Next stop: Utopia Academy

[utopiamods]

You're falling, and you can't remember why. It's a sickening feeling that makes your insides lurch; the darkness and the vertigo combine, and all you can think of is a story you heard once, somewhere.

-I remember now. It's a simple story that everyone knows. A legend of a Princess, the Demon Lord who kidnapped her, and the Knight who fought to save her.

The Demon Lord had kidnapped the Princess countless times, but every time the Knight bested his challenges and rescued the Princess.

No matter what tricks and ploys the Demon Lord used, the Knight would always triumph in the end. This was because--

The world tilts on its axis one last time, and the dream slips from your mind as easily as it arrived. A new voice intrudes on your sleep.

"Next stop: Academy Main Entrance. This tramline terminates here; all change. Next stop: Academy Main Entrance. All change."

Sunlight streams through the windows of the long carriage, making the seats almost uncomfortably warm beneath its sleeping passengers. The air is muggy and thick, the atmosphere relaxing. Almost too relaxing; the warmth and the silence make it difficult to immediately muster any kind of reaction or thought. Your nausea settles, slowly. The last of the dream fades.

"We have arrived at Utopia. Repeat, we have arrived at Utopia Academy. Could all passengers please leave the tram, as it is terminating here."

Comments

[myownfuture]

Reiko shifted where she was sitting and mumbled a little in her sleep. It was nice and warm and she didn't want to wake up.

She was still a little disoriented as she opened her eyes. Where was this? It didn't look like the school grounds. It looked like...

...a train? Utopia Academy. Could all passengers please...

She sat bolt upright in her seat, possibly disturbing whoever was next to her. "What's going on?"

[tenwholeryou]

'Possibly' nothing. During their sleep, Kotarou had managed to slump over sideways with the movement of the tram, and had until that point been fast asleep against Reiko's side. As she moved, he was jerked awake.

And a Kotarou jerked awake isn't a good Kotarou.

"Huh?" He rubbed his eyes. It took him a few seconds to realise that the voice beside him wasn't Nanashi's, but when he did, it was his turn to bolt upright and stare. A woman! Why would-- he glanced around and took in the sleeping people on all of the seats of the strange room. He didn't know any of them. But, first things first; he turned back so he was facing the woman who'd spoken, and pointed at her. Rudely.

"Who are you?"

[myownfuture]

"Who am I? Who are you?" Reiko shot back, her look of confusion turning to irritation. "Don't talk like that to your elders, little boy!" Even if he was a boy and she was a girl, what gave him that right? Sheesh, he was already on the path to male domination. No wonder he was coming to Utopia.

[greennotgold]

The warmth of the train and the voice on the speaker pulled Fletcher out of his sleep, and slowly, his dream faded. He couldn't remember what he'd dreamt about anymore, which was normal for him, but somehow this dream seemed important. He could only grasp on to tiny details: A forest, a voice saying something about a promise... and a story.

He pushed himself up and rubbed his eyes with his hands, then opened them wide. Then closed them, and opened them again. Where was this? "...Brother?"

[chainedbyred]

Russel was a bit slower to rouse, the cue seeming to be the note of worry in Fletcher's voice. He lifted his head, and pushed his hair away from where it had been stuck to his face. He sat up a bit slowly, pushing himself up with his hands. "...'m awake..." he mumbled as he blinked around the car. A sinking feeling in his stomach brought him out of his sleepy stupor. He cast critical eyes around the car. This wasn't like any train he'd seen before. The design was different. His eyes narrowed, and he frowned. His eyes moved between the individuals in the car, as though he were assessing who may be at fault, be a threat, or at least know something.

"You alright?" he asked Fletcher without looking at him for much longer than a quick glance before going back to his assessment of the car.

[greennotgold]

"Y-yeah, I'm okay," he stammered. And then, because it seemed important to say, he added, "I had a weird dream..."

He scooted closer to Russel and clung to one of his sleeves as he looked around. He didn't recognize anyone else here, and the moving scenery outside the windows was nothing he'd ever seen before, either. "Um, where are we?" he asked, as though Russel would know.

[summerstars]

Usually, she woke up easily; heat didn't make it harder to do so, rather more easy. And a kid growling and snapping on the seat on the other side of the corridor didn't make it any easier to stay asleep. This time though, it was remarkably hard to struggle in an upright position and shake the sleep from her mind.

She had dreamt. The most annoying thing was that the dream insisted the story it had told was familiar, and her body was insisting with it, but she was quite sure that... sure... Frag it. She'd already forgotten. Grenn stared around the tram car. What in... This design was so ancient even the most curious of history tech museums wouldn't have it! And it was working. Where was she?

