Wayward Transit (IC, Open)

[Azuth65]

Victoria was decidedly creeped out by the scene she saw as she turned to see what had caused the knocking behind her seat. The truly scary thing about it was that her artistic side almost itched to sketch the shadow-man and his guards sitting around the adult-sized tea party setup. She mentally kicked that urge down, slid her sunglasses down her nose just enough to peer over the frame and scan outside the bus for any details that might be useful in some way, shape, or form in getting home.

[Lone Star]

"Does it matter if both of you are near it?" said Martin "Yes, especially in your cases, since we'd need to do some pretty careful testing to make sure of your operational area limits. For safety's sake, I think you two should stay as close as you can while powering it" he nodded to the rest of the passengers, who had been gathered to the front under the leadership of Sam "If this goes right people, nobody will be hurt, and we'll be home in seconds at longest!" he called cheerfully, folding out the recalcitrant stand and setting the Channeler on the snug circle at the top. He then stood back and bowed to the two heroes.

Janis nodded understandingly, and held out one of her hands. The lightning snaked around her arm and lit up the bus. She grabbed hold of the device and kept a steady flow of electricity moving through it. She watched as the other heroes were about to confront the shadow-creatures, but kept to her post and kept the watts flowing. I wouldn't want to cause any...wormhole collapsing or anything. she thought to herself. I don't know much about science, but nothing about that sounds like a good plan.

[Ari]

Meanwhile, Sam and Norman were busy keeping the other passengers calm, a surprisingly easy task considering the present circumstances. Martin, stopping about ten feet from the device which he had set up at the back of the bus. "All you need to do is exert your power, and make sure that only the first ten buttons light up. We don't want to go too far, or undershoot our home dimension. Also, don't touch the Channeler. At all. Please let go of it, Mz. Zap, It will react in a few seconds the moment your powers are activated, and anything that touches it except that stand will be torn apart"

Seeing that it had gotten Victoria's attention breifly, the walking void held up a platter with the ashes of the man who had been within the shadow substance on it. Witha snap of his fingers, the man re-formed, gasping for breath wearing a rough pair of black pants. "Look, miss, maybe we could make a deal? I get the idea you aren't totally alright with me doing what I want to my subjects. The simple fact is that I own everyone and anything given to me. In ages past the souls that live here desired physical form, and I gave it them, provided they became mine. They accepted. When that wretch's wizards intruded here, I wearied of them quickly, and only asked a single human in exchange for bonding one of my subjects to one of theirs. They accepted. This is the human, I own him. If you wish him to cease to be mine, if you want me to let you go without making you tunnel through worlds(and who knows what you'll awaken if you do that?), I want something in return. A little conversation, with beings that don't make me want to start putting them back together in a better way. Is that acceptable?" he had, while speaking, dumped the man off the tray and tossed it into the helmet of one of the knights, who didn't appear too upset by it.

[Azuth65]

Vicky looked out the window before pushing her glasses back into place and turning to the heroes nearest her. "Oh yeah, that's just a super tempting offer. Guys, please for the love of The Force tell me you have that thing almost ready. This guy is eleven pounds of creepy in a five pound bag," she said, not looking at the shadow-man or his minions.

Subconsciously she ran a nervous hand though her snow-white hair and fought to suppress a shudder.

[Cubist]

Keeping his voice down (to whatever extent his throat structure allowed him to), Jubatus spoke quietly to Brandtford: "I got no idea what Baron Black out there has backing him up, but I'll bet he's not anywhere near as omnipotent as he wants us to believe. If he really was that powerful, why'd he bother with the scam up front? For that matter, why doesn't he just pound us all right this second? I say the guy's stalling for time -- maybe he's waiting for his power to recharge, I dunno. I think we need to hit the 'go' button now, and if the oversized inkblot gets in our way, then the supertypes on this bus slap him down."

[Ari]

"Alright then, Mr. Xavier" said Martin, skipping back a yard or so after tapping a few of the buttons on the Channeler, "Got the thing tuned to what I believe to be your time-space distortion field(if that is what it is), so just step near the device, don't touch it for the love of St. Peter, and let 'er rip. Besides, that thing" he jerked a thumb at the walking void "Would most likely seriously injure itself even trying to stop us, if what happened to that poor guy when you shone that flashlight at his head is any indication".

