded like this was personal to Hannah though she didn't go into details, "Like I said when you first woke up, once we've figured out how all of this works, we might be able to let you off somewhere to make a new life of it. If you don't want to do anything dangerous but just want to come along for the ride and explore the past and future, that is also fine by me. However, I feel I have been entrusted with a duty to safeguard our existence. It is a huge responsibility; I'm not even remotely qualified for it, but I'm on this ship, so the duty falls to me. If any of you feel the same, I'd welcome you to join me. If you all think I'm still insane, well I guess I can't blame you; your company is welcome either way."

But his anger was pushed aside for the moment. After all, it was hard to be angry when you were told something like this, something like "safeguarding existence". Paul had never shirked responsibility, and though he was far from certain he was qualified, he was on the ship just the same as Hannah. The duty that had fallen on her fell on him just the same, and he supposed onto everyone else who woke up in those little grey boxes. Paul thought back for a moment on the woman who'd taken her eye out, or the man still sat at the table with him, the traitor, and hoped very sincerely more of the crew were closer to his own caliber. Otherwise existence might find itself in trouble.

"Took an oath to defend America and everyone who lives in it. I suppose America falls in the category of 'existence', and if that's so I'd be bereft of duty not protecting it. I ain't gonna pretend I understand a whole lotta the things being said to me, but I understand duty well enough. Guess this ship'll be home for me, for a while.

"You a soldier too, son? Well, hot dang. Someone I can relate too around here. So, what are the wars like in the future? Ooh, did you ever play a Yankee gun race?"

He laughed at the memory.

"You take two captured Yankees, right? You put a gun ten paces out. And you tell them whoever gets to it first and shoots the other gets to live. Oh, that was a fun time. Sometimes we wouldn't load it. They'd get there, aim and fire...and click. Nothing. One Yankee we did that to pissed his britches and started crying. Oh, good times."

Kang Jae-hyun

"Woah, there, first of all, I'm not Chinese, and secondly-"

The appearance of the Confederate soldier caught Jay off guard. This was the first time he'd been confronted so openly, let alone been called a "Chinaman", and for a moment there, a chill had run down the back of his neck all the way down to his tailbone. He put on a poker face, but underneath it, he was terrified, and he'd hoped that in the few seconds between the Confederate's confronting him and Hannah's intervention, that Clarence hadn't noticed.

Even as Hannah stepped in to lower the temperature in the room a bit, Jay could feel the joints in his fingers twitching, his hands itching to grab hold of something. It had been almost seven years since he'd done any judo. Who even knew how much he'd retained?

He wasn't confident that he could still execute a clean entry, let alone fight anyone. It had been almost seven years since he'd stopped training at all. Put out of action by an acromioclavicular injury. The injury was gone now, but so was the muscle memory.

Damn it! I hope it never gets to that.

Hannah Brown

"Let me answer those... Lincoln was assassinated and a huge Greek style memorial was built to him. Lee never made another go of it. As for 'that emancipation garbage'..." she continued, with a slightly amused smile, "You might recall from your own time that the world was rapidly doing away with the practice of slavery? Well you were, ultimately, on the losing side of history.. At least history as it currently exists."

She squeezed in next to Cornelia, giving the roman woman a bright smile, before adding her final remark, "Might be easier if you try to pretend everyone on the ship is a white gentleman with a bolo tie and a ten gallon hat. That way you don't get filleted by our Gentleman from the Imperial Japanese Army." Two people with strong feelings of racial superiority seeing the other as an inferior. She could see that escalating quickly, "I really don't like cleaning blood up. It get's everywhere and it stains."

That, she hoped was enough to keep a lid on things for now... everyone here was a product of a very different world and doubtless would find a lot of reason to take umbrage at what the others had to say. It reminded her a lot of trying to keep order at the Hub, but ten times worse because people like Colonel Sanders had no idea just how badly people were going to take what he had to say. Hopefully he was bright enough to learn to moderate himself, given time, "Jay, sorry I didn't make it up to help before, things are... a bit manic at the moment. This smells wonderful, thank you!"

Didn't you used to lie down when you ate food?" she asked Cornelia, switching subject, "And I think I heard you say Vespasian was the Emperor? You know they still call Rome the 'Eternal City'. In the time I grew up in it was no longer the centre of a great empire, but Rome still stood, larger than it had ever been. The outskirts of the city went nearly as far as Ostia though we had machines which could get you from Ostia to the centre of the city in... half an hour? If the roads were clear. I visited once... there were thousands of years of history built on top of each other. There was actually a little independent city inside the main city. It must have been quite incredible when it was in it's first golden age."

She swiped up one of the bowls of oyakodon and a set of chopsticks (realising as she did that she would probably be one of the few people who knew how to use them). Heck, the knife and fork would probably be a surprise to some people! "Also," she said, raising her voice to carry to the whole table, "I heard some talk about lizards invading before. Set that from your minds. That event will never happen in the reality we now live in," she supposed now was as good a time as any to say a little bit about what she knew, "We aren't the only time travellers. As I understand from what the Ship told me before it had it's memory wiped, when someone meddles with time it creates a history that exists in parallel to the other. That version remains maleable for a while, like a hot piece of metal at a blacksmith's forge. We are currently in a maleable timeline. A man, who I will not name, created this timeline deliberately. What he plans to do with it are unknown. Perhaps the people who built this ship knew? They all died by his hand before I woke up, so we can't ask them and apparently the ship can't visit the same point in space and time twice so we can't go back and ask them in the past either. Either way, I promise you that whatever he is up to will not be anything good. I intend to track him down, wherever and whenever he is and then shoot him. Repeatedly. To make sure he's dead."

It sounded like this was personal to Hannah though she didn't go into details, "Like I said when you first woke up, once we've figured out how all of this works, we might be able to let you off somewhere to make a new life of it. If you don't want to do anything dangerous but just want to come along for the ride and explore the past and future, that is also fine by me. However, I feel I have been entrusted with a duty to safeguard our existence. It is a huge responsibility; I'm not even remotely qualified for it, but I'm on this ship, so the duty falls to me. If any of you feel the same, I'd welcome you to join me. If you all think I'm still insane, well I guess I can't blame you; your company is welcome either way."

Jay understood close to nothing of what Hannah had explained about the timelines and parallel histories and malleable time. He understood that there was something that needed to be done, at least by Hannah's assessment. Something, it seemed, that was of great importance.

He wanted very badly to go back to the way things were. The ship could probably drop him off at any point in time in history that he wanted. He could go anywhere. Yet somehow, it didn't seem like the right thing to do- not so much because Jay felt any strong obligation to do anything, but more because... it wouldn't quite be the same as what he envisioned. It wouldn't be what he wanted.

And so, there was the other solution.

"Lizards invading?" The soft-spoken Jay tried to raise his voice so he could be heard by Hannah over the chatter in the dining room. "Well... that sounds scary, b-but, uh, I'll come along and, y'know, see what happens, I guess. I think it's only fair that I, well, help you out a bit."

Then, leaning towards Clarence the Confederate soldier, whose reality had probably been shattered by now following Hannah's revelation on the outcome of the Civil War, Jay added in a hushed voice something rather uncharacteristically, suggestively evil.

"Why don't you take a seat and have some food? You must be hungry."

"I don't care what you are, boy."

Clarence stopped laughing and glared in his direction.