That question was then briefly and instantly discarded when she realized that while her prostethics were neatly tucked into a bag beside her that she didn't recognize, her hover chair was nowhere to be seen.

...

That was worse than not knowing where she was, and considering the people around here, she probably couldn't if they'd seen a floating chair. She tried to look around again, but everything was distressingly primitive. She glaced at the person opposite, but they seemed to still be in the process of waking up.

[allurprincess]

In the process, and not likely to fully wake up for a good minute after that. Sora yawned and settled herself further into the seat, head resting against the window. Already in the uniform everyone else had folded in their bags, she seemed to match the setting just a tad more than those in their own clothing.

"Five more minutes," she muttered, muffled by the glass half of her face was pressed against.

[summerstars]

"Five more minutes what?" Grenn muttered, mostly to herself. At least the girl seemed comfortable, for now. Looking up, she considered the commotion at the head of the car. Obviously, no answers were forthcoming from there, even if she could get there. Which she couldn't, at least not without making use of her most hated mobility aid.

"Aid, nothing," she snapped to herself again, feeling rather certain she wouldn't be heard. Otherwise the commentary would have been in her head. She didn't really consider something that needed heavy pain-killers to function to be "aid".

Talking of aid... Looking out the window and the growing island, Grenn wondered if she'd had to connect to her legs when they came to their destination... And when they got the... What date was it?! She had graduation in less than a week!

[trollofthree]

Gino, currently slumped over someone's shoulder near the end of the carriage, woke quickly enough that the transition from 'fast asleep' to 'faking it rather well' went off without a hitch. Perhaps a slight flicker of his eyelids, or a tensing of muscles, but with the raised voices of teenagers and children around him, they could have been dismissed as the shifting of the tram.

And, really, making obvious movements wouldn't really help any. From what he could gather whilst feigning sleep, he seemed to be in a bad situation. Hostages, maybe? The engine humming beneath them wasn't anything he recognised. And the dream. It was a weird one, alright. Sounded like it came straight out of a classroom. Knights protecting princesses from evil monsters? Like that was news.

He shifted a little, so he could crack one eye open and survey the the other passengers. A girl and a little boy were up at the front talking to the conductor, and some of the others seemed to be awake. He closed his eye again. More worrying was his memory of promising someone something. That could mean anything, and if it meant one thing in particular...

With nothing else to do, he tilted his head and inspected the person he was currently using as a pillow.

Well.

That was interesting.

[veepofchess]

Lelouch was also listening, eyes closed, assessing the situation. Whether they'd woken at the same time or not, they both had the same concerns. Lelouch thought back to what he remembered. Had something gone wrong in his bid to become emperor? Had one of the other Princes reacted in a way he hadn't anticipated? That seemed impossible. He'd calculated exactly how to get every single Prince that stood between him and the throne out of his path.

He took a moment to consider who this was, exactly, on top of him. It definitely was not C.C., and Suzaku was rather lighter than this. "Get off," he snipped, only a slight bit of drowsy huskiness in his voice. His contacts were firmly in place, so there was no concern of a misfire of the Geass. He gave Gino a steely glare. What could have possibly gone so very wrong?

[trollofthree]

Very interesting. Gino turned his head to the side to hide a brief, wolfish smile, then opened his eyes and made a show of sitting up. One hand, however, remained attached to Lelouch's shoulder. Loose, but very much there. No point taking chances. He couldn't remember why he should be suspicious of Lelouch, which was bad enough, but the feeling was there. He stretched now that he wasn't draped, and smiled again, brightly this time.

"Sorry, sorry."

[imperceptible]

Across the aisle from where Gino had been sleeping, another blond haired, blue eyed male woke up. This one, though, was considerably shorter.

Kevin woke up with his start and drew back from the window he'd been leaning against with a baffled look. He didn't remember falling asleep... nor what he'd been dreaming about. All he knew was that it had made him ill to the stomach. As he glanced about with an alarmed air, looking at an unfamiliar train and unfamiliar faces, the youth began to grow concerned.

"Where the heck...?" He muttered, carefully getting to his feet and glancing at the person closest to him, Gino. "Where are we?"

[willbeurprincess]

Koharu's eyes opened slowly, the dream just fading from her mind. Utopia Academy, it was where...where she was from right? She sat up suddenly, blinking widely.

Where was Sora a-and...the. Rest of them. She struggled to remember what Yuki or anyone else looked like but it slid away. Not important, what was important was why was she on a train and why couldn't she remember what happened in between.