With a sudden shudder, the bus was blanketed with darkness again, and the voice the occupants had heard earlier sounded again: " Oh, very well. Since you have so little interest in being in another dimension, I won't bother you with showing it to you. I spent simply ages on those hills, you know..." a vague sound of slithering was heard outside with a far-off mutter of Ingrates...let's seem them even try to escape my hand, and with a sudden "pop" the pale young man was dumped unceremoniously into the interior of the vehicle. He took one look around and crawled under one of the seats, shivering uncrontollably and staring into space with chattering teeth.

[Cubist]

"Alright then, Mr. Xavier" said Martin, skipping back a yard or so after tapping a few of the buttons on the Channeler, "Got the thing tuned to what I believe to be your time-space distortion field(if that is what it is), so just step near the device, don't touch it for the love of St. Peter, and let 'er rip. Besides, that thing" he jerked a thumb at the walking void "Would most likely seriously injure itself even trying to stop us, if what happened to that poor guy when you shone that flashlight at his head is any indication".

Jubatus nodded. He'd used the phrase 'it made my hackles rise' a few times in the past, but now it was literally true, rather than just being a colorful metaphor. And it wasn't a comfortable sensation. Not comfortable at all...

The feline walked over to Zap, and nodded at her: "Come on up front, and let's get this show on the road," he said, and he returned to where Brandtford's gizmo was set up. Only vaguely aware of the new passenger that Baron Blackbody had just dumped on board the bus, Jubatus turned off his Timeshift completely, returning to his default tempo of 6. Then he gradually upshifted, keeping an eye on the Channeler's indicator lights as his tempo increased...

[Lone Star]

Zap let go of the machine, her hands still crackling with the electrical power. "That's probably a good idea, Jubatus. We'll just need to sit back and see if it works." She kept her hands to herself as she walked to the front with Jubatus, as if afraid if she touched anything it might end up in another dimension. "So how certain are we that this'll work, anyway? I'm not nervous or anything- as a matter of fact, I'm glad to be used as a power source, but do we know this will take us home?" She stopped talking, because she realized how much she babbled when she was nervous. "...sorry."

[Ari]

"I'm positive, Miss Zap" declared Brandtford firmly "I've gone to three alternate universes with that thing. That none of them were inhabited by supra-normal entities, though, makes this a highly irregular case. Nothing dangerous to us however, so yo-" with a dull whine, the Channeler jolted at the combined powers being fed it, a strange, almost sickening sound filled the bus, and in the distance, ghostly howls could be heard, presumably from the spectral inhabitants of the Schattenwelt. The new passenger's scream of terror was drowned out by the cold, discordant noise emanating from the rotund disk, followed soon after by seemingly every other sonic vibration anyone present was capable of hearing, replaced by the the horrible, ponderous groan.

With a sudden jolt, the bus was lifted up, evidenced by a sudden sense of weightlessness, followed by a burst of speed that sent everyone except Zap and Jubatus flat against the nearest surface behind them. The force would likely have caused serious injury if it hadn't stopped almost the moment it began. The Dimensional Channeler(patent pending) abruptly ceased its din, the lights deactivated, and the bus slowly returned to earth. With a snapping sound, the windows were flooded with light. A rush of noise flooded into the hush that had just arisen, and the familiar sounds of Freedom City could be detected loudly and clearly.

Martin picked himself off the floor of the bus and smiled happily at the two heroes by the Channeler. "Thank you both for this! Now we can all get back to our proper business! Mr. Xavier, I dare say you'll be happy to know that I took the liberty of taking a few readings from your recent uses of your time-warping powers. As they were entirely spontaneous, I'd say they will be quite useful in determining the true nature of how this distortion works" he glanced out the window at the buildings outside, and the smile vanished. They were back in Freedom, but a film covered everything, a thin fog seemed to wrap itself around everything, lending an unreal aspect to every otherwise familiar sight detectable. The sounds themselves were in fact not nearly as loud as they had first seemed, they were now almost tinny. With a sudden rumble, the world turned to a vast desert. A wave of heat blasted those in the metal bus, a piercing glare shot from a burning sky, and the cheerful salutation was almost loss in the cries of horror and confusion.