"And you best watch your tone around your betters before I slap you so hard your eyes round out."

[Grenartia]

"Hello, all. My name is Elizabeth Carlotta Jones. I lived from 1861 to 1912, when the ship I was on sank. In my lifetime, I was something of a polymath and tinkerer. If I may be so bold, I noticed that we have several gentlemen here of an Oriental persuasion and tongue, as well as an Italian, someone speaking German, one speaking Dutch, and even someone speaking Classical Latin. And yet, we can all understand each other as if we were speaking English. How is that possible?" she asked.

"Pleased to meet you, Elizabeth," Hannah replied as she tried to commit the other woman's name and face to memory, "I'm afraid I don't know the answer to that one with any certainty," she replied, somewhat apologetically, "It's not something I've ever experienced before though I was told the nanites would give me to speak in different languages. They are ummm..." how did you explain nanites to someone from the early 20th century? "They are tiny but advanced machines which, I believe, were injected into us before we woke up. Not something I would have chosen to do if anyone had given me the option but I won't deny that they are coming in handy right now."

She paused, considering if her advice would be appreciated, eventually deciding that she probably wasn't the most qualified to be dishing any out at this stage. She'd barely been awake any longer than these people! "Take a look around this place if you like. This ship is quite extraordinary and, no doubt, there will be more discoveries to make as we look about it. Find a room for yourself, find some clothes you feel more comfortable in, then, when you've got your bearings a bit, we can all sit down and have something to eat and I can tell you a bit more about what I've been asked to do."

Satisfied with Hannah's answer, Elizabeth (and Athena) decided to take Hannah's suggestion. Until the commotion began. A Confederate thug, of all people, attempted (unsuccessfully) to seize the ship, all the while, a woman's scream echoed down the hall. Following the sound, it was discovered to be an odd case of self-mutilation. As the situation seemed to be under control, she began wandering the ship.

"Surely, a case for Dr. Freud.", Athena remarked.
"You said, without a hint of irony." Elizabeth replied.
"Sure, but we aren't harming ourself."

At this point, she had passed near the collective wardrobe room. Deciding to see which of history's various fashions piqued her and Athena's interests, Elizabeth entered and began looking around. Suddenly, an outfit caught her eye: something which a more modern person might recognize as a flapper dress.

"Its perfect!" Athena exclaimed.
"The skirt is a bit short." Elizabeth noted.
"But not too short, and it'll get less dirt on it, and be less prone to tripping."
"Maybe..."
"Besides, its elegant without being gaudy, and look, it doesn't even require those god-awful corsets."
"Alright, you've sold me on it."

Taking the outfit and claiming a room for herself, Elizabeth changed, and followed the sound of conversation to the mess hall, just as Hannah was giving another speech.

She swiped up one of the bowls of oyakodon and a set of chopsticks (realising as she did that she would probably be one of the few people who knew how to use them). Heck, the knife and fork would probably be a surprise to some people! "Also," she said, raising her voice to carry to the whole table, "I heard some talk about lizards invading before. Set that from your minds. That event will never happen in the reality we now live in," she supposed now was as good a time as any to say a little bit about what she knew, "We aren't the only time travellers. As I understand from what the Ship told me before it had it's memory wiped, when someone meddles with time it creates a history that exists in parallel to the other. That version remains maleable for a while, like a hot piece of metal at a blacksmith's forge. We are currently in a maleable timeline. A man, who I will not name, created this timeline deliberately. What he plans to do with it are unknown. Perhaps the people who built this ship knew? They all died by his hand before I woke up, so we can't ask them and apparently the ship can't visit the same point in space and time twice so we can't go back and ask them in the past either. Either way, I promise you that whatever he is up to will not be anything good. I intend to track him down, wherever and whenever he is and then shoot him. Repeatedly. To make sure he's dead."

It sounded like this was personal to Hannah though she didn't go into details, "Like I said when you first woke up, once we've figured out how all of this works, we might be able to let you off somewhere to make a new life of it. If you don't want to do anything dangerous but just want to come along for the ride and explore the past and future, that is also fine by me. However, I feel I have been entrusted with a duty to safeguard our existence. It is a huge responsibility; I'm not even remotely qualified for it, but I'm on this ship, so the duty falls to me. If any of you feel the same, I'd welcome you to join me. If you all think I'm still insane, well I guess I can't blame you; your company is welcome either way."

Before she could respond, Johnny Reb interjected to quite rudely demean several other of the people gathered, including threatening to assault one of the Oriental men.

"Traitorous barbarian..." she muttered under her breath.

"Anyways, seeing as I have nowhere else to go, I'll stick around for the ride, but I have a few more questions. The ship spoke to you? And also, if this man prevented a lizard invasion from happening, isn't that a good thing?" Elizabeth asked. And then Athena thought of several more questions almost immediately after, so Elizabeth followed up. "Furthermore, if he killed the crew of this ship before we woke up, how did we get here? Did the previous crew take us? If so, why? And why didn't he kill us, too?"

[Sudbrazil]

As he moved on Sir Isaac could dimly hear voices from afar, they were unclear and he was unsure what language they spoke but he continued to be cautious as he now approached a large rotunda-like room where the voices became louder and louder. Whatever it was, whatever this place was and whomever was speaking he was still unsure and it was clear that he was not alone but what was yet to be clear was who these people where and he continued to stay hidden alongside the door, listening to whatever they spoke off. Oddly enough, some of their dialect was strange, he knew it was and yet he could understand it all but that was the least of things he was concerned with.

“Ohayō gozeimasu,” said a voice in as deep and formal a tone as it could manage.

An oriental man had sprung behind the knight, examining him with a probing curiosity. Miyamoto had come back from his bedroom, where he had changed into clothing more suitable to a semi-formal meal in the form of a dark blue kimono. He was not very good at physiognomy, and without any garb or attributes, it was rather hard to tell precisely from when this foreigner came from, though he was definitely of an European phenotype, and his physique was that of a worthy opponent.

Wary of what reaction the man might have, the Asian kept his hand on the hilt of a curved blade strapped to his waist, but nevertheless bowed slightly in a sign of politeness. Most of the new crew had been quick to trust, and though he did not wish to add another patient to the infirmary, he didn't want to end up there himself. The lieutenant kept his distance, while thinking how he should address the newcomer.

“It seems another barbarian has come out of the iron coffins,” he remarked, seemingly unable to see the rudeness in his words. He wondered how to explain the situation, which he poorly knew himself.

[Mercatus]

Prologue

8/20/2128, Low Earth Orbit

"You showed up to the wrong ballpark, you ugly piece of shit!" yelled Marcus Lennox to himself as his stream of red tracers from his rotary Gauss cannons dealt the deadly blow to the Ragon fighter, the enemy craft exploding in a small sphere of briefly lived blue flame. His Lockheed Martin F-220 Styx fighter moved gracefully among the growing debris field and bright explosions in the distance, having a distinct red and grey paint job as opposed to the standard OD green and white of craft piloted by subordinate men and women. Said paint job displayed many marks and breaches gained over the course of battle, shining metallically in the light of the Sun, some 93 million miles away from the green, blue, and white marble of Earth. Earth, humanity's cradle, a place that has seen much in the way of war, peace, violence, compassion, bloodshed and rebuilding, but was now experiencing the ruthless bombardment of its surface and people by the bastardizations that were the Ragon. A planet that humanity had abused so much before was rewarded for its stewardship of the human race with further bombardment, enslavement, and the mass murder of billions of innocent men, women, and children. Marcus Lennox, a respected fighter pilot of the carrier USS Lincoln, had answered the call to fight off the alien invaders with absolute courage, even if such a call was hopeless to resist the crushing weight of the advanced reptilian empire which now had its sights set on a puny, weak star system.

