tushanshu | [video]

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[A dark-haired kid who seems to be in his late teens appears on screen. He smiles, but it looks a bit forced.]

Hey. Tony Stark. [He gives a small wave.] I just... got here, I guess, and got the rundown on the whole scary death chaos monster situation. And all the giant magic turtle stuff. Sounds like a good time. [He laughs awkwardly, and rubs the back of his neck.] Better than centipede monster void dimensions, at least, [he mutters. This is not the first time he’s been suddenly yanked into a different dimension, evidently.]

Anyway, uh, if anyone needs some tech stuff or heavy lifting done, hit me up. I haven’t had a chance to take a close look at the tech here yet, but I’m sure I’ll figure it out. [He seems to brighten a little at the prospect of new alien technology to play with.

He looks like he’s about to cut the feed, but then he hesitates. There’s a couple seconds of anxious silence, and he fidgets, his cheerful demeanor faltering even more.] And, um, just out of curiosity... When they send us back home, there’s... There is something to go back to, isn’t there? [He laughs, but it’s nervous, like he’s not sure he wants to know the answer.] Nobody would really give me a straight answer, but... They’re not going to send us back if we’re just about to... Well, you know, get blown up or something. Right? I mean, that would be pretty messed up.

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I... think that's reassuring. [It isn't, really. Frankly, there's just been way too much talk of dying since he arrived, and it's not exactly putting him at ease. Nobody seems to know anything for sure about how this process of grabbing... "foreigners" works. That doesn't sit well with Tony. He's already getting the feeling that something's being hidden from them, and probably something bad.

He wishes he hadn't asked about this on a public channel. He thought he'd collected himself in the welcome center, but he's starting to lose his cool again, and it shows. He runs his fingers through his hair and distractedly asks,] Sorry, what did you say your name was?

Honestly, I would be incredibly surprised if that were true.

[His tone is a little dry, but not to the point of making fun of Tony or anything. There's more a bit of understanding in it too.]

This place can be, well, frightening, at times, to say the least, and the rules of life and death and dreams and souls and all of that, well, they have a tendency to be particularly worrying when someone has just arrived.

[Wow, way to help a newbie, Enjolras. This is why he shouldn't be allowed to answer questions like this, ever. That said, at least he is trying to help.]

That said, I would not worry too much if you were not in mortal danger at the time. I do trust what our late Empress said, when she assured us that we would go back,when the fight is over, to what we left behind. She'd given us a good deal of reasons to trust her before all of that. I should really think that you will be all right. And everything here, well, it is comfortable enough to make almost any kind of a life you would like. A little quiet at times, but then, nowhere is Paris but Paris, I suppose.

And ah, my apologies, I did not say, but I am Enjolras. It is a pleasure to meet you.

Rules? They seem more like guidelines. [His attempt at pop culture reference humor falls flat, even to his own ears.

He sighs and puts his elbows on his knees and his chin in his hands.] I'm guessing the Empress didn't give any assurances to anybody who was in mortal danger when they got press-ganged, [he says. He's heard enough people gently mincing around the answer by now to take the hint. The Multiverse Hero Claw Machine takes people when it takes them, apparently at random. If you're in the midst of getting yourself killed when it nabs you, well, that's your own business.]

I'd better start settling in, then. [He ought to at least try to enjoy himself while he's here. Since there's a not insignificant chance that he'll be flash-fried by a nuclear explosion upon his return.]

That IS rather a better way to put it. There seem to be such differences in standards of them, certainly.

[Enjolras misses the humor completely, first because the reference is one he does not know, and secondly because, well, it hardly seems to be so much of a joke as a truth that he has found here. And then, well, he does hate to be the bearer of bad news, but as far as things go, that is only what he has to offer.

Ah, sadly no, that was NOT among the explanation. Mostly, that we were brought to fight our unnameable enemy because stopping him was contingent upon preventing him from reaching our worlds. But, no, for those of us in that process, it appears to be up to us. Or, well, up to fate. I suspect they can do nothing about what's happened before coming here.

[A fact that Enjolras inwardly winces to repeat, both because it's probably traumatizing for a newcomer, and a young one at that, and because, well, it's also serving as a reminder that all of his friends are dead for good here. The fact that he'll die at the end of this is not something that bothers him so much, now that he is the last. But, it's not something to keep repeating or dwelling on just now.]