A tall, genial-looking man wearing a long robe of an unusual cut, a narrow curled beard and blazing yellow eyes was standing outside the back door, shooing away a lion that had begun to paw at one of the tires. He waved a ring of strange-looking keys and called out anxiously, in a voice that sounded like clashes of cymbals but translated perfectly into English, "Hello there! I saw you becoming entrapped by the Fatherdark, and took you from its grasp. You've burned it pretty horribly, so we best get moving as soon as we can. Where are you headed? I can send you nearly anywhere, no problem"

[Cubist]

I knew it.

When the bus returned to Freedom City, Jubatus hadn't been entirely willing to believe it: What with the tricks Baron Blackbody had already demonstrated, how could he be sure the vision of Freedom City wasn't just some kind of scam?

I knew it.

And then the enticing image went away, replaced by a desert landscape --

I [bg=black]xxxxixx[/bg] well knew it.

-- complete with an odd, yellow-eyed man and his (its?) pet (?) lion...

I... didn't know that.

...a horned lion. Whose horns had clearly been transplanted from a goat's head.

Okay, somebody's just screwing with me now. Who the hell is that guy? Seems like I ought to recognize him...

There was no whistling, as of air leaking out of the bus into a low-pressure environment. There were also no evil-smelling aromas diffusing in from outside.

It all seemed innocuous enough. Even the yellow-eyed dude seemed harmless, if not downright sociable, with his friendly-sounding offer to send the bus on its way.

Jubatus didn't trust any of it.

Well, hell. Somebody's going to have to go outside and check it out, and it may as well be me...

The feline's eyes scanned the whole interior of the bus. "Okay, people: I'm going outside for a look around. I'd recommend that the rest of you sit tight, because honestly, who the heck knows what's really going on out there?" And then he upshifted.

The desertscape did not waver when the bus door opened. It remained stable when Jubatus set foot on the ground. Still no deviance when he took his first step away from the bus. The guy with the pet (?) lion (?) made no aggressive moves whatsoever -- and his eyes actually tracked Jube's movements, upshift or no!

Right. Can I -- should I -- take the environment at face value? Just how deceitful do I want to presume whoever-it-is is? The fastest cat on Earth conducted super-fast reconnaissance, covering everything within a 1,000-yard radius of the bus within a small number of clock-seconds; nothing but sand, as best he could tell. As for the ostensibly-helpful 'gentleman', he smelled of old books -- lions, rather (they both smelled the same; it just made Jube think of books first) -- and wine, with a subtle foundation of great joy. Weirdly, the horned lion carried exactly the same scent. Hmm. Horned lion. Keys. Yellow eyes... And then Jubatus made the connection: The guy was Sandan, a washed-up old deity from a washed-up old pantheon. One of the so-called gods the Hittites had worshipped, not that Sandy had done them much good when push came to shove.

So: Was this guy the genuine article, or some other entity pretending to be Sandan? Probably the former -- why the heck would anyone bother to impersonate a deity that had been reduced to a Trivial Pursuit question? The probability that this entity's resemblance to Sandan was merely a coincidence was, by Jube's seat-of-the-pants estimate, far too small to be worth considering. So okay, let's say this guy is the real thing. What do we know about Sandan's temperament and motivations? The answer was, 'depressingly little'; the simple fact of recognizing the deity's appearance exhausted most of Jube's meagre knowledge of Sandan. One of the few remaining tidbits of data: Sandan was sometimes identified with the Babylonian deity Marduk, who killed the evil dragon Tiamat. Well... it's a slim thread, but it's all I got...

Jubatus downshifted. Still smiling genially, Sandan said, "I greet you, little cousin. I trust you are now satisfied?"

"Ah..." I'm satisfied that any deception you may be spinning here, is beyond my ability to see through. "Yes. Yes, I am. As to your first question, we're trying to get back to Freedom City -- do you know where that is?"