"Ramirez, Johnson, anybody in service of humankind's armed forces please respond!" hailed Marcus over the comms, squeezing his eyes shut in defeat and gritting his teeth as he was met with only static. His last two remaining pilots were dead, lost to the dark expanse of outer space. They too had perished with the crew of the Aquarius, who had befallen a fate very much similar to Marcus' late comrades aboard the Lincoln and his beloved wife and son. Feeling utterly defeated and broken and his ship likely too damaged to continue the fight, Marcus finally accepted that there was no hope for his and many other's cases. He resolved to try and make his way to the surface, but it was a chancy bid to see if the heat shielding would save him from being disintegrated. Powering up his afterburners, he made a course for New York state, however, he realized that his radar display was flashing red too late. Something had just gotten a missile lock on him, and radar confirmed a swarm of explosive projectiles rapidly approaching his ship. Accelerating at full throttle, he released the last of his flares toward the oncoming barrage.

But it was too late. His flares got most of the missiles, but the ones that weren't destroyed detonated near his engines through the collateral effects of his flares destroying the other missiles. His engines were practically shredded, and debris spewed out the back of Marcus' craft. The Styx fighter was sent on a downward spiral toward Earth's surface, and Marcus was hopeless to attempt to correct his course or at least slow down voluntarily. He tried the ejection seat, but to no avail. The internals had been damaged to a great extent, and it was a miracle shrapnel hadn't shot from behind the seat and turned Marcus into bloody, bubbling mush. His spacecraft wasn't that high even for a low orbit altitude, safe enough to skydive from with the right equipment and training, all of which Marcus had. His flight suit, weighing nearly 70 pounds, completely sealed off his body from the vacuum of space and the aluminum CMF armor plating could stop an armor-piercing .50 BMG round or high-velocity micrometeoroids. However, all of these features were useless if he couldn't even eject from his ship.

As his craft dipped below the Karman Line, Marcus could begin to make out details on the landmasses below. He on track, surprisingly, for the course he had set, and the pitch of his craft upon reentry was slowing the ship down somewhat. Miraculously, the heat shields were still working. Marcus had given up all hope at this point. He knew he was done. The math proved that the pitch wouldn't slow his ship down enough to save him from dying upon impact, so all the ace pilot could do was sit and wait for his demise. He removed the portion of his helmet that covered his face, revealing his green eyes along with bruises and scrapes. Tossing the piece aside, he opened one of the storage compartments on the breastplate of his beige battle armor, which was decorated with maroon lines in some sections, denoting his squadron commander status. Out of the compartment, he took a small, rectangular piece of a paper-like substance. It was a picture of Marcus, his wife Martha, and his 4-year old son Jacob.

"God, I'm so sorry... it's my fault y'all didn't make it. I didn't even say goodbye the last time I deployed, and now I'll never see either of you again!" Marcus said angrily to himself as he banged his clenched fist as hard as he could on the top of the canopy. Everyone he knew and loved was now dead, as he soon would be. The idea didn't bother him much now that he had nothing left to fight for. In fact, he took some comfort in the thought that he would be dead soon. Maybe he could see his family again, in some afterlife perhaps. Even if this wasn't the case, at least Marcus wouldn't have to live through this hell any longer. As his ship came ever closer to the surface, Marcus did nothing to try and stop it. He just looked at his picture and remembered the times he and his late wife had spent together. He had hoped to take his son on a voyage across the Solar System soon, not on a military spacecraft carrier, but on his private craft at dock over Mars. He wanted a strong father-son bond when things died down and he didn't have to deploy as frequently, but he never got that chance. Instead, he would die in the seat of his fighter, alone and full of nothing except regret. A single tear rolled down his cheek as impact with the surface became imminent. In his last few seconds of life, Marcus shut his eyes in a kind of restful bliss, bliss in the fact that this would finally be over.

Everything went black for Marcus instantly as the Styx slammed into Liberty Island, and smoke rose up from the mangled hull of the ship. The ace pilot's lifeless body was bloodied and shattered, and multiple cracks in his battle armor were made apparent to the outside world. The felled guardian of liberty clutched the one memento of his beloved family even in death, his fist tightly securing the picture against what was left of the breastplate. Over the next few months, the body became a dry skeleton, and nature began to claim the blackened hull of the crashed fighter. Still, the hand that held the picture hadn't budged, and it would stay that way for the years to come until eventually everything would become dust once again.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Awakening

Unknown Date, Cargo Hold of the Icarus

As fog cleared from the viewing port of one of the many pods that lined the metallic walls, the lid slid open, revealing to Marcus Lennox an environment he had never seen anything like before. A room filled with man-sized pods, resembling cryonic sleeping chambers from the many sci-fi movies Marcus had seen in his lifetime. However, his newfound surroundings weren't his most immediate concern.

My picture! Where's my picture?!

At the sudden realization that the only memento of his family had been torn away from him, Marcus became distressed. As he looked down at his clothes, he noticed that the familiar weight of EVA-rated battle armor was no longer present, and it its place a grey jumpsuit, which was quite comfortable, had found itself clothing Marcus' body. However, the fact that his possessions had been seemingly taken from him and the fact he was wearing a solid-color jumpsuit put a single thought into his mind:

Prison. I've been put in a prison.

But wait a minute, if this was a prison then why were there no guards barking orders and keeping everyone in line? Come to think of it, why was Marcus alone in that room? He got up from his pod to discover several others were open as well, but revealed that whoever had occupied them had already left. Some, however, were still closed. Marcus approached one of them, but any revelation of their faces was shrouded by a fog that covered the viewing port, and the port was cold to the touch.

No, this can't possibly be a prison! I'M SUPPOSED TO BE DEAD!! Wait, the fact that I should be dead and the cold temperature of the pods must mean that this is a morgue of some kind... But why would I suddenly rise from the dead? it just doesn't make sense.

Marcus, confounded by his situation, pondered the possibilities of who could be in control of this facility. He'd heard of the Ragon eating soldiers alive, and he wondered if they took prisoners or perhaps dead bodies to this facility, somehow resurrected them with some sort of advanced technology, and then proceeded to enjoy some fresh meat. However, things didn't add up in that scenario either. Why was nobody or nothing there to greet him with a pair of savage jaws? Looking for answers, Marcus spotted an open door further away from his pod, and he walked toward it. Peering around the corner, he made sure the coast was clear for him to continue. He walked down the sterile halls, spotting multiple closed doors, but trying none of them. Soon, he came across an ascending stairwell that lead to... well, apparently something that smelled quite appetizing. The smell resembled Asian cooking, something that piqued Marcus' interest, as he sort of had a thing for Asian food. He and his squad would always trade MREs with the South Koreans or Japanese pilots, as they couldn't really go get Hibachi or Kimchi out in the middle of space. Being sure to maintain quiet footing, Marcus came closer to the smell, and he heard voices speaking in a variety of different dialects.

Wait, I can... understand all these languages? I don't know who or what fucked with my head, and God knows what else they did.

