Event: Sunday evening

[utopiamods]

The train finally came to a halt in which seemed to be the middle of no where. There was a small hut, but just like the train station in Rakuen there were no staff. Still the doors opened and out on the platform a woman stood. She looked stern and some might recognise her from the town; her dusky pink hair made her stand out in a crowd.

"Weapons please collect the equipment of your colour from the luggage compartment. One tent per team, one stove, one sleeping bag. If Players require their Weapons to have sleeping bags come and tell me, I have some extra in the store." She spoke in a tone that seemed used to being obeyed; a soldiers tone some might recognise it as.

After the equiptment was collected she set off up the hill expecting everyone to keep up. Astute campers will have noticed Dolorosa, Day, Nanami and Santana in the small crowd and so hopefully realise that escape was nothing but futile.

Of course if they still tried they would find they couldn't get very far, if they went too far in any direction or tried to follow the tracks they would pass out and reappear just a little behind the main group.

The camp site was just over the hill, a valley surrounded by hills, a river running through it. Their guide told them to make camp, Fortitude this side of the river, Conquest the other; there were stepping stones. "All Players are to report to me while Weapons pitch the tents."

She waited until the Players were gathered, "My name is Clara, I am your guide for your trip and I expect you to behave yourselves. As you have guessed we have a slightly separate set up, you have each been provided with a Weapon, in some cases two. There shall still be fights, training fights each morning in your camps and a fight in the evening which shall be interschool. Do your best; for as well as raks winning fights will get you more points."

There were no smiles but a pause for them to take in what she had said so far. "There will also be other activities, from climbing to walking to canoeing. I am sure you will all find something you excel in. Each of your Weapons has been provided with a ring, it cannot be removed until the end of the trip. Touching it with your gloved hand will invoke the penalty, though I trust you all not to abuse that power."

She looked over to the campsite and the activity there and raised her voice so she could be heard by those putting up tents. "All cooking is to be done by the Weapons, points will be given and subtracted for cooking skills, tents will be inspected every day. Weapons require permission to share their Players food, there are Weapon meals provided. If you wish your Weapon to stay in your tent they may but permission must be given." She looked like she couldn't work out why anyone would want that despite the grey skies and drizzle.

"Today you may get to know the camp site, there shall be no fight tonight but there is wood to be collected and if you collect enough we can have a large camp fire. Points shall be awarded for meals, Weapons are to come to me for ingredients."

With that she nodded and walked away, presumably to pitch her own tent. Have fun campers!

Comments

[swordofzero]

Suzaku had noticed that he didn't seem to have taken the walk and tent pitching really well, but just assumed that Vane was like Lelouch; not made for physical activity.

He picked up the poles with a nod, "Don't worry, we had to do this a lot in the army."

Much heavier tents but these ones weren't difficult to figure out. He began threading a set of poles through one of the slots. "Check it's coming through okay but don't pull them."

[wolfoutline]

"Right." Vane replied, seeming to understand simple instructions easy enough. As he moved to help Suzaku, his attention was split between the task at hand and his new player.

"You were in the army? You seem a little young." He added, voice mild and one of simple curiosity.

[swordofzero]

Suzaku nodded at the question. "I joined when I was fourteen." People had said he was young, but not recently. Suzaku didn't feel young, he wasn't really sure how normal eighteen year olds led their lives but normal had never really applied to him.

[wolfoutline]

"Is that common for your world?" He asked then. In his mind the idea of joining the military at fourteen was unfathomable, if only because younger people were more at risk than someone at physical maturity. Then again, all the military did these days were rescue people (if they could be rescued) from natural disasters and deal with the occasional riot of emotionally unstable people who thought violent protest was the only way they could be heard. Not understanding at all that those at the top weren't hearing them regardless of their methods.

If there could be one good thing said about the end of the world, it was that nobody had time to start wars.

[swordofzero]

"It's not uncommon." It wasn't exactly normal though, but nothing anyone would bat an eye lid at. "There's a lot of war."

[wolfoutline]

"I see." Vane murmured as he went quiet for a moment, focusing on helping to get their tent up. Only after a moment had passed in companionable silence did he speak again. "That's a sad thing."

[swordofzero]

Suzaku drove the pegs into the last few lines before nodding, "It is, but we are... were... working on stopping it." And perhaps they had succeeded, Suzaku didn't know what it meant that Lelouch had woke up claiming that Zero Requiem had happened...

[wolfoutline]

"That's good." Vane replied, offering Suzaku a smile. "You're young, you should work on changing the world for the better." Straightening, Vane surveyed their work- well, Suzaku's work, with interest. Fixing it in his memory how to do it again as he would most likely have to tomorrow.

"It's your future, after all."