[Ari]

"I do indeed!" came the merry response "But, of course, I must be sure to send you to the right one. By my estimate there are several thousand different Earth's where such devices as that bus were invented and put to wide-scale use. Tell me, was there a man or woman in your Freedom City called 'The Centurion'? Did they wear blue and gold, fly through the air, possess great strength, and have a talent for making allies? Did they call themselves 'the Praetor' and wear red with gold armor? Did they gather people to them through fear and pain? Did they fight a harbinger of entropy naming itself 'Omega', perishing in the attempt? What is your Freedom's history, as far as you know?" it was evident that the being was almost as curious about what was going on in their world for the sake of news as for getting them home. After he had asked those questions, he gave a start at nothing anyone could observe.

A slight look of gloom passed over Sandan's face for an instant, and he appeared to listen to something, nodding every now and then. With a sigh, he turned and held out the keychain to the empty air. With a sudden jolt of sound like a thunderclap, a massive Arabian horse was standing before him. It took the keys from Sandan's hand and walked to the front of the bus, where it tied its massive tail to the bike rack somehow. Sandan shrugged "Pirwa will carry your vehicle to the gate, it seems" he started again, listened and added with a slight note of embarrassment "Pirwa's emissary, pardon me. Pirwa is at the Great Skull of Tiamat racing against the goddesses of air. If anyone on board is strong enough, however, the emissary would be deeply grateful for the aid"

[Ari]

By this point, the glare from the blazing sun had lessened in the slowly acclimatizing eyes of the bus passengers, revealing something previously hidden: a gigantic mountain, several hundred miles high and at least a thousand across, loomed out of the haze of the shimmering desert. A city of some kind had been built on its slopes, low stone dwellings made up the structures visible on the nearer foothills, gradually increasing in size and grandeur as they climbed the vast green bulk of the mountain, until at the summit there was a floating temple about the size of Manhattan, on which was sitting a colossal bird. It gave no movement or sign of life save its slowly moving head, which it turned all around its neck with great solemnity. From the summit and down the flanks of the mountain ran a vast river lined with tall trees, and three great towers were set around the high stone that were almost of equal height, each signed with a different insignia, and the bus was near three flagstoned paths roped off from each other, with the paths leading to one of each of the towers.

Above them, out turned out that sun, while still the source of the blazing light, could be looked at directly with no harm to the viewer, revealing itself to be a vaguely feminine figure dressed in immense golden robes.

In the distance far away from the mountain, there could be seen a confusion and jumble of mighty bones, which gave themselves away immediately as having once belonged to a dragon. A great gathering of cyclones could be seen about it.

The desert terminated about five hundred miles away, at the first of the foothills, where it seemed that there were many streams about which a riot of plants grew. Everywhere else, however, was barren desert, dark earth and small weed-like provisions of thorns and spines leaves.

[Cubist]

"Pirwa will carry your vehicle to the gate, it seems" he started again, listened and added with a slight note of embarrassment "Pirwa's emissary, pardon me. Pirwa is at the Great Skull of Tiamat racing against the goddesses of air. If anyone on board is strong enough, however, the emissary would be deeply grateful for the aid."

Jubatus nodded. "Not a problem. Let's see if the bus' engine is working..." Then he realized the sheer scale of the problem, just how far-off the intended destination was, and interrupted himself. "No, scratch that, the distance is too far, no point in draining the fuel tank dry. Okay, I may be able to help here." Five weeks ago, he'd done most of the braking to stop an entire friggin' train from going runaway; the effort then had left him half-dead from the strain, but one lousy bus was a lot less mass than a steam locomotive plus eight heavily-laden cars! Should be a piece of cake. And if it wasn't, there were a few other supertypes in the bus' passenger list -- the feline didn't even consider involving any of the civilians...

[Azuth65]

Vicky set her bag on the seat, telling her companion to keep an eye on it before walking over to stand next to Jubatus. "I believe I can be of assistance in getting the bus moved." She rolled her shoulders and cracked her knuckles. While her powers had granted her improved strength, she'd never tried to lift anything as heavy as city bus and if she were alone, she'd never make it budge but with help, she just might be able to prove useful.

[Ari]

Marceau in the meanwhile had been seeing to the new arrival, gently coaxing him from out from under the seat he had ensconced himself.