As he continued, he could make out more details of what various voices were saying. The smell of food was now at its strongest, and Marcus peered carefully around the entryway into a mess hall of sorts. When he heard a Korean voice mention "invading lizards", Marcus realized that these people may know exactly about what happened to Earth. Maybe they could help him get back there and fight off those damned aliens, or maybe they themselves were a resistance cell. However, this didn't explain his survival of a crash that almost certainly should've killed him, or the fact that many of these people were speaking languages or using elements of the English language that were only taught in literature classes.

Suddenly, Marcus interrupted what everyone was saying, "Yeah, those 'invading lizards' sure as hell came to Earth. I was a fighter pilot, met those disgusting motherfuckers in orbit, but I got shot down. By all odds, I should've died, yet... somehow I'm here. That crash on Liberty Island should've been the death of me. They must've killed millions, they got all of my squadron, and they also got, well um, actually, I-I'm not gonna talk about it right now. Um, anyways, uh... the name's Marcus. Captain Marcus Lennox, F-220 pilot on the carrier USS Lincoln and leader of Banshee squadron. Now, who here is military?"

[Lessoni]

"You a soldier too, son? Well, hot dang. Someone I can relate too around here. So, what are the wars like in the future? Ooh, did you ever play a Yankee gun race?"

He laughed at the memory.

"You take two captured Yankees, right? You put a gun ten paces out. And you tell them whoever gets to it first and shoots the other gets to live. Oh, that was a fun time. Sometimes we wouldn't load it. They'd get there, aim and fire...and click. Nothing. One Yankee we did that to pissed his britches and started crying. Oh, good times."

Paul Goodwin

Paul was so very done with the man sitting so near him. He'd been willing to let it slide for the moment, if for nothing else than not to spoil lunch, but obviously the man wasn't about to shut up. If he wouldn't shut up, Paul would shut him up. He stood up abruptly, casually walking around the table until he was towering over the man. Paul had always been glad of his height; now he loved it more than ever. After all, it was hard to get a point across to a man like this unless you were towering over him, Paul had always found.

"Am a soldier. So was my granddad. Iowa, 13th infantry, I still got... had, one of his medals in my pocket, all the time. It was a good luck charm. See, that's why I know he's gonna be smiling down on me here in a few seconds."

As he'd been talking, Paul had been retrieving the club from his belt. It was a simple deal, it was shaped like one of them German grenades. Wasn't like the one he'd carried, his had had spikes, but it would do the job. Probably better, considering it was a lot less likely to kill the guy. Then again, if it did? Paul didn't think too much of value would be lost.

He took a hard swing with the club, aiming it for the man's nose. Hopefully, it'd break, and if they were real lucky, he'd be knocked out. In any case, he thought it'd do a good job teaching the guy some manners.

[Ameriganastan]

"You a soldier too, son? Well, hot dang. Someone I can relate too around here. So, what are the wars like in the future? Ooh, did you ever play a Yankee gun race?"

He laughed at the memory.

"You take two captured Yankees, right? You put a gun ten paces out. And you tell them whoever gets to it first and shoots the other gets to live. Oh, that was a fun time. Sometimes we wouldn't load it. They'd get there, aim and fire...and click. Nothing. One Yankee we did that to pissed his britches and started crying. Oh, good times."

Paul Goodwin

Paul was so very done with the man sitting so near him. He'd been willing to let it slide for the moment, if for nothing else than not to spoil lunch, but obviously the man wasn't about to shut up. If he wouldn't shut up, Paul would shut him up. He stood up abruptly, casually walking around the table until he was towering over the man. Paul had always been glad of his height; now he loved it more than ever. After all, it was hard to get a point across to a man like this unless you were towering over him, Paul had always found.

"Am a soldier. So was my granddad. Iowa, 13th infantry, I still got... had, one of his medals in my pocket, all the time. It was a good luck charm. See, that's why I know he's gonna be smiling down on me here in a few seconds."

As he'd been talking, Paul had been retrieving the club from his belt. It was a simple deal, it was shaped like one of them German grenades. Wasn't like the one he'd carried, his had had spikes, but it would do the job. Probably better, considering it was a lot less likely to kill the guy. Then again, if it did? Paul didn't think too much of value would be lost.

He took a hard swing with the club, aiming it for the man's nose. Hopefully, it'd break, and if they were real lucky, he'd be knocked out. In any case, he thought it'd do a good job teaching the guy some manners.

"Iowa? Oh, you're no soldier. You're a damn-"

Before he could get out the next word, the club came at his face. If he hadn't been leaning back with his feet up, it would have smacked him dead center in the nose. As it were, it whacked him in the chin as he fell backwards and crashed on the floor. He stumbled to his feet and scurried back, grimacing at him.

"Typical Yankee. Gotta try that sneaky buggery to win a fight. Sums up how you Union devils won that war. But if you wanna tangle, let's tangle."

He held his fists up like an old timey boxer.

"If you got the guts, swing again. I'll beat you black and blue."

[Arengin Union]

Sir Isaac Charles

The entire scene had kept Isaac captivated as he listened to the blabberings of a rather diverse cast of individuals all of which seemed to be of no concrete origin. Perhaps they had been mercenaries from the lands throughout Europe, he was not quite sure but he knew that they most likely meant no harm and were perhaps lost souls just as he was. Regardless of it, the Templar had no intention to reveal himself just yet as he continued to listen on, one of the individuals in question dressed in an all-black attire spoke with a lack of eloquence and in terms of little meaning to Isaac while others spoke up in rebuttal to the man Isaac began to notice a distinct smell in the air, a scent of an unfamiliar flavor but still a hypnotizing one nonetheless. Isaac could feel his stomach growl deeply as he smelled what he assumed was food, he tried to control himself and keep the focus on the group but the hunger was hard to ignore and as such much of his own concentration on being undetected quickly faded and it would quickly prove foolish.

“Good Morning,” said a voice in as deep and formal a tone as it could manage.

The sudden voice which despite being in a language that Sir Isaac was not knowledgeable in somehow understood made him jump as he immediately turned to face whoever had spoken. The Knight had neither his sword, shield, or even a dagger to defend himself with but he did have his might and his wits with him as he got in a defensive posture, he observed the strange man with curious eyes but his cautious demeanor never faded. He had been careless and he would not commit the same mistake as he began to analyze the looks and possible intentions of this mystery of a man with features that he had unfamiliar with.

Wary of what reaction the man might have, the Asian kept his hand on the hilt of a curved blade strapped to his waist, but nevertheless bowed slightly in a sign of politeness. Most of the new crew had been quick to trust, and though he did not wish to add another patient to the infirmary, he didn't want to end up there himself. The lieutenant kept his distance, while thinking how he should address the newcomer.

The man was indeed a strange one as he wore an odd attire, though it wasn't unlike the ones wore by the dreaded Ottomans, but there in laid the problem, it was clear that this man was no Ottoman, nor an Arab, but he was clearly from the East, Isaac was unsure from where exactly. He had heard stories of men froms lands far away, way beyond the Holy Land in a place call the Middle Kingdom by some and he had come in contact with the Mongols of the Khan before but yet again this seemed like an unlikely type of Mongol if he was one, dressed much more neatly and with a blade unlike any the knight had seen. With that in mind Sir Isaac was quick to also make distance between himself and the Eastern man.

The gesture by the Eastern men of bowing slightly made Isaac feel less uneasy but he remained vigilant of his every move regardless. Reciprocating the man's gesture with a mere nod.