[swordofzero]

Suzaku nodded, it had always been his goal after all. Ever since he was ten years old; hopefully by Zero Requiem he will have actually realised that goal.

"What did you do? On your world?"

[wolfoutline]

"I'm an engineer for a major corporation. My job was to monitor the conditions of protective domes called Biospheres and ensure their stability." The line was a little dull in tone and one obviously rehearsed. After spouting it off, Vane gave a little shrug and smiled. "It isn't glamorous but it's necessary."

[swordofzero]

An engineer, Suzaku nodded. Glamorous or not it sounded important, not that he was sure what Biospheres were but Vane had said they were protective. "What did the spheres do?"

[wolfoutline]

"They provided stable environments for people to live in." Here Vane paused as he chose his next words carefully, sorting out exactly how much information he wanted to make public. Finally, he decided to go forward. After all, trust couldn't be earned without giving something in return and Suzaku seemed like someone handy to have as a friend.

"My world is... unsafe. For thousands of years, we damaged the planet so much that the weather turned unpredictable and volatile. In order to protect the sanctity of life, Biospheres- essentially enormous shields- were constructed over urban environments to protect them from the devastation of snowstorms and the like."

[swordofzero]

Suzaku listened, interested in what Vane was telling him, they had damaged the planet so much that the weather was violent. So they had to live inside giant shields, it was so different than anything Suzaku had seen that it was hard to imagine.

"This place must be very strange to you." No wonder he couldn't put up a tent...

[wolfoutline]

"In a way, yes." He remarked, fingering the edge of his scarf as he sat back and observed their environment. "I've never seen weather like this with my own eyes but I know it existed once in my world. Before we passed the turning point in the 29th century."

[swordofzero]

"Twenty ninth centuary..." Vane's world was much more advanced than Suzaku's own, and for good reason. "It is the year two thousand and eighteen where I come from."

[wolfoutline]

"2018?" Vane stopped at that, eyes widening in sincere surprise as he considered the date. Knowing everyone here was from another world and being confronted directly with the fact were two things entirely. More startling was the possibility that they might share timelines. Vane had been all too happy to assume up until this point that every single person came from a different universe.

After a moment, he finally gave Suzaku a sheepish smile. "I'm from the year 3010."

[swordofzero]

"That's a long time in the future..." Suzaku blinked, "Though I assume it is a different world completely." He knew no one else; apart from those he already had known and Britannia herself who came from his world.

[wolfoutline]

"Most likely," Vane agreed, a smile quirking his lips. "But it'd be nice if we shared worlds, wouldn't it?"

[swordofzero]

Suzaku thought about that; how he would feel to know that in a thousand years the world would be so much destroyed that humans had to life in domes... "I guess..."

[wolfoutline]

Not what he meant, Suzaku.

Sensing the youth's hesitation, Vane's expression flickered with confusion before he finally shrugged haplessly. "I just meant it'd be nice to have a friend."

[swordofzero]

Oh... Well if he put it like that... Suzaku nodded, "It would be, though... Does or did... your world have an empire called the Holy Empire of Britannia?"

[wolfoutline]

For a minute Vane seemed to mull the question over in his mind. Truth be told, he had never been much of a history buff. Especially in the regard of nations since they didn't really exist anymore. These days, every place was referred to by their continent name and further divvied up by district numbers. The Euro-zone, the Asia-zone, District 1 to District 30 and so on and so forth. There were districts with personal titles, of course, but overall they were known by their number. Vane himself was from District 26 of the Euro-zone.

"I can't honestly say. A lot of records and knowledge have been lost in the last few hundred years because of the weather. We also gave up on personalized names for locations a long time ago." Here he paused and allowed a slightly sad smile to form on his face when all he felt was bitter apathy. "It's easier to say District 42 collapsed instead of New Hope."

[swordofzero]

"Oh..." Suzaku was silent for a while, "Many countries in my world have lost their names as well. Or rather... Britannia has taken them away and given them numbers." For different reasons of course, but Suzaku didn't know which was more hard to swallow.

[wolfoutline]

It wasn't too hard to connect the dots in Suzaku's statements. Between the title 'empire' and the loss of names in his world, it was easy for Vane to guess Suzaku was referring to a method of demoralizing conquered nations. A manner of distinguishing the losers from the victors on a daily basis.

Strategically sound... but completely without morals. The engineer had to resist the urge to curl his lips in a disgusted sneer.

"Is Britannia your nation?"

[swordofzero]

Suzaku paused and then shook his head, "No... Well it's complicated. I am an honoury Britannian... and in the army. I am actually Japanese... So from Area 11."

He never knew how to explain things to those outside of his world, where at home most people knew straight away where he was from and it wasn't like there were many that didn't know him anyways...