He turned out to be Steven Voht, a former spy of Austrian descent for the Allies who had been captured when he had uncovered the existence of the more mystical elements of the Thule Society, and had been sent through the portal into the Schattenwelt in 1942, when the Fatherdark had asked for a human to experiment on to make sure it could fuse a "Light-Dweller"'with its dark power. After the experiment had proven a success, the vast creature had adopted the spy as its son, and had spent the last decades telling him endless stories of its history.

The vast world outside had piqued Marceau's interest, and he said, largely to himself "I wonder if there's anything like that in our world"

He deeply regretted he hadn't a camera.

[Ari]

"Grand news!" came the ringing, bell-like voice of the shade of Pirwa, the great horse moving over slightly to make room for Wisp Just make sure to keep thinking about where you want to go: we're going to a vast gate like two blades of an axe, decorated with a mural showing a robed man extending his arms in a gesture of rejection and denial, with a group of fantastical creatures retreating from him. You can even shut your eyes " it continued, pulling the bus onto the nearest of the three roads "And you'll still get where you want to go. Just make sure you don't start thinking about going somewhere else, and you'll be fine. If you get tired, we can just think of a place to rest, and we'll get there as soon as you think you will. The gate, alas, is immutable in its position, and will take us at least a day or two to get. But we might meet Uruzimu on his way from the Ice Fields, he could speed us on our way beyond even my power"

[Lone Star]

Janis blinked, completely and utterly unknowing of what the hell was going on. She sat in her seat on the bus and held her knees close to her, and thought happy thoughts. She thought of Claremont, and going home to Freedom City, and American hot dogs. It was such a strange and alien situation to her: she had never encountered anything mystical, much less anything from neighboring dimensions. Janis reached into her costume's pocket, where she remembered she brought her iPod. Giving it a jump-start with a brief jolt, she relaxed by listening to some music. It would be a long journey, but the first thing she needed to do was take a moment to relax. Moving across dimensions was old hat for any number of mystics, but the new experience would be something worth remembering.

[Cubist]

Jubatus didn't blink when the horse-thing appeared -- he was too preoccupied with trying to wrest every last bit of data about the Hittite pantheon from his memory. However, he did move to the back of the bus so he could push it, rather than join the horse-thing and Wisp in pulling. He wasn't sure how well Pirwa's flunky would take the near presence of a feline predator, and he also wasn't sure whether or not extended exposure to the equine's presence would trigger any... unfortunate... instinctual reactions in him.

Best not to take a chance.

Apart from that, Jube figured it'd be easier for him to "[not] start thinking about going somewhere else" if most of his field of vision was occupied by the back end of the bus, a very tangible reminder of home, rather than by the sandy landscape that surrounded them on all sides. Who knew what stuff might be here to distract the Terrans from concentrating on Home, with Mercury-only-knew what effects on the bus' progress towards their destination?

Again, best not to take a chance.

Jubatus did not consider -- was not even consciously aware of -- the possibility that his decision to work at the end of the bus away from the other 'living engines' might have been influenced by a cheetah's solitary nature. He was just satisfied that working by himself would help ensure that the job at hand would reach a successful conclusion.

[Ari]

With a soft noise like sand pouring into water the bus raced forward as if stung. While no change could be perceived from those outside it, to those within the landscape raced past smoothly, leaving the ever-shifting sands behind them. As the wheels of the bus spun smoothly along the neatly-paved road, there was little noise except the beat of Wisps feet, the quiet scratch of Jubatus's paws and the light thuds of Pirwa's shade's hooves as they pulled the bus down the road. Already the mountain seemed farther away, and a quiet gurgling announced the nearby presence of water.

Sniffing the air, Pirwa asked politely in his(its?) ringing voice "If you would like to stop for a drink, the water here is quite pure, entirely free from any sickness or foulness. There's an inn just down the hill too, if you want for anything richer in flavor. I dare say you must be at least a little hungry and thirsty from staying in the presence of the Fatherdark" there hadn't been a hill a moment before, and the inn was also new. Despite its name, it looked a lot like an old-fashioned hotel, all gleaming cornices and molded ornamented walls. On the steps leading up to the door was seated a massive figure, at least twice as tall as the bus was long, clad in armor that concealed their entire body from sight, sharpening an axe with two blades shaped like human hands. They glanced up for a moment, apparently having heard the horse-shade's words, but went back to the axe upon seeing the newcomers.