“It seems another barbarian has come out of the iron coffins,” he remarked, seemingly unable to see the rudeness in his words. He wondered how to explain the situation, which he poorly knew himself.

"Barbarian?!" Sir Isaac was quick to respond to such an insult from a man clearly of no moral virtue and much less so of a Christian one. If anybody was a barbarian it clearly was the Eastern men. Sir Isaac now stood firmly as his figure towered that of the Eastern man though he knew that a fight with such a foe would be a one-sided one judging by his blade which he had at the ready, though he made his dislike of the man clearly in his piercing and cold stare. But the two men's confrontation would have to wait as their attention would be drawn to the scuffle within the rotunda.

A man of a strong posture wearing an all brown attire had striked with great force at the man in black, a hit right onto the head, possibly a deadly one as far as Sir Isaac could tell. Whatever was his reasoning, whatever was the context the attack in question seemed unprovoked to the Templar and if anything it was an honorless assault. Looking back towards the Eastern man, Sir Isaac merely gave him a look that said "We'll hold this for later" as he composed himself to a more relaxed posture and at last he revealed himself to the crowd. He was a towering man of more than 6 feet and built like a bull and as tough as a fortress, he walked into the room with a stoic expression and right into the middle of the scene as one man stood with a weapon on his hand and the other stood himself up ready to fight on, Sir Isaac looked upon the man who had made the attack.

"Not very righteous to lay thy weapon onto a man with none of his own!" The Templar spoke with a near stone-like voice.

[Sarderia]

Johannes de Spielman

---

"Like I said when you first woke up, once we've figured out how all of this works, we might be able to let you off somewhere to make a new life of it. If you don't want to do anything dangerous but just want to come along for the ride and explore the past and future, that is also fine by me. However, I feel I have been entrusted with a duty to safeguard our existence. It is a huge responsibility; I'm not even remotely qualified for it, but I'm on this ship, so the duty falls to me. If any of you feel the same, I'd welcome you to join me. If you all think I'm still insane, well I guess I can't blame you; your company is welcome either way."

Johannes shrugged. "God has granted me a chance to live yet again, though I do not understand how, or why. I did not die at the hands of bloody Englishmen," he responded. He pondered about asking Hannah to deliver him back to Amsterdam, right on that fateful day where he was supposed to die. "And if what you said about this... time-travelling fellow is right, then I would not favor not existing. I will come along; I've decided that I liked my life, after all." Truly, he was robbed of his most glorious moment in life - he was supposed to be hailed as an excellent privateer, having destroyed King Charles' ship in the Chatham Dockyard. He savored the startled look the Company managers gave him after the battle - that a young, upstart Company manager of Indies blood, a filthy foreigner to them, eclipsed them in a decisive battle for the Dutch Republic. But he died too soon, of a ridiculous cause, and Johannes felt empty. Most of all, he felt very humiliated. There was a long road ahead of me. A second chance in life is all I need to strike revenge upon those despicable bewindhebbers.

He took a hard swing with the club, aiming it for the man's nose. Hopefully, it'd break, and if they were real lucky, he'd be knocked out. In any case, he thought it'd do a good job teaching the guy some manners.

"If you got the guts, swing again. I'll beat you black and blue."

Johannes sat near the Confederate soldier, finishing the last piece of his meal, and he was very irritated when Clarence and the American soldier came to blows. "You verdommen, klootzak, peasant thug," he drew his Queen Anne's flintlock again. It was still empty, but he hoped that he could make them back down like before in the coffin chamber. His left hand touched his rapier's hilt. He does not know what or who a Yankee is, but it seems that they were enemies in life, and most certainly still carries the grudges of war into this place. Facing the Confederate soldier, he bellowed, "Are you done being a complete zakkenwasser yet? Now sit down, or I will shoot any of you who tried to hit the other again."

[Europa Undivided]

Jean-Luc Lafayette

---

"Like I said when you first woke up, once we've figured out how all of this works, we might be able to let you off somewhere to make a new life of it. If you don't want to do anything dangerous but just want to come along for the ride and explore the past and future, that is also fine by me. However, I feel I have been entrusted with a duty to safeguard our existence. It is a huge responsibility; I'm not even remotely qualified for it, but I'm on this ship, so the duty falls to me. If any of you feel the same, I'd welcome you to join me. If you all think I'm still insane, well I guess I can't blame you; your company is welcome either way."

Jean, biting off yet another piece of chicken, answered Hannah as soon as she was done, being loud enough for her to hear. "Well, you know well as I that there's no way I'm leaving you in here.", he said reassuringly. "Both of us were taken out of that moment. I'll say that it was predestined, so that I'll watch your back."

---

Not even an hour had passed since their awakening and people were already getting mad at each other. Jean simply sighed as Johannes got up out of offense for Cornelia's remarks about Christianity; he had read about this before when he was younger. Pagans in the Roman Empire were totally ignorant about the Judean sect that eventually became the world's largest faith. A religion founded by Someone falsely condemned as a criminal by Rome, and whose followers were persecuted for the next three centuries... of course, it was misunderstood.

"I think we are simply clueless about one another's beliefs, and a crash course is perhaps in order.", Jean-Luc simply said as he finished up the okayadon, smiling gleefully due to how good it was. Of course, he hadn't had real food for five years now, so anything that isn't ten year old canned products was real food to him by this point. He just ignored the Confederate, at least for now, as Hannah had already dealt with him. Though... he disapproved of the fact that he was calling Jay Chinaman. Jean hated it when people were like that... plus, the fact that he was a proud Confederate was giving him zero reasons to be looked upon with approval by Jean, someone who came from the future. Jay was already a person Jean pegged as somebody worthy to be a friend of; his dorky nature reminded Jean of someone.

"I don't care what you are, boy."

Clarence stopped laughing and glared in his direction.

"And you best watch your tone around your betters before I slap you so hard your eyes round out."

"Ignore him.", Jean whispered to Jay. "His type is not worth your time... or anyone's, for that matter."

Suddenly, Marcus interrupted what everyone was saying, "Yeah, those 'invading lizards' sure as hell came to Earth. I was a fighter pilot, met those disgusting motherfuckers in orbit, but I got shot down. By all odds, I should've died, yet... somehow I'm here. That crash on Liberty Island should've been the death of me. They must've killed millions, they got all of my squadron, and they also got, well um, actually, I-I'm not gonna talk about it right now. Um, anyways, uh... the name's Marcus. Captain Marcus Lennox, F-220 pilot on the carrier USS Lincoln and leader of Banshee squadron. Now, who here is military?"

"Ah, finally.", Jean got up from his seat and walked towards Marcus, a hand extended in greeting. "Someone who's from the same crappy future I was. I knew of the USS Lincoln, Marcus. I was the one on the command of the Aquitaine. I trust you remember the time when NATO had a joint operation in Saturnine orbit, no?"

"If you got the guts, swing again. I'll beat you black and blue."

Jean had ignored the brewing irritation that pretty much everyone had for the Confederate... until now. A crashing sound told him that someone had been hit very hard at the face. He turned around just to see Clarence falling flat on the table. If Jean was his younger self back in the academy, he would have laughed at the spectacle, maybe even join in the madness. But... now, he was more level headed, and deduced that infighting in this ship would kill them faster than Davin Blackmore will.