"Strange..."

[trollofthree]

"Isn't it just?"

The voice came from behind her, as Gino twisted around to face the next bank of seats. With the hand not holding another boy within reach, he was rifling through a bag. A familiar-looking blazer was already out and unfolded on his lap. "Oh, is that the uniform? You got changed fast!"

[princesspowerful]

Molly shot up as the memory of the story of the Demon Lord filled her mind, "I'll save the-!" she cut herself short when she realized she didn't know where she was. A train?

We have arrived at Utopia Academy.

"Aww man, you mean I need to go to school?!"

[thatguywhohasablog]

Dave's shades had slipped down his face while he was asleep; on startling awake his first move was to push them back up. He ran his hand through his hair and looked around the tram in bleary confusion. He knew he'd fallen asleep, but he definitely hadn't been on Derse just now. What the hell had happened? Who were all these people?

... Was he even still in the Incipisphere?

He sat up, and leaned forward a little to talk to the girl across from him – she didn't look much younger than he was. "Yo, you got a clue what's going on here? Because I was pretty sure I was done with school forever after all life on Earth got wiped out by an apocalyptic fucking onslaught of meteors."

He looked and sounded remarkably unconcerned, all considered.

[isur2ndprincess]

Utopia Academy? When did she leave the Academy that made her need to come back? Did she fail at finding the ultimate weapon for Sora and get sent to the hospital? She checked over her body, she seemed okay, no more damage than usual.

"Sora? Koharu?" She looked around at the other people on the train but no one looked familiar. Are they new students? "Anyone?"

[myownfuture]

That voice was familiar.

Leaving Kotarou where he was, Reiko stood and bounded in the direction of Yuki's voice. "Yuki! Yuki Yagizawa, is that you?"

[queenscheckmate]

Kallen wasn't the one to fall asleep on trains. When the train announced the last stop, her eyes opened. A small book was in hand (because she was reading it on the way) and the sunlight beamed into her blue eyes. She questioned herself. Just what was that dream and...

...

Either, she got up and exited the car. This was her stop after all. Wait... was it? This wasn't Ashford Academy and Kallen was PRETTY SURE she hadn't transferred. Did she miss her stop?

[trollofthree]

"Must be nice to stretch your legs, right?" His tone was light as he sauntered up beside her, careful as to test the waters. Weird things were going on with people's memories, from what he could gather. Weird things were going on with his memories. Who knew what she knew that he didn't? Or vice versa. The last he remembered, they'd been squaring off in their Knightmares, alongside... the Knight of Seven. Still couldn't remember his name, but it'd come to him. It was, he mused, a good thing they had titles.

He stopped as she did, and shielded his eyes so he could get a better look at what must have been the main entrance further down the path. He had to admit, it was pleasant to talk to her without the prison wall in the way. Even if he was absently ready to dodge or grab if she tried anything. "Sitting down for so long really takes it out of you."

[frozen_desires]

As dreams went, he could honestly say this wasn't the worst he'd ever experienced but it was definitely the only one that had ever made his stomach churn. So when the voice interrupted the sequence, just as the world began to spin again, he was grateful.

Opening his eyes slowly, Tougyu lifted his head slowly and ignored the protesting stab of pain from his neck as he looked up and out at the train. ... wait.

Why am I on a...?

Something definitely wasn't right. Getting to his feet, Tougyu put one hand on the back of the seat in front of him to steady himself before looking out at the brightly lit carriage with a look of blank curiosity.

[myownfuture]

Reiko was making her way down the aisle to see if there was anyone else here she recognized. When she caught sight of Tougyu, though, she froze in place.

Why was he here? What were the people in charge doing? "Y-you!"

[bitofafiction]

The moment Sherlock catches himself dozing, he startles into full alertness. For a long moment, though, he doesn't move.

Whatever he dreamed about, it's not available to him anymore. He'll think about that later. Right now he is more concerned with examining his surroundings. Heat and glare of sunlight, smell of brass and leather. (Why does a faint scent of snowy pine linger in the back of his mind? Later.)

Still taking in new data and storing it away for later use, Sherlock gets to his feet and goes looking for someone to interrogate.

[utopiamods]

The majority of passengers were already milling around, but the conductor was alone at the front of the carriage. Two girls in matching uniforms had apparently just talked to her, as they were headed back towards their own seats and what were presumably friends or acquaintances.

As Sherlock approached, she glanced in the mirror, then turned her head to smile at him. "Something the matter?"