The inn appeared to be almost covered in odd creatures, including a manticore sleeping on the roof, swinging its spiked tail in time to some unguessable dream.

[Cubist]

And then the bus was still. Jubatus breathed deeply as he stretched to loosen up his tired muscles; he'd been exerting himself heavily over an extended period of time, and he could definitely feel the burn now. During the day's march, he'd chewed his way through most of the food-like substances he carried in his vest. It wasn't the first time he'd come close to consuming all his edibles, or actually running out. Memo to self: The vest-filling algorithms need to assign higher priority to nutritional supplements.

Now that the journey was 'on hold', it presumably wasn't necessary for the dimensional exiles to maintain their focus on their ultimate destination; it was safe for Jube to indulge his curiosity. With one smooth motion, he extracted a digital hi-def video camera from its vest-pocket... and paused before actually putting it to use. This wasn't Earth-Prime; the rules weren't necessarily the same here.

The cheetah spoke to Pirwa's equine emissary: "How do you guys feel about photography? I mean, if I take pictures of someone, will it make any difference?"

[Ari]

The massive horse stared at Jubatus for a few moments before throwing back its long head and letting out a mighty ringing like several thousand bells left out in a windy day. "There is no harm in that, no. If we were on Earth, there might be some trouble with the use of that device but not here. Besides, if I recall correctly the ban is on graven images, and you have to want to steal something for the ill-effects to work. But it's been eons since I was last on Earth, so the rules might have changed. Anyway, take as many pictures as you like. They won't vanish or turn blank or anything"

Looking to the inn ahead it added "Want something to eat, there or on the way? It's a good long trek yet, and it wouldn't do to get to the gate and be half-starved. I have to talk to Wurrukatte about cutting through any barriers the Fatherdark might have put over the path to Earth anyway"

Martin Brandtford jumped lightly to the hard flagstones, a tablet computer couched in the crook of his left arm. With his right he briefly shielded his eyes from the rays emanating from the golden-robed woman, until his eyes had suitably adjusted to the glare whereupon he set about taking recordings of his surroundings. In the middle of his analysis of the local air pressure, he spotted Jubatus at the back of the bus and came over, a cheerful smile on his face. "If you're not very busy Mr. Xavier, I'd love to get back to figuring out the parameters of our upcoming experiment. I believe we were just finishing up on where the contact wires were to be placed. As I was saying, if there is anywhere you'd prefer them not to be, your wish will be granted"

[Cubist]

Jubatus took the spirit-horse at its word, and visually recorded everything in the general vicinity to within an inch of its life. He carried a number of cameras, which ordinarily provided multiple-viewpoint video documentation when he apprehended criminals; the gadgets worked just as well to document several different sights at the same time. It wasn't every day that he interacted with members of an honest-to-$deity pantheon, after all. He even tried some of the local food-like substances; although Jube didn't trust these soi-disant gods any more than he trusted most mortals, he wasn't so paranoid as to overlook the fact that they weren't being overtly hostile, so he was going to at least try to be a good little kitty...

"If you're not very busy Mr. Xavier, I'd love to get back to figuring out the parameters of our upcoming experiment. I believe we were just finishing up on where the contact wires were to be placed. As I was saying, if there is anywhere you'd prefer them not to be, your wish will be granted."

What -- oh, the kid, Jube thought. "Hi, Marty," the cheetah replied. "Contact wires? I say put 'em wherever they'll do the most good, data-gathering-wise. It's not like you're going to surgically implant any of 'em, so any location is fine by me. By the way, what sort of sensors were you using when you picked up on the space/time disturbances my TImeshift creates?"

