The East PacificBoard

There was a whoosh, and suddenly...her surroundings were different. There was no warping of the world around her, no distortion of vision, no pain, not even a flash...just a sudden change in location. The area was snowing, but Aozora was thankful to note that someone was holding the door open for her. Sca again? Well, he does his job well. She entered the train, glad to be out of the cold, and took a seat, beginning to take a look at the book she’d been given.

*The Peatiktistian representative looks up from 'his' arm, revealing a metallic face*

"Ah, so you'll be the meditator in this issue. Greetings. I am diplomatic unit DP-10. My primary function is negotiation. I hope this meeting will produce favorable results for both sides."

Sca closes the door behind him. The whistle pierces the snowy air, as the train starts, a bit jerky at first, and it soon slowly crawls out of the station, gaining speed. It is soon speeding down the rails, pushing aside any debris or snow with the cowcatcher at the front, but the ride is a bit bumpy.

The train continues onwards, and is soon over the frozen not yet see-able Starry Sea. It disappears into the snowy taiga forest, as the blizzard whips aside. The train continues to speed along, and a tunnel is passed, then another. A bridge is crossed, the valley down below beings not visible in anyway.

It continues to thunder along down the tracks, but very soon, a large THUMP is heard as something hits the train, or more like, the training hitting something.

Aozora spent most of her time during the journey reading the book, occasionally letting out a small laugh when she reached a particularly funny portion. Examining ideologies like this was always entertaining. About the only one she would have found more ridiculous was democracy, which she despised on a fundamental level. Unity by deliberately allowing chaos...terrible. The communist equality thing is almost as bad, but not quite.

She recalled a conversation she’d once had with Mayumi, the Speaker of Heaven, trying to explain to the girl how these ideologies worked. To the faithful of heaven, these heretical beliefs made no sense. They were too used to fanatical devotion to understand economics, let alone different economic systems, and political systems were no better. It confounded all of them. Omitsu understood best. Setsuko didn’t much care, only seeing things in terms of strength. Aiko didn’t understand at all, not that she minded with her perpetual lust for everyone. My followers are all crazy. Then again, I made them that way. And I can be...a little psychotic, sometimes. So really it’s-

There was a loud thump. Had they hit something? It can’t be ice. The tracks are resistant, right? So...what is it? On reflex, she conjured her weapon. “What’s going on now...”

Sca says "Probably just a-" He gets cut off, as about 20 more thumps go on the train, and Sca goes to the other passenger car, opening the window to see what he can even with the blizzard going on. He see's nothing, and he walks back in "I don't see any issues."

Thump thump thump thump, and many more thumps are heard, as suddenly the train jumps the tracks, flying off the rails, and tumbles down a cliff, the cars and its passengers being dragged down. After a lot of tumbles, crashes, cars flying off, metal and wood flying into pieces, the train tumbles to a stop at the bottom of the cliff. The engine is twisted into pieces, the wheels and pistons torn off, the smokestack in a twisted piece of metal, the boiler destroyed. The cab is just gone, the engineer killed. The coal tender is destroyed, coal everywhere, as the couple passenger cars are somehow a bit intact still...

As the man was interrupted, Aozora felt a sinking feeling in her stomach. This can’t be from the blizzard...something’s going on. And that something isn’t good. When Sca said that there were no issues, she gave him an incredulous look. Impossible. Something has to be wrong. Curse this blizzard making everything invisible... More thumps, more and more, reminding Aozora of artillery fire more than anything else. On instinct, she braced herself.

For a fleeting moment, gravity seemed to abandon the world. As the train plummeted, Aozora found herself shoved into the roof, gripping her scythe firmly with both hands and twisting into a better position. She knew this sensation, she was falling. I’ve survived my counterpart. I’ve survived duels, and confrontations, and being shot and stabbed in every king. I am not allowing my life to come to an end because of a train ride!

In that moment, everything thundered. Her car, thankfully, did not tumble into oblivion, but she heard others crashing around her. Even with the ongoing blizzard, she could make out twisted mounds of metal slamming into the ground, much of the train a wreck. Some kind of red liquid splashed against the white ground, and she realised that the engineer was likely dead. Now in defensive stance, she raised her scythe. Could this be an accident? It’s possible. But Malice said the rails were prepared for a blizzard, and so I doubt that. The tracks must have been cut apart for this to happen, and that doesn’t happen by accident. This was sabotage...

With little choice, she reached for her communicator, and tried to contact her vessel, to no avail. It was almost within range, as more than static came through, but between the distance and the blizzard, everything spoken was indecipherable. There’s no alternative. I continue onward myself. But first...if this was sabotage...I suspect a trap. An ambush. If I walk out here, I have no escape. Here, at last, I have cover. I can shield myself from explosives if I’m careful... Wiping some blood off of a minor graze, she stared out of one of the windows, waiting. She couldn’t hear or see well over the raging snow outside, but she was in full defensive stance, prepared to deal with anyone who came for her.