Sure enough, the Dutchman drew his flintlock at the commotion, and a new person, one who spoke in very old timey English, decried the sudden assault.

"Alright, that's enough." Jean stepped in and grabbed Clarence's wrist extremely firmly, while putting his hand on the pistol in his right holster. "This petty fighting will lead us nowhere. Now, mister Confederate, I suggest you stop insulting every second person in here and expect any respect in return." He glanced towards Hannah and Jay, the former which was seen as lower for being a woman and the other referred to as an Oriental... Chinaman. "You're now stuck in here with the rest of us, and whether you like it or not, you will play nice. Or else... I don't want to tell you what my friend is capable of." He was, of course, referring to Hannah. And he was bluffing, but what choice does the man have now?

Jean then looked over at Paul, and motioned at his clubm "Put that down, please." He breathed out a heavy sigh; there was a long way for them to go before this hand plucked crew could be of any use for saving history itself.

[Dyelli Beybi]

Hannah Brown

The scene had played out for long enough, "Excuse me," she said, apologetically to the people at the table, before standing up, drawing her blaster as she did.

It was an unusual weapon with what would appear to be a particularly wide barrel to... anyone on the ship since it was a design from beyond even Hannah and Jean's future, "All of you, listen and sit the hell down!" she said, sounding genuinely annoyed for the first time since the others had woken up. She held the weapon pointed upwards, not at anyone, "Jay has prepared a very nice meal and this brawling is disrespectful, though I must say had Doughboy Dan not decided to whack you with his club, Huckleberry, I might have felt it necessary to shoot you in the knee and I really don't know how much of your knee would have been left since I'm not too experienced with this kind of weapon," she said. She had got some names, but other people seemed to just be getting an assortment of strange nicknames.

"I've said a few times I appreciate that this is strange for everyone. You're in a whole new world and the way that people behave towards one another is probably a bit alien, on top of which we don't properly understand each other. Now since I am not interested in trying to clean blood out of the decks, I have one simple rule for everyone to follow; no matter what you might think about how much better you are than anyone else or how everyone else should be looking up to you, you will treat every single person on this ship with the respect you would give to an equal. I don't care what you think about them, but keep your damned opinions to yourself and we should all get along. If you can't manage that... well I'm sure there's someone who'll be happy to help me gag you and put you back in your box for a bit of a time out."

She looked about the group, "Are we all on the same page? Nobody itching to find out what a flintlock pistol does to their intestines by telling Captain John that he or she doesn't like Dutch gin?" she suggested, "Or if that doesn't float your boat you could tell me to dress appropriately, stop bossing people around and cook you some eggs?" she proposed, before finally adding, "Or... you could try biting your tongue and enjoying your meal. It's surprisingly easy to do, you get fed, nobody gets offended and nobody hits you. I'd call that a win-win."

She didn't think she would get too much protest from most of the group; the speech was mostly aimed at trying to reign in the Confederate trooper who seemed to be have the common sense of a lemming. If he could just internalise his thoughts, even half the time, then maybe they could make this strange group work. She glance across at Johannes. She still owed him some answers and he seemed to have a level head on his shoulders. A conversation after lunch seemed in order... plus someone else had said something about lizards invading which meant another sleeper from her era.

[Arengin Union]

Sir Isaac Charles

The entire debacle played out like a brawl between two boys fresh off the squire core, all the while people from all directions spouted their takes on their situation and one such even pulled out a stick with what seemed to be a long silvery arrow. Sir Isaac didn't know what to make of anything he saw as he stood in between the two brawling men with little care for their next action. He didn't quite care the reasoning for such assault, a man of honor should never fight a man on unequal footing, while at the same time he could tell that the lanky darkly dressed man was no strange to confrontation. This was a strange broth of men and women from what he could guess was perhaps a prison, or perhaps something else given that many of them seemed to be carrying weaponry and no guards had made their presence known.

"Lost souls in this place, lost your way off the righteous path. I've seen what such faithless spirits do to entire armies..." Was all Sir Isaac said as It was then that such a figure of authority he'd expected to see made his, or rather her, power known. A small women of a fair complexion and typical clothing he'd seen wore by a male commoner. Regardless of attires the Knight listened to her words carefully despite not fully understanding the situation nor what object she carried in her hand, perhaps a dagger?

She spoke with a decisiveness that would rival that of Knights he himself had come to know, and it was clear that she was the closest to a voice of reason in this place, though the Templar was unsure if she was either that or the person in charge. If it was the latter it seemed unconventional to put a woman in charge but he strayed off judgments for now. The women continued.

The women talked about many things, talking about them being in a new world and she was clear in establishing a simple rule, treating all others as an equal. Sir Isaac flinched for a second, berated by a women and told to treat all as his equal? Quite a preposterous insinuation, but Sir Isaac had no interest in creating further conflict, especially with the l

"Are we all on the same page? Nobody itching to find out what a flintlock pistol does to their intestines by telling Captain John that he or she doesn't like Dutch gin?" she suggested, "Or if that doesn't float your boat you could tell me to dress appropriately, stop bossing people around and cook you some eggs?" she proposed, before finally adding, "Or... you could try biting your tongue and enjoying your meal. It's surprisingly easy to do, you get fed, nobody gets offended and nobody hits you. I'd call that a win-win."

Flintlock? What kind of contraption is this lass talking of?. Sir Isaac thought to himself as he looked around the room to the many other individuals scattered about, all dressed differently and all looked differently. If this was an enemy stronghold then it was a rather unconventionally manned one and quite dysfunctional at that so Sir Isaac was quick to discard such possibility, perhaps this was a prison that had been taken over by the prisoners? Any accurate deduction was hard to ascertain but Sir Isaac was not here to create conflicts, at least unnecessary ones, it was clear these souls were lost and at odds with each other and he kind of pettied them. Finally the Knight looked onto the the women and with honest eyes he spoke up.

"I know not who you are, nor any of your companions for that matter but I can see you are a women of respect. I shall follow your wishes as a man of honor, and a servant of the Lord," He said rather eloquent for his appearance while still carrying a rather gruff and deep voice.

[Mercatus]

Jean-Luc Lafayette

---

Suddenly, Marcus interrupted what everyone was saying, "Yeah, those 'invading lizards' sure as hell came to Earth. I was a fighter pilot, met those disgusting motherfuckers in orbit, but I got shot down. By all odds, I should've died, yet... somehow I'm here. That crash on Liberty Island should've been the death of me. They must've killed millions, they got all of my squadron, and they also got, well um, actually, I-I'm not gonna talk about it right now. Um, anyways, uh... the name's Marcus. Captain Marcus Lennox, F-220 pilot on the carrier USS Lincoln and leader of Banshee squadron. Now, who here is military?"

"Ah, finally.", Jean got up from his seat and walked towards Marcus, a hand extended in greeting. "Someone who's from the same crappy future I was. I knew of the USS Lincoln, Marcus. I was the one on the command of the Aquitaine. I trust you remember the time when NATO had a joint operation in Saturnine orbit, no?"

"If you got the guts, swing again. I'll beat you black and blue."

Jean had ignored the brewing irritation that pretty much everyone had for the Confederate... until now. A crashing sound told him that someone had been hit very hard at the face. He turned around just to see Clarence falling flat on the table. If Jean was his younger self back in the academy, he would have laughed at the spectacle, maybe even join in the madness. But... now, he was more level headed, and deduced that infighting in this ship would kill them faster than Davin Blackmore will.