I do rather wonder that this enemy most of us had no conception of could find and have an eye on destroying our worlds but the threat is real enough. I've met him.

But, if this has not been too horribly grim for you, I would suggest just that. If nothing else, I've been given another chance for as long as this lasts. I cannot say I mind it with my work at home complete for me at least.

Figures, [Tony mutters.] No veterans benefits package, huh?

[He sighs.] I knew what I was doing could get me killed, I just... didn't expect to have a lot of time to reflect on being dead, you know? It almost makes it worse.

[It's obvious Enjolras is trying to be kind. Unfortunately, he is Definitely Not Helping.

Even more disturbing than the prospect of being dead, though, is the possibility that failure here will give this Malicant access to all their dimensions.]

You really think he can do that? Get to other worlds, and destroy them too? I know that's what they say in the orientation crash course, but are you sure that's not just a little creative exaggeration to get us to play ball?

[Tony's still dubious. Both because he doesn't yet trust the people running this operation, and because, honestly, he doesn't want to believe that Malicant is as powerful as they say. If they really are fighting a universe-eating monster, he doesn't have a whole lot of confidence that a ragtag militia of randos who appear and vanish totally unpredictably is going to be up to the job.]

Sadly, nothing along those lines. It IS a good idea, really. I wonder who it may be possible to slip that by. Perhaps one of the gods here.

[Enjolras IS trying to be kind,yes, but when Tony mentions that, things shift, oh a great deal. He's more like Gavroche then, or Midii in that he's obviously Seen and Done Things. It is hardly surprising as a fact, but it is slightly depressing. Every bit of future Enjolras envisioned once had been much happier, and everyone from a world that seems close to that future has obviously not experienced those effects.

It strikes him as an especially terrible crime that so many of them have to start learning about the atrocities that still exist at so young an age. Even for Enjolras, at fourteen, the days immediately before the Revolution and the Terror itself had been things in books before he'd looked around himself. They had not been cold and hard reality, and had stayed, for the most part, abstracts that were disgusting, but still removed from his life beyond caring about them until he'd left school for Paris and studying law. But it does make him decide, then and there, not to pull the punches that he's somehow talked his way into being the one to deliver. Whether that is better or worse, he's not certain, now.]

Had I not come to know and trust the Empress implicitly, had I not met him in the flesh...well, in the physical form at least, I would think it rather difficult at best. The way things stand, from everything we came to learn was that it will happen, quite slowly, after the defenses here are dropped. I think we have a decent chance of stopping him in his tracks as things go on here. There is a great deal of magic and a great deal of talent across the board, so to speak.

[No, it is not a guarantee, and perhaps it's just as well that only Elizabeth, of the people who were here, knew who the group of them *were* as such, because being known as a leader of a barricade where all but one insurgent, an old man, a woman and a little boy were killed is not exactly the sort of thing to inspire trust in anyone. Either way, Enjolras does feel, and seem, confident enough in the moment.]

Reflections on the idea of being dead is...I am not sure I've gotten a handle on those yet and it has been a year. I think perhaps we never truly DO.

[Okay, so this guy's head is a couple thousand feet below the cruising altitude of humor. But he's nice enough. Very... earnest. (Not to mention wordy.)

And he seems confident about the situation, which is a little bit heartening. He's been here much longer, from the sound of it, so he ought to have a good sense of where things stand.]

Well, thanks for the pep talk, En... [Oh shit, he's already forgotten his name.] ...Enorjlas? [No, that's not quite it. Oops.] Um... sorry, could you run your name by me again? [What the heck kind of name is that, anyway?]

[That's a really good way to put it really, Entirely accurate. And he is trying to be, yes.]

Whatever I can do to help. And oh of course. Enjolras.

[He's reminded of Molly a little with that, her assigning him an easier nickname that time, for if they met in person.] Ah, I do use Enj at times, if that is easier.

[~~Well, its either French or Occitan and has a lot of symbolist naming tropes.~~

Good luck here, Tony.

...Enj. Alright. [How about... George. He's gonna call you George. ~~Revolutions Georg.~~]

Thanks, man. [Tony manages a small but sincere smile.] I guess I'll see you around.

You are quite welcome. I hope we cross each other's paths again, yes.

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