[Ari]

"What kind of sensors? Well, the technical term is a bit of a mouthful, but what they pick up is supposed to be 'waves' of distortions in the fabric of space/time, sort of looking for things or people. Your powers seemed to warp that fabric in ways that defy description in English, it was impossible to not pick up those waves. The device does have a strict limit on how much of a distortion it can observe at once, so its readings aren't

wholly accurate. Which is one of the reasons why I approached you, to clarify and quantify just what we saw. The sensors work by tracking the movement of 'tagged' particles(usually nitrogen or other atmospheric elements) and matching how they normally move via Brownian Motion against their movement in a potential area of distortion" he looked apologetically at Jubatus "If you like, I could give you more detail on how it works, but it would take an age and a half just to explain how it even picks up its readings"

===========================================

Meanwhile the bus had been drawn down to the incongruous five-star hotel, where the armored figure was still moodily maintaining their massive axe. At the shade of Pirwa's approach, he got to his feet, bowed once and regained his seat with a crash that seemed to shake the earth. The shade neatly detangled its tail from the bus's bike rack and walked up to the armored figure.

"Wurrukatte! My friend! Your power and skill is needed at the gate to the Earths, it is believed the Fatherdark will attempt to bar the way to these-" it tossed its massive mane at the bus behind it "-travelers. Rest assured, Lady Arinna of the Sun will be there to lend her power to you"

The armored giant looked closely at Pirwa's shade, a sudden blast of heat escaping the miniscule holes dotting the helmet making the air quiver as the being spoke in turn "What? So soon? How many times must we be bothered by these intruders?" it turned its massive head to glare at the passengers in the bus. The shade cocked its head to the side "The last time was around a millennium ago Wurrukatte" it said. The giant seemed unconvinced.

[Cubist]

"...the sensors work by tracking the movement of 'tagged' particles(usually nitrogen or other atmospheric elements) and matching how they normally move via Brownian Motion against their movement in a potential area of distortion."

"Brownian motion, huh?" Jay's first thought was that Brandtford was making it up as he went along; the feline felt that mass quantities of high-resolution laser interferometers in synchronized array would be distinctly more practical. "That's --" And then his brain caught up to his speeding mouth. Under the influence of Brownian motion, particles moved in a 3D random walk in which absolutely any direction was equally likely, and the 'steps' of that random walk were of a fixed length, statistically speaking; by making note of anomalies in the length of these 'steps', it should be very possible indeed to detect and analyse any space/time distortion which might be present. "-- something I'd be real interested in seeing, when we get home," Jay finished.

Since Jubatus was apparently a de facto authority figure in this bizarre situation, he made a point of talking to the passengers, Zap not least among them, with the intent of keeping everyone's spirits up. The cheetah had a depressingly excellent idea of what kind of mess they were in, and how much worse it could get if anything went wrong; he also knew that the odds of a catastrophic mishap would shoot way the hell up if some idiot threw a figurative spanner in the works because they thought they were going to die screaming anyway. Better to nip that sort of thing in the bud, if at all possible.

Jay paid attention to the by-play between the Hittite gods (wouldn't you?), but did not interfere in any way. If this Wurrukatte decided it wasn't going to play ball -- or, worse yet, decided it wanted to actively obstruct the bus' progress towards Earth-Prime -- he wanted to know as early as possible, the better to figure out what the heck to do about it.

[Ari]

"The time is still too close" insisted Wurrukatte angrily "allowing these humans passage so quickly on the heels of the last crowd-" "There were ten of them Wurru, and again, it was around a millennium ago"

After a short stare-down between the two, during which the horse shade started munching on some grass sprouting up from the staircase, the armored giant finally gave a snort of disgust, hoisted its axe, and set off down the road ahead, vanishing in an iron-grey streak that traced its passage along the shifting way.

Shrugging to itself, the shade turned to the occupants of the bus "Well, he certainly was in a good mood this century! I hate to repeat myself, but if you need refreshment the creatures inside will be glad to bring anything you wish, with the usual caveats of course. In any event, I'm going inside to get some rest for my corporeal body over at the Skull of Tiamat, be right back" turning back to the anachronism of marble and glass, it assumed a markedly more human form before vanishing inside.

Norman breathed heavily and relaxed for the first time since they had started out on their ill-fated drive. Taking out his water bottle he took a quick swig of it, washed it around his mouth for a few seconds, and then swallowed a bit unevenly. He was quite uninterested in his surroundings, being very dearly attached to his life on Earth-Prime, and thus declined the offer.