Sure enough, the Dutchman drew his flintlock at the commotion, and a new person, one who spoke in very old timey English, decried the sudden assault.

"Alright, that's enough." Jean stepped in and grabbed Clarence's wrist extremely firmly, while putting his hand on the pistol in his right holster. "This petty fighting will lead us nowhere. Now, mister Confederate, I suggest you stop insulting every second person in here and expect any respect in return." He glanced towards Hannah and Jay, the former which was seen as lower for being a woman and the other referred to as an Oriental... Chinaman. "You're now stuck in here with the rest of us, and whether you like it or not, you will play nice. Or else... I don't want to tell you what my friend is capable of." He was, of course, referring to Hannah. And he was bluffing, but what choice does the man have now?

Jean then looked over at Paul, and motioned at his club "Put that down, please." He breathed out a heavy sigh; there was a long way for them to go before this hand plucked crew could be of any use for saving history itself.

Responding to Jean's greeting, Marcus took his extended hand, shaking firmly in a show of his gratitude, "Yes, yes I do remember that operation. Quite an exciting campaign, if you ask me. If I remember right, you must be Captain Lafayette. I'd just like to say I admired your skill in commanding a warship, and I must also say that it had one of the finest crews I'd ever seen. Your pilots were some of the absolute best I'd ever worked with, and we all had fun playing cards over each other's MREs after a battle. I'd never met you in person until now, but I am thankful for the occasion. It really is too bad the Aquitaine was destroyed. Goddamn Russkies, can't even face us properly on a battlefield, so they went for sabotage instead." Finishing his praises, Marcus saluted the Frenchman as a sign of his respect for him before continuing to the table where the bowls of Oyakodon and multiple pairs of chopsticks were sitting, grabbing one of each before sitting down at the table where Hannah and Cornelia were sitting, choosing a chair across from the two.

Well goddamn, this motherfucking place is like a God-forsaken asylum of some kind. Grown men are talking like they are still playing some kid's D&D shit, we have people who act like they're from entirely different time periods-

Then it dawned on Marcus. Everyone here seemed to have awoken from those pods, judging by the amount that were already open when he woke up from his, and the correlation with that and Marcus "surviving" a scenario where it was undisputable he should have died in was too strong for the ace to deny it. Somehow, some way, these people had died or something, woken up here, and they all so happen to be from different periods of human history. That explained the die-hard Confederate views of Mr. Racist Hillbilly, why many still spoke in Old English, and why Captain Lafayette referred to Marcus as being "from the same crappy future".

It all makes sense now! This bunch has been cobbled together from across time. Why? I wouldn't know. However, they must have just come into contact with one another, which explains their shitty attitudes toward each other. I don't know who the leader here is, but I'm sure he or she would be fine if I stepped in and helped out. After all, I've led a team before, and I sure as hell can help straighten this one out.

Just as he finished his thought, he heard the sickening sound of a human body falling to the ground on a metallic floor, and he quickly stood from his chair to see what was happening. It appears some man who was evidently a US soldier based on the way Marcus overheard him identify himself had hit Wannabe Colonel Mosby, and a harsh exchange of words had followed. Before he could do anything, it appeared that Captain Lafayette had restrained the Confederate, who had gotten back up to combat his assailant, and then told the other guy to back the fuck off. Shortly thereafter, Hannah had arisen, pointing a handgun-like weapon with an unnaturally huge bore into the air, demanding everyone calm the hell down. Being a leader himself, Marcus had some things to say specifically to the Doughboy who had hit the hillbilly.

Looking toward Captain Lafayette, Marcus offered his own thoughts, "If you'll excuse me, Captain, I believe we shouldn't let Mr. Doughboy here with the club off the hook so easy. It's no offense to you, really, but I think he would listen more to a fellow American soldier if he got offered a piece of mind from someone." Marcus walked authoritatively toward Paul, the boots provided with his jumpsuit thumping somewhat menacingly on the ground, a sound subordinates learned to fear when they had done something the CO didn't like. Marcus stopped when he was nearly toe-to-toe with Paul, and while the man was taller than the Confederate, Marcus was still taller than both of them, and he had more weight to throw around.

"You. Yeah you, asshole. Think you can beat your fellow teammate with your club, huh? Now, sure he was being a little verbally unsavory, but you and I both probably fought to protect the freedom of speech for all, correct? I'm completely fine with hazing, but that wasn't just hazing. Nearly putting your comrade out of action qualifies as insubordination, something I punish harshly and hopefully whoever runs this madhouse will punish as well. If I would be granted the permission I'd be forcing you to do wall push ups with 70 pounds of flight suit on your back. I'm not going to do that this time, but pull that shit again and I will be doing that, because as a ranking officer from the same military I have the authority to punish my subordinates, even if we're from different time periods. I'm sure I've made myself clear, you have no need to respond." With that, Marcus walked over to the restrained Confederate, ready to give him the same scolding as he did Paul.

"You there, hillbilly. While certainly Doughboy's assault was uncalled for, you quite honestly had it coming. Both of you are acting immature for your occupations right now. I don't wanna here anything discriminatory to someone based on their natural circumstances roll off your tongue again, is that clear? I don't know what authority I would have here over you but I'm sure the others wouldn't mind seeing me having you smoke the capsaicin off a Habanero in a makeshift pipe. Yep, I did that to assholes like you under my command and it sure as hell straightened them the fuck up. Their lungs searing them for a few days during PT was more than needed to bring about the utmost respect toward their comrades. Now, when the Frenchman here decides he wants to let you go I want you to apologize to every one of your teammates you've insulted today, because our kind Korean friend here was apparently nice enough to cook us all a nice meal according to the woman over there with the gun pointed at the roof, and he certainly deserves more respect than he's been given by you." Marcus didn't know what the others would think of him for throwing the metaphorical weight of his leadership experience around, but he hoped that at least everyone would cool it a bit after what he threatened Paul and Clarence with. He walked back to his table to finish his meal, but before he sat down, he had a few words of gratitude to say to Hannah.

"Hey, uh, Lady. I just wanna say thanks for that speech of yours. I'm sure if we maybe do some team-building exercises they'll at least come to respect each other. Trust me, I commanded a pretty wildly varied squadron who came to trust each other with their lives after me and other COs had them thinking of the team rather than themselves. You seem like a great leader along with Captain Lafayette, so I'd really like to hear your story when we sit back down. However, I will say that you holding that gun with a huge motherfucking bore up in the air like that is making me a bit nervous, so um, could you please re-holster that? Just a precaution, y'know, the rules of firearms safety and all that? Also, I'd like to know your name." After he'd finished his sentence, Marcus held out his hand in greeting, smiling as he did so.

[Voxija]

Cornelia Quinta

Cornelia was disturbed by the men arguing and fighting. Although it seemed that this Clarence man was the source of all this. Anyways, Cornelia was glad when Hannah stood up and became the voice of reason, nodding along to her statements.

"I've said a few times I appreciate that this is strange for everyone. You're in a whole new world and the way that people behave towards one another is probably a bit alien, on top of which we don't properly understand each other. Now since I am not interested in trying to clean blood out of the decks, I have one simple rule for everyone to follow; no matter what you might think about how much better you are than anyone else or how everyone else should be looking up to you, you will treat every single person on this ship with the respect you would give to an equal. I don't care what you think about them, but keep your damned opinions to yourself and we should all get along. If you can't manage that... well I'm sure there's someone who'll be happy to help me gag you and put you back in your box for a bit of a time out."

Treat everyone like an equal?! Even when they weren't—actually, this was fine. If Cornelia fought against whoever Hannah's enemy was, she would have to work alongside the other people on the Icarus. Besides, it would be good to have more friends and support in this strange place. So, no calling Christianity a death cult, no calling people barbarians. Cornelia would treat everyone with respect, like they were a fellow Roman. Except for maybe the Clarence soldier.

"Thank you," responded Cornelia, after Sir Isaac and the man who had rebuked both Clarence and the guy that had decked him had said their parts. "I shall follow your suggestions, and hope the others do the same."

Cornelia had two pressing questions. One was Christanity. Since it seemed to be so dominant in the future, Cornelia thought she should learn more about what was a new religious movement in her era, although she certainly wouldn't convert. And another feature of her curiosity revolved around the weapon many of the soldiers were wielding. They all seemed to be of the same type, with a curved handle and a tubular blade.

The only weapons Cornelia had ever handled were her father's old army weapons from when he was a general, but her father had chased Cornelia from those very quickly. Imagine, a proper Roman woman, going out of her way to be interested in weapons! Now that Cornelia was leaning towards joining Hannah on whatever her quest was, she would need to learn how to fight.

Cornelia raised her voice, addressing her question to all the gun users in the room. "There is an important weapon many of you are holding. It seems to come in different types, and I have heard it being called 'gun' and 'flintlock pistol'. How does it work? How good is it at killing enemies? How can I learn to use it?"

[Lessoni]

"You. Yeah you, asshole. Think you can beat your fellow teammate with your club, huh? Now, sure he was being a little verbally unsavory, but you and I both probably fought to protect the freedom of speech for all, correct? I'm completely fine with hazing, but that wasn't just hazing. Nearly putting your comrade out of action qualifies as insubordination, something I punish harshly and hopefully whoever runs this madhouse will punish as well. If I would be granted the permission I'd be forcing you to do wall push ups with 70 pounds of flight suit on your back. I'm not going to do that this time, but pull that shit again and I will be doing that, because as a ranking officer from the same military I have the authority to punish my subordinates, even if we're from different time periods. I'm sure I've made myself clear, you have no need to respond." With that, Marcus walked over to the restrained Confederate, ready to give him the same scolding as he did Paul.
...
After he'd finished his sentence, Marcus held out his hand in greeting, smiling as he did so.

Paul Goodwin

"Way I see it, buddy, your authority died right along with you, where ever and whenever that was. And further fucking more, I fought to protect freedom of speech, damn right, but I didn't fight for freedom from consequences, and I especially didn't fight for traitors to throw around their bullshit disrespect. Now, you cocky bastard, you try throwing your weight around again, I'm gonna ignore you just as much as I am right now, and you try and 'punish' me? I'll kick your ass. And I'm quite sure I've made myself clear."

The nerve of the guy annoyed Paul to no end. Sure, he was a soldier, but this wasn't the army, and the idiot wasn't his CO. He wanted sorely to go on, but cut himself off. No need to waste breath on the idiot. Instead, he took a deep breath to calm himself, then turned to the woman posing the question of what a gun was. Even up to now, he'd had some shred of doubt left in him that a woman from somewhere like Rome would be there. That she didn't know what a gun was dispelled that shred quickly. He took his pistol out of its holster, ejecting the magazine into his hand and clearing the chamber, then holding it by the barrel to offer her the grip so she could get a feel for it in her hand and inspect it as she would.

"A gun works by shooting out a piece of metal really fast, essentially. It's like... think of it the way you'd think of a crossbow, except a lot, lot faster. Frankly, it's about the best killing device you can hold in your hand, unless you've got a fella wanting to do you harm right in your face. As for learning how to use it, ain't all too hard. Any soldier type can teach you, I'd certainly be happy to, pretty lady like you. A little first lesson, you never point one of these things at someone unless you intend to shoot him."

[Grenartia]

Elizabeth's questions seemed to have been ignored in favor of addressing the Confederate-shaped elephant in the room. Which was admittedly probably the more pressing matter. Hannah seemed to be a competent leader, and her equality rule was a sound one. As things seemed to calm down, she grabbed herself a bowl of whatever the man from the Orient had prepared. It wasn't her usual fare, but she'd give it a fair try. Sitting down at the table, she overheard one of her contemporaries talking to the Roman woman.

"A gun works by shooting out a piece of metal really fast, essentially. It's like... think of it the way you'd think of a crossbow, except a lot, lot faster. Frankly, it's about the best killing device you can hold in your hand, unless you've got a fella wanting to do you harm right in your face. As for learning how to use it, ain't all too hard. Any soldier type can teach you, I'd certainly be happy to, pretty lady like you. A little first lesson, you never point one of these things at someone unless you intend to shoot him."

"I learned how to shoot from Annie Oakley herself. I'm nowhere near as fancy as she is, but I'm not too bad, either." Elizabeth mentioned, and turned to Cornelia. "If you're uncomfortable learning from a man, I'd be more than happy to teach you."

[Nagakawa]

Kang Jae-hyun

Jay had felt it. The thrill of being challenged to a fight by a hostile individual. Not so much a thrill as much as a rising, boiling feeling inside, and a sudden rush of emotions swirling all around.

That, and the deep fear that he was perhaps not ready to fight with this man, should it come down to that. He was lucky enough that Paul had socked him before it could come to that, and also that Hannah had intervened to put a stop to hostilities, but there was no guarantee that he wouldn’t cut his throat in his sleep. Fighting an opponent on the mats in competition or in randori was, after all, miles different from jumping out of bed to deescalate and avert a fight with an angry racist man with a knife.

Still, years of corporate climbing had taught Jay not to lay his cards out on the table. As terrified as he was of Clarence, he kept a straight face and quietly eyed the Confederate soldier, hoping that he couldn’t see through his veneer of confidence.

Probably not that hard, considering I can’t bloody talk to people I don’t know without having a nervous breakdown, and at least a few folks here know that already.

“Thanks for the help, man”, said Jay to Jean, leaning in and whispering so that it was out of Clarence’s earshot. “I owe you one.”

As Hannah lectured the crew (or, more specifically, certain individuals among them), Jay thought for a moment about what was to come next. It seemed clear enough by now that there were at least some among the crew who could not be trusted, and some who would probably turn violent at the flip of a switch. It probably wasn’t possible to arm himself from the armoury- not since what had happened after the incident with the German lady who’d gouged her own eye out.

The next best alternative would, he thought, to find a way to work on his unarmed combat. Get back some of the old muscle memory he’d lost after seven years of sedentary corporate living. Throw some people, perhaps. Assuming anybody else was willing to join him.

“Here, have some more”, he said to Jean, scooping out some more sundubu into a bowl and passing it to him. There was this other guy who seemed to know what he was doing- Jay heard him introducing himself as Marcus, amid all the noise. Something about his mannerisms put Jay off of approaching him, however- he seemed prideful, to say the least.

So just this guy for now, I guess. And maybe Paul too...

“Anyway, Jean, I-I was gonna ask you... is there a gym here?” Jay poured a little bit more tofu soup for himself. “I was thinking we could, you know, go there and train a bit after lunch. Work on some unarmed combat, that sort of thing, yea?”